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

Good morning. My name is Sagar, and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the third quarter 2024 earnings call for the Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited. I would now like to turn the call over to Noah Fields, Butterfield's Head of Investor Relations. Go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be reviewing Butterfield's third quarter 2024 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 third quarter 2024 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 www.butterfieldgroup.com. 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 reconciliation of these measures to U.S. 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 from those 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. Butterfield's third quarter operational performance and profitability continue to be strong. The bank's success is a result of our client-focused products and services, a solid balance sheet, a focus on efficiency, capital management, and an experienced management team. In addition, our island-based deposit funding and diversified revenue streams continue to be resilient. Butterfield is a market leader for banking and private trust in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, with an expanding mass affluent bank and private trust offerings in the Channel Islands. We also provide specialized financial services in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, where we provide high-end mortgage lending in prime central London. I will now turn to the third quarter highlights on page four. Barterfield reported strong financial results in the third quarter, with net income of $52.7 million and core net income of $52.8 million. We reported core earnings per share of $1.16, with a core return on average tangible common equity of 22.5% in the third quarter. The net interest margin was 2.61% in the third quarter, a decrease of three basis points from the prior quarter, with the cost of deposits rising two basis points to 191 basis points from the prior quarter. The net interest margin was marginally lower than the prior quarter due to smaller deposit cost increases, which outpaced asset repricing slightly. The Board has again approved a quarterly cash dividend of 44 cents per share. We also continued to repurchase shares during the quarter, purchasing a total of 1 million shares at an average price of $37 per share. I will now turn the call over to Craig for details on the third quarter.