Below is transcript of the National Penn Bancshares (NASDAQ:NPBC)’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Earnings Call, held on January 22, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. EST. Lee Munder Capital Group, Bryn Mawr Capital and Stevens Capital Management was among National Penn Bancshares (NASDAQ:NPBC) shareholders at the end of the third quarter.
National Penn Bancshares (NASDAQ:NPBC) is a bank holding company. The Company provides financial services, principally through National Penn Bank, its national bank subsidiary. The Company’s financial services affiliates consist of National Penn Wealth Management, N.A., including its National Penn Investors Trust Company (NPITC) division; National Penn Capital Advisors, Inc.; Institutional Advisors, LLC, and National Penn Insurance Services Group, Inc., including its Higgins Insurance and Caruso Benefits divisions.
Company Representatives:
Scott Fainor – President and Chief Executive Officer, NPBC Inc.
Mike Hughes – Chief Financial Officer, NPBC Inc.
Analysts:
Rob Haderer – Sandler O’Neill
Michael Perito – KBW
David Bishop – Drexel Hamilton
Matthew Kelley – Sterne, Agee
Rick Weiss – Boenning
Blair Brantley – BB&T Capital Markets
Operator: Good morning everyone and welcome to National Penn Bancshares fourth quarter and full year 2014 earnings conference calling webcast. Please note that this call is being recorded. All callers will be in a listen-only mode during the prepared remarks. At the end of the prepared remarks there will be a live question and answer session with analysts. This call and the accompanying presentation slides located on National Penn’s investors relation website as www.nationalpennbancshares.com will be archived on the site following this call. The slides will be furnished on SEC form 8-k. National Penn’s earning relief was posted earlier today to National Penn’s investors relation website and will also be furnished to the SEC on a form 8-k.
Certain statements on this call may be constituted as forward-looking statements under securities laws. National Penn makes these statements on the basis of their views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time they make them and National Penn does not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied in light of a variety of factors including factors contained in the slides to this presentations, in National Penn’s annual report on form 10-k and in National Penn’s other filings with Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition please note that a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures that are referred to on this call to equivalent GAAP measures can be found in the slides to this presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to National Penn’s President and CEO Scott Fainor.
Scott: Good morning and thank you for joining our 4th quarter and full year 2014 webcast conference call. With me today are Mike Hughes Chief Financial Officer, Sandy Bodnyk Chief Risk Officer and Dave Kennedy Chief Banking Officer. National Penn fourth quarter 2014 highlights are outlined on slide number 2 and we are very happy to report a strong fourth quarter and full year of financial performance, capital management strategy and execution in 2014 and the continuing momentum as we start into 2015. Based on our increased liquidity position at the holding company and confirmed strong capital levels that we have discussed in detail in our third quarter 2014 call, we are very pleased to announce today our approved $125 million common share repurchase plan for 2015. The National Penn team also closed the TF Financial Corporation acquisition on 10-24-2014 and successfully converted and integrated all systems as well as change the name and the brand to National Penn over that same weekend. This was all accomplished by the team at National Penn in less than 5 months from our announcement of the deal in June 2014 and with anticipated cost saves realized.
Slide 3 gives you a view of new strengthened and expanded region in franchise for our company and we are off to a great start with revenue producing teams building new pipelines and customer relationships, the cross selling of our wide array of products and services are all happening within the new markets in Philadelphia, Lower Bucks County and Western New Jersey. Also continuing to build is National Penn’s loan pipeline and it gives me great pleasure to report that organic loan growth for the fourth quarter of 2014 increased at an annualized rate of 6%. This is coming off of our reported 5% annualized loan growth in third quarter of 2014. The Pennsylvania economy is doing better and customer confidence throughout all of our commercial and consumers lines of business is stronger than it has been with loan pipelines and loan closings continued to built that higher levels than in early 2014. This strong financial performance as well as the strength of our balance sheet allowed National Penn to declare a first quarter 2015 cash dividend of 11 cents per share. I’m now gonna turn this presentation over to Mike Hughes for his comments on our financial performance. Mike.
