Provident Financial Services, Inc. (NYSE:PFS) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Adriano Duarte - Head of Investor Relations

Tony Labozzetta - President & Chief Executive Officer

Tom Lyons - Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Mark Fitzgibbon - Piper Sandler

Billy Young - RBC Capital Markets

Manuel Navas - D. A. Davidson

Operator

Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Provident Financial Services Inc. First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Frances, and I'll be your moderator today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Adriano Duarte with Provident Financial Services. Please go ahead.

Adriano Duarte

Thank you, Frances. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. Today's presenters are President and CEO, Tony Labozzetta, and Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Lyons.

Before beginning the review of our financial results, we ask that you please take note of our standard question as to any forward looking statements that may be made during the course of today's call. Our full disclaimers contained in this morning's earnings release, which has been posted to our investor relations page on our website, provident.bank.

Now it's my pleasure to introduce Tony Labozzetta who will offer his perspective on the first quarter. Tony?

Tony Labozzetta

Thank you, Adriano. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Provident Financial Services Earnings Call. First quarter was an extraordinary time for the banking industry. What has been described as an idiosyncratic event resulted in the failure of two high profile regional banks and caused a disruption to the banking system, that can be properly termed a deposit flight prices.

Presently, it appears that the volatility has moderated and the banking industry including Provident remains fundamentally strong, liquid, and well capitalized. Given this recent disruption to the banking system, out of an abundance of caution, we prudently took measures to maximize our on-balance sheet liquidity. This included increasing our cash position, using higher cost funding sources and higher costing deposit programs that provide more insurance.

Despite the current market conditions, Provident produced good financial results this quarter, which demonstrates the resiliency of our business model, strong deposit franchise and talented management team. As such, we reported earnings of $0.54 per share, an annualized return on average assets of 1.2% and a return on average tangible equity of 14.1%.