East West Bancorp, Inc.

Good day. Welcome to the East West Bancorp's first quarter 2024 earnings call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need any assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key, followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adrienne Atkinson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us to review EastWest Bank Corp's first quarter 2024 financial results. With me are Dominic Ng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Del Moral Niles, Chief Financial Officer, and Irene Oh, Chief Risk Officer. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations website. The slide deck referenced during this call is available on our site. Management may make projections or other forward-looking statements which may differ materially from the actual results due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Management may discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 8-K filed today. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Adrienne. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. I'm pleased to report first quarter results can lay the strong foundation for 2024. First quarter 2024 net income was $285 million. or $2.03 per diluted share. Excluding the FDIC charge, first quarter adjusted earning per share was $2.08, up 3% from the fourth quarter. We grew average assets during the quarter with average loans up 1%. We continue to grow residential mortgage driven by our differentiated mortgage product. Average CNI balances were higher, and commercial real estate loans remained flat. We grew average deposits by $2 billion to a new record level, reflecting the success of our branch-based Lunar New Year CD campaign. During the quarter, we pay off $4.5 billion of BTFP while reducing our total borrowings by $1 billion. We also took an opportunity to invest excess cash into Jimmy May floating rate securities. Our asset quality remains solid, and credit is performing as expected. First quarter annualized net charge-offs were up by two basis points to 17 basis points. The non-performing assets ratio was 23 basis points at quarter end. We continued to proactively manage our credit risk. We added 10 percent to our commercial real estate loan allowances, bringing our total allowance for loan losses to 1.29 percent. These efforts continue to drive shareholder value with an 18% return on tangible common equity and a 1.6% return on average assets. Tangible book value per share also grew 2% quarter over quarter and 14% year over year. Our first quarter results speak to the strength of our diversified business model and our conservatively managed balance sheet. Looking forward, we remain focused on serving our customers and growing relationships and are well-positioned to outperform the industry in 2024 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to Chris to provide more details on our first quarter financial performance. Chris?