Premier Financial Corp.

Good morning and welcome to the Premier Financial Corporation Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tara Murphy. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's 2020 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. This call is also being webcast, and the audio replay will be available at the Premier Financial Corp. website at premierfincorp.com. Following leadership's prepared comments on the company's strategy and performance, they will be available to take your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the conference call today, including during the question and answer period, you may hear forward-looking statements related to future financial results and business operations for Premier Financial Corp. Actual results may differ materially from current management forecasts and projections as a result of factors over which the company has no control. Information on these risk factors and additional information on forward-looking statements are included in the news release and in the company's reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Heilman for his comments.

Thank you, Tara, and good morning, and welcome to the Premier Financial Corporation Third Quarter 2020 Conference Call. Joining me on the call this morning to give more details on our financial performance for the quarter is our CFO, Paul Nungester, as well as Gary Small, Bank President, Matt Garrity, Chief Lending Officer, and Vince Lisi, Chief Banking Officer. Last night we issued our 2020 third quarter earnings release. Now we'd like to discuss that release and provide insight into the opportunities and challenges for the remainder of 2020. At the conclusion of our remarks, the team will take any questions you might have. As we continue to navigate through the challenging operating environment, our focus remains on our clients and providing solutions to their need. We are seeing divergence in the operating environment for different sectors of our client base. The hospitality industry continues to struggle while housing and home sales are strong. All of our associates are working very hard to provide our clients the service and attention they expect from Premier Financial. And I want to thank them all for their efforts and dedication during these very stressful times. The third quarter will continue to be challenging for our company. We, as well as the entire country, continue to deal with the impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic. We are consistently monitoring how it is affecting our clients and our own operations. We expect the economic impacts related to COVID-19 to be with us well into 2021 as the search for a vaccine continues and as baseline consumer confidence builds from a health standpoint. The pandemic and the resulting economic fallout is a major concern for all as we continue to focus on serving the immediate needs of our clients, ensuring the health and well-being of our employees, and supporting the communities in which we live and serve. I am very pleased with the strong core performance in the third quarter and the completion of our core conversion in July. Third quarter 2020 net income on a GAAP basis was $25.7 million or 69 cents per diluted common share, compared with $13.2 million or 66 cents per diluted common share in the third quarter of 2019. On a core basis, net income for the quarter was $28.6 million, or $0.77 per diluted share. Pre-tax pre-provision return on average assets was strong at $1.99 compared to $2.1 for the third quarter of 2019. We've been able to maintain our efficiency ratio below 50% on a core basis, with the third quarter at 49.9%. Our provision for loan loss was also in line this quarter with moderating interest Expectations of higher credit losses due to the economic environment. Net charges did elevate slightly this quarter to 24 basis points. However, this was offset by provision for loan losses, which resulted in a net impact of one basis point increase in the allowance to 1.63. Overall, credit quality was generally stable in the quarter with very moderate increases in MPLs and restructured loans. We see this continued improvement in the amount of loans on deferral dropping from 16 at June quarter end to 9% at September quarter end. Matt will have more details on this category in a few minutes. We continue to be very diligently monitoring and communicating with our loan clients. Ongoing strong levels of activity and gain on sale led to another very strong quarter in the mortgage area. Overall growth in the third quarter was 3.1% for loans and 4.5% for deposits. with a shift in the non-interest-bearing deposits as a percentage of total deposits as the trend of strong deposit activity continues. Our overall capital levels are solid and were bolstered by the successful debt offering of $50 million in September. We felt that the environment for the additional Tier 2 capital was present, and it was the appropriate opportunity for us to further strengthen our capital stack. We were quite satisfied with the execution of the offering coming in at a 4 percent rate. They're also pleased to announce the continuation of our dividend with a 2024 quarter dividend of 22 cents per share flat with a year ago and an annual dividend yield of approximately 4.8%. At quarter end, we had 570,000 shares of counted stock remaining for purchase under our repurchase plan authorization. In these uncertain times, we continue to assess uses of the authorization as well as other capital strategies. I will now ask Paul to provide details for the quarter before I conclude with Paul.