OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call April 29, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jill Hewitt - Senior Vice President and Investor Relations

Christopher Maher - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Joseph Lebel - President and Chief Operating Officer

Michael Fitzpatrick - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Perito - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc.

David Bishop - Hovde Group, LLC

William Wallace - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.

Russell Gunther - D.A. Davidson & Co.

Christopher Marinac - Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC

Erik Zwick - Boenning & Scattergood, Inc.

Matthew Breese - Stephens Inc.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the OceanFirst Financial Corp. Quarterly Earnings Conference Call. My name is Davy, and I'll be coordinating today's event. [Operator Instructions]

I'll now hand over to your host, Jill Hewitt, Investor Relations Officer at OceanFirst to begin. So Jill, please go ahead.

Jill Hewitt

Thank you, Davy. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. I'm Jill Hewitt, Senior Vice President and Investor Relations Officer at OceanFirst Financial Corp. We will begin this morning's call with our forward-looking statement disclosure. Please remember that many of our remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Refer to our press release and other public filings, including the risk factors in our 10-K, where you will find factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Thank you.

And now, I turn the call over to our host this morning, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Maher.

Christopher Maher

Thank you, Jill, and good morning to all who have been able to join our first quarter 2022 earnings conference call today. This morning, I'm joined by our President, Joe Lebel; and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Fitzpatrick. As always, we appreciate your interest in our performance and are pleased to be able to discuss our operating results with you. This morning, we will cover our financial and operating performance for the quarter, and provide some color regarding the outlook for our business.

Please note that our earnings release was accompanied by an investor presentation that is available on the company's website. We may refer to those slides during this call. After our discussion, we look forward to taking your questions.

In terms of financial results for the first quarter, GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.42. Earnings reflect a strong loan and deposit growth, expanding margins, decreased operating expenses and benign credit conditions. Core earnings were $0.49 per share and reflect non-core items, including charges related to 10 branch closures in January, merger charges and equity valuations.