Bridgewater Bancshares, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Bridgewater Bancshares 2026 Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Betsy and I will be your conference operator today. All participants have been placed in the 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 two. 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 Baack, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Joe Chybowski, President and Chief Financial Officer, Nick Place, Chief Banking Officer, and Katie Murrell, Chief Credit Officer. In just a few moments, we will provide an overview of our 2026 third 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 2026 third 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 September 30, 2026, 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 2026 third quarter earnings release for reconciliations of non-GAAP disclosures to the comparable gap measures. I would now like to turn the call over to Bridgewater's Chairman and CEO, Jerry Bach.

Thank you, Justin, and thank you for joining us this morning. In the third quarter, disciplined execution of a thoughtful strategy resulted in an incredibly strong quarter. Growth and profitability were objectives and both proved to be highlights. While we have always had the ability to generate robust loan growth, we have become more focused on creating balance sheet growth that prioritizes optimizing profitability. This strategy has never been more evident than it is now. Earlier in the year, we saw loan competition increasing with silly pricing that we weren't willing to stretch for. In addition, we knew that historically, core deposit growth was seasonal and typically slower during the first half of the year. In response, we strategically slowed our pace of loan growth to the mid single digit range accommodating for these trends. As we expected, core deposit growth returned in the back half of the year with annualized growth of nearly 20%. This came not only from seasonality, but from our new client relationships we have grown across the bank. This allowed us to accelerate loan growth during the past quarter to over 7% annualized, with loan and core deposit growth now in line on a year-to-date basis. This is a great example of how we are leveraging data Our market knowledge, balance sheet, and understanding of our client base to strategically and efficiently drive the growth and profitability of the bank. Overall, this translated into a record total revenue and pre-provisioned net revenue in the third quarter. Combine this with a decline in non-interest expense and we're able to move our efficiency ratio below 50% for the first time since the first quarter of 2023. Another significant contributor to earnings was the continued growth in net interest income, as ongoing loan repricing drove two more basis points of net interest margin expansion in the third quarter. Looking ahead, we know we are entering a new rates-up environment, which Joe will speak to shortly, but we believe our balance sheet is better positioned for this environment than it has been in the past, as we have been proactively growing the variable rate mix of the loan portfolio. Our strong asset quality trends also remain a positive part of the story. As we have shared in recent quarters, we're working through two loans that we hope to resolve in the near term. Katie will provide more details on this later, but aside from those, we are very pleased with our loan portfolio as non-performing assets remain well below peer levels and positive classified asset trends continue. On slide five, we will show Bridgewater's long track record of consistently growing tangible book value in excess of peers. This has been the case since before we went public in 2018 and even more recently since 2021. On a year-over-year basis, we have grown tangible book value at a 9.4% pace. Delivering shareholder value is key at Bridgewater. Overall, the third quarter was a very good quarter for Bridgewater. I'm thrilled with the momentum we have created and I'm optimistic of the outlook for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. The team is incredibly strong and knows how to execute on the strategies we have in place. With that, I'll turn it over to Joe.