Western Alliance Bancorporation Common Stock (DE)

Good day, everyone. Welcome to Western Alliance Bank Corporation's first quarter 2024 earnings call. You may also view the presentation today via webcast through the company's website at www.westernalliancebankcorporation.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Myles Pondelik, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome to Western Alliance Bank's first quarter 2024 conference call. Our speakers today are Ken Becchione, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dale Gibbons, Chief Financial Officer, and Tim Bruckner, our Chief Banking Officer for Regional Banking, will join for Q&A. Before I hand the call over to Ken, please note that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, except as required by law. The company does not undertake any obligation to updating a forward-looking statement. For more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's SEC filings, including the Form 8 file yesterday, which are available on the company's website. Now for opening remarks, I'd like to turn the call over to Ken Becchione.

Good morning, everyone. I'll make some brief comments about our first quarter earnings before turning the call over to Dale. He will review the financial results in more detail. I'll come back and discuss the 24 outlook, and then Tim Bruckner, our Chief Banking Officer, will join us for Q&A. For the last three quarters, the mission of the company has been to reposition the balance sheet and optimize our funding structure to establish an unassailable foundation of higher capital, liquidity, and insured and collateralized deposits, and further distance us from last March. Together, these factors should provide a bulwark to better insulate the bank from future industry and market volatility, as well as support more predictable, superior long-term returns. This quarter, we generated exceptional deposit growth of $6.9 billion that accelerated our repositioning plans at a faster pace than anticipated. We reached our CET1 capital target of 11 percent, lowered our HFI loan-to-deposit ratio by 10 points to 81 percent, and increased our already leading insured deposit ratio to 81%. Our liquidity profile was also enhanced by a $6.5 billion increase in unencumbered securities and cash from year end, which also allows us to pay down borrowings by $1 billion. In summary, our repositioning goals have largely been accomplished. I'm pleased that during the quarter of outsized liquidity growth, Western Lions earned $1.72 per share, excluding the increased special assessment from the FDIC, and tangible book value continued to climb despite rate headwinds. Asset quality remained steady with special mention loans and classified assets declining $139 million in aggregate from Q4. Net charge-offs remain low at only eight basis points of average loans. Our excellent liquidity positions us to drive stronger loan growth starting in Q2. Loan growth should track proportionally with deposits to maintain our improved loan-to-deposit ratio and allow us to exit 2024 in line with market expectations. Dale will now take you through the financial results. Thanks, Ken.