Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Berkshire Hills Bancorp third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, October the 20th, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kevin Kahn. Please go ahead.

Kevin Kahn Good morning, and thank you for joining Berkshire Bank's Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Kevin Kahn, Investor Relations and Corporate Development Officer. Here with me today are Nitin Mahatrey, Chief Executive Officer, Sean Gray, Chief Operating Officer, David Rosado, Chief Financial Officer, and Greg Lindenmuth, Chief Risk Officer. Our remarks will include forward-looking statements and refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Actual results could differ materially from those two statements, those statements. Please see our legal disclosure on page two of the earnings presentation, referencing forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP and GAAP measures is included in our news release. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Nitin. Nitin?

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin my comments on slide three, where you can see the highlights for the third quarter. While the rate environment remains challenging for Berkshire and the overall banking industry, we're encouraged by the trends in our margin that reflects a deceleration in NIM compression. We're also encouraged by the trends in asset quality and deposit durability. While expenses were flat quarter over quarter, given the challenging macroeconomic environment, we will have heightened focus on rationalizing expenses. Some of these initiatives have already begun, and we're exploring all other avenues to create a sustained long-term efficiency improvement. David will discuss this in more detail in his remarks. Credit is trending in line with expectations. Charge-offs declined length quarter, and loan loss reserves increased modestly. Operating net income of 21.5 million and operating EPS of 50 cents both declined 9% linked quarter, primarily from a decline in net interest income. Year-to-date EPS of $1.67 is up by 7% year-over-year. Deposits were stable in the third quarter, up 1% linked quarter on an average balance basis and down 1% on an end-of-period basis. While we're not immune to the funding costs and mixed pressures facing the industry, we believe our deposit base is relatively stable, given our history and long-term relationships with clients in smaller cities across our markets. Average loan balances were up 2% length quarter, with balanced growth across commercial and consumer loans. Our balance sheet remains strong. We ended the quarter with common equity tier one ratio of 12.1%. and a tangible common equity ratio of 7.67%. We've added a page in the appendix on our overall commercial real estate portfolio and updated the appendix page that provides details on our office portfolio, both of which highlight how our portfolio is granular, geographically diverse, and resultantly less risky. David will cover some of these metrics in more detail in a few moments. On the best strategy front, this quarter marks the start of year three of our three-year best program. We continue to rationalize our real estate footprint, including the consolidation of four branches and sale of one office building this past quarter. In continuation of our digitization journey, we launched our new mobile banking app and online banking platform towards the end of the third quarter. The disruption in our markets has enabled us to opportunistically hire deposited and relationship-focused frontline bankers. We're also delighted that Marianne Callahan has joined our board of directors. We've included a page with Marianne's bio in the appendix. Welcome aboard, Marianne. Slide four shows our best program's progress on five key performance matrix. As we've said in the past, the path to our targets will not be a straight line. We are near the low end of our target range for operating return on assets at 73 basis points and our operating return on tangible common equity, or ROTC, at 9.27%. We've added a new ROTC calculation to be more consistent with our peers, which David will review in his remarks. Our quarterly PPNR annualizes to 136 million, and our ESG score remains in the top quartile, at the 19th percentile nationally. Our net promoter score in the third quarter came in at 54, significantly higher than our full year 2022 NPS score of 43. I want to use this opportunity to thank all of my Berkshire Bank colleagues for their continued hard work and commitment to our vision to be a high-performing, relationship-focused community bank. Their commitment to our strategy and dedication to our customers and communities is what brings us together and sets us apart. With that, I'll turn the call over to David to discuss our financials in more detail. David.