Univest Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:UVSP) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 26, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jeff Schweitzer - President and CEO

Mike Keim - COO and President, Univest Bank & Trust

Brian Richardson - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Tim Switzer - KBW

Operator

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Univest Financial Corporation to hold Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Schweitzer, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Jeff Schweitzer

Thank you, Drew, and good morning, and thank you to all of our listeners for joining us. Joining me on the call this morning is Mike Keim, our Chief Operating Officer and President of Univest Bank and Trust; and Brian Richardson, our Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone of the forward-looking statements disclaimer. Please be advised that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements that express management's intentions, beliefs or expectations within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Univest's actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by those forward-looking statements. I will refer you to the forward-looking cautionary statements in our earnings release and in our SEC filings. Hopefully, everyone had a chance to review our earnings release from yesterday. If not, it can be found on our website at univest.net under the Investor Relations tab.

We reported net income of $23.8 million during the fourth quarter or $0.81 per share. The highlight of the quarter was our continued strong organic loan growth. Loans grew $274 million or 18.8% annualized, excluding PPP loans during the quarter and $842.8 million or 16% for the year. This strong growth, along with the increasing interest rate environment during the year, resulted in net interest income increasing 25.5% in 2022 compared to 2021, excluding PPP activity.

We are very happy with our results for the quarter and 2022 as a whole as we reported solid growth and financial results while also investing in long-term strategic initiatives in our digital strategy and expansion into Western Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Before I pass it over to Brian, I would like to thank the entire Univest family for the great work they do every day and for their continued efforts serving our customers, communities and each other.

I will now turn it over to Brian for further discussion on our results.

Brian Richardson