East West Bancorp, Inc.

Good day and welcome to East-West Bancorp's third quarter 2021 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Juliana Belisca, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, and thank you, everyone, for joining us to review the financial results of EastWest Bancorp for the third quarter of 2021. With me on this conference call today are Dominic Ng, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Irene Oh, our Chief Financial Officer. We would like to caution you that during the course of the call, management may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding events or future financial performance of the company within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may differ materially from the actual results due to a number of risks and uncertainties. For a more detailed description of risk factors that could affect the company's operating results, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. In addition, some of the numbers referenced on this call pertain to adjusted numbers. Please refer to the bank's regulatory filings, including our Form 8-K filed today for the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures. During the course of this call, we will be referencing a slide deck that is available as part of the webcast and on the Investor Relations site. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and will also be available in replay format on our Investor Relations website. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Juliana. Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for our earnings call. I will begin the review of our financial results with slide three of our presentation. This morning, we reported third quarter 2021 net income of $225 million, or $1.57 per share. From organic balance sheet growth drove a 21 percent annualized increase in revenue quarter over quarter to 469 million. The increase in revenue solidified with expense discipline drove pre-tax, pre-provision income growth of 26 percent annualized for the third quarter to 302 million. Our pre-tax, pre-provision profitability ratio continues to be industry leading. and was 2% for the third quarter of 2021. We recorded a negative $10 million provision for credit losses this quarter. Asset quality continued to improve, non-performing assets decreased quarter over quarter, and net charge-offs remained low. At the same time, we maintained a healthy allowance of loan losses on 3% of loans as of September 30, 2021. In sum, we return an attractive 1.5% on average assets, 15.7% on average equity, and 17.2% on average tangible equity for the third quarter of 2021. Slide four presents a summary of our balance sheet as of September 30, 2021, Our total assets crossed $60 billion, and total loans reached a record of $40.5 billion. Excluding Paycheck Protection Program loans, total loans grew $1 billion, or 11% analyzed from June 30, 2021. Third quarter production and loan growth will well diversify across all our key loan portfolios of D&I, residential mortgage, and commercial real estate. Year to date for the first nine months of 2021, loans grew 10% annualized, excluding PPP. For the full year of 2021, we are increasing our loan growth outlook to a range of 10% to 11%, up from our prior range of 9% to 10%. Throughout 2021, loan growth has been broad-based across all our portfolios and teams. And at this point, we expect this will continue for 2022. Overall, we anticipate that C&I loan growth will be the strongest based on continued good execution from our front line and a rebounding economic backdrop. In the third quarter, deposit growth continued to be very strong. As of September 30, 2021, total deposits reached a record of $53.4 billion, up $774 million, or 6% annualized, from June 30. Non-interest-bearing deposit grew $1.4 billion, or 25% annualized, to a record $23.2 billion as of September 30, making up 43% of total deposit at quarter end and up from 36 percent a year ago. Turning to slide five, you can see our strong capital ratios. As of September 30, 2021, we had a common equity Tier 1 ratio of 12.8 percent, a total capital ratio of 14.2 percent, which provides us with meaningful capacity for future growth. Book value per share and tangible equity per share were both up 3 percent quarter over quarter. East-West Board of Directors has declared fourth quarter 2021 dividends for the company's common stock. The common stock cash dividend of 33 cents is payable November 15, 2021 to stockholders of record on November 1, 2021. Moving on to a discussion of our loan portfolio, beginning with slide six. CNI loans outstanding excluding PPP were $13 billion as of September 30, 2021, an increase of 21 percent annualized from June 30. Total CNI commitments were $18.9 billion as of September 30, a sequential increase of 26 percent annualized. We achieved this strong rate of CNI growth despite a slight lower utilization rate. which was 69 percent as of September 30, compared with 70 percent as of June 30. On an average basis, CNI loans excluding PPP grew by 16 percent analyzed in the third quarter. We expect to continue to see strong growth in CNI loan balances and commitments in the fourth quarter. Third quarter loan growth was spread across our lending teams and geographies. By industries, we saw Strong net growth this quarter from technology, private equity, consumer goods, general manufacturing and wholesale, and entertainment. It was indeed a well-diversified quarter in terms of growth. I would also highlight that the private equity growth this quarter well exemplified our cross-border business. Growth came from clients domiciled in the United States, Hong Kong, and in mainland China. Accounting for 4% of our total loan portfolio were $1.7 billion of loan domicile in our China subsidiary bank and our Hong Kong branch. 98% of this portfolio consists of C&I loans, well diversified by industry. These loans are up from 1.6 billion as of June 30. Slide seven and eight shows the details of our commercial real estate portfolio, which is well diversified by geography and property type and consists of low loan-to-value loans. Total commercial real estate loans were 15.5 billion as of September 30, 2021, up by 4% annualized from June 30. This quarter, we saw strongest growth by property type in industrial CRE and multifamily mortgage. In slide nine, we provide details regarding our residential mortgage portfolio, which consists of single family mortgages and home equity line of credit. Residential mortgage loans were 11 billion as of September 30, 2021, growing by 9% analyzed from June 30. During the third quarter, we originated $982 million of residential mortgage loans, which was down from a record-setting second quarter, but up by 28 percent from origination in the year-ago third quarter. I will now turn the call over to Irene for a more detailed discussion of our asset quality and income statement. Irene?