Hello, and welcome to the 2026 Amalgamated Financial Corp. annual meeting of shareholders. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. Questions may be submitted via the message icon at the top left of your screen, typing your message, then clicking the send icon to the right of the message box. It is my pleasure to now turn the meeting over to Lynne Fox, board chair. Lynne, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the annual meeting of Amalgamated Financial Corporation, the parent company of Amalgamated Bank. I'm Lynne Fox, Chair of the Board, and it's my pleasure to welcome you here today for this meeting. Thank you for joining us. As is our custom, we will conduct the business portion of our meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Although we may not be able to answer every question, we'll do our best to provide a response to as many questions as possible, and we'll address any unanswered questions on our corporate website shortly after the meeting. It's now 9:01 Eastern Time on May 20th, 2026, and this meeting is officially called to order.
Several members of management are in attendance today, including our President and Chief Executive Officer, Priscilla Sims Brown, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO, Jason Darby, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, Mandy Tenner. It's my pleasure to present our nominees for election to the board. Each nominee's biographical information with their experience and qualifications can be found in our 2026 proxy statement. The nominees are Priscilla Sims Brown, Maryann Bruce, Mark Finser, Darrell Jackson, Julie Kelly, JoAnn Lilek, Meredith Miller, Edgar Romney Sr., Julieta Ross, Steven SaLoutos, Scott Stoll, Royce Anthony Wells, and myself, Lynne Fox, as your 13th and final nominee for election. I just want to say that we're very proud of our board members and very grateful for their dedicated service and support each and every day.
I would also like to introduce Mark Parkhurst, a partner from Crowe LLP, our independent auditors, who's also attending virtually today. Mr. Parkhurst will be available to respond to appropriate questions. He will also have an opportunity to make a statement if he wants to do so. Finally, before we begin the business of the meeting, I would also like to announce that Marlene Aguilar has been appointed to act as Inspector of Election. Ms. Aguilar took the oath of Inspector of Election on April 22nd, 2026. Mandy Tenner will serve as Secretary of the meeting and record the proceedings. Mandy, will you please review the matters related to the organization of this meeting?
The Board of Directors fixed March 26th, 2026, as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered attesting to the fact that the notice of the meeting, the proxy statement, and the 2025 annual report to stockholders were mailed on or about April 10th, 2026, to the holders as of the record date of the company's common stock. That affidavit will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. The stockholder list shows that as of the record date, there were 29,850,261 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting.
I am informed by the Inspector of Election that there are represented by proxy shares of common stock representing 28,439,354 votes, or approximately 95.27% of the outstanding shares entitled to voting power on the record date. This constitutes the presence of a quorum for purposes of transacting business.
Thank you, Mandy. Having been advised of the presence of a quorum, I declare this meeting duly and validly called, convened, and open to the business properly brought before it. Stockholders, this is your annual meeting. We want it to be as informative as possible. We want you to have the opportunity to express yourselves on any pertinent issue. Regarding the business of the meeting, a copy of the agenda is available via the web portal. The meeting is taking place as described in the agenda. Stockholders wishing to ask questions or submit comments may do so at any time. Only validated stockholders may ask questions or submit questions in the designated field on the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to two questions. It is now 9:05 A.M. Eastern Time on May 20th, 2026, and the polls are open.
Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions therein. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. The polls for voting will close immediately following the reading of the proposals to be voted upon. Now I will present those matters to be voted upon.
Proposal one is the election of directors. The current board has nominated Lynne Fox, Priscilla Sims Brown, Maryann Bruce, Mark Finser, Darrell Jackson, Julie Kelly, JoAnn S. Lilek, Meredith Miller, Edgar Romney Sr., Julieta Ross, Steven SaLoutos, Scott Stoll, and Royce Anthony Wells, each to serve until the annual meeting of stockholders to be held in 2027, and until that person's successor is duly elected and qualified. Proposal two is to conduct a non-binding advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers. It is a non-binding vote, although the compensation committee and the board will take the results of the vote into account when making future compensation decisions. Proposal three is the vote to ratify the appointment of Crowe LLP as our independent registered public accountants for 2026. This is an advisory vote.
