Enterprise Financial Services Corporation

morning is King Turner, EFSC's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Scott Goodman, President of Enterprise Bank and Trust, and Doug Bauke, Chief Credit Officer of Enterprise Bank and Trust. Before we begin, I would like to remind everybody on the call that a copy of the release and accompanying presentation can be found on our website. The presentation and earnings release were furnished on SEC Form 8K yesterday. Please refer to slide two of the presentation titled Forward-Looking Statements, for our most recent 10K and 10Q for reasons why actual results may vary from any forward-looking statements that we make today. Our financial scorecard begins on slide three. I'm very pleased with our results for the fourth quarter and for all of 2024. Our strong financial performance continued in the fourth quarter where we earned $1.28 per doula share, which compares to $1.32 in the linked quarter and $1.16 in the fourth quarter of 2023. We produced an adjusted return on assets of 1.31% and a pre-provision return on assets of 1.80%. Our diversified business model drove an expansion in net interest income while defending net interest margin, which was essentially flat when compared to the linked quarter and remained above 4%. The talent investments and relationship managers that we made in late 2023 and throughout 2024 is beginning to pay off. These new associates have a pedigree in CNI banking and deposit generation. Their efforts contributed to the outstanding growth in client deposits that we experienced in the fourth quarter. Our ability to hold our margin at this level illustrates the quality of our deposit base and relationship oriented loan portfolio. This reflects the strength of the franchise we have built and we remain positioned to produce high-quality earnings that consistently improves shareholder value with a client-oriented model. We entered 2024 focused on continuing a cadence of consistency that we had established a few years ago. We accomplished this in the fourth quarter and are positioned well for another strong year in 2025. I would like to remind you that our strategy is focused on diversification, and for us, this means growth and revenue from several different markets and businesses. We're not relying on any one market, business line, or economic trend for our success. We lean into our client-centric, team-oriented approach, focused on listening well and providing holistic solutions that guide our clients to their defined success. We will continue to refine and improve this strategy for quarters and years to come. For the last few quarters, I discussed the wait-and-see mindset of most of our client base with respect to significant financial moves. Since the presidential election, I can say that this mindset has changed, but has yet to translate into significant loan demand. Like we thought would happen though, loan demand did tick up in the quarter as evidenced by our growth of $140 million or 5% on an annualized basis. This includes a $27 million decline in our agricultural portfolio that continues to wind down. I do think that we should see loan demand elevate slightly from here. but we will not force this by changing the credit and pricing disciplines that have long been a characteristic of our company. Deposit growth and the quality of the deposit base has become a significant differentiator for our company. In the quarter, we saw client deposits increase by $677 million, making this the fifth quarter in the last six that we saw client deposits grow. As impressive was the fact that we had just about equal contribution from our national deposit verticals and our geographic markets. The cost and composition of the deposit base improved and has significantly aided in the consistency of our earnings and profitability. The quarterly cost of deposits declined to 2% and our level of DDA to total deposits increased to over 34%. We have maintained our DDAs at over 31% of total deposits since the end of 2020. I remain confident that we will grow our balance sheet in 2025 at a mid to high single digit pace. Our teams, both established and new, have done a good job building loan and deposit pipelines. The mix, too, is encouraging. With ample room to grow CRE, we are seeing really good opportunities here that complements our C&I bias. You will hear much more about our markets and businesses during Scott's comments. Another strength of our company is our well-positioned balance sheet, which provides for great flexibility with respect to capital planning. Capital levels at quarter end remain stable and strong, with our tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio at 9.05%. As impressive was our 14.05% adjusted return on tangible common equity for the fourth quarter. Tangible book value for common share was $37.27. Given the strength of our earnings and our confidence in our continued execution, we increased the dividend by one cent per share for the first quarter of 2025 to 29 cents per share. And we returned an additional $11 million to shareholders during the quarter through common stock repurchases. In 2024, the industry attempted to define what a normalized credit profile would look like for each institution. I would characterize the credit quality and profile of our portfolio strong and stable. NPLs to loans and NPAs to total assets showed a slight increase compared to the third quarter, but remained at very modest levels. We've been able to achieve this while maintaining a strong allowance for credit losses of 1.34% of unguaranteed total loans. Slide five provides a recap of our financial highlights for the full year of 2024. We reported $185.3 million in net income or $4.83 of diluted earnings per common share. We invested heavily into the company in 2024 in terms of both technology and talent while generating over 255 million in pre-provisioned net revenue. This resulted