Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 24, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Jacque Bohlen - Investor Relations Director

Clint Stein - President and Chief Executive Officer

Ron Farnsworth - Chief Financial Officer

Frank Namdar - Chief Credit Officer

Tory Nixon - President, Umpqua Bank

Chris Merrywell - President, Umpqua Bank

Conference Call Participants

David Feaster - Raymond James

Timur Braziler - Wells Fargo

Brandon King - Truist

Chris McGratty - KBW

Jeff Rulis - D.A. Davidson

Brody Preston - UBS

Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Welcome to the Columbia Banking System's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to introduce Jacque Bohlen, Investor Relations Director, to begin the call. Please go ahead.

Jacque Bohlen

Thank you, Valerie. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we review our fourth quarter 2023 results, which we released shortly after the market close today. The earnings release and corresponding presentation, which we will refer to during our remarks this afternoon are available on our website at columbiabankingsystem.com. With me this afternoon are Clint Stein, President and CEO of Columbia Banking System, Chris Merrywell and Tory Nixon, the Presidents of Umpqua Bank, Ron Farnsworth, Chief Financial Officer, and Frank Namdar, Chief Credit Officer.

After our prepared remarks, we will take your questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties and are intended to be covered by the Safe Harbor provisions of Federal Securities Law. For a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to Slide 2 of our earnings presentation, as well as the disclosures contained within our SEC filings. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures alongside our discussion of GAAP results. We encourage you to review the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations provided in our earnings release and throughout the earnings presentation.

I will now turn the call over to Clint.

Clint Stein

Thank you, Jacque. Good afternoon, everyone. 2023 was a tremendous year for Columbia. We closed and integrated our transformational merger with Umpqua Bank, expanding our footprint to encompass eight Western states and creating one of the largest banks headquartered in the West. We achieved targeted net cost savings ahead of schedule and 6% above our original projection, even after taking franchise reinvestment into account.