However, an adverse vote will be deemed a direction to the audit committee to consider other auditors for the following year. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls for the 2026 Amalgamated Financial Corp. annual stockholder meeting closed at 9:07 A.M. Eastern Time on May 20th, 2026. I have been informed by the Inspector of Election that the preliminary vote report shows that all nominees for election to the board have been duly elected, the compensation of the named executive officers on an advisory basis, and that the selection of Crowe LLP as the company's registered independent accounting firm all have been approved by the requisite vote.
We will be reporting the final vote results in a current report on Form 8-K to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and posted on our corporate website within four business days following this meeting. Based upon the report of the Inspector of Election, I declare Lynne Fox, Priscilla Sims Brown, Maryann Bruce, Mark Finser, Darrell Jackson, Julie Kelly, JoAnn S. Lilek, Meredith Miller, Edgar Romney Sr., Julieta Ross, Steven SaLoutos, Scott Stoll, Royce Anthony Wells, all to be duly elected as directors of Amalgamated Financial Corporation to serve until the annual meeting of stockholders to be held in 2027 and until their successors are elected and qualified. I declare the compensation of the named executive officers has been approved. I also declare the selection of Crowe LLP as the company's registered independent accounting firm.
The Inspector is directed to submit a certificate of Inspector of Election to be filed with the Secretary for insertion in the company's minute book, together with the minutes of this meeting. With that, I now turn the meeting over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Priscilla Sims Brown.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at our annual meeting. It's a privilege to review our performance for 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. While this past year has been marked by an ever-evolving interest rate landscape and increased market volatility, our business model has proven resilient. We've proven once again that a mission-aligned business model can create durable value for our clients, communities, and shareholders. In 2025, we continued to reinforce our key differentiator, a unique focus on the client segments, business sectors, and geographies where our expertise allows us to perform and drive change. Our financial performance demonstrated an integrated platform growing with discipline, connecting our core deposit franchise, targeted lending strategies, risk appetite, impacts, goals, and capital strength into one coherent model.
Our ability to expand our net interest margin in an environment where peers experience compression was also a testament to our business model and disciplined approach. We focused our lending efforts on our growth model lending segments, particularly commercial and industrial and multifamily, resulting in 10% year-over-year growth. Our loan production further validates that the investments we have made in the business are translating into high-quality asset growth and a stronger earnings engine for 2026 and beyond. Our growth mindset does not come at the expense of a prudent risk posture, evident by only 0.32% non-performing assets as a percentage of total assets at the end of 2025. While we experienced some headwinds to credit quality in the first quarter of 2026, we feel confident it's an isolated event that will not impact our performance outlook.
Our deposit franchise and the success that we have growing it continues to be a key enabler of our results. We have seen deposit growth across our segments, but especially in labor, not-for-profit, and sustainability. This growth is testament to our message and model resonating, even in an off-cycle campaign year. We continue to deepen relationships in our core segments and modernize how we serve clients. In 2025, we adopted new technology across the bank to better understand our customer needs, foster more effective engagement, and solve problems in real time. We expect to continue these efforts well into 2026 as we continue to scale our operations and enable our workforce to focus on what matters most, serving as trusted financial advisors to our customers. With that, let's take a closer look at our key financial indicators.
We will ask you to refer to the investor slide deck, and Jason Darby, our CFO, will lead this part of the discussion.
Thank you, Priscilla. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We appreciate your participation in our annual meeting of stockholders. Please review the forward-looking statements and non-GAAP disclosures on slide two of this presentation, as well as our 2025 10-K filed on March 6th, 2026. Starting on slide three, I'd like to provide a brief recap of our 2025 financial highlights. Beginning with some income statement items. GAAP net income was $104.4 million, or $3.41 per diluted share. Core net income was $111.6 million, or $3.64 per diluted share, compared to $107.8 million, or $3.48 per diluted share in 2024. Pre-tax, pre-provision income was $156.5 million compared to $155.9 million in 2024. Core pre-tax, pre-provision income was $165.9 million in 2025 compared to $157.7 million in 2024.
