Eastern Bankshares, Inc.

For reconciliations, please refer to the company's earnings press release. I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Rivers, Eastern Executive Chair and Chair of the Board of Directors.

Thank you, Julie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. We hope your 2026 is off to a great start. With me today is Eastern CEO, Dennis Sheehan, and our CFO, David Rosado. As we close out the fourth quarter, I want to take a moment to reflect on another successful year and share my thoughts on the future. First, I want to welcome our new colleagues from HarborOne and express my sincere gratitude to all of our employees for their tremendous work throughout the year. It is their efforts that elevate Eastern's brand every day and make us distinctive as Eastern New England's hometown bank. 2025 was a terrific year for Eastern. highlighted by a 62% increase in operating earnings, strong organic loan growth, and a record level of wealth assets under management. We delivered strong financial metrics, continued to return capital to shareholders, and our share price outperformed the regional banking index. Our results underscore the strength of our company, of our relationship banking model, and enhanced earnings power of the company. The merger with HarborOne was another important milestone in 2025. It strengthens our presence in key markets south of Boston and provides an entrance into Rhode Island. At $31 billion in assets and a highly concentrated footprint, we are the largest independent bank headquartered in Massachusetts and have the fourth largest deposit market share in greater Boston. Our scale allows us to invest in the franchise, and better serve our customers while preserving a nimble community focused approach. Looking ahead, we believe Eastern is well positioned for 2026 and beyond. Our foundation is firmly in place and we have the size and scale to compete effectively. Now is the time for us to realize the full potential of what we have built to deliver organic growth and solid financial returns. As a result, We will not pursue any acquisitions as we are completely focused on organic growth and returning capital to our shareholders for the foreseeable future. We are excited about the organic growth opportunities we see in the market in both our banking and fee-based businesses and expect to continue returning excess capital through shareware purchases and prudently growing the dividend. We believe this approach will deliver meaningful value to our shareholders. Now I'll turn it over to Dennis.

Thank you, Bob. I share Bob's comments in thanking the team for a successful 2025. We are well positioned entering 2026 to capture growth opportunities in our larger market, resulting in steady improvement in our profitability metrics. Our balance sheet is healthy, well capitalized, highly liquid, and well reserved. We are frequently asked about M&A, and I want to echo Bob's comments. Simply put, we are not focused on M&A. We have plenty of opportunities to organically grow the company's earnings and enhance profitability, and that is our focus. We will allocate capital towards organic growth efforts and returning excess capital to shareholders while still maintaining appropriate capital levels. What excites me most is the organic growth opportunity ahead of us in both our legacy and newer markets. We see a significant runway to take share with our commercial banking and wealth management businesses and improve deposit growth. Strategic investments and hiring talent have been an important driver of growth. Eastern is a destination of choice for high caliber talent, particularly those with large bank experience. We offer the size to compete effectively, yet are small enough for individuals to apply their expertise, make decisions, and feel a sense of ownership. As a result, our lending teams, both new hires and long-tenured relationship managers, remain energized. Our commercial lending platform is a key differentiator driven by the strength of our culture and capabilities. We can deliver the products and services expected from much larger banks, while retaining the certainty of execution of local decision-making and deep understanding of our customers and communities. Our banking model continues to resonate with clients, reinforcing trust, building long-term relationships and attracting new business. The positive impact of our renewed growth focus and investments in talent was evident in 2025. Excluding the merger impact, Total loans grew a billion dollars or 5.6% for the full year on a standalone basis, driven primarily by strong commercial lending results. The legacy Eastern commercial portfolio increased 6% from the beginning of the year and pipelines remain solid heading into 2026. We originated $2.5 billion of commercial loans in 2025 with approximately half in commercial and industrial lending and half in commercial real estate. Wealth management is an important component of our long-term growth strategy and the wealth demographics of our footprint provide significant opportunities. We have been pleased with the integration of the Eastern and Cambridge wealth teams and the progress made strengthening alignment between our wealth and banking businesses. Wealth assets reached a record high of $10.1 billion at year end, including $9.6 billion in assets under management, driven by market appreciation and positive net flows. Still a lot of work to do, but we are encouraged by the momentum in wealth and optimistic about the growth opportunities in the years ahead. Turning to capital, our ratios remain strong and well-positioned to support our organic growth initiatives. At the same time, we recognize that given our profitability, we expect to generate capital in excess of what can be efficiently deployed through organic growth alone. This dynamic reinforces our commitment to aggressively return excess capital to shareholders, primarily through share repurchases. That commitment was evident in the fourth quarter as we repurchased 3.1 million shares for $55.4 million, or 26% of the total authorization announced in October. We are committed to rightsizing our capital through organic growth, share repurchases, and quarterly dividends. We ended 2025 with a CET1 ratio of 13.2%. Assuming we execute the remainder of our existing share repurchase authorization, we estimate the CET1 ratio will decline to approximately 12.7% by June 30th, at which point we anticipate seeking an additional share repurchase authorization subject to regulatory approval. We expect to continue to generate excess capital, but plan to manage our CET1 ratio towards the median of the KRX, which is currently 12%. We are pleased with our performance in 2025 and feel well positioned for 2026 and beyond. We believe that focusing on meaningful growth, organic growth opportunities we have in front of us and returning excess capital, not M&A, will deliver meaningful value to shareholders for the foreseeable future. David, I'll hand it over to you to provide a review of our fourth quarter financials.