First Financial Bancorp.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Ian, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first Financial Bancorp second quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. to enter the question queue. Once again, that is star followed by the number one. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. I will now hand the call over to Scott Crawley, controller. Scott, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Ian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss first financial bank or second quarter and year-to-date 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.bankatfirst.com under the Investor Relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call. Please refer to the forward-looking savings disclosure contained in the second quarter 2024 earnings release, as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors. The information we will provide today is accurate as of June 30, 2024, and we will not be updating any forward-looking statements or select facts or circumstances after this call. I'll now turn the call over to Archie Brown.

Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our financial results for the second quarter. I'll provide some highlights on our recent performance and then turn the call over to Jamie to provide further information. We had an outstanding quarter. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.65 in the second quarter, which resulted in a return on assets of 1.4% and a return on tangible common equity of 20.9%. Long growth was exceptionally strong again this quarter, with balances increasing by 11% on an annualized basis, and this was a significant driver in the increase in net interest income. Growth was broad-based and was led by commercial banking. Similarly, average deposits grew approximately 11% for the period, with interest-bearing deposits and a seasonal increase in public fund balances driving the increase. Our 4.1% net interest margin was unchanged from the first quarter and remains at or near the top of the peer group. Total adjusted revenue increased 14.4 million, or 7%, compared to the linked quarter. Additionally, we posted record adjusted non-interest income of $61.6 million. Growth in fee income was broad-based for the period, with foreign exchange revenue growing more than 60% from the linked quarter. Leasing business income, mortgage banking, and bank card income all increased by double-digit percentages, and wealth management income posted another record quarter. Adjusted expenses increased by 1.2% compared to the first quarter. The increase included a full quarter of Agile expenses, the impact of annual salary adjustments that occurred late in the first quarter, and variable compensation tied to our record fee income. Through our workforce efficiency initiative, we have eliminated 90 full-time positions to date, and this work will continue through the remainder of the year. I am pleased with the 23 basis point decline in net charge-offs to 15 basis points, which marks the third consecutive quarter that charge-offs have declined. We did experience some downward credit migration during the period. However, this was not concentrated in any particular loan type, and not forming loans as a percentage of total assets was relatively flat compared to the prior quarter. Our ACL increased to 1.36% of total loans, and based on our outlook for loan growth and credit quality, we would expect provision to decline to levels approximately to the first quarter in coming periods. With that, I'll now turn the call to Jamie to discuss these results in greater detail. After Jamie's discussion, I will wrap up with some additional forward-looking commentary and closing remarks. Jamie?