Southside Bancshares, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares, Inc. Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during this 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. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lindsey Bell, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Tawanda. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' third quarter 2023 earnings call. A transcript of today's call will be posted on southside.com under Investor Relations. During today's call and in other disclosures and presentations, I'll remind you that any forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described in our earnings release in our Form 10-K. Joining me today are Lee Gibson, President and CEO, and Julie Schamburger, CFO. First, Lee will share his comments on the quarter, and then Julie will give an overview of our financial results. I will now turn the call over to Lee.

Thank you, Lindsay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' third quarter earnings call. This morning, we reported net income of 18.4 million, earnings per share of 60 cents, a return on average tangible common equity of 13.17%, and continued strong asset quality metrics. During the recorder, we recorded a provision for credit losses of $7 million due primarily to increased concerns reflected in the Cecil economic forecast related to the commercial real estate market and repricing risks associated with the overall higher interest rate environment. Late in the quarter, we experienced loan growth of $91.6 million and deposit growth of $231.9 million. Our deposit growth was driven by higher cost public fund deposits of $265.8 million from two of our contractual municipalities. These higher cost deposits combined with overall higher funding cost pressure were largely responsible for the 15 basis point decrease in linked quarter in our net interest margin. During October, we swapped an additional $100 million to help mitigate further funding cost pressures. Our current loan pipeline is less robust than earlier this year. However, we still anticipate that we will end the year with high single-digit loan growth. The markets we serve remain healthy and continue to grow and perform well. I look forward to answering your questions following Julie's remarks. I will now turn the call over to Julie.