First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the first Citizens BancShares fourth quarter and year end 2021 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. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one on your telephone. If you require operator assistance during the program, Please press star then zero. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce the host of this conference call, Ms. Deanna Hart, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Phyllis. 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. who will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and year-end results and will be referencing our investor presentation which you can find on our investor relations website. We are also pleased to have several other members of our leadership team in attendance today who are available to participate in the Q&A portion of our call if needed. Following the completion of our formal presentation materials, we'll be happy to take any questions you may have. We will mostly be speaking today on First Citizens BancShares standalone financial results, but we'll provide an update on our merger activities with CIT, as well as some CIT standalone quarterly and year-to-date financial highlights, which are included on pages 22 and 23 of the presentation. Our comments during today's presentation will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. We assume no obligation to update such statements. These risks are outlined for your review on page two of the presentation. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures against the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix. Finally, First Citizens is not responsible for and does not edit nor guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. With that, I will hand it over to Frank.

Thank you, Deanna, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate all of you joining us today. As you can see on page three of our investor presentation, we're at the dawning of a new and exciting era with the closing of our transformational merger with CIT, creating a top 20 U.S. financial institution with over $110 billion in assets. We believe this merger brings opportunity to become an even better bank It marks big and important changes in our long and accomplished history in terms of our structure, size, scope, and capabilities. The goal in combining our two companies is to create long-term value for all our constituents, including shareholders, customers, associates, and communities. We'll do this through our emphasis on stable leadership, enduring values, and a commitment to helping people and businesses prosper by focusing on their long-term success. We also believe success is grounded in our Forever First motto as outlined on page four of the presentation. The core of Forever First is the notion that we're going to be here for the long-term and and that we will always put our customers first. While the way we do banking changes as we bring forward new products, new services, new conveniences and new ways of engaging our customers, the key principles of financial stability, a focus on long-term growth and customer experience are things that will never change. On page five of the presentation, you will see our statement of purpose Better Banking, Better Tomorrows. In recent months, we've looked at the statement with fresh eyes to update it as we look forward to the merger with CIT. Where Forever First focuses on our customers, the statement of purpose focuses on our associates, specifically how we work and the culture we want to promote. Supporting the statement are three pillars, and I'll put that in quotation marks, which helps express the ways we deliver better banking and better tomorrows. These are qualities that are essential to who we are and how we work. The first pillar is long term thinking. We place a lot of emphasis on building relationships to create long term value and opportunity for our customers. The second pillar is service excellence. We believe in providing better service to our customers than our competitors and are dedicated to doing it with integrity, transparency, and respect. The third pillar is powerful results. We want to help create better outcomes for our customers, associates, and communities. As we work to integrate CIT, This statement will guide our teams and ensure we remain focused, all while delivering value to our shareholders. Since the combination of our companies on January 3rd, we've been actively engaging with and ensuring our new associates are properly welcomed to the combined company with the goal of binding us all into a unified team. We're also actively engaging with our customers, reaffirming our commitment to helping them with their financial needs. As far as other integration activities, we anticipate the One West Bank conversion will occur during the third quarter, followed by Legacy Mutual of Omaha during the fourth quarter. We are working diligently to finalize our combined strategic priorities and integration timelines which we will share over the coming months. This morning, we reported fourth quarter net income of $123.3 million or $12.09 per share, delivering another quarter of strong results to our shareholders. When compared to the third quarter, we saw increased net income I'm sorry, increased net interest income despite continued growth in deposits and pressure from our excess liquidity. We were able to deploy some of this excess liquidity into our loan and investment portfolios despite the decline in the loan portfolio from SBA PPP loan forgiveness activity. Non-interest income from our core fee income producing lines of business continue to be a source of strength. Our credit quality remains solid, resulting in another net provision benefit. All in all, it was another great quarter for First Citizens, and I want to thank all of our associates for their commitment in 2021. As we look forward, I want to mention a change we're making around the middle of the year regarding NSF and OD fees and overdraft fees. We will be eliminating our NSF fees and significantly lowering our overdraft fee from $36 to $10 on consumer accounts. We believe these changes are necessary to remain competitive in the current marketplace. I will turn it over to Craig for a closer look at our financial results and then we'll open the line for questions.