in a pre-provisioned ROA of 1.72% and an adjusted return on average tangible common equity of 37.71%. Keen will provide much more detail on these results in his comments, along with our strategy to defend margin given the expected interest rate environment. Slide six shows we're focused for the foreseeable future. As we enter our 37th year in business, our focus remains the same. We will continue to focus our time on taking care of the great clients that we've accumulated while adding those family owned businesses that shares high touch consultative relationships. Doing this day in and day out will lead to several more quarters of really strong performance and the continued building of franchise value. We will not alter our credit discipline to chase growth and will be cognizant of the current market pricing trends to make sure we continue to protect and grow our client base. We will continue to take advantage of the disruption caused by M&A in just about all of our markets. As you know, over the past several quarters, we've been adding talent from these disruptive situations. While the pace of talent acquisitions will likely moderate, we're confident that these investments will add many new relationships and subsequent growth and profitability from just about every corner of our company. Before handing the call to Scott, I would like to provide a little perspective on how our clients are performing and provide a view of the overall economy from their vantage point. For the most part, our clients performed well in 2024. They have readied their balance sheets for anticipated opportunities that should manifest in 2025 and beyond. From large general and subcontractors to mid-market manufacturers and distributors, 2025 should continue the encouraging momentum that we've seen in the fourth quarter. Our teams continue to have many strategic conversations about expansion, succession, and acquisitions. We're also starting to see the positive impact of investments that companies are making for reshoring infrastructure development and power generation. My expectation for sound CNI growth in 2025 should blend well with the continued success that we've experienced with our CRE clients. Our conservative approach towards CRE earlier this decade gives us plenty of capacity to grow this part of our business, while our competitors remain restricted due to their 100-300 limitations. Overall, I like the tempo that we are seeing in our business and feel good about our team's ability to consistently produce quality opportunities that will ultimately lead to consistent sound balance sheet growth. We enjoy a great reputation and corresponding market share of middle market businesses in our mature geographies and specialized lending and deposit businesses. As such, I'm confident that we'll continue to get more than our fair share of corresponding opportunities. Our newer markets and higher growth areas will provide similar levels of opportunities while we continue to build our reputation in these markets. This blend is what gives me high confidence that we will continue to grow and earn at a predictable rate while continuing to compound tangible book value at a higher level than our peers over the foreseeable future. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott Goodman. Scott?

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. As you heard from Jim, and as we're showing on slides seven and eight, we ended the year with overall loan growth around 3%, including growth in Q4 of $140 million, or 5% annualized. Production levels were solid, with total originations trending up roughly 20% from the prior quarter. Increases were most prevalent in the general CNI, construction, and life insurance premium finance segments. However, net growth within the generalized CNI categories while improved from the prior quarter, has been somewhat muted by operating businesses using lines of credit more sparingly, and in many cases, opting to use cash reserves to fund working capital needs. Average usage on revolving lines declined about 2.5% in the quarter, with outstanding balances down $135 million from September 30th. Construction loan outstandings continue to fund on existing projects. with additional new project opportunities starting to come back online following a pause during the rising rates environment last year. Within the specialty lending verticals, life insurance premium finance and tax credit posted seasonally strong quarters, growing $84 million and $36 million, respectively. For the year, life insurance premium grew $158 million, or 16.5%, showing continued momentum from premium fundings on existing policies and bolstered by new opportunities from a growing base of referral partners. This business has proven over the years to be a steady and consistent source of growth with a certain level of immunity to overall economic headwinds while adding some balance and diversity to complement our other lines of business. SBA also posted a strong quarter growing 25 million or 7.9% annualized. Trends in this business are tracking well with production up materially in the quarter and payoffs continuing to moderate due to the lower interest rate environment. Overall, payoffs were down 26% in 2024 compared to 2023. For the sponsored finance business, 2024 was a year characterized by slowed origination and a bubble of payoff activity, resulting in a net reduction in the loan portfolio of roughly 10%. Having been in this specialty now for nearly 20 years, we do understand it can be a more cyclical business, And we're prepared to exercise discipline in our origination process to protect the credit quality of our portfolio, as well as the reputation we've built with our sponsor base. Deal flow has picked up a bit in the latter part of the year, and the pipeline is active. Over time, the book has grown nicely and provided solid risk-adjusted returns with a three-year compounded