First BanCorp. New

Good morning and welcome to the First Bancorp Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you will need to press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ramon Rodriguez, First Bancorp's Corporate Strategy and Investment Relations Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Julian. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining First Bank Corp's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the second quarter of 2026. I'm here with Aurelio Alemán, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Said Ortiz, CFO, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements, such as rejections of revenue, earnings, and capital structure, as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's SEC filings. The company assumes no obligations to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation or press release, you can access them at our website at fbbinvestor.com. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Alemán.

Thank you, Ramon. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining our earnings call again. We concluded the first half of the year with, you know, another quarter of strong core performance, delivering growth across the franchise and generating very attractive returns for our shareholders. We earned $96 million in net income for $0.62 per share. That is up 24% when compared to same quarter last year. Underlying revenue trends, I have to say, remain very strong during the quarter, with pre-tax, pre-provision income reaching an all-time high of $138 million, which is actually up 11% from a year ago. This translates into a 2% return on average assets, and this is our 18th consecutive ROA above 1.5%, continuing the strongest and most consistent period of financial performance in our actual history. Moving to the balance sheet, very pleased on how loan growth accelerated during the quarter, driven primarily by commercial activity in Puerto Rico, reaching $13.3 billion in total loans. That is all 5% on a linked quarter on a life basis. Total loan for the quarter were very encouraging, reaching $1.7 billion during the quarter, reflecting a 21% year-over-year increase. Given what we see in our pipelines, we do expect this level of activity to continue for the remainder of the year. This actually reinforces our path to achieve our full year growth objective for 2026. Total deposit grew by $274 million during the quarter, primarily driven by an increase in the government deposit, but also we have a slight increase in the core customer deposit. Great performance remains down with, you know, lower net charge of and non-performing assets remaining near historical lows. That said, you know, early delinquency, early state delinquency came up during the quarter, but essentially when we look at it, you know, over the same period last year, it was flat to prior year, June, and it was actually below December 2025. So we continue to monitor A decision on delinquency trends and broader consumer market conditions. Regarding capital deployment, you know, consistent with private quarters, we completed our $50 million of year buybacks and we paid $0.20 per share dividend. You know, even after these actions, we ended the quarter with a very strong CET1 of 17%. which leaves ample room to continue investing strategically in our franchise technology, enhance competitiveness, and improve the customer experience, which is our primary objective. Moving to slide five, happy to see that in spite of the global noise and war, we continue to see an environment that is positive and stable. Thank you very much. While on the other hand, industry-wide sales continue to reflect the impact of tariffs, the recent trend for the last quarter suggests that the market is beginning to normalize with June industry-wide auto sales down 3%, only 3% year-over-year. So we believe sales are stabilizing. Again, this backdrop, core business continues to perform really well. Long growth is accelerating in the second half of the year as business activity in Puerto Rico continues. And actually, Florida is having a really good pipeline also. That said, we're sustaining our long growth guidance target of 3% to 5% for the year. Obviously, looking forward to achieve that in the second half of the year. We also continue, depending on the customer engagement, through the multi-channel strategy. Active digital users continue to grow with 6% versus prior year, and we continue to increase to 95% now, deposit transaction capture through digital access service channels. As we look ahead, you know, The priorities really remain unchanged, very focused on our execution, focused on selectively growing the market share in our core business, confident and willing to grow organically to discipline execution while evaluating potential alternative strategy opportunities as they arise, maximizing the significant organic growth opportunities that we see in front of us. At the same time, you know, continue to invest in the franchise, technology, leveraging I think we all are in the early innings of this AI journey, and we're encouraged by the opportunities that we see. At the end, it's about how you can service the customer better, how you can improve processes, short-term lifecycle, and improve the management of potential fraud. This quarter reflects what has become a hallmark in our franchise, Trump profitability, discipline risk management, robust capital generation, and what is most important is consistent execution across our different cycles. As always, I really thank you for your interest in First Bank. We appreciate your continued support. Now, I will turn the call to Said, our recently appointed CFO, to go welcome Said to the call to go over the financial results in more detail.