Hancock Whitney Corporation

As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Catherine Mistich, Investor Relations Manager. You may begin. Thank you, and good afternoon.

During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. We would like to remind everyone to carefully review the Safe Harbor language that was published with the earnings release and presentation and in the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q, including the risks and uncertainties identified therein. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by Hancock Whitney speak only as of the date on which they were made. As everyone understands, the current economic environment is rapidly evolving and changing. Hancock Whitney's ability to accurately project results or predict the effects of future plans or strategies or predict market or economic developments is inherently limited. We believe that the expectations reflected or implied by any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but are not guarantees of performance or results. And our actual results and performance could differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements. Hancock Whitney undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Some of the remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. you can find reconciliations to the most comparable gap measures in our earnings release and financial tables. The presentation slides included in our 8K are also posted with the conference call webcast link on the Investor Relations website. We will reference some of these slides in today's call. Participating in today's call are John Harrison, President and CEO, Mike Ackery, CFO, and Chris Aluca, Chief Credit Officer. I will now turn the call over to John Harrison.

Thank you, Catherine, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are pleased to report a solid start to 2024, which marks our 125th anniversary of helping people achieve their dreams under a charter our founders established in 1899. The first quarter results reflect our efforts to continue to grow capital and to reposition our balance sheet, all while maintaining solid profitability and earnings. Fee income and expenses were both flat this quarter, demonstrating our ability to take advantage of fee income opportunities and at the same time control expenses. Net interest income was down slightly this quarter, driven by lower average earning assets due to the impact of a portfolio restructure. The decrease was partially offset by a more attractive mix of earning assets, stabilization in deposit costs, and lower short-term borrowings. We ended the quarter with no wholesale borrowings except the remaining brokered CDs. Our continued focus on repositioning our balance sheet and prudent pricing efforts has led to them expansion. We are delighted with these results and believe we are well positioned to take advantage of future rate decreases should they happen this year. Loan growth was modest this quarter and in line with what we expected for the first half of the year. We continued our focus on more granular, full relationship loans and are de-emphasizing large loan-only relationships. The team was successful at producing the loan volumes necessary to overcome our more select credit appetite and achieve overall growth with mortgage driving the growth this quarter. Loan pricing remains a top priority, and we believe focusing on more granular credit deals will drive improved pricing on new loans. As expected, our credit quality metrics continued to normalize during the quarter, and net charge-offs were modest. Despite the uptick in criticized commercial and non-accrual loans, we remain in the top quartile of our peers. Our loan portfolio is diverse, and we still see no significant weakening in any specific portfolio sectors or geography. We remain proactive in monitoring portfolio risk and are mindful of potential macroeconomic environments. We continue to maintain a solid reserve of 1.42% up slightly from the prior quarter. We are pleased with our deposit growth during the quarter of $86 million, which included the maturity of $195 million in broker deposits. Excluding the impact of broker deposits, client deposits were up $281 million this quarter. We saw growth in money markets and in CDs due to promotional pricing we offered on both of these account types. The DDA remix continued, but overall pace continues to slow. We ended the quarter with 36% of our deposits in DDAs. We are also proud to report continued improvement in all of our capital ratios. Our TCE grew to 8.62%. and our common equity tier one ratio into the quarter at 12.67%. Our capital metrics continue to be supported by our solid earnings. We remain well capitalized, inclusive of all AOCI and unrealized losses. A quick note on guidance. We did not make any updates to our guidance this quarter, which Mike will further address in his commentary next. As we look forward to celebrating our 125th year and beyond, we believe we continue to position ourselves to effectively navigate any operating environment. With that, I'll invite Mike to add additional color.