Equity Bancshares, Inc.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Equity Bank Shares' fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. After the prepared remarks, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. In order to participate in the Q&A, please follow the link that's listed on our December 26th press release on the Equity Bank Shares website. If you'd like to ask a question during Q&A, you can do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand you over to Brian Gatsby to begin. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for Equity Bank Share's fourth quarter earnings call. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's call is being recorded and is available via webcast at investor.equitybank.com, along with our earnings release and presentation materials. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risk and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. Following the presentation, we will allow time for questions and further discussion. Thank you all for joining us. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Brad Elliott.

Good morning. Thank you for joining Equity Bank Shares Earnings Call. Joining me today is Rick Sims, our bank CEO, Chris Navratel, our CFO, and Christoph Lukowski, our chief credit officer. We're pleased to take you through our fourth quarter results, including that interest margin expansion, strong earnings, and a successful capital raise of common stock. The close of the quarter ends an exceptional year for our company. We close the year with record earnings per share of $4.04, franchise growth via completion of two M&A transactions, tangible book value per share growth of $4.70, or 18.5%, and a continued execution of our mission to be the premier community bank in our footprint. In 2024, Rick and his team reset our organic growth engine through a realignment of incentives, emphasis on process and efficiency, and identification of potential expansion areas within our footprint. I look forward to the success from all of this effort in 2025 and beyond. Julie Huber and her team successfully completed two whole bank acquisitions. which were each announced and closed within 75 days. As you know, all acquisitions require a significant effort and completing these within those timelines is an achievement that highlights our core competency of our organization. Brett Reaver and the credit team successfully oversaw the resolution of multiple legacy credits benefiting the bottom line by more than $10 million. our entire team operated in a historically challenging interest rate environment, emphasizing value with our customers and potential partners, which allowed for margin expansion, balance sheet growth, and excellent balance sheet positioning. During the fourth quarter, we saw an opportunity to bring in offensive capital in the form of common equity. Thanks to investors, that believe in our story and mission, we were able to bring in $87 million, which will be used for the funding of M&A growth and other organic growth. The market continues to be active, and we continue to engage in more meaningful conversations than I've had at any point in my banking career. I couldn't be more excited about what is ahead for our company. We entered the year with a strong balance sheet, motivated bankers, and a strong capital stack to execute on our dual-pronged strategy of organic growth and strategic M&A. I'll let Chris walk us through our financial results.