Good morning and welcome to the Independent Bank Corp., Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions). This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of Independent Bank Corp. Actual results may be different. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include those identified in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our earnings press release. Independent Bank Corp. cautions you against unduly relying upon any forward-looking statements and disclaims any intent to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether in response to new information, future events or otherwise. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Oddleifson. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. I’m accompanied by Rob Cozzone, who has nicely settled into his new role as Chief Financial Officer. Rob will take you through our financial results and outlook following my comments. Our Chief Operating Officer, Denis Sheahan is also with us today. We ended the year with another solid quarterly performance. Core earnings in our fourth quarter amounted to $14.2 million or $0.61 per share, bringing full year earnings to $55.2 million or $2.39 per share. As I’ve said, many times before it is the consistency and quality of our results that we take most pride in. Our fundamentals continue to lead the way and reflect the growing power of Rockland Trust brand throughout our markets. Our performances continue to be marked by robust origination volumes, diversified revenues, excellent credit quality, diligent expense control, a strong capital position and solid returns. On an operating basis for the full year EPS rose 11%, commercial loan portfolios (inaudible) organic growth of 7%. Core deposits increased by 8% organically and non-interest revenues grew by 10%. Credit losses were very low at 19 basis points. Tangible book value continued to grow up another 7%, return on assets came in at just about 1%. This performance is even more noteworthy considering the challenging banking environment that persists, especially the heavy pressure on interest margins and ramped up competitive intensity. At the same time we continue to focus on sustaining long-term growth by steadily investing in our competitive strengths to enhance our market presence, [business development] [ph] talent and product array and much was accomplished towards that end in 2013. Among our most notable achievements were growing our core deposit households by 5%, far outpacing the Massachusetts household growth rate of less than 1%; opening our…

Thank you Chris and good morning. I’ll now review the earnings for the fourth quarter and full year in more detail. Independent Bank Corp. reported net income of $10.6 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.45 in the fourth quarter of 2013. This compared to net income of $14.7 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.64 in the third quarter. Both quarters included items that the company considers to be non-core, including $0.17 of M&A expenses in the current quarter, along with some minor gains on security sales and life insurance proceeds. Excluding those items, operating diluted earnings per share was $0.61 in the fourth quarter compared to $0.63 in the third quarter. For the full year in 2013, operated diluted earnings per share improved by 11% and were a record for the company at $2.39. On an operating basis the return on average assets was 0.94% and the return on average equity was 9.81% for the quarter. As Chris mentioned the Mayflower acquisition closed on November 15 and the branches and the systems were fully converted that weekend. The integration has gone very well and cost savings targets have already been achieved. As a result we are on track to deliver immediate earnings accretion. Within the press release you will see a summary of the assets and liabilities acquired, as well as an additional schedule to help you better understand organic loan and deposit growth rates for the quarter and the year. Not surprisingly, Mayflower’s balance sheet was very clean. On a fair value basis 64% of the loan portfolio was consumer real estate with the remained being primarily commercial real estate and almost 70% on the deposit book is core. Total loans including the acquisition increased 3.6% during the quarter and we are up…

Okay, thank you Rob. Operator, we can open up the questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Mark Fitzgibbon of Sandler O'Neill & Partners. Please go ahead. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: Hey guys, good morning.

Good morning.

Hey Mark. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: The first question I had for you Rob, you mentioned the new market tax credit, some of it burning off in 2013. Does the remainder of it sort of burn off during the course of 2014 or is that all out of the numbers for the tax rate right here in 1Q?

The one award that we’re speaking to, these tax credits, we get a benefit over a seven year period Mark and so the award that we received in 2007, we finished recognizing the benefit for that award in 2013 and so that particular award will end this year and so we won’t be getting the benefit of that in 2014. The remainder of our awards are scattered throughout the next several years and so should we not receive any additional awards those will gradually fall off in the coming years. There’s a schedule in our 10-K that details the awards we’ve received and how they are scheduled to amortize over time and so you’ll see that in the upcoming 10-K as well. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: Okay. And then secondly, I wondered if you could discuss with us the timing of recognizing all the cost synergies on Mayflower?

