Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Citizens Financial Group First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Ivy, and I'll be your operator today. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a brief question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. Now, I'll turn the call over to Kristen Silberberg, Head of Investor Relations. Kristen, you may begin.

Thank you, Ivy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First this morning, our Chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Thorn. and CFO John Woods will provide an overview of our first quarter results. Brendan Coughlin, head of consumer banking, and Don McCree, head of commercial banking, are also here to provide additional color. We will be referencing our first quarter presentation located on our investor relations website. After the presentation, we will be happy to take questions. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These are outlined for your review in the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures, so it's important to review our GAAP results in the presentation and the reconciliations in the appendix. And with that, I will hand over to Bruce.

Thank you, Kristen, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. We announced financial results today that were in line with our expectations. Highlights include NIM expansion of three basis points to 290, core long growth of 1%, resilience in our fee categories despite some softness in capital markets given market uncertainty, and credit trends remaining favorable along with continued share repurchases. Our balance sheet remains very strong with set one ratio of 10.6%, LDR of 77.5%, virtually no federal home loan bank borrowings, and a strong credit allowance position. During the quarter, we entered into an agreement to sell $1.9 billion in purchased student loans, which reside in non-core. $200 million of the portfolio was sold in Q1, with the balance to be settled ratably over the next three quarters. We will use the proceeds to pay down high-cost funding, purchase low-risk weight securities, and repurchase shares. The transaction will be accretive to NIM, EPS, and ROTC. We had already included the impact in our full year guide. During the quarter, we also issued $750 million in senior debt, further bolstering our funding base. We executed well on our strategic initiatives during the quarter. The private bank continued to see excellent growth, reaching $8.7 billion in deposits and $5.2 billion in AUM. We added private wealth teams in Florida and Southern California during the quarter, and another one today in New Jersey. Our New York City metro, private capital, and payments initiatives also saw continued progress. As we look forward, there has clearly been an increase in uncertainty in the macro environment given the policy decisions and rollout emanating from Washington. This has caused many market participants to hit pause on investments or deal activities. On a positive note, our corporate and consumer borrowers are generally in good shape and are in position to weather these challenges. The basis for our full-year guide had anticipated some choppiness in the first half of the year tied to the rollout of tariffs and downsizing of the federal government. Our view held that as the lower tax deregulation and pro-energy agenda kicked in later in the year, we would see a pickup in loan demand and deal activity in the second half. So with respect to an update to our full year guide, at this point, we reaffirm our EPS estimate, though there could well be some puts and takes. Events in the Q2 will help clarify whether the second half outlook will solidify as we had planned. On our guide slide in our presentation, we call out some risks that affect both us and the industry at large given the environment. And we also show some potential offsets to the full year guide. The main risk associated with continued economic uncertainty and a slowing economy include a push out in capital markets fees, slower loan growth, and higher credit provision. Potential offsets to these possible impacts include even better performance on funding costs, greater share repurchases, and further efforts on cost transformation. It's worth noting that there is a significant amount of pent-up demand around M&A activity. We are working on a record number and dollar value of transactions and are hopeful that they get done as uncertainty subsides. So while it's still early to make a call as to how the environment plays out, we remain focused on pulling the levers we can to offset any macro headwinds as we did in 2024 in meeting our initial year guide. And as we look to the medium term, we remain confident in our NIM trajectory, which powers our ROTC improvement and in our ability to execute on our key strategic initiatives like the private bank. In short, we feel good about our positioning overall from a strategic business and financial standpoint. We will stay focused on execution and the things we can control as we continue our efforts towards building a distinctive great bank. With that, let me turn it over to John.