Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NYSE:AMTB) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call April 21, 2022 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Laura Rossi - Head of Investor Relations

Jerry Plush - Chief Executive Officer

Carlos Lafigliola - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Rose - Raymond James

Stephen Scouten - Piper Sandler

Michael Young - Truist Securities

Samuel Varga - Stephens, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Amerant Bancorp First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and live webcast. At this time all participants are listen-only mode [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Laura Rossi, Head of Investor Relations of Amerant Bank. Please go ahead.

Laura Rossi

Thank you, Gigi. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us to review Amerant Bancorp’s first quarter 2022 results. Also on today's call are Jerry Plush, our Chief Executive Officer; and Carlos Lafigliola, our Chief Financial Officer. As we begin, please note that the company's press release, our discussion on today's call and our responses to your questions, contain forward-looking statements. Amerant's business and operations are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond its control, and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to the cautionary notices regarding forward-looking statements in the company's earnings release and presentation.

For a more complete description of these and other possible risks, please refer to the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and in other filings with the SEC. You can access these filings on the SEC's Web site. Amerant has no obligation and makes no commitment to update or publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements in order to reflect new information or subsequent events, circumstances or changes in expectations, except as required by law. Please also note that the company's press release, earnings presentation and today's call, include references to certain adjusted financial measures, also known as non-GAAP financial measures. Exhibit 2 and Appendix 1 of the company's press release and earnings presentation, respectively, contain a reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to its most comparable GAAP financial measure.

I will now turn it over to our CEO, Jerry Plush.

Jerry Plush

Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining Amerant’s first quarter 2022 earnings call. I'm pleased to be here today to report on our results for the quarter and update everyone on steps taken this quarter as part of our transformation efforts to better position the company for success. We remain committed to continue to execute throughout 2022 to build an even better and stronger version of Amerant. We're also pleased to report that based on the company's first quarter results on April 13, 2022, our Board of Directors approved a $0.09 per share dividend payable on May 31, 2022. The payment of dividends are an essential part of our commitment to provide greater value to our shareholders. It has been one year since I became CEO and first shared our strategic priorities with all of you. During the course of this call, in addition to covering for the results of the quarter, we'll provide an update on the progress we have made on our way to fully deliver on those priorities. I'll now provide a brief overview of our performance in the first quarter and then I'll hand it over to Carlos to get into the details.