Valley National Bancorp

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2021 Valley National Bank Corp Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Travis Land, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Valley's third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Presenting on behalf of Valley today are President and CEO Ira Robbins, Chief Financial Officer Mike Hagedorn, and Chief Banking Officer Tom Iadanza. Before we begin, I would like to make everyone aware that our quarterly earnings release and supporting documents can be found on our company website at valley.com. When discussing our results, we refer to non-GAAP measures, which may exclude certain items from reported results. Please refer to today's earnings release for reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures. Additionally, I would like to highlight slide two of our earnings presentation and remind you that comments made during this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to Valley National Bank Corp. and the banking industry. Valley encourages all participants to refer to our SEC filings, including those found on Form 8K, 10Q, and 10K, for a complete discussion of forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ira Robbins.

Thank you, Travis, and welcome to those of you on the call. As usual, I will provide some big-picture thoughts on Valley's position and future opportunities before turning the call over to Mike to discuss the quarter's results. In the third quarter of 2021, we reported net income of $123 million, earnings per share of 29 cents, and return on average assets of 1.18%. The quarter's strong financial results benefited from our differentiated loan growth, which helped to absorb a $10 million sequential reduction in PPP income. Our net interest margin remains stable, and our strong loan growth pipeline should result in continued non-PPP revenue growth going forward. I am proud of our financial results and the progress that we have made as an organization over the last few years. When I took over as CEO, we laid out a plan to enhance our profitability improve our funding base, and bolster our capital and reserve positions. Despite a challenging operating backdrop, I believe that we have achieved each of these goals. Since the end of 2017, our ROA has improved from 80 basis points to 120 basis points, while the balance sheet grew by over $17 billion, or 70%. We have brought our loan-to-deposit ratio well below 100%, while significantly improving our low-cost core deposit base. Our tangible common equity ratio has increased 100 basis points, and our allowance to loans is up over 40 basis points. While we have developed a leading regional bank, our sights are now set on positioning Valley for continued success during the next phase of our evolution. We have begun to introduce and expand nationwide business capabilities that are not constrained to our legacy geographic footprint. These capabilities will be the result of both internal development initiatives and the acquisitions that we have announced over the last few months. From an organic perspective, we have developed robust HOA, cannabis, and digital banking offerings, which each contribute valuable funding diversity and represent levers for continued growth. We also operate national lending verticals most notably in the equipment finance, premium finance, and healthcare areas. We have also leveraged our relationship-focused commercial lending expertise to enter new markets, including Philadelphia, Nashville, and Atlanta. On the acquisition front, we have sought out like-minded partners that we believe will accelerate the next phase of our evolution. Bank Luimi's technology banking and private banking businesses will continue to expand Valley beyond our legacy markets. LUIMI's differentiated commercial funding verticals will augment the Valley-specific initiatives that I mentioned previously. As we continue to capitalize on these unique funding niches, we will continue to be less and less reliant upon our branch network. This will enable us to reduce our physical infrastructure and invest in technologies and differentiated business capabilities. This strategy has not been set in a vacuum. and we are not sitting idly by as the banking industry undergoes massive change. Historic levels of bank M&A have left a void for companies like ours that are able to combine comprehensive and differentiated private offerings with the agility and high touch service of a smaller organization. As we capitalize on disruption around us, Valley is positioned to be a high performing and highly valued company that succeeds in the new age of banking. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike Hagedorn to discuss some of the quarter's financial highlights.