Veritex Holdings, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Veritex Holdings first quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Please note this event will be recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Ms. Susan Cottle, Investor Relations Officer and Secretary to the Board of Veritex Holdings.

Thank you. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that this presentation may include forward-looking statements and those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and anticipated results to differ. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements. At this time, if you're logged into our webcast, please refer to our slide presentation including our Safe Harbor Statement beginning on slide two. For those of you joining us by phone, please note that the Safe Harbor Statement and presentation are available on our website veritexbank.com. All comments made during today's call are subject to that safe harbor statement. Some of the financial metrics discussed will be on a non-GAAP basis, which our management believes better reflects the underlying core operating performance of the business. Please see the reconciliation of all discussed non-GAAP measures in our filed 8K earnings release. Joining me today are Malcolm Holland, our Chairman and CEO, Terry Early, our Chief Financial Officer, and Clay Reby, our Chief Credit Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Malcolm.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. Despite the challenges in the marketplace, Veritex continues to produce results that accrue to our shareholders' benefit. For the first quarter, we reported net operating income of $43.3 million, or $0.79 per share. Our pre-tax pre-provision for the quarter was $66.4 million, or 2.2% return on average assets. From an operating standpoint, our return on average tangible common equity was in excess of 17.7%. Our return on average assets was 1.44%, and efficiency remained in the mid-40s at 45.6%. As our market and industry face new challenges, we also reevaluate priorities and give extra attention to the challenges we have been presented. Liquidity management is part of every discussion. We have included some detailed slides addressing this topic that Terry will discuss momentarily. Overall, we have seen little deposit outflow since 12-31-22. Our bankers have done an amazing job at communication, answering questions, and offering deposit solutions to all of our clients and prospects. As expected, growth at Veritex has been reducing. For the quarter, we reported 9% annualized loan growth with a majority of that coming from our funding in our already on the books construction portfolio. Our pipelines across the bank are down over 60%. We expect growth to continue to decline going forward to the mid single digits. A great deal of our forecasting loan growth depends on the level of payoffs, which are a bit unpredictable in this market during these times. Payoffs for the quarter were $235 million, and as of now, our second quarter payoff pipeline looks to exceed first quarter by 15%. Credit continues to be a major focus for me, our credit team, and our bankers. The surveillance of our portfolio has never been higher. We recognize that as interest rates stay higher for longer, additional credit stress will continue to appear. We have taken an extra deep dive on our entire real estate portfolio and each product type. You can find that detail on page 19 of the slide deck. For the quarter, net charge-offs were nominal at less than $1 million. NPAs to assets was slightly down, and we increased our reserve to 1.07%. You'll also see that criticized assets decreased 9% versus the previous quarter. Clay will give you some additional color in a moment. I'll now turn the call over to Terry.