Great Southern Bancorp, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To answer your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Zach McEwen. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Bright Southbound Bank's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. Today, we'll be discussing the company's results for the quarter and full year ending December 31st, 2024. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, forward-looking statements may be made regarding the company's future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to various factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. For a list of these factors, please refer to the forward-looking statements disclosure in the fourth quarter earnings release and other public findings. Joining me today are President and CEO, Joe Turner, and Chief Financial Officer at Scott Plan are now time to call over to Joe. Andrew.

All right. Thanks, Zach, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for our fourth quarter earnings call. 2024 was a year of resilience and progress for Great Southern Bancorp. Despite facing a dynamic economic and banking environment, our team delivered solid results, reinforcing the strength of our business model and our long-term commitment to execution. For the year, we reported $61.8 million or $5.26 a share. While this represents a slight decline from the prior year, it reflects our proactive management during a period marked by rising funding costs and heightened competition for deposits. These results underscore our ability to adapt, prioritize profitability, and continue creating value for our shareholders. In the fourth quarter, we reported net income of $14.9 million or $1.27 per diluted common share. Net interest margin was $3.49 for the quarter, reflecting an improvement from 3.3% in the fourth quarter of last year and 3.42 in the quarter ended September 30, 24. Annualized return on average assets for the quarter was 1%, which is up slightly from the prior year's quarter, while annualized ROE, or return on average common equity, was 9.76%. As we did note in the earnings release, fourth quarter financial results were negatively impacted by non-recurring non-interest expense items. This expense reduced annualized return on average common equity by 103 basis points and annualized return on average assets by 10 basis points. Looking ahead, we are confident in our long-term strategy and our ability to drive shareholder value and increase book value per share while continuing to deliver strong, consistent results. Our loan portfolio growth was driven by sustained demand in key segments with growth loans for the year increasing $100.5 million. Multifamily residential loans led the way reflecting robust growth while the loan pipeline for construction loans remained strong. Loan payoffs due to borrowers selling projects or refinancing debt were sporadic and somewhat muted in 24 compared to previous years given the interest rate environment. For more information about our loan portfolio, please refer to our quarterly loan portfolio presentation available on our investor relations site under the presentations link. The presentation provides helpful insights regarding our loan portfolio mixed by type and geography. Our asset quality remained very strong with non-performing assets of 0.16%. Of total assets at the end of the year, non-performing loans to period end loans fell to 0.07%. During the quarter ended December 31, 24, our provision for credit loss expense was $2.5 million higher than during the same quarter last year. In the 2024 fourth quarter, the company did not record a provision expense on its portfolio of outstanding loans compared to the $750,000 provision expense in the same period of 23. In the 24 fourth quarter, the company recorded a provision expense of $1.6 million on its unfunded loans compared to a negative provision expense of $1.7 million during Q4 of 23. Our total net charge-offs for the fourth quarter fell to $155,000, down from $833,000 in the prior year quarter. The allowance for credit losses as a percentage of total loans stood at 1.36%. At 12-31-24, it was the same thing at the end of the third quarter and 1.39% at the end of 2023. We strengthened our capital position, increasing stockholders' equity by $27.7 million while strategically repurchasing our stock. I think we spent maybe $15 million or so repurchasing our stock and about $18 million on our dividend. And of course, we also had a change to the downside in our mark-to-market by about $12 million, I think. So our continued capital management enabled us to return significant values to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. As we look ahead to 2025, our focus remains on disciplined growth, proven balance sheet management, and sustainable value delivery for our shareholders. At Great Southern, we have consistently taken a long-term view of everything we do. As a result, we are excited about the opportunities ahead. We are also confident in our ability to navigate any challenges that may arise. Lastly, I'd like to thank our team members for their dedication and our shareholders for their continued trust. Now I'll turn it over to Rex to provide more detail on our financial results.