WesBanco, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the West Banco fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Ione, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Eileen. Good morning, and welcome to West Banko Inc.' 's fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Todd Claussen, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Young, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call, an archive of which will be available on our website for one year, contains forward-looking information. Cautionary statements about this information and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures are included in our earnings-related materials issued yesterday afternoon, as well as our other SEC filings and investor materials. These materials are available on the investor relations section of our website, westbankland.com. All statements speak only as of January 27th, 2021, and West Banco undertakes the obligation to update them. I would now like to turn the call over to Todd. Todd.

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. Hope everyone's doing well and staying safe. On today's call, we're going to review our results for the fourth quarter of 2020 and provide an update on our operations and 2021 outlook. Key takeaways from the call today are We delivered record pre-tax, pre-provision earnings during 2020, driven by our diversified growth engines and company-wide commitment to expense management. We are focused on the continued successful execution of our long-term growth strategies, which have positioned us well for both the current operating environment and future opportunities. And West Banco remains a well-capitalized financial institution with solid liquidity, a strong balance sheet, and solid credit quality. We're pleased with our performance during the fourth quarter as we reported net income available to common shareholders of 50.6 million and diluted earnings per share of 76 cents when excluding merger and restructuring charges. On the same basis, pre-tax, pre-provision income of 64.8 million grew 14.2% year over year, driven by strong fee income growth and disciplined cost control. And we reported strong pre-tax, pre-provision returns on average assets and average tangible equity of 1.56% and 17%, respectively. Reflecting our strong legacy of credit and risk management, our key credit quality ratios remained at low levels, and our regulatory capital ratios remained well above the applicable well-capitalized standards. Furthermore, as can be seen on slides 9 and 11 of our earnings presentation, our key ratios also remained favorable to peer bank averages. In addition to being our 150th anniversary, 2020 was another successful year for our company. From a financial standpoint, we remain committed to returning value to our shareholders. Solid execution of our well-defined strategies allowed us to generate record annual pre-tax, pre-provision earnings of $263 million when excluding restructuring and merger-related costs. We expanded into the Mid-Atlantic region through our merger with Old Line Bank, which we closed and converted just prior to the early stages of the pandemic. In fact, the conversion and integration went so well, we realized positive net checking account flow in our mid-Atlantic market through the year. Furthermore, we remain a well-capitalized financial institution. We completed a preferred stock offering during August of 2020 that was oversubscribed, and we increased our allowance for credit losses, all of which positioned us well for 2021, whether defensively or offensively. We also continue to receive national accolades, and I'm just going to highlight a few. Last January, for the 10th time since the list's inception in 2010, West Banco Bank was named to the Forbes list of the best banks in America, coming in as the seventh best bank. Next, during June, West Banco Bank was again named to the second annual Forbes list of the world's best banks, which was based on customer satisfaction and consumer feedback, with solid scores across the survey. We received very high scores for customer services, financial advice, satisfaction, and digital services. Then during October, West Banco Bank was named to Newsweek Magazine's inaugural ranking of America's Best Banks, which recognized those banks that best serve their customer needs as well as being named the best big bank in the state of West Virginia. But most importantly, the year was successful when measured from a community action standpoint. For many years, West Bank has been a leader in its communities, and we continue to look for ways to expand our outreach and involvement. During 2020, we directly assisted more than 10,000 individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofits as they navigated through the pandemic. I'm extremely proud of how our employees responded this past year, from keeping our financial centers open throughout, working around the clock closing PPP loans to our commercial customers, and providing charitable donations to support those in needs. These actions speak loudly to our community bank roots. As I mentioned this past summer, to affect change, we must lead by example. In addition to our existing Women's Symposium events, we have recently launched a diversity and inclusion initiative that is focused on building and growing a culture of inclusion and equality. The committee has identified several initiatives for the coming year, including community outreach, leadership development and career pathing, and employee education. Our hope is that this not only helps us evolve and grow as a company, but that it also spreads to all of our other community efforts. With regard to 2021, first and foremost, I want to reaffirm our commitment to expense control and the strength of our underlying operating fundamentals as we remain well positioned for success in a variety of operating environments. As I mentioned, our peer-leading capital and reserve levels provide both protection if the credit cycle worsens and shareholder enhancing opportunities when there is more economic certainty. We believe organic growth opportunities will occur during the second half of the year as more people are immunized and localities begin to fully reopen. We expect a rebound in areas more impacted by branch lobby limitations like small business lending and securities brokerage, and anticipate commercial loan growth to return as businesses take advantage of revived economies. During the past year, we diligently managed discretionary spending, implemented a hiring freeze, launched our core system conversion project, and accelerated our financial center optimization strategy. On January 22nd of this year, we completed the optimization strategy we announced this past August through the consolidation of 21 financial centers into nearby locations and continue to anticipate approximately half of the expected gross cost savings to be phased in during the first half of 2021. While we completed this main phase, we will continue to review our footprint for additional opportunities. These efforts have resulted in a more streamlined organization, as evident by our year-to-date efficiency ratio of 56%. I'd now like to turn the call over to Bob Young, our CFO, for an update on our fourth quarter financial results and a current outlook for 2021. Bob?