Univest Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:UVSP) Q1 2022 Results Conference Call April 28, 2022 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Jeff Schweitzer - President and CEO
Mike Keim - COO and President of Univest Bank and Trust
Brian Richardson - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Frank Schiraldi - Piper Sandler
Tim Switzer - KBW
Brody Preston - Stephens
Chris Reynolds - Neuberger Berman
Jeff Schweitzer
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 need 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 these 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 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 $20.3 million during the first quarter or $0.68 per share. During the quarter, we continued to experience solid loan growth as loans grew $112.2 million or 8.5% annualized, excluding PPP loans.
In addition to our solid results in the quarter, we are excited to announce our expansion into 2 new markets with the hiring of market presidents for Western Pennsylvania and Maryland as we continue our organic growth strategy. We are excited by the additions of Chris and Matt to the Univest family. While they are experienced commercial bankers, in addition to building their teams, they will be working with all our lines of business and growing and serving these new markets. Additionally, during the quarter, we began the development of a comprehensive digital platform, building off the investments we have been making in technology over the past few years.
This digital platform will allow us to be more efficient and less reliant on physical locations in the future as we expand and build out this initiative. While this will be a significant investment, we are confident it will position us very well for the future as customer expectations and preferences continue to evolve. Finally, due to our strong performance and strong capital position, the Board of Directors has declared a 5% increase in our quarterly cash dividend and the repurchase of shares targeted at 150,000 per quarter.