growth rate of 15%. Moving on to the geographic regions on slide nine. The Midwest region of St. Louis and Kansas City grew modestly in Q4 to $3.2 billion, with the aforementioned revolving line paydowns and sale of some commercial properties muting solid production of new CNI relationships. In St. Louis, we expanded relationships through equipment financing for a regional transportation client, as well as funded a new facility for a long-term client in the diversified energy services business. In Kansas City, we helped several companies with acquisition and recapitalization credit facilities. As more and more companies faced the issue of succession, we were seeing opportunities to assist with this process, and our team has developed a strong understanding of how to put these deals together to differentiate from other competitors and bring relevant advice and resources to the table for these clients. Growth was particularly strong in our southwestern markets of Arizona, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Texas, This Q4 balance is growing $104 million. For the full year of 2024, this region posted loan growth of $218 million, an increase of 13.9%. In addition to a strong base of funding on existing construction projects, we're seeing a higher level of new construction and commercial real estate opportunities in this region, particularly in the Arizona and Las Vegas markets. Larger deals this quarter included funding for a large pre-leased industrial building, an equipment loan for a private tour operator, and several mixed-use investments by commercial real estate clients. In California, representing our West region, loan balances slipped $85 million during the quarter, mostly attributable to timing on some larger line paydowns and proactive management of several weaker credits out of the bank. These were legacy clients of the acquired portfolio tied to undersecured or non-cash-flowing commercial real estate collateral. With steady new production coming from our core team in this market and success in attracting new season talent to our platform, we feel confident in the near and long-term prospects for growth in California. We continue to target disruptive competitors in this market and move new banking relationships to enterprise, including this quarter clients in the professional, medical, industrial, chemical, and digital media business lines. Deposits are profiled beginning on slide 10. It shows strong growth of $681 million in Q4 and year-over-year growth of $970 million or 8%. It is notable that this growth is almost entirely attributable to core client deposits with no material change in brokered balances. The growth in Q4 was also heavily concentrated within non-interest-bearing categories with contributions coming from both our commercial markets and the national deposit verticals. With the race beginning to fall during the quarter, our teams also did a nice job of retaining relationship-based interest-paying balances while supporting an effective rate reduction plan, which effectively lowered our overall funding costs. Keane will have more on this in his comments. Within our geographic markets, commercial deposits were up $382 million in a seasonally strong fourth quarter, but also reflects our success in onboarding new relationships. As outlined on slide 11, Deposit costs rose in all regions, I'm sorry, deposits rose in all regions during the quarter, as well as within our deposit verticals. The geographies contributed roughly 56% of the increase, with the largest increases coming from the heavier CNI markets of St. Louis and California. Midwest region balances are up 3.4% year-over-year, including $228 million, or 14.6% annualized in the quarter. Growth within the Southwest markets continue at a steady pace, up 12.5% year-over-year. Balances in Q4 are up $86 million, including several new deposit-heavy commercial relationships with a large electrical contractor and an industrial warehousing company. West region balances also show strong seasonal growth in the quarter, as well as the benefits of new CNI relationships with construction, private lending, and dispersing companies. Balances there were up $72 million in the quarter or 24% annualized. The positive verticals contributed $295 million of the increased balances for the quarter and continue a steady pace providing year-over-year growth of $610 million or 22%. More detail is shown on slide 12, which illustrates the portfolio that's well-balanced between the three main verticals. Q4 produced increases in each business line, at an average cost of 2.72% or a reduction of 20 basis points from the prior quarter. Growth in property management in Q4 and previous quarters follows a consistent pattern of continuing to onboard new relationships and expand account balances with existing clients. Community associations had a strong Q4, mainly attributable to new relationships which began funding during the quarter and which should add solid momentum to this business into the first part of 2025. Legal and escrow also posted robust growth in Q4. And while this can be a bit lumpy quarter to quarter, we have grown the balances and diversity in this channel year over year as we build our reputation in this space and extend this expertise into our existing geographic markets with our established clients and COIs. Core funding mix is outlined on slide 13 and shows an overall profile of the deposit portfolio by channel and mix within each. Generally speaking, our strategies have breached the portfolio that is well-balanced, relationship-driven, and highly weighted in lower-cost account types. I continue to be encouraged by our ability to lean into a value-added model to proactively manage deposit costs down while retaining our relationship base and competing effectively for new clients across all of our major channels. Now, I'll hand the call over to Keen for the financial college. Keen.

