United Community Banks, Inc. (NASDAQ:UCBI) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call July 20, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Lynn Harton - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Jefferson Harralson - Chief Financial Officer

Rich Bradshaw - President and Chief Banking Officer

Rob Edwards - Chief Risk Officer

Conference Call Participants

Brad Milsaps - Piper Sandler

Jennifer Demba - Truist

Michael Rose - Raymond James

Kevin Fitzsimmons - D. A. Davidson

David Bishop - Hovde Group

Catherine Mealor - KBW

Christopher Marinac - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC

Operator

Good morning, everyone. And welcome to United Community Bank's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Hosting our call today our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Harton; Chief Financial Officer, Jefferson Harralson; President and Chief Banking Officer, Rich Bradshaw; and Chief Risk Officer, Rob Edwards.

United's presentation today includes references to operating earnings, pretax, pre-credit earnings and other non-GAAP financial information. For these non-GAAP financial measures, United has provided a reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP financial measure in the Financial Highlights section of the earnings release as well as at the end of the investor presentation. Both are included on the website at ucbi.com. Copies of the second quarter's earnings release and investor presentation were filed last night on Form 8-K with the SEC, and a replay of this call will be available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at ucbi.com.

Please be aware that during this call, forward-looking statements may be made by representatives of United. Any forward-looking statements should be considered in light of risks and uncertainties described on pages 5 and 6 of the company's 2021 Form 10-K, as well as other information provided by the company in its filings with the SEC and included on its website.

At this time, I will turn the call over to Lynn Harton.

Lynn Harton

Good morning and thank you for joining our call today. Despite the concerns over inflation, Fed tightening and the direction of the economy, we had a solid quarter that demonstrates some of the strengths of the company and our strategy. First, our net interest revenue grew at an annualized rate of 37%, driven primarily by 22 basis point expansion in our margin. This expansion highlights the strength of our deposit base created by our service performance. We've included some historical deposit beta information in our deck this quarter to give you additional insight into this core advantage. Due largely to our net interest revenue growth, our operating return on assets improved to 1.17%. Our return on tangible common increased to 14.2%. And our pretax pre-provision income increased by $8 million, a 39% annualized growth rate.