Mark Grescovich
Analyst · D.A. Davidson. Jeff, please go ahead. Your line is now open
Thank you, Rich. Today, we will cover four primary items with you. First, I will provide you high-level comments on Banner's fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance; second, the actions Banner continues to take to support all of our stakeholders, including our Banner team, our clients, our communities and our shareholders; third, Jill Rice will provide comments on the current status of our loan portfolio; and finally, Peter Conner will provide more detail on our operating performance for the quarter, as well as provide an update on our strategic initiative called Banner Forward. As a reminder, the focus of Banner Forward is to accelerate growth in commercial banking, deepen relationships with retail clients, advance technology strategies and streamline our back office. Before I get started, I want to again thank all of my 2,000 colleagues in our company that continue implementing our Banner Forward initiatives and who are working extremely hard to assist our clients and communities. Banner has lived our core values, summed up as doing the right thing, for the past 132 years. Our overarching goal continues to be, do the right thing for our clients, our communities, our colleagues, our company and our shareholders, and to provide a consistent and reliable source of commerce and capital through all economic cycles and change events. I am pleased to report again to you that is exactly what we continue to do. I'm very proud of the entire Banner team that are living on our core values. Now, let me turn to an overview of our performance. As announced, Banner Corporation reported a net profit available to common shareholders of $54.4 million or $1.58 per diluted share for the quarter ended December 31, 2022. This compares to a net profit to common shareholders of $1.44 per share for the fourth quarter of 2021 and $1.43 per share for the third quarter of 2022. For the full year ended December 31, 2022, Banner Corporation reported a net income available to common shareholders of $195.4 million compared to $201 million for the full year 2021. The earnings comparison is impacted by: the provision or recapture of credit losses; excess liquidity, coupled with a rapid change in interest rates; our strategy to maintain a moderate risk profile; a gain on sale of four branches; and the acceleration of deferred loan fee income associated with the SBA loan forgiveness of Paycheck Protection loans. Peter will discuss these items in more detail shortly. To illustrate the core earnings power of Banner, I would direct your attention to pre-tax pre-provision earnings and excluding the impact of merger and acquisition expenses, COVID expenses, gains and losses on the sale of securities, Banner Forward expenses, changes in fair value of financial instruments and the gain on the sale of branches, full year 2022 earnings were $251.9 million compared to $223.1 million for the full year of 2021. Banner's fourth quarter 2022 revenue from core operations increased 9% to $175.7 million compared to $161.5 million for the third quarter of 2022, and $143.4 million in the fourth quarter a year ago. For the full year 2022, revenue from core operations increased 6% to $623.1 million when compared to the full year 2021. We continue to benefit from strong core deposit base and improving net interest margin and good core expense control. Overall, this resulted in a return-on-average assets of 1.34% for the fourth quarter of 2022. Once again, our core performance reflects continued execution on our super community bank strategy; that is, growing new client relationships, adding to our core funding position by growing core deposits and promoting client loyalty and advocacy through our responsive service model. To that point, our core deposits represent 95% of total deposits. Further, we continued our strong organic generation of new relationships, and our loans outside of PPP loans increased 13% over the same period last year. Reflective of the solid performance, coupled with our strong regulatory capital ratios, we announced a core dividend of $0.48 per common share, up 9% from our last dividend. As noted in the release, Banner published our inaugural Environmental, Social and Governance Highlights Report in December. This report addresses many of the ways in which we are striving to do the right thing to support our clients, our communities and our colleagues. And while it covers many of the items I have mentioned before, including providing SBA payroll protection funds, totaling more than $1.6 billion for approximately 13,000 clients, as well as the $1.5 million commitment to support minority-owned businesses in our footprint, a $1 million equity investment in City First Bank, the largest Black-lead depository financial institution in the United States. It goes much further in outlining the level of commitment Banner has to the many communities in which we serve. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to take a few moments to review it. Finally, I'm pleased to say that we continue to receive marketplace recognition and validation of our business model and our value proposition. J.D. Power and Associates ranked Banner the Number One bank in the Northwest for client satisfaction for the sixth time. Banner has been named one of America's 100 Best Banks by Forbes, and Banner Bank received an outstanding CRA rating in our most recent CRA examination. Let me now turn the call over to Jill to discuss trends in our loan portfolio, and her comments on Banner's credit quality. Jill?