East West Bancorp, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the East West Bancorp's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need 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 one on a touch-tone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note that 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 fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results. With me are Dominic Ng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chris DelMoral-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 site. The slide deck referenced during this call is available on our investor relations 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 a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 8A filed today. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Adrienne. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for today's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to express my sympathy to everyone impacted by the wildfires in Southern California. I would also like to extend my deep gratitude to the firefighters, public service workers, and volunteers who were on the front lines and are helping with recovery and cleanup efforts. During this time of need for our city, I'm proud of the actions EastWest is taking to support our customers, our community, and our associates. For customers impacted by the fires, we're offering accommodation on an as-needed basis to help those who are impacted focus on the health and safety of their families and businesses. We have also contributed significant relief funds for community members and associates who were impacted by the evacuation or who lost their home. We have assessed east-west exposure, which is minimal at this time. With that, Let me turn to our financial results on slide four. 2024 was another record-breaking year for EastWest. Our highlights include new record levels for revenue, fee income, net income, earnings per share, and loans and deposits. Our results speak to the strength of EastWest brand and service model I'm particularly proud of last year's over $7 billion of deposit growth. We grew average deposit by 9% year over year and average loans by 6%, further diversifying our portfolio by emphasizing residential and CMI lending. 2024 was also a consecutive year of record fee income driven in part by consistent sales execution across our wealth management, commercial payments, and foreign exchange businesses. Asset quality remained relatively stable in 2024 with full-year net charge-offs and year-end non-performing assets, both of 26 basis points. We maintained a disciplined approach to credit management in the fourth quarter, but dealt with two problem credits, which Irene will elaborate on later. We believe these occurrence to be isolated events and are diligently pursuing recovery efforts. We remain vigilant about managing our credit risk and are proactively managing our risk profile. We deliver substantial returns for shareholders. In 2024, we reported tangible book value per share growth of 13% and generated a 17% return on tangible common equity. We were opportunistic in the fourth quarter and repurchased 200,000 shares at an average price of $98 per share. I'm also pleased to announce our board approved an incremental share repurchase authorization of 300 million and a 9% increase to the quarterly dividend to 60 cents per share. Let me turn it to Chris for more details on the balance sheet and income statement.