Dime Community Bancshares, Inc.

Welcome to the Dime Community Bank Shares Inc. First Quarter Earnings Call. Before we begin, the company would like to remind you that discussions during this call contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any such statements, including how set forth in today's press release in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and exchange commission to which we refer you. During this call, references will be made to non-GAAP financial measures, health supplemental measures to review and assess operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with US GAAP. For information about these non-GAAP measures and for reconciliation to GAAP, please refer to today's earnings release. I would now like to hand you over to Kevin O'Connor, Chief Executive Officer, to begin. Kevin, please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you, Lauren, and thank you all for joining us this morning. With me are Stu LeBeau, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Avi Reddy, our CFO. I am pleased to report another strong quarter of returns for DIME, as well as provide positive comments on deposits and loans. This, despite the Fed's unprecedented activities and the connected events of March. This further reflects the power of our plain vanilla community bank model and the franchise we've created on Greater Long Island. It's certainly not an overstatement to say we're operating in a unique and challenging environment for the industry. As those of you who followed Dime know, we do not have any of the concentrations that got the failed banks and others in trouble. We also don't have a large book of securities and don't take rate risk in that portfolio. These facts, coupled with our rock-solid multifamily portfolio, provide us with the confidence we will outperform in any potential recessionary environment. For the record, we have zero multifamily loans that are greater than six days delinquent, and the LTV on that portfolio is in the mid-50s. Finally, Don's credit losses have been well below the bank index over multiple cycles, and we're extremely proud of our track record. Similar to the rest of the banking industry, we took steps in the first quarter to add to our on-balance sheet liquidity. Also, as you would expect, we reached out to our client base, reminding them of Dime's strong track record, our simple, plain vanilla business model, and our strong relationship-based mindset. These conversations had their intended impact and were pleased, despite significant market turbulence, to report our deposits, excluding brokered, were up approximately $15 million versus year-ends. Additionally, to enhance our on-balance sheet liquidity, We added approximately 300 million of broker deposits in the month of March. Our deposit base is diversified and granular, and again, remained resilient throughout the quarter. Today, consumer deposits represent 33% of the total. Collateralized and insured municipal deposits are 20%, with commercial deposits representing the remainder. Within this commercial book, we do not have any significant industry concentrations. Our cumulative deposit beta for this tightening cycle has been approximately 30% and compares favorably to our Metro New York competitors. This relatively lower beta continue to be positively impacted by our significant level of non-interest bearing deposits. At 32% of average total deposits, this remains a clear differentiator for DIME versus other community banks in our footprint. As you know, Metro New York has been a more competitive market for deposit gathering while affording more stable asset quality performance than other parts of the country. While there has been a significant focus on balance sheet metrics, insured deposits, and liquidity, we were also able to deliver a core return on assets of 114 basis points this quarter. It is important to note this marks the eighth consecutive quarter dating back to the closing of a merger transaction where we reported a return on assets in excess of 110 basis points. Our results were driven by prudent expense management and a good quarter for non-interest income. Our credit quality continues to be stable. In fact, our NPAs in 90 days past due actually declined to only 23 basis points of loans. In light of this overall environment, I want to give full credit to each of our 800 plus employees for again delivering strong returns. They have been tirelessly working and communicating with our customers and our communities during these challenging times. Since you want to leave adequate time for questions, I will turn it over to Stu now to provide some updates on some of the recent hires we've made, initiatives we have underway, and the loan portfolio. Avi will then provide additional details on the quarter.

Thanks, Kevin. As you have no doubt seen in our press release, we have hired four experienced deposit focus groups from Signature Bank. While many banks have been playing defense over the course of the past six weeks, We have viewed the events at Signature as a moment-in-time opportunity for Dime to enhance our deposit franchise. In total, the 14 managed a book of business at their peak of approximately $1 billion, heavily weighted toward DDA. Hiring these groups was a bank-wide effort, and we were able to impress our new colleagues with Dime's intense focus on relationship-based banking, our state-of-the-art technology, our brand, and our flat organizational structure. We believe there could be more fallout in the months, quarters, and years ahead, both from the group hiring perspective, as well as an opportunity to bring over individual clients who seek a locally managed, client-focused relationship bank with access to key decision makers at all times, coupled with a strong technology stack. On the technology front, we expect to roll out our brand new escrow management commercial system at the end of and we are on track to complete our new business-focused online account opening project that takes our already strong digital capabilities to the next level. With respect to our positioning on lending, our strategy is to ensure we continue to support our key clients through any operating environment. At the same time, we continue to prudently grow loans and add franchise-enhancing full-service relationships. Our current expectation is to grow loans by approximately $100 million in the second quarter. Our focus continues to be on growing solid business relationships while keeping our multifamily portfolio relatively flat. Obviously, we are keeping a watch on our loan-to-deposit ratio. Should rates decline in future years, 2024 and beyond, we do expect prepayments in the multifamily portfolio to pick up. This will lead to a natural normalizing of the loan to deposit ratio over time. In addition, as teams hired from signatures start to build their book of business, we expect additional momentum from our deposit gathering efforts. With respect to specific CRE exposures, as we have mentioned before, our Manhattan portfolio is only 225 million or less than 1.7% of total assets. The LTV on the Manhattan office portfolio is 52%. We are comfortable with the exposure, and the operators of our office portfolio are very strong individuals. Given that DIME undertook an effort in 2018 and 2019 timeframe to remix the loan portfolio, and since the product generally resets after five years, we do not have a significant amount of repricing loans for the remainder of 2023. In fact, only 205 million of investor CRE loans at a rate of 4.67 are set to reprice for the remaining nine months. Thus far, we have not seen any meaningful early warning indicators of credit deterioration, while we continue to be diligent around monitoring all parts of our loan portfolio. As mentioned, our overall asset quality remains strong, and MPAs and 90-day past dues are down to 0.23%. With that, I will turn it over to Avi to provide some details on the results of this quarter.