Valley National Bancorp

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Valley National Bancorp Q1 2023 earnings 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'll need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Travis Land, Head of Investor Relations. Travis, the floor is yours.

Good morning, and welcome to Valley's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Presenting on behalf of Valley today are CEO Ira Robbins, President Tom Iadanza, and Chief Financial Officer Mike Hagedorn. 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 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 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 Forms 8K, 10Q, and 10K, for a complete discussion of forward-looking statements and the factors that could cause actual results to differ from those statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ira Robbins.

Thank you, Travis, and welcome to those of you on the call. This morning, I will discuss Valley's response to recent events, and then we'll ask Tom to provide insight on the quarter's loan and deposit results. Mike will then discuss the financial results in more detail. In the first quarter of 2023, Valley reported net income of $147 million, earnings per share of 28 cents, and an annualized ROA of 0.98%. Exclusive of non-core items, adjusted net income, EPS, and ROA were $155 million, 30 cents, and 1.0 respectively. This quarter's financial performance was negatively impacted by seasonal factors related to net interest income and operating expenses. Net interest margin compression partially related to our conservative liquidity build and other operating leverage headwinds. That said, I am extremely proud of the strength exhibited by our balance sheet in this recent period of stress. To be clear, we entered the turmoil from a position of balance sheet and capital strength. Our extremely diverse and granular deposit base contributed to our structurally low uninsured deposit balances and supported our funding stability during the quarter. Our business niches and geographic footprint have positioned us well to benefit from recent disruption. In the last three weeks of March, we opened over 7,000 new deposit accounts, which represented a full quarter's worth of account acquisitions in normal times. These accounts continue to fund, and new customer flows remain strong. From a capital perspective, we continue to benefit from our modest securities portfolio and associated OCI impact. These characteristics, as well as our strong underwriting track record, have clearly differentiated value during this period of stress. As always, during the recent bank failure crisis, our teams were proactive, consistent, and direct in their client communications. This high touch approach further differentiates our organization and is indicative of the premier service-oriented culture that we have built. We are also set apart as one of the top risk managers in the entire banking space. External stakeholders tend to focus on our track record of strong credit quality, but we are equally proud of the other components of our enterprise risk culture. For example, our interest rate risk and liquidity risk management positively differentiated value during the crisis. As a result of our strong risk management approach and confidence in our balance sheet, we were able to bid on the former Silicon Valley Bank. We structured a sophisticated and thoughtful proposal that was strategically and financially compelling for Valley. While our disciplined bid came up just short in the end, we are prepared and positioned to explore future opportunities that may emerge. Valley fills a void in the current banking landscape today, as there are only a handful of commercial banks our size in the entire country. The niche of client we serve is strong, and our opportunities will only expand exponentially as the banking industry further evolves. Over the last 95 years, our organization has successfully navigated a variety of diverse crises. While we remain confident in our risk management approach, strategic vision, and collective path forward, we are laser-focused on diversity and granularity on both sides of the balance sheet and will not sacrifice the high credit standards which have set us apart throughout our history. We continue to provide industry-leading service and expertise to assist our clients and communities in achieving their financial goals. We believe that this long-term approach will drive shareholder value over time. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom and Mike to discuss the course growth and financial results.