Amerant Bancorp Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Amarant Bank Corp First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Live Webcast. 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, Laura Rossi, Head of Investor Relations of Ameran Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Gigi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Ameran Bank Corp's first quarter 2022 results. Also on today's call are Jerry Plush, our Chief Executive Officer, and Carlos Yafiliola, our Chief Financial Officer. As we begin, Please note that the company's press release, our discussion on today's call, and our responses to your questions contain forward-looking statements. Ameren's business and operations are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond its control, and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to the cautionary notices regarding forward-looking statements in the company's earnings release and presentation. For a more complete description of these and other possible risks, please refer to the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and in another filings with the SEC. You can access these filings on the SEC's website. Ameren has no obligation and makes no commitment to update or publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements. in order to reflect new information or subsequent events, circumstances, or changes in expectations except as required by law. Please also note that the company's press release, earnings presentation, and today's call include references to certain adjusted financial measures, also known as non-GAAP financial measures. Exhibit 2 and Appendix 1 of the company's press release and earnings presentation, respectively, contain a reconciliation of each non-gap financial measure to its most comparable gap financial measure. I will now turn it over to our CEO, Jerry Plush.

Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ameren's first quarter 2022 earnings call. I'm pleased to be here today to report on our results for the quarter and update everyone on steps taken this quarter as part of our transformation efforts to better position the company for success. We remain committed to continue to execute throughout 2022 to build an even better and stronger version of Amerit. We're also pleased to report that based on the company's first quarter results on April 13, 2022, our board of directors approved a $0.09 per share dividend payable on May 31, 2022. The payment of dividends are an essential part of our commitment to provide greater value to our shareholders. It has been one year since I became CEO and first shared our strategic priorities with all of you. During the course of this call, in addition to covering the results of the quarter, we'll provide an update on the progress we have made on our way to fully deliver on those priorities. I'll now provide a brief overview of our performance in the first quarter, and then I'll hand it over to Carlos to get into the details. So if you turn to slide three, here you'll see a summary of our first quarter highlights. Net income attributable to the company was $16 million, and that was down 75% quarter over quarter. This decline was primarily driven by the one-time gain on the sale of the headquarters building recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021. The first quarter saw higher average yields, higher balances on loans, and lower average balances on customer CDs and broker time deposits, which were replaced by higher average balances in core deposits. Our total gross loans were $5.72 billion, up from the $5.57 billion last quarter, even with the headwinds of $253 million in loan prepayments and the sale of $57.3 million from our former New York City loan production office that were classified as available for sale. Total deposits were $5.69 billion, and they're up $60.8 million compared to last quarter. And more importantly, core deposits increased by $150.4 million this quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 as a result of our continued deposits first focus. We'll now turn to slide four. You can see that the company's capital continued to be strong and well in excess of minimum regulatory requirements to be considered well capitalized as of March 31st, 2022. During the quarter, we paid out the previously announced cash dividend of $0.09 per share. We also paid a $34 million dividend from the bank to the holding company to increase our liquidity position. And after having completed the first buyback authorization, our board approved a new $50 million share repurchase program on January 31st. As of quarter end, a total of $32.7 million has been used under this new authorization. You can see that we've repurchased a total of 1.6 million shares and that our shares outstanding at quarter end totaled 34,350,822. Also in February of 2022, we launched our employee stock purchase program with over one-third of our team members participating. We're delighted that so many of our team members want to participate in the ownership of the company. We'll turn now to slide five to look at core PPNR. Our core PPNR was 17.9 million, down by 5.5%, compared to the 18.9 million reported in the previous quarter. As we've noted before, it's essential to show the net revenue growth of the company, excluding one-time gains or losses or other non-recurring items, in order to show Ameren's core earnings power. Higher marketing spend this quarter and lower fee income versus fourth quarter were key drivers that impacted 1Q22 results. So let's cover some key actions that took place on slide six. So we announced the retirement of two long-time board directors and the appointment of four new ones, all of whom are in footprint, three in South Florida and one in Houston. We completed a private placement of $30 million of 4.25 percent fixed to floating rate subordinated notes that are due in 2032. We also reduced headcount by 80 FTEs as part of our agreement with FIS. which resulted in a total of 677 total FTEs as of the end of the first quarter. Of this total, 598 FTEs are part of Ameren Bank, and 79 are part of Ameren Mortgage. It's important to highlight this. As of quarter end, 58 percent of our total FTEs are in the business generating side of the company versus 42 percent in support functions. We initiated an internal process to reorganize lines of business and to have our focus on commercial and consumer banking done separately to drive performance in the geographies we serve. As a result of this reorganization of our teams, we've streamlined management layers in several areas during the month of April, which will positively impact personnel expenses going forward. We also joined the USDF Consortium. Amerint was the seventh bank to join the National Association Forum to provide a base source for banks' digital asset and blockchain strategies. We're pleased to announce that we hired a new head of retail banking who will drive a truly sales-focused culture in our branches. Regarding our new Tampa loan production office, we recruited our new market president, and other new CNI team members have been identified. We'll have an official announcement on this shortly. We've already closed on a number of CRE and CNI transactions to date, totaling 87 million through March 31st. And over the next 120 days, we've got a strong pre-NC&I pipeline of over 100 million, with 36 million scheduled to close in early May. We also executed a multi-year agreement for an outsourcing white label solution to provide equipment financing in all three markets that we serve. We're pleased to announce that we issued our first ESG report demonstrating our commitment to sustainability And the company's main subsidiary, Emirate Bank, was named the official hometown bank of the University of Miami Athletics, which further leverages local partnerships to support our community while driving brand awareness. We just received OCC approval for a new branch location in University Place in Houston, Texas. This is a significant upgrade over the branch it will replace. We project this office to open in 3Q22. Construction is now underway for our new, smaller operations center in Miramar, Florida. We also initiated the common-looking field project we've spoken about previously at our market headquarters location in Houston. So let's cover key metrics on slide seven. Here we've outlined key performance metrics. So in the first quarter, we improved our deposit base, now with 23% of total deposits being non-interest-bearing deposits. And our operating profitability stayed on track as the margin was 3.18%, up a basis point from last quarter. And please note that four basis points of the 3.17% reported last quarter were from prepayment fees. The allowance declined to 1% of total loans, reflective of charge-offs and the reversal of $10 million in the quarter based on credit quality trends. Our A-triple-L remains in excess of total non-performing loans. We again show the three core metrics of ROA, ROE, and operating efficiency, excluding the one-time non-recurring items in the footnotes to this slide to more clearly show the underlying performance for the quarter. We'll now turn to slide E, which focuses solely on Amerit Mortgage. In just the first quarter of 2022, we have received a total of 292 applications. We closed 157 loans for a total of $93.6 million. The current pipeline shows over $94 million in process or 166 applications. Amerit Mortgage solidified its wholesale team during the quarter and also launched its construction loan program to help drive future revenues. It's important to mention that as of March 31, 2022, the company has increased its ownership interest from 51% to 57.4% in order to meet Fannie Mae capital requirements. So with all that said, I'll turn things over to Carlos, who will walk through our results for the quarter in more detail.