First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to First Citizens BancShares second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. And to ask a question during the session, you need to press star, then the number one on your telephone. If you require operator assistance during the program, As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce host of today's conference, Ms. Deanna Hart, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Myra. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. It is my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Frank Holding, as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Craig Nix. Frank and Craig will provide an overview of our second quarter 2021 results and will be referencing our investor presentations, which you can find on our investor relations website. We are pleased to have several other members of our leadership team here with us today who will be available for questions if needed. After the presentation, we'll be happy to take questions you may have. As we have not closed the transaction with CIT Group, we will be speaking today on First Citizens BancShares standalone performance only. We will also provide an update on our planned merger with CIT. Our comments will include forward-looking statements which are subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These risks are outlined for your review on page two of the presentation. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures within the presentation. Reconciliations of these measures against comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix. With that, I'll hand it over to Frank.

Frank Brown Thank you, Deanna, and good morning to everyone. We appreciate all of you joining us today and your interest in our company. As you can imagine, we've spent the first half of 2021 focused on our upcoming merger with CIT. I'm pleased with the progress of both teams to prepare us for legal close and integration of our companies. We remain excited about our merger with CIT and look forward to capitalizing on the expertise of our companies to deliver value to our shareholders and stakeholders. Subject to Fed approval and customary closing conditions, we expect to close the merger during the third quarter. In addition to merger and integration planning, our team has executed on a number of financial and strategic objectives that we laid out in our 2021 strategic plan. One key area of focus is expanding our customer relationship model to improve our customers' experience. We've made good progress leveraging data to provide our bankers a comprehensive view of our customers, allowing us to better serve their financial needs. In the visual space, we recently expanded the functionality of our consumer banking platform and are in the process of upgrading our commercial online platform. While serving customers has been a big focus, we're also focused on talent development and retention of our associates. The objective here is to ensure that we attract, retain, and develop associates to create a high performing, sustainable company that will meet the strategic, financial, and operational goals of the combined organization. We have continued to focus on organic loan and deposit growth, both of which have been positive contributors to our success in 2021. Excluding the impact of SBA PPP, we grew loans by 4% on an annualized basis since December and achieved an annualized growth rate during the second quarter of 7%. Additionally, deposit growth has remained strong at an annualized rate of 23% since the year end. Our focus on operational efficiency has continued as we expand and enhance our revenue generating lines of business while continuing to maintain prudent expense control. We're pleased with our progress to date and optimistic that we can meet our strategic and financial goals for 2021 while remaining focused on the merger with CIT. With that, I'll turn it over to Craig for a closer look at our financial results and then we'll open the line for questions.