OceanFirst Financial Corp.

Thank you, Alfred. Good morning, and thank you to all who have been able to join our fourth quarter of the 2025 earnings conference call. This morning, I'm joined by our president, Joe LaBelle, and our chief financial officer, Pat Barrett. We appreciate your interest in our performance and this opportunity to discuss our results with you. This morning, we will provide brief remarks about the financial and operating performance for the quarter and some color regarding the outlook for our business. We may refer to the slides filed in connection with the earnings release throughout the call. After our discussion, we look forward to taking your questions. We reported our financial results for the fourth quarter, which included earnings per share of 23 cents on a fully diluted gap basis and 41 cents on a core basis. In terms of performance indicators, we're pleased to report a fifth consecutive quarter of net interest income growth, which increased by $5 million, or 5%, as compared to the prior quarter, and up 14% as compared to the prior year quarter. The current quarter results were fueled by an increase in average net loans of $446 million. Our net interest margin of 2.87% declined modestly compared to the third quarter. Total loans for the quarter increased $474 million, representing an 18% annualized growth rate, driven by $1 billion in originations. Joe will have more to add regarding our growth strategy in a few minutes, but we're very pleased to see the organic growth momentum that is a direct result of the investments we made in the first half of 2025. Asset quality remained exceptional, as total loans classified as special mention and substandard decreased 10% to $112 million, or just 1% of total loans. This continues to place us among the top decile of our peer group. The quarterly provision was primarily driven by improvements in asset quality and a decrease in unfunded commitments offset by loan growth. GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $84 million and include $13 million of expenses related to our residential outsourcing initiative, merger costs, and execution costs for our credit risk transfer. On a core basis, operating expenses of $71 million were down $1 million, or 2%, from the linked quarter, primarily driven by the impact of our strategic initiative to outsource our residential lending platform. Pat will provide additional commentary on the credit risk transfer and a detailed update on our financial outlook in a moment. Capital levels remained robust. An estimated common equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 10.7% and tangible book value per share increased to $19.79. We did not repurchase any shares this quarter under the existing plan as our capital was utilized to support loan growth. This week, our board also approved the quarterly cash dividend of 20 cents per common share. This is the company's 116th consecutive quarterly cash dividend. Finally, on December 29th, we announced a merger agreement with Flushing Financial Corporation and an investment agreement with Warburg Pincus. The acquisition of Flushing will directly support our organic growth initiatives in New York, positioning OceanFirst as a scale competitor in the deepest banking markets in the country. The resulting company is expected to demonstrate improved profitability and increased operating scale, which should deliver meaningful upside to our shareholders. We continue to work towards an expected close in the second quarter of 2026 and will provide more updates as regulatory approval progresses. In the meantime, we remain focused on Ocean First's continued organic growth efforts, which are proving successful as shown in the results of this quarter. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Joe for additional color on the businesses. Thanks, Chris.

I'll start with loan originations for the quarter, which totaled just north of a billion for the second consecutive quarter and resulted in record quarterly loan growth of $474 million. Our C&I business grew 42% for the year as we reaped the benefit of our continued recruitment of talent, coupled with favorable conditions for many of our borrowers. Much of that was in the second half of the year, which bodes well for interest income growth early in 2026 as discussed in the previous quarter we made the decision to outsource the residential and title businesses and we have worked through the remainder of the existing pipeline and expect to see measured runoff in the portfolio going forward the loan pipeline of 474 million while lower quarter-over-quarter is due to the outsourcing of residential and is still markedly higher than than this time last year, reflecting the robust growth in the commercial bank. Total deposits in the fourth quarter increased $528 million, with $323 million driven by organic growth across varied business lines. Among those lines, the Premier Bank team grew deposits $90 million, or 37% from the linked quarter, with the weighted average costs of their deposit portfolio declining 36 basis points to 2.28% as of December 31st. To date, the premier banking teams have brought in a $332 million in deposits across more than 1,300 accounts and representing more than 350 new customer relationships. Approximately 21% of those balances are in non-interest-bearing DDA. Lastly, Non-interest income decreased by 3.3 million to 9 million during the quarter, primarily driven by lower title fees and a reduction in the gain on sale of loans related to the outsourcing of our residential and title platforms. We continue to see strong swap demand linked to our commercial growth and look for that to continue in the coming quarters. Overall, non-interest income levels were in line with our expectations as guided in the previous quarter. With that, I'll turn the call over to Pat to review the remaining areas for the quarter. Thanks, Joe.

As Chris noted, net interest income grew while margin declined modestly, as we had previously guided. Pre-tax pre-provision core earnings grew 9% or $3 million from the prior quarter, driven by earning asset growth over the second half of the year. Loan yields decreased modestly, reflecting the impact of floating rate resets and a continued mixed shift in our portfolio. Total deposit costs increased modestly, reflecting very isolated upward repricing for certain interest-bearing accounts, combined with continued competitive deposit pricing. Borrowing costs also contributed a modest one basis point of pressure on our margin, reflecting the net impact of our subordinated debt issuance and retirement during the fourth quarter. average interest earning assets increased meaningfully compared to the prior quarter, reflecting increases in both the securities and loan portfolios. Growth in securities was from our late third quarter opportunistic purchases, which also had a modestly compressing impact on our margin. Looking ahead, we expect positive expansion in both NII and margin. As Chris mentioned, asset quality remained very strong with non-performing loans to total loans at 0.2% and non-performing assets to total assets at 0.22%. Asset quality continues to remain at the low end of historical levels for criticized and classified loans, as risk ratings across our commercial portfolio remain stable. Net charge-offs ticked up slightly, but full-year net charge-offs as a percentage of total loans remained extremely low at five basis points. Turning to expenses, core net interest expenses decreased from $72.4 million to $71.2 million driven by the sale of our title business. Non-core items include restructuring charges of $7 million related to our residential outsourcing initiative, $4 million of merger-related costs, and $1 million of professional fees related to the credit risk transfer transaction we executed during the quarter. Looking ahead, we expect our first quarter core operating expense run rate to remain in the range of $70 to $71 million, with seasonal compensation increases offset by a full quarter's benefit of our residential outsourcing initiative. Capital levels remained strong, with our CET-1 ratio increasing to 10.7%, reflecting strong loan growth during the quarter, combined with the benefits of the credit risk transfer transaction. This trade provided approximately 50 basis points of CET-1 ratio benefit at an annual pre-tax cost of less than $4 million. A word on taxes. We expect our effective tax rate, which was 22% in Q4, to remain in the 23% to 25% range quarterly, absent any changes in tax policy. There are no changes to our full-year guidance, as stated in the third quarter's earnings release. Mid to high single-digit loan and deposit growth. NII and NIM growing, with NIM growing past 3% during the year. and NII ramping in the second half of the year. Other income, $7 to $9 million per quarter, and expenses relatively flat to current run rates. Note that these are standalone expectations that do not reflect the impact of the flushing acquisition. We've also added our first quarter outlook for convenience. But again, remember that the first quarter always reflects the impact of 2% fewer days and the impact that has on a lot of our P&L items and NII. At this point, we'll begin the question and answer portion of the call.