Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (CFR) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 27, 2022 2:00 PM ET

Company Participants

A.B. Mendez – Senior Vice President and Director-Investor Relations

Phil Green – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Jerry Salinas – Group Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steven Alexopoulos – JPMorgan

Dave Rochester – Compass Point

John Pancari – Evercore ISI

Brady Gailey – KBW

Jennifer Demba – Truist Securities

Ebrahim Poonawala – Bank of America

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to A.B. Mendez, Senior Vice President and Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

A.B. Mendez

Thanks, Sherry. Our conference call today will be led by Phil Green, Chairman and CEO; and Jerry Salinas, Group Executive Vice President and CFO.

Before I turn the call over to Phil and Jerry, I need to take a moment to address the Safe Harbor provisions. Some of the remarks made today will constitute forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. We intend such statements to be covered by the Safe Harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended.

Please see the last page of text in this morning’s earnings release for additional information about the risk factors associated with these forward-looking statements. If needed, a copy of the release is available on our website or by calling the Investor Relations department at 210-220-5234.

At this time, I’ll turn the call over to Phil.

Phil Green

Thanks, A.B, and good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today, I’ll review third quarter results for Cullen/Frost and our Chief Financial Officer, Jerry Salinas, who is going to provide additional comments before we open it up to your questions.

In the third quarter, Cullen/Frost earned $168.1 million or $2.59 a share and that compared with earnings of $106.3 million or $1.65 a share reported in the same quarter last year and $117.4 million or $1.81 a share in the second quarter of this year.

Our return on average assets and average common equity in the third quarter or 1.27% and 20.13%, respectively. These results and our overall growth show that our investments in our strategy of sustainable organic growth are paying off and that our company is well positioned to succeed. Loan growth continued to be strong and above our long-term expectation of high single-digit annual growth.