Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited (The)

Good morning. My name is Andrew, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2022 earnings call for the Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited. 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 telephone keypad. 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 Noah Fields, Butterfield's Head of Investor Relations.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be reviewing Butterfield's first quarter 2022 financial results. On the call, I'm joined by Michael Collins, Butterfield's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Craig Bridgewater, Group Chief Financial Officer, and Michael Scrum, President and Group Chief Risk Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the call up for a question and answer session. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release announcing our first quarter results. The press release and financial statements, along with a slide presentation that we will refer to during our remarks on this call, are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at Before I turn the call over to Michael Collins, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussions will refer to certain non-GAAP measures which we believe are important in evaluating the company's performance. For a reconciliation of these measures to US GAAP, please refer to the earnings press release and slide presentation. Today's call and associated materials may also contain certain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially most contemplated by these statements. Additional information regarding these risks can be found in our SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to Michael Collins.

Thank you, Noah, and thanks to everyone joining the call today. We had an excellent start to the year with strong first quarter financial results that continue to demonstrate the benefits of Butterfield's leading market positions in well-regarded offshore jurisdictions. We continue to focus on our profitable banking and wealth management franchises in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Channel Islands. The bank also benefits from our specialized financial services offerings in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Singapore, and the U.K., where we offer mortgages to high net worth clients with properties in prime central London. We are encouraged by the progress we are seeing across our jurisdictions as leisure and business travel increases, and the islands once again welcome cruise ships and an increasing number of tourists. Before we get into a discussion of the operating performance, I would like to officially congratulate both Craig and Michael on their new roles. Craig has been with Butterfield since October 2019, when he joined as group head of finance from KPMG in Bermuda, where he was a partner and leader of their banking and asset management practice. As a new member of our executive committee, we look forward to Craig's continuing contributions to Butterfield as group chief financial officer, while he will provide leadership and technical banking and financial expertise. I am also happy to recognize Michael Scrum as Butterfield's new president and chief risk officer. Many of you know Michael, and I'm pleased to have him take on this new role, replacing Sabeb Sadiq, who has agreed to remain as a consultant for a period in transition. I would like to thank Sabeb for his contributions and particularly his risk leadership during the COVID pandemic. More details are available in the press release issued yesterday. I will turn now to slide four, where we provide a summary of first quarter highlights. Butterfield reported net income for the first quarter of $44.4 million, or 89 cents per diluted common share, and core net income of $44.7 million, or 90 cents per diluted share. Our core return on average tangible common equity was 21.9 percent in the quarter, compared to 18.8 percent in the prior quarter. Our net interest margin improved three basis points to 2.03 percent. The Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 44 cents per share, while share repurchases continued at a modest pace. I will now turn the call over to Greg Bridgewater to provide more details on the first quarter results.