U.S. Bancorp

Welcome to U.S. Bancorp�s Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. Following a review of the results by Andy Cesare, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Terry Dolan, U.S. Bancorp�s Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, there will be a formal question and answer session. If you�d like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your touch-tone phone and press the pound key to withdraw. will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately noon Eastern Standard Time through Wednesday, 23rd at 12 midnight Eastern Standard Time. I'll now turn to the conference call of Jen Thompson of Investor Relations of U.S. Bank Corp.

Thank you, Kirk, and good morning to everyone who's joined our call. Andy Cesari and Terry Dolan are here with me today to review U.S. Bank Corp.' 's fourth quarter results and to answer your questions. Andy and Terry will be referencing a slide presentation during their prepared remarks. A copy of the slide presentation, as well as our earnings release and supplemental analyst schedules, are available on our website at usbank.com. I'd like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risk and uncertainty. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on page two of today's presentation, in our press release, and in our Form 10-K and subsequent reports on file with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Andy.

Thanks, Jen, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Following our prepared remarks, Terry and I will open the call up to Q&A. I'll begin on slide three, which provides financial highlights for the fourth quarter. We reported earnings per share of $1.10, which includes three petties per share of notable items, which Terry will discuss in more detail in a few moments. Excluding these notable items, we reported earnings per share of $1.07 for the quarter. Loan growth accelerated in the fourth quarter, driven by strength across our consumer, and commercial loan portfolios. The income improvement was supported by growth in new customer accounts and expanding client relationships. Strong payments revenue growth reflected higher sales volume across the board in retail card, corporate payments, and merchant acquiring. We also saw good business growth in trusted investment management, which offset the impact of unfavorable market conditions. In summary, loan growth and fee revenue trends remain healthy. As expected, we delivered positive operating leverage on a core basis in both the fourth quarter and for the full year 2018. Credit quality was stable, and our book value increased by 6.3% from a year ago. During the quarter, we returned 80% of our earnings to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Slide 4 provides key performance metrics. We delivered a 20.2% return on tangible common equity in the fourth quarter. We also saw year-over-year improvement in our efficiency ratio, return on average assets, and a return on average common equity. Now let me turn the call over to Terry, who will provide more detail on the quarter, as well as forward-looking guidance.