Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc.

Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Dennis and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Missouri Bancorp earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the call over to the company's CFO, Stefan Chkautovich. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Dennis. Good morning, everyone. This is Stefan Chkautovich, CFO with Southern Missouri Bancorp. Thank you for joining us today. The purpose of this call is to review the information and data presented in our quarterly earnings release, dated Wednesday, July 22, 2026, and to take your questions. We may make certain forward-looking statements during today's call, and we refer you to our cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements contained in the press release. I'm joined on the call today by Greg Steffens, our Chairman and CEO, and Matt Funke, President and Chief Administrative Officer. Matt will lead off our conversation today with some highlights from our most recent quarter and fiscal year.

Thanks, Stefan, and good morning, everyone. This is Matt Funke. Thanks for joining us. I'll start with a few highlights from our financial results for the June quarter, which marked the final quarter of our fiscal year. Compared to the prior quarter, earnings increased as we recognized a lower provision for income taxes, primarily reflecting a benefit from tax credit investments, along with higher net interest income, lower non-interest expenses, and higher non-interest income. These positive drivers were partially offset by an increased provision for credit losses. In fiscal 2026, we continue to expand our net interest margin while generating solid loan growth and maintaining disciplined control over operating expenses. Those factors drove improved earnings and profitability, resulting in a return on assets of 1.41% for the fiscal year. While problem credits increased modestly during the year, our strong pre-provision net revenue More than absorbed the associated elevated costs and still allowed us to deliver strong profitability. We are pleased with the financial performance we achieved in fiscal 26, and we're optimistic that we'll maintain healthy profitability metrics in fiscal 27. We earned $1.83 diluted in the June quarter, which was an increase of 23 cents, or about 14%, from the linked March quarter. and up 44 cents or about 32% from the June 2025 quarter. For full year fiscal 2026, we earned $6.43 compared to $5.18 in fiscal 25. The 24% increase year over year was predominantly driven by stronger net interest income, which stemmed from net interest margin expansion as funding costs declined, coupled with almost 5% average earning asset growth. Net interest margin for the quarter was 3.67%, remaining unchanged from the third quarter of fiscal 26, the linked quarter, but up from 347 reported for the year-ago period. Net interest income was up almost 3% quarter-over-quarter and up about 10% year-over-year. Stefan will run through more of the moving parts of the NIM in a bit. Provision for credit loss was $3.2 million during the fourth quarter, a $1.1 million increase from the linked quarter. The increase was primarily driven by higher net charge-offs, higher reserves required for pulled loans, which was driven largely by the bank's annual ACL methodology update, and to support loan growth. Greg will go into a bit more detail on credit, and Stefan will talk about the allowance for credit losses in a bit. On the balance sheet, gross loan balances increased by $69 million during the fourth quarter. Compared to June 30 a year ago, gross loan balances are up $291 million, or 7.1%. Growth in the quarter was largely driven by loans collateralized by construction and land development, one-to-four family residential real estate, multifamily, and ag real estate and production from the planting season as that kicked off. We experienced strong loan growth in our east region driven by seasonal ag lending, followed by solid growth in our northwest region as our newer lenders in the Kansas City market continued to build and expand portfolios. We had another good quarter for loan originations, generating about $335 million, which was seasonally strong, up $85 million from the year-ago period. This strong quarter of originations was partially muted by several larger loan payoffs. Our expected pipeline for the next 90 days remains healthy, increasing approximately $4 million from the prior quarter to $182 million. Looking ahead to fiscal 27, we continue to expect mid-single-digit loan growth, reflecting strong customer demand. However, as we prioritize funding new loan production with core deposit relationships rather than with wholesale funding, we expect loan growth to moderate somewhat from the 7% achieved in fiscal 2026. Deposit balances increased by about $67 million in the fourth quarter, or 1.5%, and increased by roughly $126 million, or about 3% year-over-year. As this is a seasonally slower period for deposits due to seasonal outflows from our public units and as our agricultural clients deploy funds to the property, the quarter-over-quarter growth was primarily driven by broker deposits. Year-over-year, broker deposits have increased just under $56 million, moderate but more than we would like, as local deposit rate competition has increased and wholesale sources offered more cost-effective funding. We recently started the rollout of a new business account, a new suite of business accounts, which along with tweaks to our team number incentives could help us increase our balances in lower-cost operating accounts over time. Tangible book value per share was $47.43, having increased by $5.56, or 13%, as compared to June 30 a year ago. And during the fourth quarter of fiscal 26, we repurchased 4,000 shares of common stock at an average price of just over $69 per share, representing a total investment of approximately $291,000. For the full fiscal year, we repurchased 317,000 shares, were almost 3% of the average common shares outstanding at the beginning of the fiscal year at an average price of $58.59, utilizing about $19 million in capital. Those shares were repurchased at an average price equal to 124% of our June 30, 2026 tangible book value per share. Lastly, due to our strong capital position, with the earnings release, we also announced a $0.02 or 8% increase in our quarterly dividend, bringing it to $0.27 per share. So I'll now hand it over to Greg for some discussion on credit.