Provident Financial Services, Inc

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Provident Financial Services second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference call over to Michael Perito, Head of Investor Relations. Michael, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call. Today's presenters are President and CEO Tony Labozzetta and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Adriano Duarte. Before beginning their 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 on our website, provident.bank. Now, I'd like to hand it off to Tony Labozzetta, who will offer his perspective on our second quarter. Tony?

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today to discuss our second quarter 2026 results. I am pleased to report another outstanding quarter of performance that validates the momentum we've built across our business. Through the first half of 2026, we have grown earnings per share by 17% as compared to the same period last year while also significantly improving our profitability. More specifically, in the second quarter, We delivered net earnings of $78 million or $0.60 per diluted share and core net earnings of $80 million or $0.61 per share. Our annualized adjusted return on average assets was 1.27% and our adjusted return on average tangible common equity was over 16%. This quarter's results were highlighted by record revenues driven by expanding net interest income and non-interest income. Our adjusted pre-provision net revenue reached a record $118 million, representing $0.90 per share and an annualized core PPNR return on average assets of 1.87%. This represents a 23 basis points improvement compared to the same quarter last year and underscores the positive operating leverage that we've generated as we continue to grow. Speaking of growth, Our commercial loan team delivered exceptional results in the second quarter, demonstrating the strength and depth of its capabilities. In the second quarter, we funded $700 million in new commercial loans, bringing our year-to-date commercial loan fundings to over $1.1 billion. On a net basis, total commercial loans grew 10% annualized, driven primarily by 20% growth in our C&I group. We ended the quarter with a record pipeline of 3.2 billion. This represents our second consecutive quarter with both our Cree and C&I pipelines exceeding 1 billion, a significant milestone that demonstrates the balanced, diversified nature of our growth strategy. As a result of our strong production and pipeline, we believe our long growth expectations for the full year should be guided towards the high end of the range. Shifting to deposits, the operating environment has become very competitive for incremental funding, particularly in consumer and municipal segments. Core deposits adjusted for normal seasonality in our municipal portfolio increased 67 million in the second quarter, representing a 2% annualized growth rate. This was largely driven by growth in commercial deposits, including in our treasury management group. Despite the competitive environment, We remain encouraged by some of the deposit growth opportunities the bank is generating, particularly within our commercial and small business customer segments. We remain committed to driving sustainable core funding growth through continued strategic investments in our people, products, and capabilities. So far in 2026, we've added several senior deposit-focused bankers who have built a nearly $150 million deposit pipeline as of June 30th. We also continue to make investments in deposit initiatives within digital, small business, and municipal banking. Asset quality metrics all improved when compared to the prior quarter, a trend we expect to continue in the second half of 2026. With respect to the senior housing commercial relationship, which migrated to non-accrual last quarter, the bankruptcy process is proceeding as expected. We have increased visibility towards final resolution and still expect all four credits to be settled by year-end with no material loss to the bank. Excluding this relationship, which totaled $82 million, our non-performing loans would be just 27 basis points of total loans as of June 30th. Overall, we continue to feel good about our asset quality and the discipline that we've maintained building our loan portfolio. In addition to the strong top line results and improved credit metrics, we achieved record non-interest income of $32 million in the second quarter. Year to date, our non-interest income has reached $64 million, or 14% of total revenue, which is up from 12.5% in the first six months of 2025. We are proud of the progress we've made towards our goal of having non-spread income exceed 20% of our revenues, even as our net interest income continues to grow. Provident Protection Plus continues to be a standout performer and a differentiator for our franchise. Top line revenues are up 18% in the first half of 2026 versus a comparable period in 2025. This strong performance is driven by both industry leading customer retention and new client acquisition. The pipeline for our insurance business heading into the second half of 2026 remains robust. Similarly, were encouraged by Beacon Trust's recent performance, with revenues in the first half of 2026 up 5% when compared to last year. Beacon Trust's assets under management grew to $4.5 billion during the second quarter, benefiting from market appreciation and improved client retention. Our SBA group had another good quarter of originations in loan sale activity, with gain on sale revenues up 16% in the first half of 2026 when compared to 2025. The momentum we've established across all of our fee-based businesses gives us confidence that non-interest income will continue to be a significant driver of our financial performance moving forward. Lastly, I just wanted to comment on a couple of important enterprise initiatives which will be critical to our long-term success. Our previously disclosed core conversion continues to track well towards our Labor Day target. Despite our intense focus on the conversion, We also continue to make progress on other technology initiatives ranging from digital capabilities to AI. Our team has built an internal AI agent to be utilized by employees following conversion to help quickly provide answers to customer inquiries. This project is a great example of how people can utilize technology to efficiently deliver a differentiated customer experience. I'm incredibly proud of the hard work of our employees. Our strong performance is the direct result of the culture we've built at Provident. Now, I'd like to turn a call over to Adriano for his comments on our financial performance. Adriano?