United Community Banks, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to United Community Bank's second quarter 2025 earnings call. Hosting our call today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lynn Harton, 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, pretax, precredit 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 first quarter's earnings release and investor presentation were filed this morning 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 2024 Form 10K as well as other information provided by the company and its filings with the SEC and included on its website. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Lynn Harton.

Good morning and thank you all for joining our call today. We continue to enjoy solid growth and earnings. Operating earnings per share for the quarter was 66 cents, an increase of 14 percent year over year. One cause of that growth was an expansion of our net interest margin to 350 basis points, an improvement of 14 basis points over last quarter. Jefferson will give more details, but the quarter saw continued stabilization of our -interest-sparing balances as well as success in lowering interest-bearing deposit rates. Seasonal outflows of public funds were within our expected ranges and our customer deposits excluding merger activity grew 1.3 percent annualized. Loan growth was 4.2 percent annualized and pipelines remained strong as we head into the third quarter. Credit continues to perform well. Net charge-offs were 18 basis points for the quarter. In the quarter, we had a total of 8 basis points. Both non-accruals and past dues already at low levels improved during the quarter. Expense growth was well controlled and helped us reach an efficiency ratio of 54.8 percent, an improvement of 222 basis points compared to last year. I'd like to congratulate and thank our teams throughout the bank for these great results. I'm also grateful for all the work that our existing teams and our new teammates from American National Bank did this quarter to close the acquisition and convert systems and branding. American National is a -year-old institution in Fort Lauderdale that fits perfectly with our South Florida footprint. I'm very excited to welcome their talented and passionate team to United. Jefferson, why don't you cover the quarter in more detail

now? Thank you, Lynn, and good morning to everyone. I'll start on page 5. We were very pleased with our deposit performance this quarter. Our $205 million increase in deposits had the benefit of the American National deal that closed on May 1. In the second quarter, we also saw our usual public funds deposits outflows of $233 million, excluding the deal and the public fund seasonality our deposits grew by $64 million or by 1.2 percent annualized. We were also able to push down the cost of our deposits in the quarter to 2.01 percent to achieve a 34 percent total deposit beta so far. We continue to believe that we are on pace for a high 30 percent deposit beta range through this cycle. We also continue to have some opportunity to reprice our cb book lower. The third quarter, we have about $1.4 billion of cds or 38 percent of our cd book maturing at 3.72 percent that should be able to move down by 10 to 20 basis points. On page 6, we turn to the loan portfolio where our growth continued at a 4.2 percent annualized pace, excluding American National. Turning to page 7, where we highlight some of our balance sheet. We have no wholesale borrowings and very limited brokered deposits. Using some of our balance sheet flexibility, we redeemed $100 million in senior notes in June, where the cost was about to adjust to the 9 percent range from its existing 5 percent rate. Our loan to deposit ratio remained low but increased slightly to 79 percent with the acquisition and solid loan growth. In addition, our CET1 ratio remained at 13.3 percent and remains a source of strength for the bank. On page 8, we look at capital in more detail. Our TCE ratio was up 27 basis points and our regulatory capital ratios were stable at high levels. Our TCE and all of our capital ratios remain above peers, which we believe will allow us to continue to be opportunistic. We were able to be opportunistic this quarter and we purchased 507,000 shares or about $14 million of UCB stock. We have been fairly active in managing our capital since the beginning of 2024. We have now paid down $100 million in senior debt, $68 million in tier 2 capital, and now have repurchased $14 million of common shares. Moving on to spread income on page 9, we grew spread income at a 21 percent annualized pace, excluding American National compared to last quarter. Our net interest margin increased 14 basis points to 3.50 percent, mainly driven by lower cost of funds and a mixed change towards loans. Moving to page 10, on an operating basis, non-interest income was down $1 million from last quarter. This was mostly driven by a negative swing in the MSR mark, which was at a $300,000 and negative fees due to a write down of our remaining deferred costs that came when we redeemed the senior debt I mentioned earlier. Excluding the MSR swing and the cost to extinguish the senior debt, the income was slightly higher than Q1. We resumed selling the VEDA loans in the quarter, which drove the increase in loan sale gains as compared to last quarter. Operating expenses on page 11 were only up $2.1 million in the quarter, excluding American National. This $2.1 million increase was primarily driven by $1.8 million in merit increases. The expense base was relatively flat, excluding American National and the merit increase. Moving to credit quality on page 12, net charge-offs were 18 basis points in the quarter. Improved compared to last quarter and last year. We also saw nice improvements in NPAs and past dues as credit quality remained strong. I will finish on page 14 with the allowance for credit losses. Our loan loss provision was $11.8 million in the quarter and more than covered for $8.2 million in charge-offs. The $11.8 million provision also included a $2.5 million provision or double dip to set aside a reserve for the American National non-PCD book. This double dip was more than upset by a $2.8 million release of our hurricane-related special reserve. Specifically, we reduced our net net coverage to $1.21. With that, I will pass it back to Len.