Huntington Bancshares Incorporated

Greetings and welcome to the Huntington Bank Shares, fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Tim Sedalves, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, and good morning. Copies of the slides we will be reviewing today can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.huntington.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded, and a replay will be available starting about one hour from the close of the call. Our presenters today are Steve Steinauer, Chairman, President, and CEO, and Zach Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer. Rich Pohle, Chief Credit Officer, will join us for the Q&A. As noted on slide two, today's discussion, including the Q&A period, will contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on information and assumptions available at this time and are subject to changes, risks, and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. We assume no obligation to update such statements. For a complete discussion of risk and uncertainties, please refer to this slide and material filed with the SEC, including our most recent forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K filings. Let me now turn it over to Steve.

Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. Let me begin on slide three. 2021 was a transformational year for Huntington. We continued to live our purpose and remain focused on our vision to become the country's leading people-first digitally powered bank. We executed on our organic growth initiatives along with a timely closing of the TCF acquisition. In the fourth quarter, we began by successfully completing conversion activities. And by the time we exited the quarter, we'd refocused our teams on driving growth. We delivered record new loan production and continued to build on revenue initiatives. We entered 22 with added scale, density, new markets, and specialty businesses. We are intently focused on driving growth and delivering top-tier financial performance. On slide four, we're pleased to report our excellent fourth quarter results centered on four key areas. First, we finished 21 with record full-year revenue growth and broad-based loan production. We delivered strong performance across the board in our commercial businesses. Second, our targeted cost savings are on track for full realization. This includes both the synergies resulting from TCF as well as the additional expense actions we announced last quarter. Third, we are executing on key initiatives to deliver sustainable growth. Pipelines are robust entering 22, and our teams are focused on driving revenue growth, including the revenue synergy initiatives related to our new markets and capabilities. Finally, we are very confident in our outlook for 2022 and beyond. Slide 5 recaps our year in review. Our financial results reflect the hard work of our teams over the course of 2021. Return on tangible common equity came in at 19%, excluding notable items. Credit performed very well, and we returned significant capital to our shareholders. We delivered robust organic growth in both consumer and business checking households, with year-over-year growth of 4.5% and 7%, respectively. We continue to invest in revenue-producing colleagues and initiatives, including new and expanded commercial banking verticals, capital markets, cards and payments, and wealth management. In the commercial bank, we launched Edge, an innovative analytics tool that supports our bankers' deepening efforts incorporating advanced data and insights tailored to each customer. In consumer banking, we built upon our fair play approach and launched new and compelling products and services such as standby cash and early pay. We expanded our leading SBA lending program to new states as well as added to our practice finance capabilities. We were honored to be recognized for our expertise, evidenced by being ranked number one by J.D. Power for both customer satisfaction within our region as well as the top consumer mobile app amongst regional banks for the third consecutive year. Impressively, this was all achieved while our team successfully completed the closing and conversion of TCF. On the capital front, we were pleased to accelerate our share repurchase program as well as increase the common stock dividend. In closing, our teams accomplished a tremendous amount of work over the course of the year, and I want to thank all of our colleagues and our management team who supported these efforts. I am increasingly bullish on the year ahead. The level of excitement is building across the organization, and our colleagues are energized and focused. We look forward to sharing our successes with all of you as we move throughout the year. Zach, over to you to provide more detail on our financial performance.