We’re pretty much there Mark. We have already closed the branches, we have expected to close four out of the eight, all of the staff is out, the systems are converted, so by the end of 2013 we had already really got all of the cost savings out there. There should be minimal that carries over into 2014. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: Okay, thank you. And then lastly, I wondered if you could just sort of comment on the competitive environment as it relates to commercial loans, particularly pricing trends that you’re seeing out there?

Yes, sure. It continues to be very competitive as you can imagine. As Chris said, we continue to find that we are uniquely positioned in a number of different areas. One area where we’re seeing a lot of success in particular now is in construction. We have a lot of expertise in the construction area and we never exited construction for the prices, so a lot of borrowers in that business have lots of confidence in us. You know the new asset based lending group, it’s been a couple of years now, is having a lot of success and wining some good deals and our now, kind of official location in Boston is also helping. Competition is certainly stiff. You know from the smaller institutions we see both pricing in terms being somewhat relaxed and the larger institutions are particularly competitive on those high quality relationships. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: Great, thank you.

[Inaudible] disciplined. Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O'Neill & Partners: Thank you, Rob.

The next question comes from David Darst with Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Hi David.

Chris, I guess it feels like a lot of the run offs in some of these loan categories that you’ve been de-emphasizing should be complete and that with your commercial banking trends we should begin to see more of a lift in loan growth. Do you have any comment on your perspective?

Well, when you say the run offs you are talking about the run off in the resi portfolio.

Correct, resi and just other categories.

And the other which was our indirect auto portfolio, which is virtually gone now. Well the resi portfolio, we’re expecting that to be – the run offs to continue somewhat, but sort of diminish in its rate and the – in the commercial portfolios we’re actually anticipating a fairly detailed organic growth of…

Yes, it’s very similar to this year David. We think commercial will grow, and our assumption on residential is that that will continue to amortize down to the tune of $5 million a month. We are looking at some portfolio programs that could offset some of that run off, but in terms of growth from an historic perspective where you don’t have the traction on the home equity book that we’ve had over the past couple of years, just because the REFI market has dried up. So the growth rate in home equity certainly declined significantly in 2012. We’re expecting a bit of an increase - in 2013, we’re expecting a bit of an increase in 2014, but certainly not to the extent that we saw in the prior years.

Okay. And then it seems like you really built out a well-rounded franchise around Boston and in your markets now. Are you comfortable where you are and now that you’re in a larger market, more fully to penetrate organically or do you think you need to continue to do more acquisitions.

That’s a question we’ll always ask, always in a little bit different form. Our stance in acquisition is entirely sort of opportunistic. You can take a look at the number of stock held banks, sort of adjacent in the territory and there were very few. So we cannot sort of rely on an acquisition strategy to fuel growth. However if our Board of Directors wants to sell, we’d love to be at the table and talk about it. So our focus really has – I mean the thing that we can control is our organic growth and thus going into Boston was a really key move for us. You may recall a couple of years ago we opened a similar office in Providence that’s been very successful on the commercial, on the wealth management side, we don’t have any retail branches. We expect the same result from Boston. If you take a look at a couple of our recent acquisitions, I mean the central area and Ben Franklin, we think there’s just a lot of upside potential in those markets, you know right in our backyard. We are going to continue to look in selected markets for additional branches here or there. We’ll continue to – you know as we have and as you know continuously over the last decade trimmed the branches, consolidated some branches, built some branches, we’ll continue to do that. I would anticipate that there will be well probably sort of closing in on our opportunity for our new branch in 2014 that we’ll probably will talk about at the first quarter call. So all in all, I mean bottom line is I think we have a lot of opportunity within and adjacent to our markets to grow organically and should an acquisition sort of present itself, opportunity, we’d love to talk about it.

But as you know probably Boston 40% of New England’s GDP is in Boston, so that’s certainly significant opportunity for us to capitalize on there.

