First Interstate BancSystem, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first Interstate Bank System, Inc. fourth quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen mode only. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, January 29, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nancy Vermeulen. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings conference call. As we begin, please note that the information provided during this call will contain forward-looking statements, and actual results or outcomes might differ materially from those expressed by those statements. I'd like to direct all listeners to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements contained in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and in our earnings release, as well as the risk factors identified in the annual report and in our more recent periodic reports filed with the SEC. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements are included in the earnings release and in our SEC filings, and the company does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements made today. A copy of our earnings release, which contains non-GAAP financial measures, is available on our website at fibk.com. Information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures may be found in the body of the earnings release, and a reconciliation to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included at the end of the earnings release for your reference. And again this quarter, along with our earnings release, we've published an updated investor presentation that has additional disclosures that we believe will be helpful for The presentation can be accessed on our investor relations website, and if you have not downloaded a copy yet, we encourage you to do so. Please also note that as we discuss our financials today, unless otherwise noted, all of the prior period comparisons will be with the third quarter of 2025. Joining us for management this morning are Jim Reuter, our Chief Executive Officer, David DeLaCamera, our Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management team. And now, I'll turn the call over to Jim Reuter. Jim?

Thank you, Nancy, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today. Over the course of 2025, we made meaningful progress to improve core profitability, refocus capital investment, and optimize our balance sheet through reorienting our footprint to geographies where we have brand density, strong market share, and high potential for growth. We announced branch divestitures in Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska, outsourced our consumer credit card product, and discontinued originations in indirect lending. We have intentionally allowed certain larger transactional loans to run off in favor of a disciplined effort to grow full banking relationships. That includes deposits, loans, and corresponding fee generating services. These strategic actions, among others we have taken, have generated capital for us over the past year. In August of 2025, we announced a share repurchase authorization and began executing under that plan, repurchasing approximately 3.7 million shares through year end for a total of approximately $118 million. Our board has approved an incremental $150 million share repurchase authorization, bringing the total authorization to $300 million to provide further capacity to continue executing under that plan. Additionally, our balance sheet remains strong and flexible. We reduced our other borrowed funds from $1.6 billion at the end of 2024 to zero at the end of 2025. Throughout 2025, we maintained a proactive approach to credit, and we are now beginning to see favorable results in our reported credit quality. Following stabilization in the third quarter, credit quality metrics improved in the fourth quarter. Criticized loans decreased by $112.3 million or 9.6% in the fourth quarter, and non-performing assets decreased by $47.3 million or 26%. Net charge-offs were elevated in the fourth quarter, driven by one larger credit for which we had already set a specific reserve of $11.6 million. For the full year of 2025, Net charge-offs were 24 basis points of average loans, which is in line with our long-term expectations. We also continued to execute on our ongoing branch network optimization, focusing our capital deployment in markets where we have existing density or high growth potential. We closed on the sale of our branches in Arizona and Kansas in the fourth quarter, exiting those states. Subsequent to that transaction, in October we announced the sale of 11 branches in Nebraska, which we expect to close early in the second quarter of 2026, and we will consolidate four additional branches in Nebraska in February. The company will have 29 branches remaining in Nebraska after the pending sale and closures. We will also close the single branches we have in North Dakota and Minnesota in the first quarter which will consolidate our footprint from 14 states to 10 contiguous states. To drive profitable organic growth, we have made a series of investments, including building out a new commercial banking team in Colorado, and we have new branch openings underway in the state of Montana. We have a new fully operational branch in Columbia Falls and another branch opening soon in Billings. We are also relocating one of our branches in Sheridan, Wyoming, to a location that will better serve the needs of our customers in that market. The full optimization of our remaining 10 states is an ongoing effort as we perform state-by-state reviews. In the fourth quarter, we began a transformation of the banking organization. We are changing the organization from a layered regional and market structure to a flatter model. Our new state presidents represent high performers, a majority of which are from within the bank and select external talent, bringing proven track records of expertise, energy, and strong commitment to our institution. We believe the combination of the right internal and external talent will support our growth. Along with other talented leaders throughout the organization, these leaders will play a critical role in our drive to allocate our resources as efficiently as possible for profitable organic expansion and focusing on areas where we have density or potential for growth. This new, more streamlined chain of responsibility is designed to speed up our local decision-making processes and align the decision framework with our organic growth and return on capital discipline. We expect this redesign to be nearly complete in the first quarter, and we view it as a significant driver of our expectation for improved organic growth. Loan balances declined during the year due to a variety of factors, including intentional non-relationship loan runoff, branch transactions, indirect lending runoff, and the outsourcing of our consumer credit card product. Additionally, as we have discussed in prior quarters, production was lower than initially estimated during the year. This is partially influenced by continued competition in the market, both on a spread and credit basis. With that said, we are optimistic that the recent actions we have taken, most specifically the banking organization redesign, will drive increased activity. Our net interest margin also continued to improve in the fourth quarter as we saw more sequential improvement in the spread between loans and deposits, and we continued to reinvest lower yielding cash flows from our investment portfolio. Our FTE net interest margin, excluding purchase accounting and accretion, improved four basis points in the fourth quarter, increasing from 3.3% at the end of the prior quarter to 3.34% at year end. That level represents a 26 basis point increase from the fourth quarter of 2024. Our organic growth focus, elevating best-in-class talent from within while adding select external talent, And serving our customers with what they typically expect from a large bank but with a personal community-oriented purpose is designed to create a competitive advantage for us over the long term. And with that, I will hand the call over to David to discuss our financial results in more detail.