Fulton Financial Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fulton Financial First Quarter 2021 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star, then zero on your touchstone telephone. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Matt Joswiak, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss our earnings for the first quarter of 2021. Your host for today's conference call is Phil Wenger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Phil are Curt 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. These 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 in the presentation page under the investor relations website. On this call, representatives of Fulton may make forward-looking statements with respect to Fulton's financial condition, results of operation, 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 presentation 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 in slides 11 and 12 in today's presentation for 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, Phil Wenger.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin today's call by sharing a high-level overview of the quarter. Then we'll hear Kurt's thoughts on our business performance. Mark will follow Kurt, and he'll discuss the details of our financial performance. And after that, we will be happy to take your questions. Fulton's performance was solid in the first quarter of 2021. In fact, our earnings per share of 43 cents in the first quarter was a quarterly record for us, surpassing our previous record of 38 cents per share. which was in the third quarter of 2020. Though the lasting presence of COVID-19 and the prolonged low interest rate environment have brought some challenges, our customers and our team members continue to meet those challenges. Throughout the past year, Holton has continuously worked to serve our customers while keeping everyone safe. Our financial centers remained accessible and customers escalated their use of our telephone, digital, and online platforms, so our banking and financial services delivery remained largely uninterrupted. In terms of our back office and operations staff, team members whose roles could be performed off-site worked remotely whenever possible to reduce the direct contact That could potentially spread the virus. Now, as the vaccine rollout continues throughout the world, we are seeing our communities plan to more fully open and we are cautiously optimistic about the reopening of the economy and the markets we serve. As we look forward, we have been carefully developing our own plans to bring more employees back to our office. Late last week, we shared our timetable for joining us with our team members, letting them know we plan to bring more people back on site in September. This is the first time we've offered a specific timetable for returning more of the team to our offices, and it is contingent upon the continued successful vaccine rollout, the loosening of government requirements in the communities we serve, and the advice of health experts at the national and local levels. We plan to use the months between now and September to clearly communicate how the return process will work. While most of our employees will perform some amount of on-site work, some will continue to work remotely for the longer term. We want to do our part to enable every team member to achieve peak performance no matter where they sit. Last quarter, I shared some updates on the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Production Program, or PPP. And I'm pleased to report we continue to realize volume that has exceeded our expectations. And we also continue to support all CARES Act's initiatives. In terms of other highlights in the first quarter, What our loans grew modestly because of the impact of the Wave 3 PPP loans. Deposit growth continues to be extraordinarily strong, and we continue to be encouraged by our asset quality performance through the pandemic, as Curt and Mark will discuss in a few minutes. Our mortgage business continues to be a strong performer, and the pipeline remains elevated. Our wealth management business also continues to be growing and a significant contributor to non-interest income. This line of business delivered record income during the quarter on an all-time high in assets under management and administration. In March, we announced a restructuring of our balance sheet that will help manage our interest rate risk profile. This had a minimal impact to earnings in the first quarter. However, it will meaningfully enhance net interest income as we move forward. Mark will discuss this in further detail in a few minutes. Despite the pandemic related challenges, we remain fully focused on our strategic priorities. These include achieving growth, enhancing our technology, and increasing our efficiency. One way in which we are growing is by moving forward with plans to open additional financial centers in our two priority urban markets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In 2021, we remain focused on efficiency and investment in technology, which we believe are closely linked. We currently have a number of technology system replacements and upgrades in progress. These include new platforms for consumer loan origination and mortgage servicing. In addition, we're making a significant upgrade to a new customer relationship management or CRM system, and we are fully integrating that system in our sales and service processes. Now I'll turn things over to Kirk for more detail on our business results.