South Plains Financial, Inc.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to South Plains Financial Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference 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 conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Steve Crockett, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of South Plains Financial. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our earnings conference call. The related earnings press release and earnings slide deck presentation issued today are available on the SEC's website as well as the news and events section of our website, spfi.bank. Please refer to slide two of the presentation for our safe harbor statements regarding forward-looking statements. All comments expressed or implied made during today's call are made only as of today's date and are subject to the safe harbor statements in the presentation and earnings release. In addition, please refer to slide two of the presentation for our disclaimer regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in our presentation and earnings release. I'm joined here today by Curtis Griffith, our chairman and CEO, Corey Newsome, our president, and Brent Bates, Citibank's chief credit officer. Curtis, let me hand it over to you.

Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon. We delivered solid first quarter results highlighted by strong profitability, continued improvement in credit quality, and disciplined balance sheet management as can be seen on slide four. While the market backdrop has been uncertain, we have continued to execute our strategy designed to enhance the earning power of Citibank. Our strategy remains focused on expanding our lending team across our high-growth Texas markets while also pursuing accretive M&A. We have a meaningful organic growth opportunity as we expand our lending team across our key Texas markets. We continue to selectively add experienced lenders who fit our culture and can bring long-term customer relationships to the bank. While we remain cautious and conservative given the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop, we are excited by the opportunities that we see to further expand our team and drive sustainable organic loan growth over time. Turning to our M&A strategy and the Bank of Houston, we were pleased to complete our merger on April 1st and officially welcome the BOH team to Citibank. We've spent a significant amount of time on the integration since announcing the merger in December to ensure that our new employees are welcomed into the bank and positioned for success. We continue to be impressed with the BOH team, the dedication they have to delivering strong results in the Houston market, and the similarities in our cultures. From an operational perspective, things are going according to plan. We expect the core conversion to be completed in early May, and continue to see opportunities to reduce BOH's cost of funds over time. In fact, steps have already been taken to optimize the balance sheet, as there has been a reduction in broker deposits and federal home loan bank borrowings starting in Q1. Overall, we believe BOH is a good strategic fit with low execution risk, and we continue to expect the merger to be 11% accretive to our earnings in 2027 with a tangible book value earned back of less than three years, which remains compelling. Now that the BOH acquisition is completed, we will continue to explore additional M&A opportunities. However, our approach has not changed. We remain highly disciplined and patient, and to date, we have not identified another transaction that meets our strict criteria. As we've said many times in the past, we're not interested in growth for growth's sake. Any potential partner must align with our culture, credit discipline, and community banking focus while also making strategic and financial sense for our shareholders. Turning to the market backdrop, we remain cautious over the near term as inflationary pressures appear to be resurfacing, driven in part by elevated energy prices related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. These dynamics may limit the Federal Reserve's ability to further reduce interest rates and could act as a headwind to economic activity and loan growth as we move through the year. This could also limit our ability to further reduce our cost of funds. While the near-term outlook is uncertain, we continue to be positive on the longer-term potential of the Texas economy, especially compared to the broader United States. Corporations continue to move their operations and headquarters to Texas, attracted by the state's pro-business environment, favorable demographics, and ongoing population growth, which provides a constructive backdrop for economic growth and relationship-based banking. To conclude, we believe that we're in a strong capital position that will allow us to execute our growth strategy and benefit from the many opportunities that we have in front of us. Given our capital position, we remain focused on both growing Citibank while also returning a steady stream of income to our shareholders through our quarterly dividend and keeping a share buyback program in place. To that end, our Board of Directors authorized a 17-cent per share quarterly dividend on April 16th, which will be our 28th consecutive dividend. Now let me turn the call over to Corey.