Great Southern Bancorp, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Great Southern Bancorp fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Kelly Polonis. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Victor. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. The purpose of this call is to discuss the company's results for the quarter ending December 31st, 2023. Before we begin, I need to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements about future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated or projected. For a list of some of these factors, please see the forward-looking statements disclosure in our fourth quarter earnings release and other public filings. President and CEO Joe Turner and Chief Financial Officer Rex Copeland are on the call with me. I'll now turn the call over to Joe.

Okay. Thanks, Kelly. Good afternoon, everybody. We appreciate you joining us today for our fourth quarter earnings call. As we anticipated, our fourth quarter results reflected the challenging operating environment that the banking industry is experiencing right now. While our earnings were down this quarter, and we continue to expect significant competition for deposits in a challenging environment for non-interest income, we are steadfast in our long-term view of running the company like we have for decades in the cyclical industries. For the fourth quarter, we earned $1.11 per share, or $13.1 million, compared to $1.84, or $22.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Earnings per diluted common share were $1.33 in the third quarter of 2023. In light of the current interest rate environment, key performance drivers included continued increase in deposit costs and significant competition for deposits, as well as expected continuation of lower loan origination volume. As we pointed out in our release, lower non-interest income and higher expenses also contributed to reduced earnings during the quarter. However, we did note that there were a few non-recurring additional expenses which decreased our fourth quarter earnings. On a positive note, the company's capital strengthened with stockholders' equity increasing by approximately $40 million from the end of the third quarter of 2023. At the end of the year, we had a book value of $48.44 per common share, which was an increase of $3.63, I think, during the fourth quarter. We mentioned on our last couple of calls some anticipated headwinds that we would face related to an interest margin. Our NIM did decline to $3.30 for the fourth quarter compared to $3.99 for the same period of $22 and $3.43 for the Q3 of $23. The margin contraction primarily resulted from continuing changes in deposit and other funding mixes, increasing interest rates on all deposit types during the fourth quarter, and impact from net settlements related to our interest rate swaps. Rex will provide a little bit more color on this in his comments. As I mentioned, our capital and liquidity position continues to be strong. Total stockholders' equity increased by $40.1 million from the end of the third quarter of 23 and increased $38.7 million from the end of 22 as a result of decreased AOTI losses on investment and interest rate swaps and continued growth in our retained earnings. The retained earnings component of our stockholders' equity increased $26 million during the 12-month end of December 31, 23. Our capital remained substantially above regulatory well-capitalized thresholds, and our TCE ratio was 9.7% at 12-31-23, up from 9.2% at the end of 22. In the fourth quarter of 23, the company declared a 40 cent per common share dividend, and for all of 23, our dividends declared were $1.60 per common share. We also continued to repurchase our shares during 2023. We repurchased approximately 450,000 shares at an average price of $51.38 per share in 2023. As for liquidity, our borrowing capacity at Home Loan Bank was approximately $919 million at the end of 2023. At the end of 2023, we had available secure funding lines through the Homeland Bank and Federal Reserve Bank and OnBalance sheet liquidity totaling approximately $2.1 billion. As we've noted for the last few quarters, our company's deposit base is diverse by customer type and geography and has a very low level of uninsured deposits, about 15% of total deposits, excluding internal subsidiary accounts. Overall, our loan portfolio is strong, diverse, and performing well. During the fourth quarter, new loan production and general activity was down compared to 22 as expected. Total outstanding loan balances grew by nearly $83 million since the end of 22. Growth primarily came from the multifamily loan segment. Much of this movement from unfunded construction line availability to construction projects and commercial business loans partially offset by a reduction in construction loans and one to four family residential loans. Our pipeline of loan commitments and the unfunded portion of construction loans remain strong, totaling $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, but that has decreased significantly compared to the end of 22. As construction projects were completed, the related loans were either paid off or moved from the construction category to the appropriate permanent loan category. The unfunded portion of construction loans was $719 million at 12-31-23, down from $1.4 billion at the end of 2022. I would remind you that we have a lot of information that we filed yesterday in our loan portfolio. You can find that at the FDC site. Overall, our credit quality metrics remain extremely strong during the quarter. Nonperforming assets, the total assets were 0.2%. at the end of the year, increasing by one basis point from September 30, 23. Delinquencies in our loan portfolio continue to be at historically low levels. More information about our non-performing and potential problem loans is included in the earnings relief. This concludes my prepared remarks. At this time, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Rex Copeland.