Randy Sims
Analyst · KBW. Please go ahead with your question
Thank you, Johnny. As he said, it was a good quarter and a really good start to 2017 and as Johnny went through everything that went on in the first quarter, I think we would all have to agree that it was a very, very busy quarter, might have been the busiest quarter than in the history of our bank. We close John Holdings Incorporated and we also close The Bank of Commerce and of course as who can forget on March 27th, we had a really great announcement and signing of the definitive agreement with Stonegate Bank that when completed will be the largest acquisition in the history of our company. So quite a quarter, but it doesn’t end there. The first quarter of 2017 was the most profitable quarter in the history of our company. Again, now that is 24 consecutive quarters of record income and by my calculation, I got one of my grandkids to help me. That is six years. Six solid years, now we will admit the last couple of quarters have been very noisy with merger expenses and other non-fundamental items that's all detailed in our statements that had to be considerably; however, six years of record income is quite an accomplishment that all shareholders can be proud off and I congratulate our employees and their hard work to accomplish this milestone. I know you can't hear it over the phone but there is fireworks that are going off all around the bank, just like in the stadiums, so at any rate, there is only one thing I'd say, let's go for seven years, and that's what we are going to try today. Now to some of the numbers, for the first quarter of 2017, the Company reported a 13.1% increase in quarterly profit to 46.9 compared to 41.4 million for the same period in 2016. Diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2017 was $0.33 per share compared to $0.29 per share split adjusted for 2016, representing an increase of $0.04 per share or 13.8%, when compared to the same quarter in the prior year. Excluding the $6.7 million charge of merger expenses associated with the recently completed acquisitions of John Holdings, Incorporated and The Bank of Commerce offset by $3.8 million of their onetime non-taxable gain on the acquisition associated with commerce, diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2017 remained at $0.33 per share. Our return on average assets for the first quarter was 1.86% as compared to 1.79% in the first quarter of last year and 1.98% in the last quarter of 2016. As our new banks improve with efficiency and profitability, I think we can get back very close to that 2%, if not make it that our Chairman would like to see. Our core return on average assets excluding intangible amortization, provision for loan losses, merger expenses, gain on acquisitions, reduced provisions for loan losses as the result of the significant loan recovery, loss on FDIC loss share buyout and income taxes and I think better that record for the number of exclusions that I've ever said in our report was 3.31% for the quarter as compared to 3.27% for the same period in 2016. Our return on average TCE excluding intangible amortization for quarter was 20.08%. So as of March 31st, the corporation is sitting at little over $10.7 billion. Deposits ended at 7.57 billion as compared to 6.94 billion at 12-31-16. We have a great management team on hand to talk more about for results for the first quarter. So, I would like to start and turn it over to Centennial CEO, Tracy French to give us additional color in his comment on the performance of the first quarter.