Beacon Financial Corporation Common stock

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Beacon Financial Corporation first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel. You may begin.

Thank you, Tina, and good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release and presentation, which is available on the investor relations page of our website, BeaconFinancialCorporation.com, and has been filed with the SEC. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul Peral and Carl Carlson. During the question and answer session, they will also be joined by Mark Micklejohn, the Chief Credit Officer. This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, and business of Deakin Financial Corporation. Please refer to page two of our earnings presentation for our forward-looking statement disclosure. Also, please refer to our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Any references made during this presentation to non-GAAP measures are only made to assist you in understanding Beacon Financial's results and performance trends and should not be relied on as financial measures of actual results or future predictions. For a comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings release. At this time, I'm pleased to introduce Beacon Financial's President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Peralta.

Thanks, Dario, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. I'm pleased to share that we achieved a major milestone in our integration process in the first quarter with the successful completion of a core systems conversion in mid-February. I would like to recognize the hard work and dedication of our teams in executing on this very critical step, and just as importantly, their efforts to achieve strong client retention throughout that process. That outcome reflects months of preparation, disciplined execution, and a continued focus on serving clients during a period of significant change. From a financial perspective, I am very disappointed with our first quarter results. Loan growth and the margin fell far short of our expectations and reflects some near-term pressures, uncertainty in the economic environment, and the tail end of merger activity. Gap earnings for the first quarter were $0.55 per share, and operating earnings were $0.70 per share, excluding merger-related charges. While operating results were below both of our prior quarter and our expectations, the core returns remained good, with operating ROA just over 1% and operating return on tangible common equity of 11.25%. As we discussed coming out of the fourth quarter, the operating environment during the first quarter remained quite challenging. Balance sheet contraction, margin pressure from declining rates, and lower fee income all weighed on our results. Importantly, several of these headwinds are structural in nature. They were influenced by seasonal dynamics, timing, and the uncertainty created in economic environment from persistent inflation, extremely thin pricing, global events and the prospect of rent control legislation in our major markets. Collectively, these headwinds impacted loan volumes. While the pipelines remain strong, clients are cautious yet optimistic as the economic environment remains quite fluid. On the positive side, we continue to make progress on the strategic priorities we laid out at the time of the merger. Expense discipline remains strong. Core funding costs improve sequentially. Capital levels are robust with CET1 at 11% and tangible common equity at just over 9%. And while credit metrics move modestly higher during the quarter, they remain manageable and well-reserved, reflecting proactive credit management in a still uncertain environment. Now that the system's conversion is behind us and merger charges are largely complete, our focus shifts squarely to execution, stabilizing the balance sheet, restoring growth momentum, and fully capturing the revenue and efficiency benefits we outlined when we announced the merger. We believe the pieces are now in place to close the gap between current performance and our planned runway as we move through the remainder of the year. Before I turn it over to Carl, I'll note that our board approved a quarterly dividend of 32.25 cents per share, consistent with our commitment to returning capital to stockholders. In addition, the Board authorized a $50 million stock repurchase program, subject to regulatory approval, reflecting our confidence in the franchise, our capital strength, and long-term value creation opportunity that we see ahead. I will now turn it over to Carl to walk us through the financial results in some more detail.