First Financial Bancorp.

Hello and welcome to the First Financial Bank of Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Alex and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star 1 on your telephone keypads. If you wish to withdraw your question, you can press star 2. I'll now hand over to your host, Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. Over to you, Scott.

Thanks, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bank Corp's fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. Participating on today's call will be Archie Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer. Both the press release we issued yesterday and the accompanying slide presentation are available on our website at www.bankitfirst.com under the Investor Relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call. Additionally, please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the fourth quarter 2021 earnings release as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors. The information we provide today is accurate as of December 31st, 2021 and we will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call.

I'll now turn it over to Archie Brown. Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our fourth quarter financial results, which reflect an outstanding finish to an exceptional year despite the challenging operating environment and interest rate backdrop. Our quarterly results were highlighted by strong earnings, significant core loan growth, solid fee income, provision recapture, and improved credit trends. We announced and successfully completed the acquisition of Summit Funding Group during the quarter and we're excited about our future together. The synergies gained by adding Summit's leading nationwide position in the equipment finance sector to our current product offerings will provide significant growth opportunities moving forward. Summit has developed a diversified and nimble lending platform and demonstrated the ability to produce high quality and consistent origination volumes. We're pleased to have Summit's exceptional asset management expertise and look forward to the growth potential created by combining our two companies. Fourth quarter results remain strong across the board with adjusted earnings per share of 58 cents, return on assets of 1.34%, and an efficiency ratio of 60.2%. Fourth quarter earnings were again highlighted by significant provision recapture of $7.7 million as credit quality trends continue to improve and classified assets decreased by 36.7%. The revenue was also strong as record foreign exchange income from our Bannockburn unit more than offset some seasonal drop in mortgage income. Loan origination activity improved to record levels and was approximately 27% higher than the third quarter with our commercial groups leading the way. Growth in the unfunded line and construction commitments are expected to provide tailwinds to loan growth over the coming year as they draw up. We also completed the sale of approximately $144 million in commercial real estate loans, which both reduces our hotel concentration and our exposure to an industry that continues to be impacted by the pandemic, particularly in metropolitan central business districts. Excluding the impact of PPP, the loan sale and the summit acquisition, core loan growth was approximately $149 million, or 6.3% annualized, which was the strongest quarter of the year. We're very pleased with this organic loan growth, considering we have continued to see record payoffs within our commercial real estate and commercial finance portfolios. As those payoffs moderate and the summit portfolio builds, we expect to see further strengthening in loan growth in 2022. We're pleased to have the positive balances grow modestly across all customer segments as our customers continue to maintain substantial liquidity levels. PPP forgiveness continued to wind down in the fourth quarter. Three quarter end almost all of round one and over 80% of round two loans have been forgiven. We expect the majority of remaining round two payoffs to come over the first half of 2022. Overall, our full year 2021 performance was exceptional as our participation in PPP helped offset the pressure from historically low interest rate environment, while provision recapture contributed to strong earnings and reflected dramatically improved credit trends. I was pleased to see fee income again was very strong this year given our strategic focus on that area of our business, and expenses remained well managed despite inflationary pressures. Lastly, our balance sheet and capital ratios remained strong, And we're very pleased to deliver superior returns to our shareholders through aggressive share repurchases and a strong dividend yield. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jamie to discuss the details of our fourth quarter results. And then after Jamie's discussion, I will wrap up with some additional forward-looking commentary. Jamie.