Ameris Bancorp

Good day, and welcome to the Ameris Bancorp fourth quarter conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Chester. And thank you to all who have joined our call today. During the call, we will be referencing the press release and the financial highlights that are available on the investor relations section of our website at AmerisBank.com. I'm joined today by Palmer Proctor, our CEO, John Edwards, our Chief Credit Officer, and Doug Strange, our Managing Director of Credit, who will be taking over for John when he retires at the end of this quarter. Palmer will begin today with some general opening comments, and then I will begin discussing the details of our financial results before we open up for Q&A. Before we begin, I'll remind you that our comments may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. The actual results could vary materially. We list some of the factors that might cause results to differ in our press release and in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information early developments or otherwise, except as required by law. Also during the call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in reference to the company's performance. You can see our reconciliation of these measures and GAAP financial measures in the appendix to our presentation. And with that, I'll turn it over to Palmer for opening comments.

Thank you, Nicole, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to join our call today. I'm very pleased with the financial results we reported yesterday, and I'm excited to be able to share some of the highlights and our overall strategic view for 2024 before Nicole gets into some of the financial details. 2023 was certainly a year of discipline and resilience for our company, and the fourth quarter was a solid close to our plan. Throughout the year, we focused on strengthening the balance sheet to prepare ourselves for 2024 with a healthy margin, strong capital, and increased reserves. We grew deposits this year by over 6% and then controlled loan growth to 2%, improving our loan-to-deposit ratio to 98%, all while maintaining an above-peer net interest margin of 3.61% for the year. During the fourth quarter, we recorded $23 million provision for credit losses, bringing our year-to-date provision expense to over $142 million. And that improves our coverage ratio up to 1.52% of loans, and 365% of portfolio MPAs. And once again, this provisioning was model-driven and not related to any credit deterioration. We built and preserved capital this year, such that our TCE ratio is well over our stated goal of 9%, and we also grew tangible book value by over 12% this year. So as we move into 2024, a lot of the confidence that we have is based on several factors. We have and will continue to fight to protect our margin. And we're starting the year from a position of strength there, fortunately. We also have, as you know, a very granular deposit base and very sticky deposit base. And then when you combine that with a well-capitalized balance sheet and a healthy allowance, and obviously, as we've proven, a culture of expense control, we also have a diversified revenue stream that generates above-peer PPNR ROA. And last but not least, what gives us a lot of comfort, too, is just knowing that we have established individuals in a lot of the top growth markets throughout the southeast. So when it's appropriate to accelerate growth, we can do so. So those are the main things that give us a lot of positive outlook as we look through the remainder of this year. But with that, I'll turn it over to Nicole now to discuss our financial results in more detail.