Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 25, 2023 12:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Miles Pondelik - Director of IR and Corporate Development

Ken Vecchione - President and CEO

Dale Gibbons - CFO

Tim Bruckner - Chief Credit Officer

Conference Call Participants

Casey Haire - Jefferies

Brad Milsaps - Piper Sandler

Steven Alexopoulos - JPMorgan

Ebrahim Poonawala - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Brandon King - Truist

Andrew Terrell - Stephens Inc.

Chris McGratty - KBW

David Smith - Autonomous

Tim Braziler - Wells Fargo

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to Western Alliance Bancorporation's Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. You may also view the presentation today via webcast through the company's website at www.westernalliancebancorporation.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Miles Pondelik, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Go ahead.

Miles Pondelik

Welcome to Western Alliance Bancorporation's Fourth Quarter 2020 Conference Call. Our speakers today are Ken Vecchione, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dale Gibbons, Chief Financial Officer.

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 update any forward-looking statements.

For more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed yesterday, which are available on the company's website.

Now for opening remarks, I'd like to turn the call over to Ken Vecchione.

Ken Vecchione

Thanks, Miles. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to provide an overview of our 2022 performance and then preface our approach to 2023 before Dale reviews the bank's financial performance. I should also mention that Tim Bruckner, our Chief Credit Officer, is also in the room with us today.

Western Alliance had a strong year in 2022. Our diversified national commercial bank grew loans 28%, deposits by nearly 13% and posted record net revenue and net income growth of 30% and 17.6%, respectively. We accomplished all this while maintaining strong and stable asset quality as net charge-offs to average loans were approximately 0% for the year, while non-performing assets to total assets improved to 14 basis points.

Balance sheet is well positioned to weather an evolving environment as 27% of the loan portfolio is credit-protected and 53% of the loans can be classified as insured or economically resistant. Our goal is to emerge on this slowing or recessionary environment as the top-performing asset quality bank in our peer group, a position we currently occupy.