Banco de Chile (NYSE:BCH) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 3, 2023 10:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Rodrigo Aravena - Chief Economist & Senior Vice President of Institutional Investor Relations

Pablo Mejia - Head of Investor Relations

Daniel Galarce - Head of Financial Control & Capital

Conference Call Participants

Tito Labarta - Goldman Sachs

Andres Soto - Santander

Yuri Fernandes - JPMorgan

Carlos Gomez - HSBC

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Banco de Chile's Fourth Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. If you need a copy of the management financial review, it is available on the company's website. Today with us, we have Mr. Rodrigo Aravena, the Chief Economist and Institutional Relations Officer; Mr. Pablo Mejia, Head of Investor Relations; and Daniel Galarce, Head of Financial Control and Capital; and Natalia Dele Investor Relations Specialist.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded and that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial and operating performance. All the projections are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the detailed note in the company's press release regarding forward-looking statements.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rodrigo Aravena. Please go ahead, sir. The floor is yours.

Rodrigo Aravena

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for attending this conference call. Well, we will review the main accomplishments achieved by our bank during the fourth quarter and the full year of 2022. In this call, we will also share our business analysis and guidance for 2023. Before reviewing the economic environment, I'd like to share with you some of our main achievements during the last year.

Please go to Slide number 2. 2022 was an outstanding year for Banco de Chile when we undoubtedly reaffirm our leadership in the Chilean banking industry, not only financial performance but also in many other key strategic aspects when compared to our competitors. Even though we will go over our main accomplishments otitis presentation, I'd like to briefly highlight some of them.

On the financial side, we see a historical bottom line of MXN1,409 billion, equivalent to an ROE of 51.4%, well above the industry average. As targeting the bottom line by the transitory and nonrecurring effect of higher inflation rate in the equity value, ROE would have been 19%, well above the rest of the period, but more in line with our historical figures. Our growth in operating income was accompanied by a historical efficiency ratio of 52% and robust as equality figures also positioning us better than our payers.