Signature Bank

to Signature Bank's 2021 Fourth Quarter End Year End Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today from Signature Bank are Joseph J. DiPaolo, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Eric R. Howe, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Joseph J. DiPaolo, President and Chief Executive Officer. You may begin.

Thank you, Brittany. Good morning and thank you for joining us today for the Signature Bank 2021 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results Conference Call. Before I begin my formal remarks, Susan Lewis will read the forward-looking disclaimer. Please go ahead, Susan.

Thank you, Joe. This conference call and oral statements made from time to time by our representatives contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should not place under reliance on those statements because they are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict and may be beyond our control. Forward-looking statements include information concerning our expectations regarding future results, interest rates in the interest rate environment, loan and deposit growth, loan performance, operations, new private client team hires, new office openings, business strategy, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on each of the foregoing and on our business overall. Forward-looking statements often include words such as may, believe, expect, anticipate, intend, potential, opportunity, could, project, seek, target, goal, should, will, would, plan, estimate or other similar expressions. As you consider forward-looking statements, you should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and can change as a result of many possible events or factors, not all of which are known to us or in our control. These factors include those described in our quarterly and annual reports filed with the FDIC, which you should read carefully for further information. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by signature banks speak only as of the date on which they were made. Now, I'd like to turn the call back to Joe.