Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 25, 2023 6:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Georgia Lo - Investor Relations

Chang Liu - President and Chief Executive Officer

Heng Chen - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Chris McGratty - KBW

Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler

Gary Tenner - D.A. Davidson

Andrew Terrell - Stephens

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Cathay General Bancorp’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Sarah and I will be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions] Today’s call is being recorded and will be available for replay at www.cathaygeneralbancorp.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Georgia Lo, Investor Relations of Cathay General Bancorp.

Georgia Lo

Thank you, Sarah and good afternoon. Here to discuss the financial results today are Mr. Chang Liu, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Heng Chen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, we wish to remind you that the speakers on this call may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning future results and events and that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are further described in the company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, at Item 1A in particular and in other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.

As such, we caution you not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of which it is made and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or review any forward-looking statements to reflect future circumstances, developments or events or the occurrence of unanticipated events.

This afternoon, Cathay General Bancorp issued an earnings release outlining its fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. To obtain a copy of our earnings release as well as our earnings presentation, please visit our website at www.cathaygeneralbancorp.com. After comments from management today, we will open this call up for questions.

I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chang Liu.

Chang Liu

Thank you, Georgia and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our 2022 fourth quarter earnings conference call. This afternoon, we reported net income of $97.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, a 29.6% increase as compared to a net income of $75.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. Diluted earnings per share increased 35.7% to $1.33 per share for the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $0.98 per share for the same quarter a year ago.