FIRST REPUBLIC BANK

Greetings and welcome to First Republic Bank's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. During today's call, the lines will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. To join the queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at any point during the call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Ionelli Vice President and Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome to First Republic Bank's fourth quarter 2022 conference call. Speaking today will be Jim Herbert, Founder and Executive Chairman. Mike Roffler, CEO and President. Mike Selfridge, Chief Banking Officer. Bob Thornton, President, Private Wealth Management. Olga Sokova, Chief Accounting Officer and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, and Neil Holland, Chief Financial Officer. Before I hand the call over to Jim, please note that we may make forward-looking statements during today's call that are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. We also discuss certain non-GAAP measures of our financial performance, which should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. For more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, and for reconciliations of the non-GAAP calculation of certain financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measure, see the bank's FDIC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today, all available on the bank's website. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Jim Herbert.

Thank you, Mike, very much. And good morning, everyone. It was a very strong year for First Republic. Our time tested business model and service culture continue to perform really well. In fact, it was our best year ever in many ways. Our new 2022 net promoter score, which was announced this morning, is our highest ever client satisfaction level. It's actually extraordinarily strong. Our non-performing assets a year in were just five basis points. This is low even for First Republic. Exceptional client service and our strong, focused lending led to safe, organic growth during the year. In 2022, total loans grew $32 billion, a record. And we had record earnings for the year. In uncertain times like these, an ability to continue to grow safely is quite viable and very rare. Let me take a moment to provide some perspective on the current rate environment and the Fed tightening cycle as we see it. Since our last call about 90 days ago, the Fed has raised rates another 125 basis points. At the same time, the 10-year Treasury has declined 50 basis points. The resulting increased rate inversion has begun to put some pressure on our net interest margin and net interest income. However, history and experience has shown that this type of inverted yield curve has a limited duration. Cycles are just that, they're cycles. During First Republic's 37-year history, there have been five tightening cycles. We've continued to grow and prosper through them, and especially after each one. On average, over the last 40 years, The Fed has started to cut rates less than a year after the 10-year yield has peaked. The market currently expects the Fed to start cutting rates during the back half of this year, which would be consistent with prior tightening cycles and is also our current assumption. We are staying focused on executing our model, and we remain very committed to delivering solid results through all market conditions. The bedrock of our performance is providing truly exceptional differentiated service, maintaining very strong credit, delivering safe organic growth, and the results follow. Now let me turn the call over to Mike Crawford, CEO and President.