U.S. Bancorp

Welcome to U.S. Bancorp's first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. Following a review of the results by Andy Cesari, 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 touchtone phone and press the pound key to withdraw. This call will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately noon Eastern Standard Time through Wednesday, April 24th at 12 midnight Eastern Standard Time. I will now turn the conference call over to Jen Thompson, Director of Investor Relations for U.S. Bancorp.

Thank you, Jack, and good morning to everyone who's joined our call. Andy Cesari and Terry Dolan are here with me today to review U.S. Bancorp's first 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. Thank you for joining our call. Following our prepared remarks, Terry and I will be taking your questions. I'll begin on slide three. In the first quarter, we reported earnings of a dollar per share. This slide highlights a number of financial metrics, but at a high level, growth in net interest income and fee revenue were in line with our expectations. Credit quality was stable, and we delivered positive operating leverage. Our balance sheet is strong and growing, and we continue to see good account and volume momentum across our fee businesses, which is driving market share gains. Turning to capital management, our book value increased by 8.6% from a year ago. During the quarter, we returned 77% of our earnings to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Slide four provides key performance metrics. In the first quarter, we delivered an 18.4% return on tangible common equity, and a 1.49% return on average assets. Now let me turn the call over to Terry, who will provide more detail on the quarter as well as forward-looking guidance.