Fulton Financial Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fulton Financial First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised this call is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Matt. Joe Zwack, Director of Investor Relations.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss our earnings for the first quarter of 2022. 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. 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 under the Presentations page under the Investor Relations tab of our Investor Relations 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 announcement released yesterday and 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 Winger.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. After I share a high-level overview of the quarter, Kurt will discuss our business performance, and Mark will share the details of our financial performance. And then we would be happy to take your questions. We were pleased with our performance during the first quarter of 2022. We saw solid loan growth in both our consumer and commercial lines of business, despite a very volatile rate environment. And once again, our wealth management business produced record income. Expenses declined in the first quarter, and you'll hear more detail on that in a few minutes. We made several announcements in the first quarter. First, we announced our intent to acquire Prudential Bank Corp. Inc. later this year, This will be our first bank acquisition in 16 years, although we did acquire some small wealth management firms in recent years. As I shared in the past, it is Fulton's intent to once again be an acquirer of banks that fit our strategy, our geography, and our culture. The Prudential Acquisition meets all three of these objectives. As you know, we have identified Philadelphia as a market that offers a lot of opportunity for us, and we have been steadily growing our presence there over the past few years. With a prudential acquisition, we look forward to bringing our products, expertise, and community-oriented style of banking to more of Philadelphia's neighborhoods. Also, during the quarter, we raised our quarterly common stock dividend to $0.15 per share and a 1 cent or 7% increase over the previous quarter. And in March, the Board approved a new stock repurchase program authorizing us to repurchase up to $75 million for shares of our stock. Though we are currently not able to repurchase stock due to the upcoming prudential acquisition, we look forward to pursuing this opportunity later in the year if it makes financial sense to do so. And lastly, in March, I announced my intent to retire as chairman and CEO of Fulton Effective, December 31st, 2022. I've shared that it has truly been a privilege and a pleasure to be part of this company for the past 43 years. I look forward to continuing to serve on the holding company and bank boards of directors once my staff role comes to an end. And I'm very pleased that the board has announced that Kurt Myers will succeed me, assuming the role of chairman, CEO, and president effective January 1st, 2023. With Kurt at the helm and the talented members of our senior management team adding their expertise, I am confident that Fulton will be in good hands. So now I'll turn things over to Kurt to discuss our business performance.