Net interest margin was 3.59% in 2025, compared with 3.51% in 2024, driven by net interest income, which grew 5.4% to $297.8 million in 2025. Moving to 2025 balance sheet and capital highlights. The bank finished 2025 near $8.9 billion in total assets with a focus on driving earnings and return ratios. Total on-balance sheet deposits increased a remarkable $769 million, or 10.7%, to $7.9 billion, while off-balance sheet deposits increased by $1.1 billion. The cost of deposits was 160 basis points in 2025, up from 153 basis points in 2024 and in line with expectations given the high interest rate environment for the majority of the year. Net loans receivable increased $286.8 million, or 6.2%, to $4.9 billion. Notably, capital ratios were strong with Tier 1 common equity of 16.4%, and Tier 1 leverage was 9.33%, which decreased by 3 basis points from the year ago.
Overall, 2025 was another stellar year for the bank. We posted record annual earnings and exceeded our capital, revenue, and profitability performance metrics targets, setting us up for a strong 2026 plan year. I'll now provide a brief recap of our 2026 Q1 financial highlights. Starting with the income statement items. Net Income was $25.2 million, or $0.84 per diluted share, and Core Net Income was $24.1 million, or $0.80 per diluted share, a decrease of 19.5% from the previous quarter. Pre-tax, pre-provision income was $47.6 million, while core pre-tax, pre-provision income was $46.1 million. Net Interest Income was $80.2 million, and Net interest margin rose to 3.75%, a 9-basis point increase from the fourth quarter of 2025. Notably, Core Revenue per Share was $3.03 in the first quarter, exceeding $3 for the first time in the bank's history.
Moving to the balance sheet and capital, we finished the first quarter of 2026 with $9.2 billion of total assets, not including $1.1 billion in off-balance sheet deposits. First quarter deposit growth was very strong. Total on-balance sheet deposits increased by $228.9 million, or 2.9%, to $8.2 billion, with deposit production during the quarter coming from both political and non-political segments. Excluding brokered CDs, average cost of deposits was 146 basis points in the first quarter, down 5 basis points from the linked quarter. Capital ratios remained strong with Tier 1 common equity of 14.2%, and Tier 1 leverage was 9.33%, a 3 basis point increase, sorry, decrease from the linked quarter. The next slide shows some of our key performance metrics from the 2026 first quarter. The quarter showed continued momentum across multiple key metrics.
Tier 1 leverage remains strong, and revenue per share exceeded $3 for the first time in the bank's history. Our final slide graphically shows some key historical metrics on a spot basis for our loans, deposits, earnings, and asset quality. Trends have been favorable over the past four years, and results through the first quarter of 2026 were quite strong. To conclude, we're pleased with our 2026 results to date, and as mentioned in our first quarter earnings call, raised our full year guidance. We look forward to updating you throughout the year, and I'll now turn the call back over to Priscilla.
Thank you, Jason. In summary, our performance once again differentiated us from the broader mid-market banking sector. Strong deposit growth and retention, outperformance on our profitability metrics, and disciplined capital and liquidity management all contributed to results that set us apart from our peers. Throughout 2025 and into early 2026, we continue to operate from a position of strength, supported by a resilient earnings base and multiple avenues for future growth. Our performance, both financial and mission-driven, continue to demonstrate that responsible banking is a winning strategy for our customers, our communities, and for all of you, our shareholders. I will now turn the meeting over to Lynne.
Thank you, Priscilla. Our management will now respond to stockholder questions and comments, if submitted, that have been either submitted in advance or of today's meeting or today on the web portal. Please note we'll attempt to answer as many questions as time might allow, but only questions that are relevant to the meeting will be addressed. There are no questions pending, so with that, and there being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2026 annual meeting of stockholders of Amalgamated Financial Corporation is now adjourned. Thank you all for attending. This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.