Fulton Financial Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Fulton Financial fourth quarter 2021 results conference call. At this time, all participants are on 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'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Matt Drozdak. You may begin.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss earnings for the fourth quarter 2021. of 2021. 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 announcements, which were 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 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 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 announcements released yesterday and on slides 10 and 11 of 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.

Well, thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. And as usual, I'll begin the call with some high-level thoughts on the quarter and the year. Then Kurt will discuss our business performance, and Mark will share the details of our financial performance. And then we'll take your questions. As you saw in our press release, Fulton had a solid fourth quarter and a very good year overall in 2021. A fourth quarter earnings per share were 37 cents, and for the year, earnings per share were $1.62, which is was a record year for Fulton. Key drivers for 2021 included solid loan growth for the year and increasing loan growth during the second half of the year, strong performance from our commercial and consumer fee income businesses, a record year for our wealth management business, strong returns from our efforts related to the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, Credit costs were down significantly during the year as asset quality remained stable, and operating expenses, which we managed aggressively. We achieved all this due to a tremendous effort by our team during times that continued to be challenging. These items all set continued pressure on our net interest margin. However, we're seeing some encouraging signs as well in Kurt and Mark will share more details on those. Despite the world's ongoing COVID-related struggles, the economy and the markets we serve show signs of acceleration. Unemployment continues to decline, business activity continues to expand, and the communities we serve continue to move forward. Similar to last quarter, M&A activity and discussions remain active. And as I've shared previously, Fulton is interested in select opportunities that will support further growth within our current markets. As always, we will take an active but disciplined approach to opportunities to growth by acquisition. During the quarter, we were able to take advantage of a dip in our stock price and have now utilized approximately 60% of our $75 million share repurchase authorization. We will continue to repurchase stock under that authorization if it makes financial sense to do so. We also declared a special cash dividend of $0.08 per share in 2021, double what we declared the previous year. As we begin the new year, we appreciate the continued partnership we have with our shareholders, our customers, and our team members. They're helping to grow our company, to achieve operational excellence, and to change lives for the better. Now I'll turn things over to Kurt to discuss our business performance.