United Community Banks, Inc.

And welcome to the United Community Bank fourth quarter financial results conference call. 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 your hosts. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to United Community Bank's fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. Hosting our call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lynn Hartin, Chief Financial Officer Jefferson Harrelson, President and Chief Banking Officer Rich Bradshaw, and Chief Risk Officer Rob Edwards. United's presentation today includes references to operating earnings, pre-tax, pre-credit earnings, and other non-GAAP financial information. For these non-GAAP financial measures, United has provided a reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measure in the financial highlights section of the earnings release, as well as at the end of the investor presentation. Both are included on the website at ucbi.com. Copies of the fourth quarter's earnings release and investor presentation were filed last night on Form 8K with the SEC. And a replay of this call will be available in the investor relations section of the company's website at ucbi.com. Please be aware that during this call, forward-looking statements may be made by representatives of United. Any forward-looking statements should be considered in light of risks and uncertainties described on pages 5 and 6 of the company's 2021 Form 10-K, as well as other information provided by the company in its filings with the SEC and included on its website. At this time, I will turn the call over to Lynn Hartin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. We continue to be pleased with our overall performance. we recorded operating earnings per share of 75 cents. While that is flat with last quarter, it's a significant increase over the same period in 2021. Our operating return on assets remained strong at 135 basis points, and our pre-tax, pre-provision return on assets reached a new high of 2.07 percent. Our net interest margin continued to expand, increasing 19 basis points over the third quarter, and loan growth reached 12.2 percent annualized for the quarter. Business conditions for us remain strong, and our southeastern economies continue to perform very well. However, we are seeing the impact of Fed rate increases. Clients are actively searching for higher-yielding investments, and we saw deposit outflows of $445 million, primarily in DDA. Deposit competition and resulting deposit betas have increased and will continue to increase in the near term. We are assertively defending our deposit and customer base and believe we will continue to relatively outperform in our funding cost. Credit results remain very strong. However, economic forecasts continue to weaken, resulting in a reserve bill during the quarter. While net charge-offs did move up to 17 basis points, these results remain below or better than what we would consider normal. Non-performing assets remain low, as do our special mention and substandard accruing loans. Notwithstanding the continued good results, we are cautious and have tightened underwriting standards several times over the past year. Finally, on the operating side, while we did have an uptick in expenses, our net interest income grew substantially, leading to another improvement in our efficiency ratio, reaching a new record low of 47.3% on an operating basis. Strategically, while not included in the quarterly results, we're very excited to have welcomed Progress Bank into United on January 3rd. Progress has a great franchise and some high-growth markets, including Huntsville and the Florida Panhandle. It's a perfect complement to our existing franchise and will improve our growth prospects for years to come. David Nass, the founder and CEO of Progress, has built a great team, and we look forward to his continued leadership as United in those great markets. And now Jefferson will share more details for the quarter.