Spirit of Texas Bancshares, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Spirit of Texas Bank Shares fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Jerry Goldman, Chief Operating Officer for Spirit of Texas Bank Shares. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Spirit of Texas Bank Share's conference call and webcast to review 2021 fourth quarter results. With me today is Mr. Dean Bass, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. David McGuire, President and Chief Lending Officer, and Ms. Allison Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. Following my opening remarks, we will provide a high-level review and commentary on the financial details of the fourth quarter before opening the call or Q&A. I'd now like to cover a few housekeeping items. There will be a replay of today's call, and it will be available by webcast on our website at www.sotb.com. There will also be a telephonic replay available until February 3rd, 2022, and more information on how to access these replay features was included in yesterday's release. Please note that the information reported on this call speaks only as of today, January 27, 2022, and therefore you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. In addition, the comments made by management during the conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management. However, various risks, uncertainties, and contingencies could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in the statements made by management. The listener or reader is encouraged to read the company's annual report, Form 10-K, filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2020, to understand certain of those risks, uncertainties, and contingencies. Comments today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in yesterday's earnings release, which can be found on the Spirit of Texas website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dean Bass. Dean?

Thank you, Jerry. And good morning, everyone. Welcome. From our humble beginnings of approximately 50 million in assets in Snook, Texas, with a population of about 450 souls, we have grown the Spirit of Texas franchise to over 3 billion in assets over the past 13 years. Throughout our journey, we have maintained a culture that is committed to quality, adding quality assets organically identifying talented bankers, acquiring solid institutions. We have always strived for the most advantageous strategic path to add value for our investors in the communities we serve. I'm very proud that our history of commitment to quality has produced another great quarter of financial and operational results. During the quarter, we earned $9.1 million or 51 cents per share, and fully diluted earnings per share. We saw the return of SBA loan sales, which generated $812,000 in gain during the quarter. In addition, we are pleased to report strong organic loan growth, with over $2 billion in loans and still growing in double digits. Our goal back in 2008 was to build a profitable, safe, competitive local bank. As time passed, our goals expanded to be a strong Texas regional bank, and finally becoming a public bank that began to reach throughout Texas. The upcoming merger with Simmons First National Corp is not the end of the Spirit of Texas story, but starts a new chapter that will be filled with further growth in Texas markets. Our partnership with Simmons will provide the scale and resources that our talented bankers need to elevate their performance and better execute in the highly competitive market for quality banking opportunities. Now I'll turn the call over to David to discuss the loan portfolio and asset quality. David.