Byline Bancorp, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Byline Bancorp second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brooks Rennie, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website, along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides. Management would like to remind everyone that certain statements on today's call involve projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. The company's risk factors are fully disclosed and discussed within its SEC filings. In addition, certain slides contain and we may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliation for these numbers can be found within the appendix of the earnings presentation. For the additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statements in non-GAAP financial measures disclosures in our 2021 second quarter earnings release. The information we will provide today is accurate as of June 30, 2021, and we undertake no duty to update the information. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Alberto Parcini, President of Byline Bancorp.

Thank you, Brooks, and good morning, and thank you all for joining us on the call today to review our second quarter results. First off, I'd like to welcome Brooks Rennie, who recently joined Byline as our head of investor relations to his first earnings call. Joining me on the call are our chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia, our CFO, Lindsey Corby, and Mark Fusinato, our chief credit officer. I'll start by giving you an overview of the results and highlights for the quarter before passing the call over to Lindsey, who will walk you through our financials in more detail. I will then provide you with closing remarks before opening the call up for questions. Starting on slide three of the deck, I'm pleased to report that we executed well during the second quarter and capitalized on the improving economic environment to generate outstanding overall results. Earnings for the quarter were at record levels for us as a public company, with net income coming in at $28.5 million, or 73 cents per share. Profitability and return metrics were excellent across the board. ROA came in at 170 basis points, while ROTCE was 18.9%. Pre-tax, pre-provision ROA came in at 216 basis points, up 10 basis points from the previous quarter. Revenue growth was solid and was primarily driven by strong loan production across all our lending areas. Excluding PPP loans, we had $315 million in loan originations during the second quarter, a record level for the company and up from $152 million in the prior quarter. Notwithstanding the impact of payoffs, which also increased, total loans ex-PPP increased by $155.6 million, or 16% annualized, and stood at $4 billion as of quarter end. Demand for credit continued to build throughout the quarter as borrowers became more confident in the recovery and economic activity continued to return to normal. Overall, loan production was well-balanced across commercial, commercial real estate, sponsor, and equipment leasing. Notably, we also saw an uptick in commercial line utilization, which helped us to drive some additional growth in commercial balances. Line utilization was 50.6%, up from 48.5% at the end of the prior quarter. While increasing loan demand was a key factor in our growth, we're also seeing the benefit from the talent additions we've made over the past few years, particularly in CNI and CRE. These bankers are steadily building their books and making a larger contribution to balance sheet growth. Last quarter I mentioned that we were encouraged by the growth we're seeing in our leasing business. Contributing to that growth were additions made to the team with expertise in industrial and material handling equipment. These hires not only complement our team and increase volume, but also add diversification to the portfolio at attractive risk-adjusted yields. We continue to actively look at opportunities to add talented bankers to our franchise. Moving on to government guaranteed lending, this business also had another strong quarter of production with $143 million in closed loans compared to $112 million in the prior quarter. Investor appetite for these loans remains robust with secondary market premiums at record levels. Compared to the first quarter of 2021, gain on sale income increased by nearly 48% to $12.3 million. We remain a market leader in this business and as of June 30th, we are the fourth largest 7 lender in the United States. On the liability side, we continue to see the effects of clients operating with higher liquidity levels and also saw good inflows of deposits from new relationships to the bank. The quality of our deposit base remains exceptional. Non-interest bearing deposits increased $74 million and now account for 41% of total deposits. This improvement in our mix drove another four basis point decline in deposit costs to just eight basis points, which is a cycle low. This combined with stable earning asset yields help us to increase our margin by one basis point for the quarter, excluding the impact of accretion income, which today is no longer as material as it was in prior quarters. Notwithstanding the rate environment and higher liquidity, the margin has held up very well when compared to other banks in our market. Asset quality continued to improve with both NPLs and NPAs declining again from the prior quarter, both in dollar and percentage terms, while net charge-offs declined significantly and came in at 17 basis points. Our provision was reflective of a reserve release while still maintaining our allowance at 138 basis points of loans or 155 basis points excluding PPP. Our capital position remains strong with a CET1 ratio of just under 12% and total capital ratio of just under 16% at quarter end. With our strong level of profitability and capital position, we've been able to increase the amount of capital that we return to shareholders. Our board authorized an increase to our quarterly common stock dividend from six to nine cents per share, which is now 200% higher than when we initiated it at the end of 2019. During the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 539,000 shares of common stock. and our board also authorized the repurchase of an additional one and a quarter million shares. Given the strength of our balance sheet, we are well positioned to support organic growth, continue investing in our franchise, and pursue strategic opportunities while returning capital to shareholders. Now I'd like to turn over the call to Lindsay, who will provide you more detail on our results.