Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:WASH) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 25, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Elizabeth Eckel - EVP, Chief Marketing and Corporate Communications Officer

Ned Handy - Chairman and CEO

Ron Ohsberg - Senior EVP, CFO and Treasurer

Bill Wray - Senior EVP and CRO

Conference Call Participants

Mark Fitzgibbon - Piper Sandler

Laurie Hunsicker - Seaport Research Partners

Matt Rank - KBW

Operator

Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Inc.'s Conference Call. My name is Seb and I'll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions]. Today's call is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Elizabeth B. Eckel, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Corporate Communications Officer. Ms. Eckel?

Elizabeth Eckel

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Inc.'s conference call for the fourth quarter and year-end 2023. Joining us this morning are members of Washington Trust's executive team; Ned Handy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mary Noons, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Ron Ohsberg, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; and Bill Wray, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer.

Please note that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements and actual results could differ materially from what is discussed - on today's call. Our complete Safe Harbor statement is contained in our earnings release, which was issued yesterday as well as other documents that we filed with the SEC. All of these materials and public filings are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.washtrust.com. Washington Trust trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol WASH.

I'm pleased now to introduce Washington Trust's host - Washington Trust's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ned Handy.

Ned Handy

Thank you, Beth. Good morning, everybody and thanks for joining us for our call.

We definitely appreciate your time and interest. And I know we have a busy morning this morning, so I'm going to be fairly quick in my comments. Then Ron will dive into the fourth quarter performance and then Mary Noons and Bill Wray will join us for Q&A.

We continue to be focused on ensuring a durable balance sheet that is positioned, to take advantage of opportunity, as external conditions improve. We're concentrating on capital credit deposits, and expense management all to prepare for what we believe will be a steadily improving external environment throughout 2024. In that way, we'll remain positioned to resume growth of our long-term focused profitable relationship-driven company.