Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE:ASB) Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call January 23, 2025 5:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Andrew Harmening - President and Chief Executive Officer
Derek Meyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Patrick Ahern - Executive Vice President, Chief Credit Officer and Chicago Market President
Conference Call Participants
Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler
Daniel Tamayo - Raymond James
Terry McEvoy - Stephens
Andrew Harmening
Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. I'm Andy Harmening. I'm joined once again by our Chief Financial Officer, Derek Meyer; and our Chief Credit Officer, Pat Ahern. I want to start off by sharing some highlights from the fourth quarter of 2024. From there, Derek will cover margin, income statement and capital trends, and Pat will provide an update on credit.
We continue to see signs of strength in the US economy and closer to home in the Midwest, the situation has remained remarkably stable. Unemployment rates in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and several other Midwestern states remain well below the national average of 4.1%. Our prime and super prime consumer borrowers have remained resilient and our commercial customers are cautiously optimistic about their growth prospects in 2025. This continued stability has enabled us to remain front-footed with the execution of our growth strategy and the fourth quarter was an active one for our Company. We added our -- we added to our commercial capabilities through the launch of a new specialty deposit and payment solutions vertical. We raised over $300 million of new capital through a common stock issuance and put a portion of that capital to work through a balance sheet repositioning, selling approximately $700 million in low-yielding mortgage loans and $1.3 billion worth in AFS securities.
We also purchased $55 million in existing customer credit -- customer credit card balances