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Welcome to Innovators and Ideas brought to you by RBC Capital Markets. Today, we're here at our Global Financial Institutions Conference here in New York, and we are joined by Mike Price, president and CEO of First Commonwealth. Mike, thanks for joining us. It's great to be with you. I want to start I want to have you talk a little bit more about first Commonwealth and sort of introduce yourselves a little bit more to our audience.
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You talk about the company and maybe share a little bit about your vision, mission and purpose. Very good. Yeah. We're a 11 and a half billion dollar bank headquartered in western Pennsylvania. We're in five metro markets Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Harrisburg. And we're in all the rural markets in between, which is kind of a deposit treasure trove.
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We've been no vote our way into a lot of businesses over the last decade mortgage, equipment, finance, credit card, indirect auto, SBA businesses. And we have really good commercial banking and consumer capable ease. I'm proud of the team and what we've accomplished this past year. We set records in net income 173 million earnings per share, a buck 74 our way.
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We're very profitable 156 and return on tangible common of 20.9% and 53% efficiency ratio. So we're proud that we steadily improve every year. When I think about our mission, it's to improve the financial lives of our neighbors in their businesses. And our vision is pretty simple. It's to be the best bank for our business, our neighbors, our shareholders, our employees and in our communities.
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And we think about being top notch and benchmarking our ourselves that way. Excellent. So I want to mention a couple of your accolades here. You know, you're a CEO of a company that is not just one of America's best state banks, but has also appeared in Forbes World's best banks, ranking for, I think, three years in a row.
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So you kind of bring a unique perspective, I think, on what's powering today's markets and today's consumers. You know, you've steered first Commonwealth to outperform through arguably one of the most disruptive macro periods, particularly in regional banking history. Can you talk us through the changes that you've experienced and seen over the last three years in particular? But also, you know, some of the strategies are innovative ideas that has kind of helped you lead the bank through this period.
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I think it's just need to anticipate change and assume things will change. I think. What has it changed is our strategic focus, and that is we live the mission, number one. Number two, we're looking to grow the bank profitably every single year. And then third, and probably just as important as the latter two is, get better in every line of business, every geography and every support unit every year.
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And each has a plan. There's 30 different plans at the company. And we hold people accountable for getting better. And we've been innovator and innovative just equals improving all the time. And I think our innovative ideas come from talent and culture and terrific partners in fintech and in technology. Well, let's stay on maybe that threat of technology. You know, we've been talking about the impact of technology, the impact of AI.
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We've been talking about digital transformation that many banks have been going through. Now, you've worked hard to invest in a suite of sort of innovative digital experiences and platforms, you know, for your business and your clients, but also maintain that high quality personal service, which we know is so important, particularly in this industry. How important is this sort of human touch to the values that defined first Commonwealth?
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And how difficult is it to sort of maintain that as these technological innovations really take hold? You know, I think they're both important. I think human touch is vitally important, but also it's vitally important that we're more than digitally relevant, that we're good and we measure that. And there's four pages in our investor deck today that will talk about that.
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And I also think of our digital partners and, you know, we're in a world where we can connect in through our core and with others, and we we have access to probably 35, 36 fintechs that we do business directly with, and I'll just name a few of them. B.A. Blend for mortgage secure lock for card, finest city for aggregation array for credit score, Nintex for RPA, Ignite for product cross-sell, fin boa for customer dispute disputes.
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And I can go on and on. And we live in a world where the technology is very democratic and a bank of our size can plug in and really take advantage of it. And so we can compete with banks much larger than ours. And that's fun. We'll stay on the rate of transformation, which I think the key is acceleration.
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Everything just continues to accelerate, which is certainly challenging for every business. But can you talk a little bit about how the needs of your clients sort of across key lines of business, you know, personal, private business, banking, how are they changing? Are they evolving? What are you seeing at today's markets environment? I just think they expect more digital and self-service opportunities to solve their own problems.
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We've also kept people in the equation with kind of a full service engagement or call center and our branches that are really trained to help customers with those solutions. And also they can text us and they do in droves when they have challenges and issues. So that gets back to digital relevance and meaning the customer kind of where they're at.
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So let's take a step back, think a little bit more broadly. Let's talk a little bit maybe about the near term or maybe even 12 to 18 month outlook as you look about the industry. Can you sort of share some of your thoughts on how you guys are thinking about that right now? I think there's going to be rapid industry consolidation at some point, I think even as scale becomes important.
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I think we'll do our best if we emulate our best smallest competitor is not our best largest ones when it comes to human touch and then have all the technology suite that they're looking for. I think it's it's a it's a neat rubric, the kind of navigate in it. I used the word fun before. It's more fun than it's ever been.
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It's also more challenging. You know, you mentioned consolidation, but if I switch to sort of M&A for a second, you know, you completed the acquisition of Centric, I guess, of just over a year ago or so. As you think about M&A acquisitions. What advice do you have from your own experience in terms of how you think about it, how you approach it as a business?
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Well, prior to coming to first Commonwealth, probably involved in a hands on way with 30 plus larger acquisitions at a larger bank. And then here we've looked at 60 deals to do 60. So I think the key is patience and discipline. And for me, it's it's never in the deal math, but for a deal to really work there has to be a low risk path to execution.
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And if that's not there, the deal can look good on paper and you almost have to walk away because it'll get the water will get muddy and it could get mucked up. Execution is everything. So I want to continue down maybe, I think even longer term, if we can for a second, which, you know, we tend to defy this ten plus years if we can think that far ahead, which is challenging.
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What do you think the future holds for regional banks as you look across the US? I do think there's a role. If you're mission driven, you have a vision. I think we'll look back a decade from now. Those this'll sound really trite, but those that have done well or have had consistently good financial performance over the last decade in high customer satisfaction, and we've done that over the last decade.
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And our job is to continue to do that and earn our right to be independent and thrive and have great returns for our shareholders. That's great. Maybe thinking a bit more just that you as the individual CEO, might be a good way to just try to wrap some of us together. Can you maybe talk a little bit about your own leadership approach and the values and how you've tried to bring them to life and infuse them into into the institution?
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Yeah, I think and I borrow mine from others when at my best. I mean, it's not that not unique to Mike Price, but I think we're we're trustworthy. We care a lot about the client and not just the outcome, but the path to the outcome. I think we're very good at linking the mission of the bank with growing the company.
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A lot of times those seem like mutually exclusive concepts, but they're not. We need to help our clients and thrive financially and with our clients at the same time. I think you have to have an execute a plan if it's not on paper and there's not a plan. You know, you need to hold people accountable for delivering their plan.
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I also think the management and particularly the executive management team needs to put in the work and they need to know what's going on at the moment of truth with clients. And that really helps our vision for the company and how we press forward. And then just two other things. I think we need to cultivate and build bridges internally and externally.
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We can't have silos. We need to deliver the whole bank. And then we need to be tied into partners and people that can help us. And then we also need to follow the banks, the some that have the best ideas. And lastly, I think each of us needs to be coachable. You have to be humble enough to change and have people around that tell you when the emperor has no clothes on.
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It's a great advice from Mike Price. And Mike, really appreciate you stopping by in between all your investor meetings today. Spend some time with us and good luck with the rest of your time with the conference over the next two days. Yeah. Thank you. It's been a delight.