Thanks, Scott, and good morning. My comments begin on slide 14, where we reported earnings per share of $1.28 for the fourth quarter on net income of $49 million. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share was $1.32, a 3-cent increase from adjusted EPS, of $1.29 in the third quarter. Adjusted EPS excludes the impact of core conversion-related expenses, gains and losses on the sale of other real estate, and FDIC special assessment charges. Operating revenue contributed an increase to EPS again this period as net interest income expanded for the third consecutive quarter. Strong client deposit growth improved overall liquidity and drove an increase in the securities portfolio cash balances, and related interest income. We proactively managed deposit rates with a decrease in the Fed Fund's target rate so that the decline in loan income was offset by a corresponding decrease in deposit interest expense. The provision for credit losses increased from the prior quarter as total loans expanded and net charge-offs increased. Overall asset quality remained sound and net charge-offs were 16 basis points for the full year. Non-interest expense increased in the quarter, primarily due to higher compensation from medical costs and variable incentives. The increase in compensation was partially offset by a decrease in variable deposit servicing costs due to a managed decline in the earnings credit rate. Turning to slide 15, net interest income was $146.4 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of $2.9 million compared to the linked quarters. Interest income decreased $0.9 million during the quarter. Loan income declined $3.9 million from the linked period as lower Fed funds, prime, and SOFR rates drove a reduction in earnings on $5.5 billion of variable rate loans. This was partially offset by growth in average balances. Earnings on investment securities grew $2.7 million from the linked quarter on higher average balances and higher portfolio yields. Strong deposit growth in the quarter allowed us to fund $200 million in new investment purchases, in addition to the investment growth from the third quarter. Yields remained favorable for new purchases and reinvestment of cash flows, with the Treasury curve moving 70 to 80 basis points higher during the quarter. The average tax equivalent yield on purchases in the quarter was 5.10%. More details follow on slide 16. Interest expense declined by $3.8 million in the quarter, with nearly all of the reduction attributable to lower interest rates on deposit balances. Average interest-bearing deposits grew $236 million compared to the linked period, mainly in interest checking accounts. The average interest-bearing deposit rate declined 26 basis points, and interest on other borrowed funds declined in the quarter as well as a result of lower variable rates. The resulting net interest margin for the quarter was 4.13%, a decrease of only four basis points from the linked quarter. Earning asset yields declined by 22 basis points, driven mainly by lower yields on variable rate loans and interest earning cash balances. This was partially offset by improvement in investment yield and growth in earning asset balances. Our cost of liabilities decreased by 26 basis points compared to the linked period resulting from active rate reductions and growth that was skewed toward non-interest bearing and lower interest rate checking accounts. The total cost of deposits for the month of December was 1.91%, which is nine basis points lower than the 4Q average. While net interest margin did drift lower, the impact of rate changes was less than we'd anticipated in the quarter. We successfully managed our cost of deposits through the recent Fed cuts, and deposit growth in the quarter outperformed in terms of both volume and composition. Our balance sheet remains modestly asset sensitive overall, but sensitivity has declined. We have leveraged several quarters of strong deposit momentum to bolster the investment portfolio, adding durable earnings at favorable yields. The steepening of the yield curve compared to the end of the third quarter, with higher rates on terms two years and beyond, should result in improved pricing on fixed-rate loan originations and renewals. For some color, loans originated in the fourth quarter had an average interest rate of 7.10%, which is above the average portfolio rate. Our deposit mix continues to be a strength. Non-interest-bearing balances accounted for more than half of total deposit growth during 2024, and we remain focused on managing our deposit costs appropriately as rates change. Finally, interest rate swaps and collars provide protection against more severe downward movement in rates. That being said, we expect that further rate cuts will continue to put some pressure on net interest margins. Our modeling shows that each 25 basis point change in rates equates to approximately five basis points of margin, or $1.5 to $2 million