First Horizon Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the First Horizon Corp fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. 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 Ellen Taylor. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us. We know it's been quite a start to the year. On our call today, our CEO, Brian Jordan, and CFO of B.J. Loesch will provide an overview of our results, and then we'll be happy to take some questions. We're also really pleased to have Susan Springfield, our Chief Credit Officer, with us today. Our remarks We'll reference the earnings presentation, which is available at ir.fhnc.com. And I need to remind you that we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to RISA uncertainties, and you should review the factors on page two of our presentation and in our SEC filings that may cause our results to differ from our expectations. Our statements today reflect our views as of today, and we aren't obligated to update them. We also will address our adjusted results in our remarks, which are non-GAAP measures, and please review the GAAP information in our supplement and on page three of our presentation. And so now, I'm going to give it to Brian.

Thank you, Ellen. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. I guess it would be the understatement of the year to say 2020 was not an unusual year. It was a very unusual year, and it proved to be one of unprecedented challenges, not only for our industry, but for our economy, our society. I'm extremely pleased, however, with the great work that First Horizon has accomplished in 2020. We continue to serve our customers, our communities, and our associates throughout the pandemic with PPP loans, charitable contributions, and by offering our associates increased flexibility and benefits while demonstrating prudent risk management. We have made impressive progress on the integration of our MOE despite the pandemic, enhancing our scale and providing opportunities to capitalize on additional growth opportunities in attractive markets. We also continue to focus on delivering strong shareholder value. Fourth quarter results were solid, with continued relative underlying strength in PPNR, giving resilient results in our countercyclical businesses and continued expense discipline. Loan demand remains muted given current continued economic and political uncertainty. However, our lower risk loans to mortgage companies business has provided some nice offset to these headwinds. At the same time, we continue to make progress on lowering our funding costs in the face of increasing levels of liquidity. On the expense front, we generated a total of $56 million of annualized merger-related cost saves in the quarter and now have increased our initial target of a net $170 million to $200 million. Our capital levels remain healthy with the CET1 ratio up nearly 50 basis points from last quarter to 9.67%. And we grew tangible book value per share by 3%. to $10.23 at quarter end, reflecting ongoing earnings momentum. We also believe we're well reserved for future loan losses, given the benefit of the merger accounting and prudent stance on reserves. And our internal stress test results in December highlight our ability to navigate the Fed's severely adverse economic scenario with more than adequate capital levels, as well as a lower risk nature of our loan portfolios. It is important to note that as we enter the year, we are increasingly optimistic about a path to economic recovery as we expect to see the rollout of vaccines accelerate near term, providing benefits in the back half of the year. But we will continue to monitor the landscape carefully. We remain confident that the strength of our highly attractive franchise and the benefits of our merger of equals position us well to capitalize on tremendous opportunity when the pandemic-related slowdown ends, and we are strongly committed to delivering top quartile returns over the medium term. With that, I'll hand it over to BJ. BJ?