Hello, everyone, and welcome to the First BanCorp third quarter 2023 financial results. My name is Bruno, and I'll be operating your call today. During this presentation, you can register to ask a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Ramón Rodríguez, Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you, Bruno. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining First BanCorp's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the third quarter of 2023. Joining you today from First BanCorp are Aurelio Alemán, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Orlando Berges, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements such as projections of revenue, earnings, and capital structure, as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's latest SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation or press release, you can access them at our website at fbbinvestor.com. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Alemán. Thank you, Ramón. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining the call today. Please, let's turn to page four to go over the financial highlights. We posted another good quarter with $82 million in net income or $0.46 per share, which translated into a fairly strong return on asset of 1.72%. Net interest income registered a slight decrease during the quarter, mainly due to expected upward pressure on deposit pricing and increase in the mix of interest-bearing deposits to total deposits. Expenses were quite in line with guidance at $160 million, and the efficiency ratio reached 50.7% during the quarter, continued to be, you know, very, very top of the industry. These variances were mostly offset by a lower provision for credit losses during the quarter. In terms of asset quality, NPA increased slightly by $9 million during the quarter, primarily attributed to this, the inflow of a single commercial loan in Puerto Rico. Notwithstanding, NPA levels remain at multi-year lows and now represent just 70 basis points of total asset. As anticipated, we believe, you know, excess liquidity in the market has continued to taper off, and we're starting to see normalization in delinquency trends. However, they're still way below pre-pandemic levels. On the capital front, we continue the repurchase plan, and we repurchased $75 million in common shares during the quarter. That finalizes the remaining of the authorization under the 2022 Capital Plan, and given strong capital position, liquidity, and outlook for the remainder of the year, we do expect to continue to repurchasing shares of common stock during the fourth quarter, but now under the 2023 Capital Plan authorization. Please, let's move to slide five to go over the portfolio. This quarter, we were really pleased with the loan production activity that we experienced across the three regions. Total loans increased by 6% on a linked-quarter annualized basis and reached $12 billion, a healthy levels of both commercial and consumer loan origination. The loan portfolio has been expanding since the first quarter of 2022, reflecting organic growth of over $150 million or 8% increase during this period. Again, our loan growth strategy is supported by the increased business activity and economic activity that we see in the island, particularly in this market, coupled with, you know, timely, focused execution of the sales teams across the three regions. Going forward, we expect loan growth to remain in line with our mid-single-digit growth guidance as we continue to redeploy a portion of the investment portfolio cash flows into higher-yielding assets in the loan portfolio. Also, we do expect that the facilities of the construction loan that were approved this year begin to accelerate into disbursements. Let's go over to page six to go over the funding. You know, we're moving in line with industry trends. You know, the recently released deposit market assessment by the FDIC as of June shows an overall contraction in total deposit in Puerto Rico as of June 2023. Our reserves are, you know, basically reflecting that we are retaining our market share, so we're basically remaining flat to the market. This quarter, other than broker and government deposits, they decreased $159 million or 1.2%. Again, this reduction primarily driven by erosion of liquidity in the overall market and migration of retail customers to higher rate options, actually outside the traditional banking sector, I would say particularly credit unions and the U.S. Treasury market. On the other hand, that was offset by stabilization in commercial deposit balances. Still representing 34% of our deposit base being non-interest-bearing deposits. Again, we remain focused on retaining our market share in the segment we serve, pricing our products competitively. Again, it's a function of the market environment and the rates and definitely retaining our most valuable relationships. It's key to the strategy. From the profile of the institution, do remain very attractive. It is a very well-diversified deposit base composed of a balanced mix of core and retail customer. When we combine average balances of these accounts, it really, it's around $19,000, so it's fairly granular. Again, we have ample liquidity available to various funding options that allow us to continue to strategically manage our balance sheet growth plans. Just move to page seven to over the macro. We, you know, we continue to see the Puerto Rico economy very stable, performing fairly well, considering the interest rate environment and the emerging geopolitical events. Economic Activity Index of Puerto Rico reaches highest level in eight years during the third quarter. Passenger traffic at the main airport continues