First Commonwealth Financial Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us and welcome to the first Commonwealth Financial Corporation third quarter 2026 earnings release conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Ryan Thomas, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jonathan, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to discuss First Commonwealth Financial Corporation's third quarter financial results. Participating on today's call will be Mike Price, President and CEO, Jim Reske, Chief Financial Officer, Brian Sohocki, Chief Credit Officer, and Mike McCuen, Chief Lending Officer. As a reminder, a copy of yesterday's earnings release can be accessed by logging on to FCBanking.com and selecting the investor relations link at the top of the page. We have also included a slide presentation on our investor relations website with supplemental information that will be referenced during today's call. Before we begin, I need to caution listeners that today's call will contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimer on page three of the slide presentation for a description of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statement. Today's call will also include non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to and not as an alternative for or reported results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliation in these measures can be found in the appendix of today's slide presentation. With that, I will turn the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Ryan. Good afternoon, everyone. Core earnings per share totaled 45 cents for the third quarter. There were two unrelated offsetting financial events this quarter. These results included 4.7 million of one-time energy tax credits, equivalent to $6 million on a pre-tax basis. These tax credits helped offset provision expense that came in at $14.2 million. The provision figure includes $3.5 million associated with the unfunded loan commitments reflective of strong production this quarter in committed lines. The other $10.7 million represents provision for loan losses driven principally by approximately $7.7 million of specific reserves associated with three previously identified credits. Non-performing loans increased, but the increase was also concentrated in a limited number of previously identified relationships rather than broad-based portfolio deterioration. Beyond those two events, the operating trends of our core businesses are strong. The net interest margin increased to 4.11%, supported by a decline in deposit costs to 1.67% and the impact of the Fed's latest hike on our variable rate loan portfolio. Additionally, consumer and commercial loan originations throughout the third quarter increased year over year. Loan payoffs also slowed for the first time in five quarters, leading to annualized loan growth of 2.6% in the quarter. Together with current backlogs, these trends support the outlook for loan growth within our mid-single-digit guidance. Our three principal areas of focus for the near term include better credit performance, generating profitable growth, and controlling expenses to create positive operating leverage. The latter becomes vital to investment in the future of our company. Our 2027 investment plan includes opportunities with technology, talent, marketing, fraud prevention, and improved banker productivity, lead generation, and financial analysis. Lastly, we believe a mission-driven community bank of our size remains important and relevant to our customers, communities, employees, and investors. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jim. Thanks, Mike.