Eagle Bancorp, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Eagle Bancorp, Inc. First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during a session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I want to thank the speaker today, Charles Levinson, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Victor. Good morning. This is Charles Levingston, Chief Financial Officer of Eagle Bancorp. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind everyone that some of the comments made during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. While our loan growth and performance over this past quarter have been positive, we cannot make any promises about future performance, and it is our policy not to establish with the markets Thank you very much. Eagle Bank Corp. does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments unless required by law. This morning's commentary will include non-GAAP financial information. The earnings release, which is posted in the investor relations section of our website and filed with the SEC, contains reconciliations of this information to the most directly comparable GAAP information. Our periodic reports are available from EGLE online at our website or on the SEC's website. This morning, Susan Riel, the President and CEO of EGLE Bancorp, will start us off with a high-level overview. Then, Jan Williams, our Chief Credit Officer, will discuss her thoughts on the local economy, loans, reserves, and credit quality matters. Then I'll return to discuss our financials in more detail. At the end, all three of us will be available to take questions. President and CEO, Susan Riel.

Up 13 cents from the prior quarter. It was our 89th consecutive profitable quarter. Loans increased by $48.2 million from the prior quarter. This was the second consecutive quarterly increase. At the same time, our credit quality metrics remained strong. Non-performing loans with 33 basis points on loans at quarter end. and net charge-offs with just three basis points or $459,000. Exceptionally strong credit risk management has been a hallmark of Eagle since our founding and it will continue to be a focus of ours going forward. Our favorable credit quality metrics along with the continued recovery and reopening of the economy led us to a reversal of $2.8 million from the allowance for credit losses on loans. This was our fifth consecutive quarterly reversal. Now let's take a closer look at earnings. For the quarter, earnings were $45.7 million, up $4.1 million from the prior quarter. Returns for the quarter were 1.46%. on average assets, and 14.99% on average tangible common equity. The primary driver of the earnings increase from the prior quarter was a decrease in salaries and employee benefits, specifically the $5 million accrual reduction related to the share-based compensation awards and deferred compensation to our former CEO and chairman. During the quarter, we also transferred $1.1 billion of the available-for-sale securities portfolio to held to maturity. At quarter end, $1.2 billion, or about 39% of our securities portfolio, was held to maturity. Charles will speak more about this transfer and putting more of our excess liquidity to work. Next, let's talk about loans. This quarter's loan growth was driven by our CRE and CNI lending teams. Given the opportunity to have more face-to-face interaction with our customers and our prospects, these calling efforts, which increased in the middle of last year, produced the loans that were booked in the first quarter. We believe that this team effort provides us with good momentum as we move through the year. Within our CRE and CNI portfolios, we successfully completed construction projects that migrated to income-producing CRE and owner-occupied loans. This migration reduced loans categorized as construction loans, with the decline partially offset by new and previously committed construction loans drawing down their funding over the course of the quarter. This migration of construction loans to income-producing CRE loans allows us to retain the loan, the interest income, and expand our lending relationships. Even with the successful completion of construction projects, our pipeline remains strong, and unfunded commitments were up slightly to $2.1 billion at quarter end. As more opportunities arise, Our total risk-based capital of 15.72% gives us ample room to continue to grow the loan portfolio. In regards to our residential lending division, volume was down as higher rates reduced consumer incentives to refinance. As a result, both gain on sale of mortgage loans and origination of mortgage loans were down in the first quarter. Jan will give more details on our credit quality metrics shortly. On legal matters, there have been no material developments relating to our ongoing government investigations, although we are hopeful these matters will be resolved in the near future. And for our shareholders, we remain focused on increasing value and returning cash through dividends. At the end of the quarter, our board declared a dividend of 40 cents per share. which is a payout ratio of 28% based on first quarter earnings and equates to annualized dividend yield of 2.8% based on last night's closing stock price of $56.19 per share. With that, I would like to turn the speaking duties over to Jan Williams, our Chief Credit Officer.