First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the First Citizens Bankshare's third quarter 2024 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 or avoid one on your telephone keypad. If you require operator assistance during the programme, 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, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to First Citizen's third quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank Holding and Chief Financial Officer Craig Nix. They will provide third quarter business and financial updates referencing our earnings call presentation, which you can find on our website. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. We assume no obligation to update such statements. These risks are outlined on page three of the presentation. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures against the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in section five of the presentation. Finally, First Citizens is not responsible for and does not edit nor guarantee the accuracy of earnings transcripts provided by third parties. I will now turn it over to Frank.

Thank you, Deanna. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call. I'll make some brief comments about our third quarter results, and then I'll turn it over to Craig to review our results in more detail before we take your questions. Starting on page six of our investor presentation, We delivered another quarter of strong financial results with adjusted earnings per share of $45.87. Our net interest margin was resilient despite declines in accretion income, and we remain encouraged by the stability of our deposit base. We saw continued deposit growth in the general bank and SBB commercial balances were up modestly over the prior quarter. We're pleased with the stability of the SBB deposit franchise, demonstrating the competitive advantage we maintain in the innovation economy. Loans declined during the quarter, predominantly by a reduction in the global fund banking portfolio as repayment levels outpaced new loan origination and draw activity. However, the pipeline remains strong in this business, and average loan outstandings were up over the second quarter. The decline in GFB was partially offset by mid and upper single-digit annualized percentage growth in the general and commercial banks, respectively. While net charge-offs ticked up modestly over the second quarter, overall credit remains in good shape, consistent with previous quarters, net charge-offs were mostly concentrated in the general office, investor-dependent, and small-ticket leasing portfolios. We continue to proactively review our portfolios to identify potential issues early on, and prudent credit risk management will remain a priority for us. Our capital and liquidity positions remain strong during the quarter and continue to be a source of strength. We're pleased with the progress we made under our share repurchase plan, and during the third quarter, we repurchased over 350,000 shares of Class A common stock for a total price of approximately $700 million. Craig will touch on this in more detail in his comments. In closing, our thoughts are with our associates clients and communities that have been affected and continue to be affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Thanks to our dedicated associates, we quickly reopened operations to help our clients and communities in their rebuilding efforts during this difficult time. We're committed to continuing this support moving forward. I'll turn it over to Craig to review the financial results in more detail. Craig?