Atlantic Union Bankshares Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Atlantic Union Bank Share's third quarter 2025 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 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Bill Semina, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. I have Atlantic Union Bank Chair's President and CEO John Asbury and Executive Vice President and CFO Rob Gorman with me today. We also have other members of our executive management team with us for the question and answer period. Please note that today's earnings release and the accompanying slide presentation we are going through on this webcast are available to download on our investor website, investors.AtlanticUnionBank.com. During today's call, we will comment on our financial performance using both GAAP metrics and non-GAAP financial measures. Important information about these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures, is included in the appendix to our slide presentation and our earnings release for the third quarter of 2025. In our remarks on today's call, we will also make forward-looking statements, which are not statements of historical fact and are subject to risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that actual performance will not differ materially from any future expectations or results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statement except as required by law. Please refer to our earnings release in the slide presentation issued today and our other SEC filings for further discussion of the company's risk factors and other important information regarding our forward-looking statements, including factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in a forward-looking statement. All comments made during today's call are subject to that safe harbor statement. And at the end of the call, we'll take questions from the research analyst community. Now I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Atlantic Union Bank shares delivered a solid third quarter while maintaining our focus on execution and integration of the Sandy Spring acquisition. Our quarterly operating results illustrate the earnings potential of the company we envision. While merger-related costs continued to create a noisy quarter, we believe we are on a path to deliver on the expectations related to the acquisition of Sandy Spring for adjusted operating return on assets, return on tangible common equity, and efficiency ratio. The Sandy Spring integration is progressing smoothly. Over the weekend of October 11th, we successfully completed our core systems conversion and closed five overlapping branches as planned. We are experienced acquirers and I want to recognize our outstanding and dedicated team for their commitment and diligence in executing this complex process. We have now unified Sandy Spring Bank under the Atlantic Union Bank brand and operate as one integrated team. While some merger related impacts will persist in our fourth quarter results, we expect to enter 2026 having achieved our cost savings targets from the acquisition and with our enhanced earnings power visible on a reported basis. Our commitment to creating shareholder value remains unwavering. We believe Atlantic Union is well-positioned to deliver sustainable growth, top-tier financial performance, and long-term value for our shareholders. The strategic advantages gained from the Sandy Spring acquisition, combined with continued organic growth opportunities, reinforce our status as the premier regional bank headquartered in the Lower Mid-Atlantic. We have a robust presence in attractive markets, providing us with further growth opportunities. I will now summarize the key highlights from our third quarter performance and share insights into current market conditions before turning the call over to Rob for a detailed financial review. Here are the highlights from our third quarter. Quarterly loan growth was approximately 0.5% annualized in the typically seasonally slower third quarter. Notably, lending production increased modestly versus the second quarter. However, in the latter part of the quarter, an uptick in loan paydowns and a decline in revolving credit utilization from 44% to 41% offset some of the increased production. Average loan growth quarter over quarter was a good story at 4.3% annualized. Our pipelines indicate we should have loan growth consistent with the seasonally strong fourth quarter. While forecasting loan growth remains challenging in the still uncertain economic environment, We currently expect year-end loan balances to range between $27.7 billion and $28 billion, inclusive of the negative impact of the fair value loan marks. We paid down approximately $116 million in broker deposits during the quarter and continue to reduce higher cost non-relationship deposits from the Sandy Spring portfolio. By moving quickly to lower our deposit rates, we anticipate further improvement in our cost of deposits in the fourth quarter. We were pleased to see approximately 4% annualized growth in non-interest-bearing deposits in the third quarter. Our reported FTE net interest margin remained steady at 3.83%, reflecting a modest decrease in accretion income quarter over quarter. As a reminder, some quarterly fluctuation in accretion income is to be expected. Importantly, if you exclude the impact of accretion income, our net interest margin improved compared to last quarter. I'd also like to point out the strength we saw in fee income, especially with interest rate swaps and in wealth management. Opportunities in both lines were augmented by the Sandy Spring acquisition, and during the quarter, approximately $1 million of swap income is attributed to the former Sandy Spring Bank. Sandy Spring did not offer interest rate swaps for the acquisition, and we believe it will provide upside to the combined entity going forward. Overall credit quality improved despite an increase in charge-offs, largely driven by two commercial and industrial loans that had been partially reserved for in prior quarters. One was the larger credit first disclosed in the fourth quarter of 2024 involving a borrowing base misrepresentation. Ongoing uncertainty in its resolution led us to charge off the remaining balance of approximately $15 million in addition to the previously incurred specific reserve of $14 million. Leading asset quality indicators are encouraging. Third quarter non-performing assets as a percentage of loans held for investment remained low at .49%. Past dues remained low and criticized asset levels improved by more than $250 million or 16%, which brings criticized loans as a percentage of total loans down to 4.9% at the end of the third quarter from 5.9% at the end of the second quarter. As typical, we'll present more details in our third quarter FinQ filing. We do remain competent in our asset quality and reaffirm our forecast for the full year 2025 net charge-off ratio to be between 15 and 20 basis points in line with prior guidance. In the greater Washington, D.C. region, recent headlines have focused on government employment reductions and the government shutdown. However, we believe both our economic data and on-the-ground observations indicate resilience in the markets. Atlantic Union maintains a well-diversified portfolio with approximately 23% of total loans in the Washington metro area and the remaining 77% across our broader footprint. The exposures that prompted most inquiries are government contractors and office buildings in the Washington metro area. Updated disclosures on these segments can be found on pages 21 through 23 of our supplemental presentation, and these portfolios are performing well. Our government contractor finance portfolio is predominantly focused on national security and defense. We believe these businesses are well positioned, supported by a record high defense budget and ongoing defense modernization efforts. Government shutdowns are not new to us. With more than 15 years in this specialty, we have seen many. Most contractors we finance provide essential services and have historically continued to operate during shutdowns, typically drawing on lines of credit to maintain payroll and repaying those lines when government funding resumes. We are certainly monitoring the shutdown and its duration. More broadly, August unemployment rates for Maryland and Virginia stood at 3.6%, well below the national average of 4.3%, and among the lowest for states with larger populations. Official government September data is not yet available due to the shutdown. While we anticipate some increases in unemployment rates across our markets, we expect this to remain manageable and below the national average, consistent with the current Moody's state-level forecast. With the Sandy Springs systems conversion now behind us, strong pipelines, an expanded footprint in attractive markets, specialty lines, and increased investment in North Carolina, we believe we are well-positioned for continued organic growth. In summary, it was a good quarter as we continued our focus on discipline execution and the integration of Sandy Springs. This quarter also marks my ninth year with the company. Over this time, we have intentionally and carefully built the distinctive and uniquely valuable franchise that we envisioned in our strategic plan and have consistently communicated for years. We have done what we said we do in establishing the banking platform we set out to create. With this foundation in place, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the expanded market scheme through the Sandy Spring acquisitions. continue our growth in Virginia, and pursue new organic growth opportunities in North Carolina and across our specialty lines. We are set up well to demonstrate the organic earnings power of the franchise we have worked so hard to build on a reported basis, absent merger-related noise in 2026, and that's what we intend to do. Looking ahead, our focus remains on delivering sustainable top quarter performance relative to our peers and creating long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob for a detailed review of our quarterly results before opening the call for questions. Rob?