WBS - Webster Financial Corporation (WBS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-01-23 18:08:09 ET

Webster Financial Corporation (WBS)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

January 23, 2024, 09:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Emlen Harmon - Director of IR

John Ciulla - CEO

Glenn MacInnes - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Mark Fitzgibbon - Piper Sandler

Matt Breese - Stephens

Chris McGratty - KBW

Casey Haire - Jefferies

Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley

Daniel Tamayo - Raymond James

Steven Alexopoulos - JP Morgan

Brody Preston - UBS

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets

Bernard von-Gizycki - Deutsche Bank

Ben Gerlinger - Citigroup

Laurie Hunsicker - Seaport Research Partners

Timur Braziler - Wells Fargo

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to the Webster Financial Corporation Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce Webster's Director of Investor Relations, Emlen Harmon to introduce the call. Mr. Harmon, please go ahead.

Emlen Harmon

Good morning. Before we begin our remarks, I want to remind you that the comments made by management may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to the safe harbor rules. Please review the forward-looking disclaimer and safe-harbor language in today's press release and presentation for more information about risks and uncertainties which may affect us. The presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the company's Investor Relations site at investors.websterbank.com. For the Q&A portion of the call, we ask that each participant ask just one question and one follow-up before returning to the queue.

I will now turn the call over to Webster Financial's CEO, John Ciulla.

John Ciulla

Thanks a lot Emlen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Webster Financial Corporation's fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. We appreciate you joining us this morning. I'll provide remarks on our high-level results and operations before turning it over to Glenn to cover our financial results in greater detail.

The company continues to execute at a high-level and we are excited about the momentum we're carrying into 2024. With less distraction from our integration activities and hopefully the industry at large, we are well-positioned to continue delivering financial outperformance as we deliver for our clients across business lines.

I'm going to start to review today with our full-year results for 2023. As I've stated throughout the year, we performed admirably throughout a difficult period for the banking industry. This performance illustrates the strength of our franchise, including a uniquely diverse and sound funding base, highly efficient operating model, and focus on non-commoditized businesses.

We grew our adjusted EPS to $5.99 from $5.62 in the prior year, generating record EPS for Webster. We reached a record tangible book-value per share in the fourth-quarter as well. Our return on assets was 1.43%, our return on tangible common equity was 20.5% and we ended the year with a 42% efficiency ratio....

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