UMB Financial Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the UMB Financial Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for question and answer at the end. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand this conference call over to our host, Kay Gregory, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining us on our call with such short notice. Earlier this morning, we announced our agreement to acquire Heartland Financial USA, or HTLF, a $19.4 billion asset bank headquartered in Denver. Both companies also released first quarter 2024 results, and these materials can be found on our respective investor relations website. You will note that we have posted two presentations to our website, our typical quarterly review and an overview of the announced transaction. We will provide some brief comments about UMB's first quarter results then we'll spend most of the call discussing the announcement. On the call today is Mariner Kemper, Chairman and CEO of UMB Financial, and Ram Shankar, CFO. Following our comments, we'll open the call for questions. Jim Rhine, CEO of UMB Bank, and Tom Terry, Chief Credit Officer, will be available for the question and answer session. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements. including the discussion of future financial and operating results, benefits, synergies, gains, and costs that the company expects to realize from this transaction, as well as other opportunities management foresees. Forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions, risks, and uncertainties. These risks are included in our SEC filings and are summarized on slide two of our presentation. Actual results may differ from those set forth in forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today. We undertake no obligation to update them except to the extent required by security laws. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures have been included in the press release and the accompanying presentation. Pro forma financial information presented is based on March 31st, 2024 results for both companies. Presentation materials are available online at investorrelations.umb.com. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mariner Kemper.

Thank you, Kay, and good morning, everyone. On the heels of a great quarter, I'm very excited to share details about this transaction, which accelerates UMB's growth strategy, further diversifying and de-risking our business model. The addition of this high-quality franchise is a great fit from a strategic, financial, and cultural perspective. I'll ask Ram to share some quick thoughts about the quarter, and then we'll get right into the details of the transaction. Ram?