Provident Financial Services, Inc

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Adriano Duarte, Head and Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Christophe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings call. Today's presenters are President and CEO Tony Lavazzetta and Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Tom Lyons. Before beginning the review of our financial results, We ask that you please take note of our standard caution as to any forward-looking statements that may be made during the course of today's call. Our full disclaimer is contained in last evening's earnings release, which has been posted to the investor relations page of our website, provident.bank. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Tony Labazzetta, who will offer his perspective on our fourth quarter. Tony.

Thank you, Adriano. Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the Provident Financial Services earnings call. The fourth quarter of 2024 was characterized by a more favorable macroeconomic environment with continued growth, additional interest rate cuts, improved performance in the banking sector, and an optimistic outlook. The Provident team maintained solid core performance and profitability thanks to the excellent asset quality, good deposit growth, and the increasing contributions of our fee-based businesses. During the quarter, we reported net earnings of 48.5 million for 37 cents per share. Our annualized adjusted return on average assets was 1.05%, and our adjusted return on average tangible equity was 15.39%. Our adjusted pre-tax pre-provision return on average assets was 1.53% for the fourth quarter. We are pleased with our core financial results and are confident and our ability to build on this momentum going into 2025. At the end of 2024, our capital levels remained healthy and comfortably exceeded levels deemed to be well capitalized. Normalizing for changes in AOCI, our tangible book value per share grew 34 cents to $14.71, and our tangible common equity ratio was consistent with the trailing quarter at 7.67%. As such, our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend, 24 cents per share, payable on February 28th. During the quarter, our deposits grew 248 million, or 5.4% annualized. The average cost of total deposits decreased 11 basis points to 2.25%, and the average cost of interest-bearing deposits decreased 15 basis points. Our total cost of funds decreased 14 basis points to 2.48%, which remains favorable relative to our peer group. As a result, our core net interest margin expanded four basis points. However, our reported margin compressed three basis points to 3.28% due to a decrease in purchase accounting accretion. During the fourth quarter, Our commercial lending team closed approximately $713 million of new commercial loans. However, we experienced approximately $328 million in loan payoffs, resulting in a modest growth in our portfolio. This quarter's production consisted of 53% commercial real estate, 47% commercial and industrial loans. Roughly one-half of the CNI production was in our specialty lending group. While on the topic of lending, we are excited to announce that as of Monday, Bill Fink has joined us as our new chief lending officer, following the retirement of John Rath. Bill is responsible for leading our commercial lending growth strategy and brings with him over 30 years of experience in commercial banking, credit administration, and an impressive track record in credit risk management and operational strategy. In the past 20 years, Bill worked at TD in numerous leadership positions, and most recently spearheaded its middle market and asset-based lending businesses with responsibility for a $24 billion portfolio. I'm very confident that you will succeed in driving responsible growth in our commercial lending group. In addition to hiring Bill, we have added more resources to our lending teams and have expanded our lending presence in Pennsylvania and Westchester. Our credit quality is strong, and for the for the quarter continued to improve as our non-performing loan ratio decreased eight basis points to 39 basis points. This ratio compares favorably relative to our peer group. Our net charge-offs also decreased to 5.5 million from 6.8 million in the trailing quarter, which is also low relative to our peer group. We are confident in our underwriting and portfolio management standards, as well as the quality of our portfolio. We have seen a modest decrease in our total loan pipeline to approximately $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter from approximately $2 billion in the preceding quarter. The weighted average interest rate is 6.91% compared to 7.18% in the trailing quarter. The pull-through adjusted pipeline, including loans pending closing, is approximately $1 billion. This quarter, Providence fee-based businesses continue to excel. Provident Protection Plus had 19% organic growth in the fourth quarter as compared to the same period last year. In addition, it had over 16% organic growth over the last 12 months, and its retention rate was 100%. Beacon Trust assets under management grew to 4.2 billion, which represents a 7.5% growth relative to last year. Income improved 12% relative to the last quarter of 2023, and was driven by good investment performance. As we enter 2025, we are pleased that the merger is now behind us. The fundamentals of our company are strong, and we have built a solid foundation for growth. We are optimistic about the operating environment and our ability to build our business, which will help us produce even more value for our customers, employees, and stockholders. Now, I'll turn the call over to Tom for his comments on our financial performance. Tom?