to hit all-time highs. Consumers continue to be adapting to the rising rates and prices, as evidenced by retail sales, household spending, auto sales, and more importantly, labor market remains stable with unemployment around 6.2%. The pace of disaster relief funding for the first half of the year, it's 72% above the same period last year, which is definitely driving construction activity in the island. We started to see, you know, additional number of low-income housing projects and obviously, rebuilding of important infrastructure. In addition, we continue to see private investors continue to allocate support to the island. There is a recently announced transactions where private investor, a concession of the South Expressway under a P3 structure, toll road concession, which a recent investor allocated $2.9 billion, plus there will be an additional $2.4 billion in improvements. I think that is a good example of what are we seeing. As we said in the past, you know, we have the experience to continue operating under this challenging market and changing market, and we continue to leverage our proven risk framework and franchise to supporting the customers through the cycle. Now, I will turn the call to Orlando to go over the financials in more detail. Thanks. Thanks to all. Thanks, Aurelio, and good morning, everyone. As you saw in the release there, the results for the third quarter show an increase of $11.4 million in net income, which is primarily associated with a lower provision and a lower effective tax rate. We earned $82 million for the third quarter, or $0.46 a share, which compares to $70.7 million in the second quarter, or $0.39 per share. Adjusted pre-tax provision did come down by $4.6 million to $113.4 million. The provision for credit losses in the quarter decreased to $4.4 million, which compares to the $22.2 million we had in the second quarter. When we look at the components, the projected macroeconomic variables last quarter deteriorated, especially in the commercial real estate side and some on the unemployment side, which resulted in additional provisioning needs in the quarter. This quarter, the projection still shows that deterioration on the longer term, but current values of some of these variables are more favorable than they were originally estimated, which led to a lower pace, slower pace of deterioration and also a slower, a lower reserve impact. Also, this quarter, we booked $1.4 million in recoveries on a commercial loan that was previously charged off a few years ago and was collected. There was... We did a refinancing of a municipal bond that was held in our held-to-maturities securities portfolio, which resulted in some reserve releases since the new structure is that of a commercial loan, which has a much shorter time frame. The estimated tax rate for the quarter came down, estimated tax rate for the year, but impact in the quarter came down to 28.2% from 30.1% as a result of a higher proportion of tax-exempt income to total income and additional business activities we did under tax advantages under the Puerto Rico Code. Looking at that interest income for the quarter was $199.7 million, relatively flat when we compare to the prior quarter. As we have discussed in prior calls, deposit pricing pressures, especially on the public sector, have offset the improvement in interest income resulting from loan growth and loan repricing. Total interest income for the quarter grew $11.2 million for a 12 basis points improvement in yields on interest-earning assets. Interest expense grew $11.3 million, representing 28 basis points increase in costs, offsetting the growth in interest income. On the commercial zone, commercial loans, interest income grew $6.1 million, which reflected a loan repricing based on rate changes, higher yielding new loans, as well as an increase of $104.5 million in average balances. The increase also includes $1.2 million in interest collected on the previously charged-off loan that I mentioned before. Commercial loan yields for the quarter are up 24 basis points compared to last quarter. In the case of consumer loans, interest income was up $4 million. Again, higher yields on new loans, and we grew the portfolio on average $94.5 million. Overall yields on the consumer portfolio increased six basis points during the quarter. On the other hand, interest expense on interest-bearing deposits, it's $12.7 million higher this quarter than last quarter. Most of this increase, it's driven by a combination of higher rates paid on checking and savings accounts, mostly public sector deposits. Migration that we have been facing over the last few quarters from non-interest-bearing to interest-bearing, especially on time deposits. If we exclude broker deposits, the average cost of deposits increased 37 basis points this quarter. However, the average cost of interest-bearing checking and savings accounts, other than public deposits, increased by only 7 basis points. Time deposits did increase by 41 basis points, overall time deposits from the prior quarter. The time deposit portfolio is now on average $187 million more than we had in the second quarter. On the chart on the top right hand, you can see the cumulative betas on deposits since September of 2022. However, due to a repricing lag, public sector deposits had a much higher betas this quarter than what we had in overall cumulative beta since September of 2022. Net interest margin for the quarter was down to 4.15 from 4.23 last quarter. As we mentioned last quarter, we expect somewhat normalization in the margin towards the beginning of 2024, based on the expectation that our interest rate increases will stabilize, thus normalizing some of the deposit pricing