WesBanco, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the West Banco first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a 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 and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to John Iannone, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to WestBanco, Inc.' 's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Jeff Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Weiss, 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, westbanco.com. All statements speak only as of April 30th, 2025, and WestBanco undertakes no obligation to update them. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff. Jeff?

Thanks, John, and good morning. On today's call, we will review our acquisition of Premier Financial and our strong first quarter results, as well as provide an update on our outlook for 2025. Key takeaways from the call today are successful completion of our acquisition of Premier, improved net interest margin, which is expected to continue to improve through 2025, strong organic loan growth that was fully funded by organic deposit growth. Our first quarter results demonstrate continued solid operational performance as we again delivered strong organic loan and deposit growth while driving positive operating leverage. We also continued to strengthen our balance sheet and net interest margin by funding loan growth with deposits and reducing higher cost borrowings. For the quarter ending March 31st, 2025, we reported net income excluding merger and restructuring expenses and the day one provision on acquired loans of $51.2 million and diluted earnings per share of 66 cents, which increased 18 percent year over year, despite significantly higher shares outstanding from the PFC acquisition. On a similar basis, our first quarter returns on average assets and tangible equity improved year over year to approximately 1 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Reflecting our focus on organic growth and positive operating leverage, combined with the benefits of the Premier acquisition, our net interest margin increased to 3.35%, and our efficiency ratio improved to 58.62%. This quarter's key story was the successful acquisition of Premier Financial, elevating us into the ranks of the top 100 largest U.S. banks by asset size. This strategic merger expands and strengthens our market position and accelerates our long-term growth strategy. We are pleased to welcome Premier's talented team, loyal customers, and strong community partners to WestBanco. We've retained nearly 90% of the Premier employees, and the response to our merger has been overwhelmingly positive. both in our communities and our teams. I have already seen great examples of collaboration sparking new growth opportunities, and I look forward to sharing the results with you in months ahead. As we move forward together, our teams are focused on executing seamless integration and delivering on the full potential of the combined organization for all stakeholders. The strength of our strategies and teams are reflected in our performance with organic total and commercial loan growth and organic deposit growth continuing to significantly outperform the monthly HA data for all domestically chartered commercial banks on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis. For the first quarter, total deposits organically increased $922 million year-over-year and $285 million quarter-over-quarter to more than $14.4 billion. Importantly, this growth was driven by deposit categories other than certificate of deposits, as organic deposit growth, excluding CDs, was 5% year-over-year and nearly 11% quarter-over-quarter annualized. Further, deposit growth, again, fully funded our total organic loan growth. While there could be fluctuations quarter-to-quarter, our plan is still to fund full-year loan growth with deposits. First quarter organic loan growth was 8% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter annualized, driven by the strong performance of our banking teams across our markets. Total commercial loans organically increased 10% year-over-year and almost 7% sequentially on an annualized basis driven by commercial real estate. Our commercial loan pipeline, as of March 31st, was approximately $1.3 billion, with more than 25% attributable to Premier. Reflecting our strong organic growth engine, WestBanco's standalone pipeline at March 31st improved approximately 18% from year-end. In the three weeks since quarter-end, the commercial pipeline has grown approximately $100 million to $1.4 billion. Based on the current loan pipeline, we continue to expect mid-single-digit loan growth during 2025. This continued growth is made possible by the strength of our markets and lending teams who are working across business lines to meet customers' needs and drive growth. One example highlights a collaborative effort across commercial products, treasury management, and private banking to deliver a tailored solution and secure a significant win with an Ohio customer. Consistent with our mission, the team tailored a loan structure to meet the customer's unique needs, closing a $50 million loan and securing $45 million in deposits and a $1 million fee income item, as well as significant near-term treasury management and private banking opportunities. Turning briefly to the macroeconomic environment, The equity markets are extremely volatile right now, reflecting the threat of trade wars due to constant fluctuations in tariff pronouncements. While these pronouncements are likely negotiating tactics, the eventual outcome of trade negotiations remain unclear, and it is too early to accurately gauge potential impacts, if any. However, the benefit of our loan portfolio is its variety and granularity spread across our economically diverse nine-state footprint, which provides soundness and stability if an industry or region is struggling. Roughly 17 percent of our total portfolio is in our mid-Atlantic region, with roughly a third of that residential-related, and it spans our footprint across the state of Maryland. In fact, the percentage of this that falls within the DC MSA is less than 0.7% with roughly half of that residential. Further, we do not have a government contractor line of business and our total office investment portfolio is less than 4% of our total loan portfolio and has solid loan to value and DSC ratios. We're staying close to our customers and continually monitoring our portfolios to proactively manage risk and help our customers navigate evolving market dynamics. I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Weiss, our CFO, for details on our first quarter financial results and our current outlook for 2025. Dan? Thanks, Jeff, and good morning.