First Financial Bancorp. (NASDAQ:FFBC) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 27, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Scott Crawley - Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer

Archie Brown - President and Chief Executive Officer

James Anderson - Chief Financial Officer

William Harrod - Chief Credit Officer

Conference Call Participants

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler & Co.

Daniel Tamayo - Raymond James Financial Inc.

Terry McEvoy - Stephens Inc.

Christopher McGratty - KBW

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Hello and welcome to the First Financial Bancorp Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Glenn and I'll be the operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand you over to your host, Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. Scott, please go ahead.

Scott Crawley

Thank you, Glenn. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bancorp’s fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. Participating on today's call will be Archie Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jamie Anderson, Chief Financial Officer; and Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer. Both the press release we issued yesterday and the accompanying slide presentation are available on our website at www.bankatfirst.com under the Investor Relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call.

Additionally, please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the fourth quarter 2022 earnings release as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the Company's risk factors. The information we will provide today is accurate as of December 31, 2022, and we will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call.

I will now turn it over to Archie Brown.

Archie Brown

Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us for today's call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022. Before I turn the call over to Jamie, I would like to provide some highlights from the most recent quarters and recap this year's outstanding performance.

I am extremely pleased with our fourth quarter which was exceptional on many levels. Earnings per diluted share were $0.73, return on assets was 1.63% and our adjusted efficiency ratio improved to 55%. Diluted earnings per common share increased 24% from the third quarter, and we achieved record operating revenue of $214 million driven by a 15% increase in net interest income and a 32% increase in fee income.