Old National Bancorp (NASDAQ:ONB) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 23, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jim Ryan - CEO

Brendon Falconer - CFO

Mark Sander - President and COO

Conference Call Participants

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler

Terry McEvoy - Stephens

Chris McGratty - KBW

Brody Preston - UBS

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Welcome to the Old National Bancorp Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded and has been made accessible to the public in accordance with the SEC's Regulation FD. Corresponding presentation slides can be found on the Investor Relations page at oldnational.com and will be archived there for 12 months.

Management would like to remind everyone that certain statements on today's call may be forward-looking in nature and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ from those discussed. The company refers you to its forward-looking statement legend in the earnings release and presentation slides. The company's risk factors are fully disclosed and discussed within its SEC filings.

In addition, Certain slides contain non-GAAP measures, which management believes provide more appropriate comparisons. These non-GAAP measures are intended to assist investors' understanding of performance trends. Reconciliations for these numbers are contained within the appendix of the presentation.

I'd now like to turn the call over to Old National's CEO, Jim Ryan for opening remarks. Mr. Ryan?

Jim Ryan

Good morning.

Old National reported strong fourth quarter and record full year results earlier this morning. During 2023, we successfully navigated a challenging interest rate environment, along with industry-wide liquidity pressures earlier in the year. At Old National, executing our basic banking strategy served us well. In fact, our 2023 adjusted EPS, return on average tangible common equity and efficiency ratio were the best in our nearly 190-year history.

Tangible book value per share also grew by 17% year-over-year combined with our roughly 3.7% average dividend yield gave shareholders a strong return for the year. Our peer-leading deposit franchise disciplined loan growth, strong credit quality and well-managed expenses and dedicated team members who are committed to our clients and communities drove these outstanding results.

While many in our industry spent the year on defense, we remain on the offense by continuing to invest in new client-facing and key support talent and being ready and opportunistic for acquisitions as evidenced by our recently announced CapStar Bank partnership which will expand our franchise to the highly dynamic markets of Nashville, broader Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina. I will share more details about our progress with the strategic partnership later in my comments.