Northwest Bancshares, Inc.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Northwest Bancshares' third quarter 2026 earnings call. This session is being recorded and a playback will be available on Northwest's Investor Relations website. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following prepared remarks, we will host a call for a question and answer session. Now I would like to introduce Michael Perry, Northwest's Managing Director of Corporate Development and Strategy and Investor Relations.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, operator. Welcome to Northwest Bancshares' third quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Lou Torchio, President and CEO of Northwest Bancshares, Doug Schosser, our Chief Financial Officer, and TK Creel, our Chief Credit Officer. During this call, we will refer to information included in the supplemental third quarter 2026 earnings presentation, which is available on our investor relations website. If you'd like to read our forward-looking and other related disclosures, you can find them on slide two. Thank you, and now I'll hand it over to Lou.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2026 results. I'll let Doug take you through the details of our third quarter performance in a moment. But first, I'd like to reflect on several important milestones, including record revenue and record net interest income and how they have contributed to our achievements and momentum in the third quarter, positioning us well for continued growth for the remainder of 2026 and into next year. We recently held the official grand opening of our second financial center in Columbus. and we expect our third and fourth financial centers to open by the end of the year. We also plan to add a fifth in this market by the first quarter of 2027. Our new financial centers bring to life the hospitality and personal advice-led approach that Urich and his team have embedded across the consumer bank. The most recent opening is next to the Ohio State University's Columbus campus and the design incorporated feedback from students What is most important to them in a bank relationship? In addition, we recently announced a multi-year sponsorship agreement with the Columbus Crew MLF team. We appreciate our relationship with the crew that we have developed through our sports vertical and our Ohio-based middle market teams. We continue to be excited about the growth opportunities that this relationship will bring to our headquarters markets. Now turning to slide four, you can see some of the financial highlights of the third quarter of 2026. We delivered $185 million in revenue and $149 million in net interest income for the third quarter, both records in the company's history, each resulting in more than 9% year-over-year growth. Also, we delivered another strong quarter with diluted earnings per share of $0.34 on a GAAP basis, and 35 cents on an adjusted basis. We continue to drive strong momentum in our CNI business with 201 million of average CNI loan growth in the third quarter, representing 31% year over year growth. As we've highlighted previously, we continue to grow our nationwide business verticals in a very disciplined manner and are pleased with the performance of these verticals, which are led by experienced and highly networked industry leaders. Collectively, they now represent approximately 30% of our commercial lending portfolio. In addition, we continue to focus on investing in and growing our in-market regional and middle market commercial banking businesses. We achieve these results while continuing to invest in talent, technology, and new financial centers to support our future growth. None of these results would be possible without the hard work and dedication of our 2,200 associates. I'm very pleased with our results and I'm proud of the team for their continued commitment to driving strong core performance across the bank. And in the third quarter of 2026, we delivered on our commitment to our shareholders, returning more than half of our profits through a quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share. This is the 128th consecutive quarter in which the company has paid the cash dividend. As we look ahead for the rest of 2026, We continue to focus on organic growth initiatives, further optimizing our operations, and driving improved financial performance, expanding our financial center network, and serving our core customers and communities. With that, I'll turn it over to Doug to review our third quarter results in more detail. Doug?