MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Midwest One Financial Group Inc. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions with instructions to follow at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded, and I would now like to turn the call over to Barry Ray, Chief Financial Officer of Midwest One Financial Group. You may proceed.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate your participation in our earnings conference call this morning. With me here on the call are Chip Reeves, our Chief Executive Officer, Lynn DeVacher, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Gary Sims, our Chief Credit Officer. Following the conclusion of today's conference, a replay of this call will be available on our website. Additionally, a slide deck to complement today's presentation is also available on the investor relations section of our website. Before we begin, Let me remind everyone on the call that this presentation contains forward-looking statements relating to the financial condition, results of operations, and business of Midwest One Financial Group, Inc. Forward-looking statements generally include words such as believes, expects, anticipates, and other similar expressions. Actual results could differ materially from those indicated. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are interest rates, changes in the mix of the company's business, competitive pressures, general economic conditions, and the risk factors detailed in the company's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Midwest One Financial Group, Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Chip. Thank you, Barry, and good morning.

On today's call, I'll provide a high-level overview of our first quarter results and an update on the significant progress in executing our strategic plan initiatives. Len will provide an update on our lines of business, and then Barry will conclude with a more detailed review of our first quarter financial results. Looking at our quarterly highlights, I'm pleased with the seamless closing and integration of Denver Bank shares, which added scale and a low-cost deposit franchise to our existing Denver operations. Our Denver franchise now has loans of 673 million and deposits of 429 million. As we've stated previously, our objective is for the Denver market to be a 1 billion franchise for us in the future. Len will speak further about our progress and our plans in this critical market. Turning to our balance sheet trends, excluding acquired Bank of Denver balances, we delivered 8% annualized loan growth for the first quarter, as we continue to benefit from the expansion of our major market banking teams and our customer value proposition, emphasizing larger bank expertise delivered in a high-touch boutique fashion. Additionally, deposits were stable in what's normally a seasonally slow quarter, and we remain cautiously optimistic we'll grow our core deposit franchise through the year ahead. Importantly in the quarter, because our strategic 2023 balance sheet actions the acquisition of Denver Bank shares, and continued loan growth, our net interest margin expanded in the first quarter, rising 11 basis points and leading to a 7% quarterly increase in our net interest income. Even if no rate cuts occur in 2024, we anticipate a slow build of margin for the remainder of the year. We continue to expand and up to our commercial banking and wealth management businesses and have enjoyed solid loan and assets under management growth and our major metro markets of the Twin Cities, Denver, and Metro Iowa. Specifically regarding our wealth management business, our investments in talent and platform, as well as market valuations, led to first quarter revenue of $3.5 million, a 10% quarterly and 19% year-over-year increase. In January, we welcomed our new EVP and head of wealth management, Steve Heiberman, And under his leadership, we look to achieve double-digit annual revenue growth in this business segment in the years to come. The first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter of 2024 has seen significant talent acquisition across our bank as we continue to mature and expand our operations consistent with our strategic plan. These senior hires are in commercial banking, credit administration, wealth management, marketing, and treasury management. Even with these talent and platform investments, we remain pleased with our expense discipline as we funded the majority of these investments by reallocating expense reductions into more productive and profitable markets and departments. To conclude, we've made substantial progress in the transformation of Midwest One, positioning the bank for improved earnings power and returns. The execution of our strategic initiatives is progressing better than we've expected, and I remain very optimistic on what the future holds for our employees and shareholders. I'd like to thank our employees for their continued hard work, their expertise, and their commitment to our company, customers, and communities. This journey would not be possible without their unwavering support. Now I'd like to turn the call to Len.