Longer term do you think you’ve build the economies of scale or you can maybe get your efficiency ratio down as you approach $10 billion, I realize all things change at that point, but…

Yes, we are given the brand strategy, your never going to see an efficiency ratio in the mid-50’s for us or lower. I mean I would anticipate as we grow, especially if the interest rate a short end, if the interest rates go up, you’re going to see our efficiency ratio improve quite nicely. I mean we are well positioned for the upside when that comes and our strategy has been to really focus on co-relationships throughout our network. I mean should we want to really do some part of profit generation we have the distribution to do that. You’ll notice our CD book is diminishing, while we could turn that around in a nanosecond if we wanted to and really generate some good growth there. In terms of scale, I mean this is the key goal. When I talked to my fellow bankers around the country, what is often discussed these days is the scale required to have robust compliance and regulatory functions, so internal audits, compliance, whole BSA departments, internal council and we’re at a scale where we can do all that and strengthen all the processes. So I feel pretty good about where we are there. Of course as we get bigger, I mean there will be additional operating leverage that will come with that and then of course the big question of crossing the $10 billion mark is the determined implications, but that’s a few years out.

Okay, yes great. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) The next question comes from Collyn Gilbert of KBW. Please go ahead. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Thanks, good morning guys.

Hi Collyn. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: If you guys covered this in your comment, I apologize, but just as we look at kind of the loan yields and asset yields, I guess honing in specifically on the loan yields you know they’ve been fairly stable. Do you expect that stability to continue and is that something that your managing to? I know you guys are really mindful of sort of margin preservation and balance that with growth. But just trying to get a thought on how your seeing that loan yield evolve here over the next year or so or few quarters or whatever?

Sure, sure Collyn. I wouldn’t say we specifically managed to the absolute level of the loan yield. We managed to appropriate pricing on each deal that comes across. I would expect the loan yield to decline slightly heading into 2014. Certainly not nearly at the pace that we saw in 2013 or in prior years, but I wouldn’t say we’ve reached the bottom on the loan yield. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, okay. And then the assets under management that you’ve seen such good increases from, how much of that would you say is market related versus just new client related?

The market was very good to us in 2013. Now I don’t have that. We can get that to you Collyn. I mean we can just put that out. We don’t have any at our fingertips. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, just try…

Let me say this. We also had a record origination year. We originated close to $300 million of new assets. So we have one of the key – we really have cracked the code on working with our franch bankers and our commercial bankers to expand our relationships into wealth management by tapping a really, really good product and I’m just anxious that it happened, instilling the confidence in our internal folks that even for the referrals and so we have a very high level of referral and we have new business close to $300 million for 2013. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, okay that’s helpful, that’s great. And the decline in the derivative income in the quarter, was there timing associated with that or do you think that’s a new level that’s just given a change in activity or how should we think about that business going forward?

Well the third quarter was an exceptional quarter for us Collyn and the decline in the fourth quarter, that’s closer to a run rate for us. That is going to be a pretty lumpy line item though from quarter-to-quarter. We would expect in 2014 to see a bit of a decline in swap income, both as rates rise, but also as we have more capacity for fixed rate deals on our books. We have shifted a little bit of some of those deals being fixed rate versus swap. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, okay. And then I guess the same question kind of for mortgage banking. You guys in the third quarter didn’t seem to hold up much better than the industry, but then it settled in the fourth quarter. Is that catch up and now is that the new level or do you think it migrates even lower from here?

Yes, I think we probably hit a bottom in the fourth quarter. We had $42 million of close-ins in the fourth quarter. We are expecting to do on average north of $50 million in 2014, so I think the fourth quarter was probably a floor in our terms with mortgage banking income. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, that’s helpful. And then just how are we keeping on the tax rate. What should we think about going forward for the tax rate?

Well as I mentioned in my comments, 2014, our expectations right now should we not get any new market tax credit award, its 30%. Collyn Gilbert – KBW: Okay, okay. That was all I had. Thanks guys.

Thanks Collyn.

Thanks Collyn.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Christopher Oddleifson for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you again everybody for your support and interest and we look forward to talking with you just after the first quarter of 2014, I think in the next few months. Bye.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.