CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 27, 2023 10:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Christina Carrabino - Investor Relations

David Brager - President and Chief Executive Officer

Allen Nicholson - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

David Feaster - Raymond James

Gary Tenner - D.A. Davidson

Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler

Kelly Motta - KBW

Timothy Coffey - Janney Scott Montgomery

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Quarter of the 2023 CVB Financial Corporation and its subsidiary Citizens Business Bank Earnings Conference Call. My name is Latonya and I'm your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer period. Please note, this call is recorded.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Christina Carrabino. You may proceed.

Christina Carrabino

Thank you, Latonya, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our financial results for the first quarter of 2023. Joining me this morning are Dave Brager, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Allen Nicholson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information that was included in the earnings announcement released yesterday. To obtain a copy, please visit our website at www.cbbank.com and click on the Investors tab.

The speakers on this call claim the protection of the Safe Harbor provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, please see the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2022, and in particular, the information set forth in Item 1A, risk factors therein. For a more complete version of the company's Safe Harbor disclosure, please see the company's annual earnings release issued in connection with this call.

Now I will turn the call over to Dave Brager. Dave?

David Brager

Thank you, Christina. Good morning, everyone. For the first quarter of 2023, we reported net earnings of $59.3 million or $0.42 per share, representing our 184th consecutive quarter of profitability. We previously declared a $0.20 per share dividend for the first quarter of 2023, representing our 134th consecutive quarter of paying a cash dividend to our shareholders.

Financial highlights for the first quarter include a 35% year-over-year increase in earnings per share, a return on average tangible common equity that exceeded 20%, an efficiency ratio below 40% and a return on average assets of 1.47%.