of net interest income per quarter based on the existing balance sheet. Consistent with the prior period, we expect deposit-related non-interest expense to move in the opposite direction, with each quarter point cut resulting in approximately $1 million of reduced non-interest expense. So all in, the total impact of each 25 basis points of Fed cuts is around $1 million or less of pre-tax income. To summarize all that, we look for net interest margin to be relatively stable once the balance sheet resets to start the year, somewhere around 4.10%. Net interest income dollars will face a headwind with lower day count in the first quarter, but we believe our planned growth is sufficient to overcome those setbacks and result in higher net interest income during the year. Slide 17 reflects our credit trends. Net charge-offs were $7.1 million for the quarter and $17 million for the year, or 16 basis points of average loans in 2024. This is an improvement from charge-offs of 37 basis points in 2023 and is a positive reversion toward our expected longer-term trend. Non-performing assets were 30 basis points of total assets compared to 22 basis points at the end of September. The eight basis point increase in non-performing asset ratio was primarily related to two relationships that are being actively managed and are adequately reserved. Our credit metrics have been relatively stable all year and reflect the underlying strength of our diversified loan portfolio. The increase in net charge-offs in loan growth resulted in a provision for credit losses of $6.8 million in the quarter, an increase of $2.7 million compared to the third quarter. Slide 18 presents the allowance for credit losses. The allowance for credit losses represents 1.23% of total loans, or 1.34% when adjusting for government-guaranteed loans. The weighted economic forecast used in the allowance calculation means more toward a downside scenario for the next 12 months. On slide 19, fourth quarter fee income of $21 million was essentially flat with the linked quarter as growth in tax credit income offset the gain on sale of other real estate that was recognized in the third quarter. Tax credit income was better than expected as sales activity outpaced fair value pressure from the increase in 10 years so far. Turning to slide 20, non-interest expense of $99.5 million was an increase of $1.5 million in the third quarter, driven primarily from compensation and benefits, seasonally higher charitable giving levels, and core conversion expenses, which were partially offset by lower deposit servicing expenses. Core conversion expenses were $1.9 million in the current quarter compared to $1.4 million in the prior quarter. Deposit servicing expenses were $0.9 million lower compared to the link quarter, despite average balance growth in the deposit verticals of roughly 12% annualized, as related earnings credit percentage were managed lower during the quarter following recent Fed funds interest rate reductions. The fourth quarter's core efficiency ratio improved 130 basis points to 57.1%, driven by higher operating revenue, compared to 58.4% for the link quarter. Our capital metrics are shown on slide 21. We continue to manage our excess capital and repurchase 206,000 shares at an average price of $54.01 for approximately $11 million. We have approximately 1.4 million shares remaining under our repurchase plan. Our tangible common equity ratio was 9.05% at the end of the fourth quarter, down from 9.5% in the link quarter. The decrease was primarily due to strong balance sheet growth, and a decline in the overall fair value of the available for sale securities portfolio. We will continue to monitor our capital levels and manage some of our access position with share repurchases. On a per share basis, tangible book value of $37.27 was stable with the link quarter and increased 10% for the full year. This is in line with our 10-year compound growth rate for tangible book value per share of just over 10%. For 2024, the common dividend per share was $1.06, a 6% increase from 2023. We also increased our dividend by 1 cent per share to 29 cents for the first quarter of 2025. In summary, our 2024 financial results reflect the strength of our diversified business, and we closed the year demonstrating the high quality of our deposit base. For the second consecutive year, we significantly grew core deposits, while expanding operating revenue supported by solid credit and managed expense levels. We also invested in a new core system and recruited new talent in our higher growth markets in support of our expectation for continued growth. We consistently posted strong profitability and returns throughout the year, and we closed the year with a strong fourth quarter performance. This is reflected in a 1.30% adjusted return on assets, and a 14% return on tangible common equity. I appreciate your questions and attention today, and we'll now open the line for analysts.