Fulton Financial Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Fulton Financial fourth quarter 2020 results conference call. At this time, all participant lines 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 will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Matt Jozwak, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss earnings for the fourth quarter of 2020. Your host for today's conference call is Phil Wenger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Phil are Kurt Myers, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mark McCollum, Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information and related slide presentation included with our earnings announcement, which we released yesterday afternoon. The documents can be found on our website at fult.com by clicking on Investor Relations and then on News. The slides can also be found on the Presentations page under Investor Relations on our website. On this call, representatives of Fulton may make forward-looking statements with respect to Fulton's financial condition, results of operations, and business. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, and actual results could differ materially. Please refer to the Safe Harbor Statement on forward-looking statements in our earnings release and on slide two of today's presentations. for additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Fulton undertakes no obligation other than as required by law to update or revise any forward-looking statements. In discussing Fulton's performance, representatives of Fulton may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the supplemental financial information included with Fulton's earnings announcement released yesterday and slides 11 and 12 in today's presentation for a reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Now I would like to turn the call over to your host, Bill Winger.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Today we'll follow our usual call format. I'll provide a high-level overview of the quarter and the year. Then Kurt will share some thoughts on our business performance. and Mark will discuss the details of our financial performance. After that, we would be happy to take your questions. We were pleased with what Fulton was able to achieve in the fourth quarter of 2020 and for the year as a whole, given the environment in which we have been operating. The prolonged presence of COVID-19 and the extended low interest rate environment have made for a very challenging year. To me, the word that best describes 2020 is resilience. By working together, our company, our customers, and our communities have withstood nearly a year of extreme challenges. Thanks to the creativity of the Fulton team, the partnership of our customers, and the support of our shareholders, Fulton has continued to fulfill our purpose to change lives for the better. Even in these most trying times. Overall, many of our customers have managed to hold their own, and we were pleased that nearly 10,000 small businesses and nonprofit organizations called on us for approximately $2 billion in loans through the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. We administered round one of that program in 2020 and we began helping our customers through round two earlier this week. In 2020, there were other signs of customer resilience as we saw significant deposit growth and diversified fee income for the year. Our mortgage business had a historically strong year and loans grew in both our consumer and commercial lines of business when excluding the PPP loans. Our wealth management business also performed beyond our expectations. Our asset quality remains stable and Kurt and Mark will discuss this in more detail in a few minutes. And we successfully accessed the capital markets with a subordinated debt offering in March and a preferred stock offering in October of 2020, enabling us to continue to build our capital position. Despite the challenges of the low interest rate environment and the effects of COVID-19, we were able to make progress toward achieving our strategic priorities. We continued our branch optimization activities, In the fourth quarter, 50 of our financial centers changed formats to better meet their customers' needs. And on January 8th of 2021, we consolidated 21 financial centers into nearby offices. Since 2014, we have consolidated 58 offices or approximately 23% of our total locations, continuing to make our retail system more efficient. We continued our focus on growing our presence in the urban markets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In June of 2020, we opened our new Yard 56 Financial Center in Baltimore. And we have announced plans to open a new financial center in University City, Philadelphia. We are planning to open additional branches in both Philadelphia and Baltimore later in 2021 or early 2022. Over the past 18 months, we have been recognized in both Philadelphia and Baltimore for our revitalization and support of those communities. And we are pleased that we are increasingly viewed as a contributing member of these vibrant and historic cities. Some of this community support is now coming from our newly created Fulton Forward Foundation. and independent private foundation funded by Fulton Bank that makes donations to nonprofit organizations that share our vision of advancing economic empowerment, particularly in underserved communities. Last year, the foundation made special grants to support organizations that were addressing COVID-19 in the communities we serve. In 2020, we worked to deliver an appropriate return to our shareholders Maintaining our quarterly cash dividend of 13 cents per share throughout all four quarters and declaring a special cash dividend of 4 cents per share in November. Doing these things help us demonstrate to our shareholders how much we appreciate their investment in Fulton Financial. In 2019, you may remember that we purchased two wealth management businesses, and in November 2020, Fulton Bank acquired the outstanding stock of Benefit Works, Inc., a registered investment advisor and retirement services firm in central Pennsylvania. This acquisition has helped Fulton Financial Advisors accelerate its growth rate. So now I'll turn things over to Kurt for more detail on our business results. Kurt.