Ally Financial Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ally fourth quarter and full year 2021 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, Daniel Eller, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Gigi, and welcome everyone to Ally Financial's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. This morning, we have our CEO, Jeff Brown, and our CFO, Jen LeClaire, to review Ally's results before taking questions. I'll note the presentation we'll reference on today's call can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, ally.com. Forward-looking statements and risk factor language governing today's call can be found on slide two. And GAAP and non-GAAP or core measures pertaining to our operating performance and capital results are on slides three and four. These metrics are supplemental to and not a substitute for U.S. GAAP measures. Definitions and reconciliations can be found in the appendix. With that, I'll hand the call over to J.B.

J.B. Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today to review fourth quarter and full year 2021 results. I'll begin on slide number five. Ally generated outstanding results in 2021. I'm incredibly proud of the efforts and dedication of our more than 10,000 teammates who delivered yet another year of innovation and focused execution. Over the past two years, we've experienced a profound shift in consumer demand and expectations for seamless digital-first banking products in response to COVID-related challenges and advancements in technology. Ally has leveraged these broad-based secular trends to strengthen our position as a disruptive growth company guided by a winning formula to do it right for our customers, employees, and communities. Full-year adjusted EPS of $8.61 core ROTC of 24.3%, and revenues of $8.4 billion represented record-setting results and evidence of the leading auto, insurance, and digital bank platforms we've built. Momentum generated across our businesses positions us well to continue unlocking franchise value in the years ahead. Our recent acquisition of FairSquare The latest digital-first capability we've added to our product suite will further enhance our trajectory. We closed the transaction in December ahead of schedule and are well underway with integration. Looking at auto results, our dealer network expanded for the 12th straight year in 2021, generating $46.3 billion of originations, our highest level since the early 2000s, sourced from a record 13 million decision applications. This was our fourth consecutive year of origination yields above 7%, demonstrating our strong competitive position, disciplined underwriting, and leading dealer and customer service capabilities. Credit losses remained benign, with 31 basis points of full-year retail auto net charge-offs. Our leadership position within the auto ecosystem is clear across these metrics, affirming the strength of our team and the success of our multi-pronged strategy to broaden the dealer network and generate solid volumes in accretive risk-adjusted returns. The strength and agility of our business model in a wide variety of operating environments is evident, in our performance over the past two years as we've successfully responded to strong consumer demand, high used vehicle values, and reduced inventories. We've earned our market-leading position by driving customer value over the long term, and we remain focused on achieving continued success as we navigate change in the years ahead. Across our consumer and commercial portfolios, credit remains very strong, supported by robust job prospects, ongoing wage expansion, and the strongest customer balance sheets observed in decades, all of which help mitigate inflationary dynamics. While the pace of credit normalization remains up for debate, we've taken a balanced approach in our reserve process under a view that normalization will occur gradually over the next two years. We proactively enhance the use of advanced data, automation, and digital tools, increasing customer engagement and strengthening our ability to mitigate losses. Between 40% and 70% of our auto customer interactions occur digitally each month, increasing speed and effectiveness while creating a strong customer experience. Within insurance, our compelling value proposition for dealers and consumers is evident in written premium volume of $1.2 billion for 2021 as we expanded dealers and customers. Our investment portfolio grew to $6.5 billion, the highest level since becoming a publicly traded company, reflecting years of steady written policy growth. Turning to Ally Bank, Growth accelerated again this year, aligned with the increasing momentum toward a digital-first world. As the leading all-digital and customer-centric bank, we've established a scalable platform differentiated by the personalized, seamless, modern banking products we're delivering. We generated our 13th consecutive year of customer and balance growth, as our customer base expanded 10%, while total deposits grew to 89% of funding. Within our digital-first consumer offerings, Ally home originations of $10.4 billion were more than double the prior year level. Ally Invest customer assets exceeded $17 billion as self-directed and robo accounts grew to $506,000. Ally lending volume of $1.2 billion more than doubled and was powered by a 37% increase in merchant relationships across our healthcare and home improvement verticals. Fair Square balances closed the year at $953 million, an increase of 25% since announcing the acquisition in October and 66% year-over-year, reflecting strong customer acquisition consumer spending trends, and the scalability of the fair square approach. And within corporate finance, HFI balances of $7.8 billion grew nearly 30% year-over-year through a combination of increased new loans and normalizing drawdown activity among our clients. The CF portfolio, including unfunded commitments, now stands at $12.7 billion, which highlights the success we've had in growing this business. As a result of our strong financial position, we were pleased to recently announce a $2 billion buyback authorization program for full year 2022 and a 20% dividend increase to 30 cents per share. As we turn to slide number six, I'll reiterate the view I've shared on many occasions regarding the link between values and results. I'm confident our record setting performance and ongoing momentum are directly tied to the clear focus and prioritization of our customers, employees, and communities. Maintaining an authentic and inclusive culture has been a top priority for me during my tenure as CEO. Ally took several actions over the past year aligned with our do-it-right approach. For our customers, we've actively enhanced products, interfaces, and service capabilities utilizing advanced tech and data innovations, which Jen will provide more detail on. We took the key step of adding a credit card product to our suite of digital-first offerings, and we're proud to lead the industry in eliminating overdraft fees, leading to bank-on national account certification from the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund. For our Ally teammates, we increased Ally's minimum wage to $20 per hour while we announced the third annual grant of company stock to all employees and expanded health and family benefit programs. We were honored to be named among the best places to work at Forbes, Diversity Inc., and numerous other publications and received another perfect corporate equality score from the Human Rights Campaign. Over 40% of our workforce voluntarily participates in one of our employee resource groups, a key element of how we're driving a stronger sense of belonging and engagement across our teams. Our deliberate actions to treat people as people and create an inclusive workplace have the added benefit of acting as a powerful retention tool. Within our communities, we marked our 10th year of the employee-led Giving Back campaign, donating 24,000 hours of time to worthy causes. We hosted our third annual Moguls in the Making student competition in partnership with several HBCUs and marked the first full year for the Ally Charitable Foundation actions, donating $15 million of combined employee and company contributions to community, social, and educational causes. On the ESG front, we announced Ally achieved carbon neutrality and officially established an environmental sustainability office. Taken in isolation, any one of these actions would represent a significant milestone, but when taken together, these actions provide clear evidence of what can be achieved when purpose, creativity, and dedication come together under a shared vision. Moving to slide number seven, I wanted to spend a few moments summarizing the strategic evolution we've delivered before handing it over to Jen to walk through the details. Over the years, we've built resilient platforms through constant expansion and evolution of our customer-centric offerings. We challenge ourselves each day to look around corners and embrace disruptive forces on behalf of our clients and customers to proactively manage risks and deliver financial solutions that anticipate their needs in a seamless, differentiated manner. While performance was exceptional in 2021, the opportunities we built for growth in 2022 and beyond are what I'm most excited about, including continued momentum across our leading customer-centric businesses, delivering diversified and durable earnings, and disciplined capital management. These priorities have positioned us to deliver long-term growth and sustain higher returns as seen in our track record of delivering or exceeding the financial guidance we've provided over the past several years. We continue to focus on deepening customer relationships through digital capabilities that combine leading, award-winning products with integrated, stable, and secure bank platforms. We've got a really powerful model and considerable financial strengths. The future is bright, and you can be assured we will keep delivering. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jen to provide perspectives on our progress and review our detailed financial results.