Fifth Third Bancorp

Good morning. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2026 Fifth Third Bank Court Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. 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'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Matt Kuro, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Fifth Third's first quarter 2026 earnings call. This morning, our Chairman, CEO, and President Tim Spence and CFO Brian Preston will provide an overview of our first quarter results and outlook. Please review the cautionary statements in our materials, which can be found in our earnings release and presentation. These materials contain information regarding the use of non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the GAAP results, as well as forward-looking statements about Fifth Third's performance. These statements speak only as of April 17, 2026, and Fifth Third undertakes no obligation to update them. While in prepared remarks by Tim and Brian, we will open up the call for questions. With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. At Fifth Third, we believe great banks distinguish themselves based on how they perform in uncertain environments. not in benign ones. We prioritize stability, profitability, and growth in that order. We deliver them by finding ways to get 1% better every day while investing meaningfully in the future. Today, we reported earnings per share of 15 cents, or 83 cents, excluding certain items outlined on page two of the release. Results reflect the February 1st closing of the Comerica acquisition. Revenue was $2.9 billion, up 33% year over year. and adjusted net income was $734 million, up 38%. Credit performance was in line with expectations, with net charge-offs at 37 basis points. Both NPAs and criticized assets improved modestly. In a quarter, we closed the largest M&A transaction in Fifth Thirds history. We delivered an adjusted return on assets of 1.12%, and an adjusted return on tangible common equity of 13.7%. Our tangible common equity ratio rose to 7.3%, and tangible book value per share increased 1%. We are the only bank among our peers who have reported to date to increase both of these key metrics during the quarter. Fifth Third's legacy strategies are continuing to produce broad-based growth while we execute the Comerica integration on plan and on schedule. In commercial, legacy Fifth Third CNI loan balances grew 6% year-over-year. Production remained healthy, with the strongest activity in manufacturing and construction, supported by reshoring and infrastructure investment. New client acquisition more than doubled, led by our southeast markets, and 35% of new clients were fee-led with no extension of credit. Importantly, our commercial loan growth continues to come from relationship-based lending and not from non-relationship sources. In commercial payments, New Line continued to scale, with revenue up 30% and deposits up $2.7 billion year-over-year. During the quarter, Plaid launched a new payment product built on New Line, joining other marquee clients like Stripe and Circle, in the advanced preparations for the second quarter launch of the new DirectXpress platform. In consumer, the Legacy Fifth Third franchise delivered 3% household growth and 4% DDA balance growth. Southeast households grew 8%, led by Georgia and the Carolinas, and we opened 10 additional branches in the region during the quarter. Consumer and small business loans grew 7%, led by Auto Home Equity and our Provide FinTech platform. Now turning to Comerica. Thanks to timely regulatory approvals, we closed earlier than originally expected on February 1st and have continued to make progress at an accelerated pace. Our top priority is our people, and we're working hard to become one team. Since Needle Day 1, leaders have been on the ground in Comerica's major markets nearly every week, and we've visited every branch in the Comerica network. We've also hosted product showcases to highlight the breadth of our combined capabilities. Organizational design and leadership decisions are complete, and I'm very excited about the caliber of our combined teams. On technology, we remain on track to convert all systems over Labor Day weekend with our first full mock conversion later this month. As a result, we remain confident that we will deliver $350 million of net cost savings this year and reach an $850 million annual run rate by the fourth quarter. We're also already building a strong pipeline of revenue synergies. In commercial, we're seeing early wins by bringing capital markets, payments, and specialty lending to existing relationships. In the first 60 days, our capital markets team completed fuels and metals commodity hedges and executed an accelerated share repurchase for Comerica clients. We also booked our first Comerica to Fifth Third loan win in asset-based lending, while Fifth Third referrals helped to build the largest ever pipeline in Comerica's national dealer services business. Commercial Payments has presented our managed services solutions to over 100 Comerica clients, with 65 of them interested in moving forward. In consumer, we launched our first Comerica-branded deposit campaign in Texas in February. Response rates and average opening balances were broadly consistent with the results that we generate in our legacy fifth-third markets, and nearly half of new savings customers also opened a checking account. We've hired more than half of the mortgage loan officers and auto dealer representatives that we plan to add this year into America's footprint and pipelines in each of those businesses we're going to build. We'll open our first fifth-third brand of branches in Dallas and Fresno this month, and we now have letters of intent in place or in progress for 81 of our targeted 150 de novo branches in Texas. As I wrote in our annual letter to shareholders, The global economy is a complex, adaptive system, and such systems react to change in unexpected ways. We're closely evaluating the direct impacts of the war in Iran on energy and other commodities, as well as the implications for prices, interest rates, and customer activity. In an environment where we may not see the macro tailwinds that many expected at the start of the year, the Comerica merger expands Fifth Third's organic opportunity set. but we do not need a perfect backdrop to deliver on our commitments. Before I turn it over to Brian, I want to take a moment to say thank you to our colleagues. Earlier this month, we surpassed $300 billion in total assets for the first time, an important milestone that reflects the work we do together to serve customers, support communities, and show up for one another. I know many of you are putting in extra effort to support the integration, whether that's helping customers, learning new products, meeting new teammates, or navigating change. Your commitment to getting 1% better every day and your dedication to our clients and to each other is what gives me confidence in what we're building and the opportunities ahead. With that, Brian will provide more detail on the quarter and the outlook.