Bridgewater Bancshares, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Bridgewater Bank Shares 2025 fourth quarter earnings call. My name is Betsy and I will be your conference operator today. All participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. After Bridgewater's opening remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note that today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to introduce Justin Horstman, Vice President of Investor Relations, to begin the conference call. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on today's call are Jerry Bach, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Joe Schabowski, President and Chief Financial Officer, Nick Place, Chief Banking Officer, and Katie Morrell, Chief Credit Officer. In just a few moments, we will provide an overview of our 2025 fourth quarter financial results. We will be referencing a slide presentation that is available on the investor relations section of Bridgewater's website, investors.bridgewaterbankmn.com. Following our opening remarks, we will open the call for questions. During today's presentation, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are predictions and that actual results may differ materially. Please see the forward-looking statement disclosure in the slide presentation and our 2025 fourth quarter earnings release for more information about risks and uncertainties which may affect us. The information we will provide today is as of and for the quarter ended December 31st, 2025, and we undertake no duty to update the information. We may also disclose non-GAAP financial measures during this call. We believe certain non-GAAP financial measures, in addition to the related GAAP measures, provide meaningful information to investors to help them understand the company's operating performance and trends and to facilitate comparisons with the performance of our peers. We caution that these disclosures should not be viewed as a substitute for operating results determined in accordance with GAAP. Please see our slide presentation and 2025 fourth quarter earnings release for reconciliations of non-GAAP disclosures to the comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to turn the call over to Bridgewater's Chairman and CEO, Jerry Bach.

Thank you, Justin, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. We finished the year strong with robust loan and core deposit growth, net interest margin expansion, and higher fee income. Expenses were also well controlled, and asset quality remained strong. A successful quarter reflective of the team at Bridgewater Bank. This all comes as we continue to take market share by providing an unconventional, reliable experience to our clients. We continue to see opportunities in the Twin Cities for both client and talent acquisition and are taking advantage of both. We also see opportunities to grow the business outside of our market by using the expertise we have developed and expanded across the affordable housing market. Not only did we have a great quarter, but we see plenty of reasons for that to continue in 2026. Revenue growth was a key highlight of the quarter, both from a spread and fee perspective. We saw net interest margin expand 12 basis points to 2.75%, driving strong growth in net interest income. Last quarter, we mentioned that we expected to get back to a 3% margin by early 2027. We are well on track for that and, in fact, think we can pull it forward into 2026. Joe will talk more about that in a few minutes. Swap fees, while up and down from quarter to quarter, were strong in the fourth quarter, driving an increase in interest income as well. Core deposit growth of 9% was another highlight of the quarter, which allowed us to produce loan growth of 9% as well. As we've been focused on growing loans in line with core deposits, On a full-year basis, core deposits were up 8% while loans grew at 11% pace, exceeding our mid-to-high single-digit guide we had at the beginning of the year. We also continue to feel good about the strength of our asset quality profile, even as we saw a modest uptick in non-performing assets and net charge-offs in the fourth quarter. Katie will provide more thoughts on this shortly. We pride ourselves on being able to produce consistent tangible book value per share growth for our shareholders. This is evident on slide four and was again the case in the fourth quarter as tangible book value grew 16.5% annualized and was up 15.3% year over year. This continues to be a unique part of the Bridgewater story and one we're incredibly proud of. Before I turn it over to Joe, I want to take a minute to share some additional updates. First, in late December, we closed one of the two branches we added through the first Minnetonka City Bank acquisition. The decision was due to having other branches in close proximity. Overall, we were pleased to see very little deposit attrition from the FMCB post-merger. We're also on track to open a new branch in Lake Elmo next month. We're excited about the opportunity that will present as we expand further into the growing affluent east metro of the Twin Cities. Second, we continue to see opportunities related to recent M&A disruption in the Twin Cities, both on the talent and client front. Old National's acquisition of Bremer has been the main one, but the pending acquisitions of Midwest One and American National have created additional opportunities. Bridgewater is now the second largest locally led bank in the Twin Cities, so we feel well positioned to be the bank of choice for those looking to work or bank local. Third, I'd like to acknowledge the events that have unfolded in the Twin Cities in recent weeks. It's been difficult to watch what's happening across our community. The people in the city are resilient, and we will get through this. In the meantime, we are actively monitoring the impact of these events are having on our team members and clients. And we'll continue to be here to support them in any way we can. Lastly, I want to thank our team for a great year in 2025. With an acquisition, a core conversion, the launch of a new online banking platform, and other technology advancements, there are many new initiatives and challenges to work through. I remain impressed with the team and their consistent willingness to overdeliver. The efforts of our entire team continue to be the magic that makes Bridgewater a place people want to work and do business. I'm thankful for their efforts and the overall leadership across the organization. With that, I will turn it over to Joe. Thank you, Jerry.