AGM 2020

May 6, 2020

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the United Community Bank's 2020 Annual Shareholders Meeting. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen only mode. I would now like to hand the conference to your speaker today. Well, good afternoon. This is Len Harton, Chairman and CEO of United, and I am glad to welcome you all to the 2020 Annual Shareholders Meeting of United Community Banks. These are certainly interesting times. And so in that regard, while we would prefer an in person format, we're also somewhat excited to be hosting our 1st virtual annual meeting. We have shareholders attending via the web portal and the eight hundred number that was provided and we will conduct the business portion of the meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. So in keeping with this approach, I'd like to announce this now shortly after 1 p. M. Eastern Standard Time on May 6, and I'd like to call this meeting officially to order. And now I'd like to introduce the other executive officers present at today's meeting. Jefferson Harrelson, Chief Financial Officer Rob Edwards, Chief Risk Officer Melinda Davis Luxe, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Rich Bradshaw, Chief Banking Officer and Mark Terry, Chief Information Officer. Thank you all for attending. We also have our Board of Directors with us virtually as well. Bob Blalock, Kathy Cox, Ken Daniels, Lance Drummond, Jim Mann, Tom Ryszlowski, David Shaver, Tim Wallace and David Wilkins. Thank you all for being here also. We are joined as well by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, our independent auditors. They will be available during the question and answer session after the meeting to respond to any appropriate questions. And finally, the company has appointed Broadridge Financial Services to act as Inspector of Election. Mr. Larson from Broadridge is with us today and has taken the oath of Inspector of Election earlier today. So now it is my pleasure to introduce our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Melinda Davis Luxe, who will act as secretary of today's meeting. Thank you, Lynn. After the formal meeting has been adjourned, we will provide time for general questions. Only Validated shareholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. As a consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending by webcast or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording device. The Board of Directors fixed March 9, 2020 as the record date determining shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered attesting to the fact that either a notice of Internet availability of the notice of the meeting, the proxy statement in the 2019 annual report to shareholders or the documents themselves were mailed on or about March 24, 2020 to all shareholders as of the record date and will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. The shareholder list shows that as of the record date, there were 78,000,000 505,706 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. We are informed by the Inspector of Elections that there are represented in person or by proxy shares of common stock representing 72,215,721 votes or approximately 92% of the voting power on the record date. Since this represents more than a majority of the voting power of all issued and outstanding stock entitled to vote on the record date, a quorum is present for purposes of transacting business. Now I will present the matters to be voted upon. Please note that we will give shareholders an opportunity to comment on the proposals themselves after all proposals have been presented. Proposal 1 is the election of directors. The current Board has nominated: Bob Blaylock, Cathy Cox, Ken Daniels, Lance Drummond, Lynn Harton, Jen Mann, Tom Rychwalski, David Shaver, Ken Wallace and David Wilkins for election as directors to hold until to hold office until the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. No other nominations have been submitted. In accordance with the company's bylaws, I hereby declare nominations closed. Proposal 2 is the advisory vote to approve the compensation of our named executive officers as described in the proxy statement. This vote, which is often called a say on pay vote, is required as a result of the Dodd Frank Act. Last year, the shareholders voted that their preference was to hold such a vote on an annual basis and the Board elected to do so. It is a non binding vote, although the compensation committee and the Board will certainly take the results of the vote into account when making future compensation decisions. Proposal 3 is the vote to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as our independent registered public accountants for 2020. This is also an advisory vote. However, an adverse vote will be considered a direction to the audit committee to consider other auditors for the following year. If any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding any of the proposals, please submit your comments through the web portal. We'll pause for a moment for comments. Seeing none, it is now 1:0:6 p. M. Eastern Time on May 6, 2020, and the polls are now open. Any shareholder who hasn't 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 there. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or voted by telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. And we'll pause for any votes. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2020 United Community Banks Inc. Annual Shareholder Meeting closed at 1:0:7 p. M. Eastern Time on May 6, 2020. We have been informed by the Inspector of Elections that the preliminary vote report shows that the nominees for election to the Board have been duly elected, the compensation of the named executive officers has been duly approved by advisory vote and the selection of PricewaterCoopers as the company's independent accounting firm has been approved. We will be reporting the final voting results in a Form 8 ks to be filed within 4 business days. Thank you, Melinda. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of United Community Banks Incorporated is now adjourned. And I'd like to give a brief presentation followed by our question and answer session. Since the close of 2019 and where we stand today, the world is a very different place. We remain in a healthcare crisis caused by COVID-nineteen, which has brought severe economic pain, along with unprecedented government action aimed at containing the damage. Along with many other companies here at United, we've taken steps to keep our employees safe, including supporting the ability to work from home, implementing extra days of time off to be used for virus related issues, increasing the cleaning and sanitation of our facilities, communicating often and consistently on topics relative to working in today's environment and closing our lobbies other than by appointment. We view ourselves as financial first responders and I could have been more proud of how our teams have stepped up to take care of our customers and during this time, including approving and funding over 11,000 PPP loans for more than $1,200,000,000 to help our small businesses survive this crisis providing deferral options and fee waivers increasing electronic banking limits increasing our communication, sending out over 50 unique emails since March regarding relevant topics, Ensuring our customer service experience remains outstanding by adding call center capacity from across the branch network to handle the increased volume of calls that we have experienced during this time and increasing our social media awareness and reach to continue to stay connected. We entered this crisis in excellent financial shape with strong levels of profitability, including a pretax pre provision ROA of 2%, which is 20% higher than the KRX peer median. We have high capital levels with a Tier 1 risk based capital nearly 13%, 135 basis points better than peer median. And also abundant liquidity with higher DDA balances as a percentage of deposits, lower reliance on wholesale funding, a lower loan to deposit ratio and lower overall deposit account cost, all when all compared to peers. Our financial strength will help us weather the storm, but it's our people that are our greatest asset. Once again, for the 6th time out of the past 7 years, they have earned the honor of being named by J. D. Power as providing the best retail customer satisfaction in the Southeast. Our teams are no strangers to recognition as they have consistently earned awards from customer service profiles, Greenwich Associates and Forbes for their passion for service. And so as we enter a new decade and emerge from the cloud of the pandemic, we are proud to have built one of the best financial institutions in the South. The ability of our teams to come together to pursue a common purpose has given us a foundation of which I am extremely proud. But without a doubt, more changes ahead. The recession we are in will require focus and creativity as we both support our customers and make the right decisions for the strength of the company. Adapting to physical distancing, which require changes in how we work and how our customers need to operate their businesses Continued change in technology and the way people bank, change in political and regulatory environments and change in the industry from large scale mergers will continue to affect all of our markets and customers. As we continue to anticipate and adapt to this change, we rely on our fundamental belief that we can add to our long term value by focusing on people that make us great, that is our employees and our customers. With great people leading the way and providing class leading service to our customers, we are confident we can continue to provide strong returns to our shareholders and we know we will make a significant positive impact in our communities. Thank you for your support. And once again, congratulations to the 2,100 and 69 United employees that make this company great. Now we would like to open things up for shareholders' questions and comments. We will take shareholder questions that are being entered today on the web portal. Please note, we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, but only questions that are germane to the meeting will be addressed. All right. Seeing no active questions, once again, I'd like to thank you for attending our meeting and we'd like to close the presentation at this time.