Heartland Financial USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLF) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 30, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Bruce Lee - President & CEO

Bryan McKeag - EVP & CFO

Nathan Jones - EVP & Chief Credit Officer

Conference Call Participants

Terry McEvoy - Stephens

Damon DelMonte - KBW

Jeff Rulis - D.A. Davidson

Andrew Leisch - Piper Sandler

David Long - Raymond James

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to HTLF 2022 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. This afternoon, HTLF announced its fourth quarter earnings, and hopefully, you had a chance to review those results. The earnings release is available on HTLF' website at htlf.com.

With us today from management are Bruce Lee, President and CEO; Bryan McKeag, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Nathan Jones, Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer. Management will provide a summary of the quarter, and then we will open the call to your questions.

Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind everyone that some of the information provided today falls under the guidelines of forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of these guidelines, any statements made during this presentation concerning the company's hopes, beliefs, expectations and predictions of the future are forward-looking statements and actual results could differ materially from those projected. Additional information on these factors is included from time to time in the company's 10-K and 10-Q filings, which may be obtained on the company's or the SEC website.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Bruce Lee, HTLF'S President and CEO. Sir, you may begin.

Bruce Lee

Thank you, Twanda. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Bruce Lee, President and CEO. Welcome to HTLF’s 2022 fourth quarter earnings conference call. I appreciate you joining us today, as we discuss our continued strong performance and ongoing momentum.

For the next few minutes, I'll discuss HTLF’s highlights for the fourth quarter and year, then turn the call over to Bryan McKeag, Chief Financial Officer, for more on our results. Also joining us today is Nathan Jones, Chief Credit Officer, who can answer questions regarding the excellent credit quality across our portfolios.

HTLF had tremendous success and significant growth in 2022. We are driving momentum, executing our strategy and delivering strong results that exceed expectations. This month, our Board of Directors approved a record quarterly cash dividend of $0.30 per share on the company's common stock, a 7% increase from the previous quarter. The dividend is payable on February 28, 2023. This increase reflects our strong performance for the quarter and year and our confidence in our strategies and ongoing results.