First Financial Bancorp.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the First Financial Bancorp Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. Scott, please go ahead.

Thank you, Leah. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bancorp's second quarter 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 will 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 second quarter 2026 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, 2026. We will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call. I'll now turn the call over to Archie Brown.

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. With second quarter earnings and the Fenward announcement, we have a lot to cover, so the format of our call will be a little different today. Our plan for today's remarks is that I will start with my summary of the quarter, then turn over to Jamie, who will add his comments on the financial results. After Jamie's finished, I'll provide thoughts on our third quarter outlook. And then once I've wrapped up the outlook commentary, we'll then pivot to discuss the details of the FinWard acquisition, which is a deal that we're very excited about. After that, we'll open it up for questions. The second quarter was another active quarter as we remain focused on post-integration efforts related to the Westfield acquisition and successfully converted bank financial systems. Our second quarter operating results were strong and we're very pleased with our performance. Adjusted net income for the period was a record $83.9 million or 80 cents per share with an adjusted return on assets of 1.5% and an adjusted return on tangible common equity of 19.7%. These adjusted earnings per share represent an 8% increase over the second quarter of 2025 and they were driven by increases in earning assets from a combination of organic loan growth and our recent acquisitions. Our net interest margin was stable at approximately 4% as lower funding costs offset a decline in loan accretion income. Assuming no significant changes in interest rates, we expect our margin to remain stable over the near term. Loan growth for the quarter was 7% on an annualized basis and reflected continued momentum across the portfolio with CNI, Agile, and Summit being the primary drivers of our increase in balances. Loan originations increased 23% over the first quarter and advanced stage pipelines remain strong heading into the back half of the year. We expect loan production to remain healthy and contribute to solid loan growth in the third quarter. Second quarter adjusted fee income was below our expectations. After a very strong first quarter, Lower foreign exchange, swap income, and investment banking fees led to a decline in total non-interest income compared to the linked quarter. While results in these business lines can vary from quarter to quarter, we anticipate a rebound in the third quarter. Conversely, adjusted non-interest expenses were materially lower than the linked quarter, driven by lower commission expense, payroll taxes, and acquisition-related synergies. As of June 30th, virtually all the expected Westfield cost reductions have been realized while savings related to the bank financial acquisition will gradually phase in over the course of the third quarter with full savings expected by quarter end. Asset quality was stable for the quarter with net charge-offs declining by 15 basis points to 0.20% of total loans. Capital levels remain strong with tangible common equity increasing to 8.2% and tangible value increasing 3% from the linked quarter to $16.64. No shares were repurchased during the quarter as we focused on integrating recent acquisitions and preparing for the acquisition of Fenward. Now I'll turn the call over to Jamie to discuss our second quarter results in greater detail. Jamie.