pressures we've had. Also, we continue to redeploy the cash flows from the investment portfolio into either higher-yielding loan growth or in some cases, a reduction of wholesale funding. We project that investment portfolio cash flows over the next quarter will be approximately $160 million. Looking through the middle of 2025, it's about a year and a half more, it's about $1.6 million more. Billion. Billion, I'm sorry. Look, what this is gonna do is we have a yield of 1.33% in the investment portfolio. In essence, we would be replacing through these cash flows either into loans that are gonna yield around 600 basis points more or reductions in wholesale funding or cash, keep it in the cash, which would yield around 400 basis points more than we have on the investment portfolio. That would offset any impact we had on migration to the time deposit side. In terms of other income, this quarter, we had $6 million less in other income, but that was mostly related to certain non-recurring gains we had in the second quarter, amounted to $5.2 million, that were on legal settlements and a couple of other items. If we exclude these gains, on a non-GAAP basis, net interest income decreased $700,000 in the quarter. Expenses increased in the quarter by $3.7 million. It was mostly driven by $2.2 million in additional payroll expenses, as we implemented our merit increases and salary adjustments in July of this year. You can see that we did continue to achieve some gains on the disposition of OREO properties, but if we exclude these gains, operating expenses for the quarter were $118.8 million, which fall within the guidance of $118 million-$120 million we have provided. The efficiency ratio for the quarter was 50.7%, slightly higher as expenses grew and some of the other income came down, which compares to 47.8% in the last quarter. However, the second quarter efficiency ratio was actually 48.9% if we exclude those non-recurring gains that I mentioned. Again, you know, as we have mentioned, we continue to maintain a very disciplined expense management framework, and our target is to remain close to that 50% efficiency ratio in the near term. In terms of our credit quality, as Aurelio mentioned, NPAs increased $9.1$ million during the quarterly, and that was primarily $9.5$ million commercial case, one case that went into non-performing this quarter. On the consumer side, we had $2.9$ million increase in NPAs, but that was offset by $3$ million reduction in OREOs and lower residential mortgage NPLs. Even with this increase, our NPA levels remained at 70 basis points of total assets. In terms of inflows, they are up $15.6 million compared to the prior quarter, which includes $8 million increase in commercial, which is the case I just mentioned, and $6 million increase in consumer. Also, early delinquency in the quarter, which is defined as 30-89 days for this purpose, increased $18.5 million. Mostly, it's consumer. However, I'd like to point out that September 30, which the last day of third quarter, fell on a weekend and affects collections, and approximately $11.5 million of this delinquency had been collected by October 2nd, so the increase was much less than reflected. We have mentioned in the prior calls that we anticipate delinquency levels in consumer should eventually start behaving more like historical trends. Obviously, as excess liquidity from the pandemic-related funds decrease. However, so far, consumer delinquency as a percentage of loans remains below pre-pandemic levels. In terms of the allowance, it was at about $271 million, decrease of $10 million from prior quarter. $6 million of the reduction relates to lower reserve from HTM, of held-to-maturity securities, due to the refinancing of the $46 million long-term municipal loan I mentioned went into a shorter-term loan structure, and also there were significant improvement or there were improvements in the underlying financials of certain Puerto Rico government municipalities that are held in the held-to-maturity portfolio. Looking at the reserve on just loans and leases was down $3.5 million, which mostly reflect that projected a slower deterioration on the macroeconomic variables, as I previously mentioned. The reserve stands at 2.21 of the portfolio, compared to 2.28. Still a healthy reserve coverage in our portfolio. In terms of capital, regulatory capital ratios continue to be significantly above well-capitalized at the end of the quarter. The tangible common equity ratio did decrease in the quarter to 6.74, and the tangible book value per share decreased to $7.16. That was driven by the $79 million decrease in the fair value of available-for-sale securities. Also the repurchase of $75 million in common shares we did during the quarter, and the payment of $25 million in dividends. Obviously, all compensated, partially compensated by the earnings in the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the net unrealized securities losses, including capital, were $151 million, which is about $4.88 in tangible book value per share, and also represents a reduction in the TCE ratio of approximately 409 basis points. As we have said in the past, we believe these unrealized losses are temporary in nature, since we have the ability to hold the securities. The investment portfolio had a duration of 3.2 on the end of September, so it's a manageable timeframe on the portfolio. With that, operator, I would like to open the call for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. Okay, we do have our first question. It comes from Alex Twerdahl from Piper Sandler. Alex, your line is now open. Please proceed. Hey, good morning. Morning, Alex. Good morning, Alex. First, I just want to, I guess, start on that