Operator
Operator
Good morning. My name is Paula, and I will be your conference operator today. Thank you for joining us for this conference call for OFG Bancorp. Our speakers are José Rafael Fernández, President, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman; and Ganesh Kumar, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. There is a presentation that accompanies today's remarks. It can be found in the Investor Relations Web site on the homepage in the What's New Box or on the webcast, presentations, and other files page. Please note this call may feature forward-looking statements about management's goals, plans and expectations, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties outlined in the risks factor section of OFG's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. We disclaim any obligation to update information disclosed in this call, as a result of developments, which occur afterwards. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Fernández. José Rafael Fernández: Thank you for joining us this morning, and please turn to slide three. We had another quarter of strong steady performance, earnings per share of $0.26 was slightly better than the prior two quarters. Our Oriental franchise continue to do well. New loan origination totaled $227 million in the third quarter, in line with our target of about a billion dollars a year. We saw a nice expansion of net interest margin, excluding recovery, and retail and commercial deposits grew more than 2% due in part to continued growth of net new customer accounts at an annualized rate of 4%. Most credit quality metrics remained stable, but there was a major decline in net charges, excluding PREPA. There was also a substantial drop in OREO and REPO balances. This reflects our effective servicing and workout efforts. As a result, return on average assets and return on average tangible common equity hit the highest levels they have been in the last five quarters. As a further consequence, capital continue to build with tangible book value per share now at $15.18 and TCE ratio at 10.25%. Please turn to slide four. Oriental is now a proven innovator and challenger brand in Puerto Rico. Our goal is to be consistently the best performing bank on the island. To-date, we have been very successful differentiating our brand in a commoditized market, focusing on customer service, targeted marketing, and innovative retail and commercial mobile banking technology. This has been the real force behind our ability to grow our customer base, expand deposits, and generate steady loan volume as always with prudent credit underwriting and pricing discipline. At the same time, we have proactively managed credit quality and balance sheet risks. As you'll see later in the presentation, we now have less than one-fourth of the Puerto Rico government-related exposure we had three years ago when we acquired the operations of BBVA in Puerto Rico. We have also been optimizing operating efficiencies, while continuing to invest in the retail channel and customer facing technology. As a result, our game plan going forward is to keep the strategic momentum going. We will continue to grow our originated loan portfolios and enhance operating efficiencies when strategically advantageous. Assuming the economy continues to move along at its present pace, we anticipate similar results for OFG for the next few quarters. Please turn to slide five. This is our dashboard of key business trends. I have already mentioned a number of them, but let me point out a few others. Originated loan balances showed a slight sequential dip due to the PREPA transaction. Otherwise, they would have been level. Originated loan yields are up primarily due to continued growth in higher-yielding retail categories. We grew retail and commercial deposits while holding costs steady at 53 basis points. As a result of our strong liquidity, we were able to pay down significant amount of borrowings contributing to net interest margin expansion. Fee revenues remained level and the operating efficiency ratio continue to improve for the fifth consecutive quarter. Before handing over the call to Ganesh, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the sale of our participation in the PREPA loan. As you know, we acquired it in our purchase of BBVA Puerto Rico operations in December of 2012. While we were hopeful PREPA's agreement with creditors would restructure the credit into a viable and profitable term loan, our thinking evolved over time. Continued uncertainties regarding the economy of Puerto Rico forced us to take a closer look into execution risks as well as how the credit will fair over the next six years. Ultimately, we decided the better option was to take advantage of an opportunity to exit deposition, eliminate the destruction, and immediately improve our overall credit quality and capital positions. In the final analysis, we are pleased with the decision as clearly reflected in the improved statistics in today's presentation. With PREPA behind us, we look forward to continuing to pursue our strategic goal of becoming the best bank in Puerto Rico with no additional distractions [ph]. Now, here's Ganesh to review the quarter in more detail, after which I will make some closing remarks.