Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Inc's conference call. My name is Carla. I will be your operator today. If participants need assistance during the call at any time, please press star zero. Participants interested in asking a question at the end of the call should press star one to get in the queue. Today's call is being recorded. And now I will turn the call over to Elizabeth B. Eckel, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Corporate Communications Officer. Ms. Echol.

Thank you. Thank you, Carla. Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Bank second quarter 2023 conference call. Joining us this morning are members of Washington Trust Executive Team. Ned Handy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mary Nunes, President, Chief Operating Officer. Ron Osberg, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. And Bill Ray, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer. Please note that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. Our complete safe harbor statement is contained in the earnings release, which was issued yesterday, as well as other documents that have been filed with the SEC. All of these materials and other public filings are available on our investor relations website at ir.washtrust.com. Washington Trust trades on NASDAQ under the symbol WASH. I'm now pleased to introduce today's host, Washington Trust Chairman and CEO, Ned Handy.

Thank you, Beth, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our second quarter call. We welcome the opportunity to share some highlights from the quarter and appreciate your time and interest in Washington Trust. I'll provide some comments about the second quarter as well as some thoughts on the current operating environment, and then Ron Osberg will then discuss the financial performance And Mary Nunes and Bill Ray will join us to help answer any questions you may have about the quarter. Washington Trust posted second quarter net income of $11.3 million or 66 cents per diluted share compared to $12.8 million or 74 cents per diluted share in the prior quarter. Total loans grew by 3% and in-market deposits grew by 1% in the quarter. We surpassed $7 billion in assets for the first time. The challenges of severe interest rate increases and, more importantly, a lasting inverted yield curve and the prospects of recession kept us totally focused on maintaining and strengthening our customer franchise and balancing prudent decisions about credit, capital, liquidity, and the investment and the enhancement of our customers' experience with us. Our deposit franchise, although logically more expensive, is intact and growing, and our loan books are in solid shape. We're proud to report that our most recently added branches in East Greenwich, Cumberland, and Barrington, Rhode Island, have reached approximately $70 million, $30 million, and $8 million in deposits, respectively. They've been open for 27 months, 11 months, and 13 weeks, respectively. We have two additional branches in process in the Onlyville section of Providence and in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Stronger market conditions enabled improvements in both wealth and mortgage revenues. Wealth assets under administration reached $6.4 billion at quarter end, up by 3%, driven by market appreciation offset by a normalized level of asset outflows. In our retail lending division, a concerted effort to increase loan sales drove a solid increase in gains in the quarter. Our balance sheet remains strongly positioned for long-term performance. Our liquidity and credit positions are strong and we remain well capitalized. Our commercial real estate loan portfolio remains in sound condition. Our office loans at 14% of overall CREE at June 30th exhibited a 1.5 weighted average debt service coverage ratio and a 58.7% weighted average loan to value. 74% of dollars or 38 properties are suburban and 26% of dollars or 14 properties are urban. Substantially, all of the dollars, about 95%, are Class A or Class B. We monitor maturities closely and are comfortable with the portfolio at this point, and we regularly stress interest rates to assess refinance risk. We'll provide additional free detail during the Q&A session. We continue to assess and improve our digital offerings to assure that our customers can access us easily and enjoy a digital experience as satisfying as the personal service for which we are renowned. We're careful and prudent in our lending, but feel that these times can be most trying for consumers and small businesses located in traditionally underserved communities. We will continue to actively serve those needs and have developed proprietary creative programs designed to help. I'm proud of the way our employees have been there to serve our customers through these challenging times. We take our role as a community bank very seriously and value our employees, customers, communities, and shareholders. For 223 years, we've understood that the permanence of that commitment will outlast the momentary issues of economic stress, inflation, or global unrest. We intend, as always, to be a catalyst for equitable improvement across our entire marketplace. I'll now turn the call over to Ron for an in-depth review of our financial performance in the quarter. Ron?