Huntington Bancshares Incorporated

Greetings and welcome to the Huntington Bank Shares first quarter 2025 earnings conference 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 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Tim Sedavis, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Tim.

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. Brendan Lawler, Chief Credit Officer, will join us for the Q&A. Earnings documents, which include our forward-looking statements disclaimer and non-GAAP information, are available on the investor relations section of our website. With that, let me now turn it over to Steve.

Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining the call today. We delivered exceptional results for the first quarter. I'll share a few highlights up front, and then Zach will take you through the numbers. Before we turn to the quarter, let me share a couple of thoughts on recent market volatility and our overall approach to managing the company through a period of economic uncertainty. I've seen quite a number of economic disruptions over my more than four decades in banking, and believe me, we have a robust playbook for managing through periods like this. Based on the current environment, we feel confident in our overall strategy for 2025 and continue to execute against it. We continue to drive progress against our objectives every day. Now, with that being said, we recognize that the probability of adverse economic scenarios has increased in recent weeks, and those scenarios in turn could create additional headwinds within our industry. Regardless of the path the economy takes, we are well positioned and expect to continue outperforming our peers. Our longstanding aggregate moderate to low risk appetite has proven to help us deliver strong and more predictable results through the cycle. Even in the best of times, we are steadfast in our approach to credit and risk management, and this has resulted in consistent top-quartile credit performance for net charge-offs. We also maintain an allowance for loan losses that is well above the peer median. Our foundation of strong risk management begins with disciplined client selection. We are intentional with whom we do business, and in our selection of the geographies, industries, and exposures we want to underwrite and hold. We ensure broad diversification and adhere to strict limits with no outsized concentrations, as you've seen in our commercial real estate portfolio. We have a well-balanced and granular loan portfolio, which we rigorously and proactively manage. All of this provides us with confidence in the foundation of the company, and it allows us to capitalize on opportunities where others sometimes cannot. Two years ago in 2023, when many banks pulled back due to liquidity, capital, or credit concerns, we chose to invest. We took a different road. We demonstrated breakout performance, and we invested for long-term growth. We took share and accelerated new customer acquisition. We hired hundreds of talented bankers, added capabilities and expertise, and executed very well. And those efforts are now helping us deliver leading deposit and loan growth. We also expanded our three focused areas of fee revenue, and we're seeing good results in those areas as well. Huntington has never been better positioned. Now on to slide four, there are four key messages we want to leave you with today. First, we sustain the momentum from year end through the first quarter with robust loan growth and continued deposit growth. The business is performing exceptionally well, and through the first quarter, we are ahead of our plans for the year. I'd like to thank all of my colleagues and teammates for their extraordinary efforts this quarter and everything they do for our customers and company every day. Second, we're driving revenue and profit growth year over year, consistent with the strategy we shared at Investor Day. Profit growth is supported by our earning asset growth, expanded net interest margin, growth of value-added fee revenues, and disciplined expense management. Third, credit performance continues to be strong. We are proactively managing all of our loan portfolios. Fourth, our strong financial foundation enables us to operate through a range of potential economic scenarios. Turning to slide five, I'll recap our performance in the first quarter. We grew average loans by almost $9 billion year over year, supported by both core businesses and new initiatives. Average deposit growth continued and increased by almost $11 billion year over year. Our deposit strategy remains focused on acquiring and deepening primary bank relationships, and we grew primary bank relationships by 3% in consumer and 4% in business banking over the previous year. Importantly, we are maintaining disciplined deposit pricing while delivering this growth. Our investments in value-added fee revenues continue to deliver, with fee income increasing over 6% year-over-year, led by payments, wealth, and capital markets. We are continuing to invest in these areas. For example, in capital markets, we're excited to welcome Chris Wood to lead the continued build-out of our leveraged finance program and private equity coverage. We invested in talent and launched two new verticals, Financial Institutions Group and Aerospace and Defense. In North and South Carolina, we are accelerating our branch expansion plans. We're excited to bring the entire Huntington franchise to this region. These investments will drive long-term value creation for shareholders and contribute to the medium-term goals. Our capital levels improved as well, with adjusted CET1 growing by 20 basis points from the prior quarter to 8.9%. In anticipation of reaching our operating range, the Board approved a $1 billion multi-year share repurchase authorization, which provides us flexibility for capital deployment. Turning to slide six, let me take a moment to share the top-level revenue and PPNR trends we've delivered. 10% year-over-year revenue growth and 24% year-over-year PPNR growth. As I said, the business is performing very well and continuing to build momentum. We are optimistic about Huntington's future and the opportunities that lie ahead. As a reminder, the board and management are collectively a top 10 shareholder, and we are fully aligned and committed to our investors to drive out performance and additional shareholder value. With that, I'll ask Zach to provide an overview of the financial performance.