Southside Bancshares, Inc.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' fourth quarter and year-end 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 1 1 again. I would now like to hand the call over to VP of Investor Relations, Lindsay Bales. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lateef. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' fourth quarter and year-end 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 will 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, CSO. 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' fourth quarter and year-end earnings call. This morning, we reported fourth quarter net income of 17.3 million, earnings per share of 57 cents, a return on average tangible common equity of 13.1%, and continued strong asset quality metrics. During the fourth quarter, net income was impacted by a loss of 10.4 million, or 27 cents per share, due to a restructuring of a portion of the securities portfolio, by selling approximately $388 million of lower-yielding AFS securities. The proceeds were largely reinvested in premium U.S. agency mortgage-backed securities with approximately 20% reinvested in loans. The restructuring is estimated to increase net interest income, resulting in a two-year payback of the loss. Linked quarter, our net interest income increased $1.2 million, and the net interest margin declined only three basis points, less than originally estimated. Given the restructuring of the securities portfolio, we believe the net interest margin is at or near the bottom and should begin to slowly move higher during 2024. Linked quarter, we continue to experience excellent loan growth. with loans increasing $103.9 million, or 2.3%. We ended the year with 9.1% loan growth, slightly exceeding our estimate. For 2024, we are currently budgeting for 5% 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.