Great Southern Bancorp, Inc.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Christina Maldonado. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Great Southern Bank Corp's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Today, we'll be discussing the company's results for the quarter and year ended December 31st, 2025. 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 filings. Threading me today are President Joe Turner and Chief Financial Officer Rex Copeland. I'll now turn the call over to Joe.

Okay. Thanks, Christina, and good afternoon to everybody on the call. We appreciate you joining us today. Our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results reflect the sustained success of our core banking operations and our commitment to long-term tangible book value appreciation despite a volatile economic environment. Throughout the year, we remain focused on preserving net interest margin, protecting credit quality, controlling non-interest expense, and opportunistically repurchasing our stocks. For the fourth quarter, we reported net income of $16.3 million, or $1.45 per diluted common share, compared to $14.9 million, or $1.27 per diluted common share in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, net interest income totaled 71 million, net income, I'm sorry, totaled 71 million, or $6.19 per diluted common share. These results happen because of resilient net interest income, strong asset quality, and proven asset liability management, despite ongoing loan and deposit competition and fundamental economic pressures. Net interest income for the 2025 fourth quarter totals $49.2 million, which was a decrease of $371,000, or 0.7% compared to the prior year quarter. As you'll recall, We did lose the income from our terminated swap during the fourth quarter. We lost most of that income, and the quarterly income had been $2 million. So that's the primary reason for the small decline. Additionally, we have lower loan balances, which resulted in some lower interest income. But despite those factors, effective management of funding costs reduced net reduced interest expense, and mostly offset the decrease in interest income. This resulted in net interest margin expansion. Our margin grew from 370 this quarter, 3.7%, to 3.49% in the year-ago quarter. Core deposits remained relatively stable, reflecting continued customer engagement and the underlying strength of our relationship-based banking model. Net loans receivable totaled $4.36 billion at year-end, representing a decline of $333.5 million or 7.1% from where they were a year ago. We had declines in multifamily residential, commercial construction, one-to-four family, and commercial business. The decrease primarily reflects elevated payoff activity as capital markets have eased during the year, Though loan production remained active, we continued to maintain a conservative underwriting posture, focusing on pricing, structure, and borrower strength. Additionally, construction lending remained steady through the quarter and the full year into 2025, supported by a solid level of unfunded commitments. On the funding side, total deposits decreased $122.8 million, or 2.7%. This really was almost exclusively in the brokered category. That category declined $108.7 million. We did have a decline of $87.3 million in our core CDs, or the CDs originated through our system of banking centers, but that was almost completely offset by the growth in our interest-bearing checking accounts. That was $75 million. Deposit markets remain competitive across both core and broker channels. and we continue to balance pricing discipline with customer retention. We will continue to monitor repricing opportunities as interest rates and competitive dynamics develop and utilize non-deposit funding sources when appropriate. Excuse me. Credit quality remains a clear area of strength at year end. Non-performing assets for the fourth quarter total $8.1 million, representing 0.15% of assets. Compared to the linked quarter, non-performing assets increased 319,000. We did not record a provision for credit losses on outstanding loans in the fourth quarter of 2025. We also recorded net recoveries of 22,000 for the quarter compared to net charge-offs of 155,000 during the same quarter a year ago. For all of 2025, we recorded recoveries of $11,000. These results reflect stable borrow performance and the effectiveness of our underwriting and portfolio monitoring practices. Expense management remained a focus for the company during the year. Non-interest expense for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $36 million, down about 947,000 or 2.6% from the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year decline was really exclusively a result in the year-ago quarter We had a $2 million charge associated with the settlement of a contract matter. Obviously, that did not recur this quarter. We did have some higher net occupancy and equipment expense. That's driven by investment in facilities and really primarily driven by investments in technology. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported an efficiency ratio of 63.89%. Looking forward, our priorities remain centered on maintaining strong capital and liquidity, supporting our customers and communities, maintaining strong credit metrics, and deploying capital possibly. Though loan growth may remain challenging and economic conditions fluid, we believe our conservative approach and sound balance sheet management will continue delivering long-term value for our stockholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rex for a more detailed review of our financial results.