Bank7 Corp.

Welcome to Bank 7 Core's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. Before we get started, I'd like to highlight the legal information and disclaimer on page 25 of the investor presentation. For those who do not have access to the presentation, management is going to discuss certain topics that contain forward-looking information, which is based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, they can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, among other things, the direct and indirect effect of economic conditions on interest rates, credit quality, loan demand, liquidity, and monetary and supervisory policies of banking regulators. Should one or more of these risks materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those expected. Also, please note that this conference call contains references to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures in an 8K that was filed this morning by the company. Representing the company on today's call, we have Brad Haynes, Chairman. Tom Travis, President and CEO, JT Phillips, Chief Operating Officer, Jason Estes, Chief Credit Officer, Kelly Harris, Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Timmons, Director of Accounting. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom Travis.

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to all those that joined today. Before we move into our financial results, we certainly are aware of the devastation inflicted on the West Coast by those fires on our fellow citizens, our thoughts and prayers go out to them. As we move into our strong financial results, we're very excited and cautiously optimistic. The results of the recent election have certainly unleashed a robust amount of animal spirits, and it's especially driven, we're especially interested in the many statements from the incoming administration relative to creating a less bureaucratic regulatory environment. We'll see if that happens, but it certainly is encouraging and the markets have responded to that message in a positive manner. With that said, the current rate of inflation and other economic factors have caused the Fed to possibly pause their interest rate reductions. Therefore, we continue to acknowledge a bit of uncertainty in relative to interest rates. The variability does seem, however, to be contained within a more narrow band. That is our belief. One thing we know for certain, we continue to stress how comforted we are to be operating in this dynamic part of the United States. It's a real blessing. We really are pleased with our fundamental strengths, especially our high levels of capital. And it's not just the higher levels of capital that gives us comfort, because we also have a very strong liquid position, something that we mentioned we further enhanced last year when we added a second liquidity backstop with the Fed. So we now have two meaningful sources of additional liquidity. We continue to reap the rewards of our disciplined approach to properly matching our ballot sheet, something that has proven to be effective for us over a long period of time. And you can see that when you review our NIM stability through various rate cycles. That steady NIM working in conjunction with our strong asset quality and dedication to expense controls all work together to drive strong results. We're pleased with our accomplishments as they were achieved through normal operations and in the case of our strong EPS, not driven by share buybacks. Our dividend payout ratio is still in the 20% range, which is far lower compared to the average dividend payout ratio of 35%. that is paid by banks that do pay dividends. With all that said, we have plenty of room for further increases should we decide to do it, while at the same time being comforted by our ability to rapidly accumulate capital. As majority shareholders, we're pleased with the total shareholder returns produced by our company, and as you can see in the published materials, we rapidly compound shareholder value much faster than most other institutions. As always, we thank our outstanding team members who work with our loyal customers. We're all aligned, and we're looking forward to a bright future, and it's because of them that we produce our results. So with all that said, we're here and ready to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.