last comment that you made, Aurelio or Orlando, on the securities portfolio. I'm just curious, you know, I think we're gonna see a lot more companies look at restructuring their securities portfolios into the next quarter, just given what's happened with rates and obviously the new outlook out there. You know, I think one of the big factors is how much capital companies have, you know, with whether or not they're gonna be looking at that more seriously. You guys clearly have a lot of regulatory capital, and as you think about the uses of that regulatory capital, you know, is restructuring of the securities portfolio, you know, in at least small pieces of it, on that radar at all? Well, obviously, we have looked into it. In reality, we have concluded, Alex, that once you consider the tax benefit nature of the portfolio, the immediate impact, the time frame where we feel this is gonna affect. You know, we don't feel there is a pressure to do that immediately, and we are not considering it at this point because of that. Okay. On deposits, you know, is it safe to say now that the government deposit piece is pretty close to having fully repriced now that the Fed is, you know, presumably done? I think it is safe to say that, yes. Okay. You know, as you think about sort of the expectations for the remaining portfolio, which has been much lower beta, you know, maybe you can walk through some of the expectations over the next couple of, you know, quarters in terms of how you're thinking about how those betas might trend, you know, I guess as you see excess deposits and excess liquidity come out of the system? Yeah, we, we don't. You know, the, the betas on the other deposits, we feel they're gonna be pretty, pretty, pretty stable of what we have seen so far. There, there is obviously the component of the migration still into, there could be still some migration into time deposits, and there is the component of maturing time deposits that we have that obviously are gonna reprice at slightly, you know, higher rates. At, you know, the, the average cost was about 2.91. The, the cost. Well, you know, obviously, it's a little bit higher now as we, as we have repriced others. But, you know, when you look at our one-year CDs, might be close to 3.75%-4%. There should be some impact in there, but that's why we mentioned that, assuming your first statement, that we agree that there is some stability on the government, the public sector side, in terms of cost, based on where rates are. That those cash flows coming in from the portfolio, the investment portfolio, will be able to be used, you know, to generate better deals that would have offset, you know, a large chunk of that. That's why, you know, we see that. Okay That stability in the margin, you know, coming in and starting on 2024. That's important. Okay. I just wanna add, that's very important that, you know, I think the, you know, the expectation of, you know, the cash flow from the investment portfolio are gonna be increasing as we go forward. Obviously, the pressure of the betas on the government, you know, was significant. We do expect to see some of that benefit of converting those cash flows into much higher yielding portfolio, loan portfolio, to benefit us through the 2024, to mitigate, you know, what we have seen in the NIM and the NII. Yeah. I guess, you know, just boiling it down, do you expect this sort of be the inflection point on NII and the NIM, and, you know, starting in the fourth quarter, we could start to see both those go higher? We feel that we see the inflection point starting next year, early next year, in the first quarter, where we'll see a little bit still on the repricing on the time deposit side happening this quarter, this fourth quarter of the year. Again, you know, going back to statements we have done in the past, that the growth on the portfolio, on the investment portfolio, could be a factor to offset some of that helping keep that net interest income going up a bit from where we are or staying at the levels where we are. Okay. Just final question for me, just the highway deal that you alluded to in your prepared remarks, can you just talk about how that, I'm not sure if it's been disclosed, how big the bank financing piece is exactly, but just how that might actually impact your balance sheet, both in the fourth quarter, when that deal is expected to close, as well as, you know, if there's a piece of it that might be sort of a go-forward piece? Yeah. Well, it was publicly announced this week on Tuesday by the government and the winner of the bid. They're working together to close it close to the end of the year, so most of the benefit will come, you know, in the balance sheets for really 2024, some this year, but mostly 2024. Banks, local banks, it was publicly, you know, in the statement, that local banks contributed around $600 million of the financing required of the initial payment of the $2.85 billion. Our position, we committed $150 million to the transaction. Okay. Which will be. Thanks for the color on that. Will be disbursed at closing. Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions. Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. Okay, we currently have no further questions registered, so I would like to hand the call back to Ramón Rodríguez for closing remarks. Ramón, over to you. Thanks to everyone for participating in today's call. We will be attending Hovde's Financial Services Conference in Palm Beach on November 2nd, and Piper Sandler's conference in Miami, November 16th. We look forward to seeing a number of you at these events, and we greatly appreciate your continued support. Have a great day. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.