Ameris Bancorp

Good morning and welcome to the Ameris Bancorp third quarter conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist 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 and then one using a touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, Jamie. 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, and Doug Strange, our Chief Credit Officer. Palmer will begin with opening comments and then I will discuss the details of our financial results before we open up for Q&A. But 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 statement 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.

Thank you, Nicole. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to join our third quarter earnings call today. Our focus at Ameris continues to be on building core franchise value through profitable growth, strong profitability metrics, and disciplined balance sheet management, including our priority of tangible book value growth. And this quarter, again, supported all of these core fundamentals and resulted in a five-year record high EPS of $1.73 per diluted share. During the quarter, we experienced good organic growth and average earning assets at approximately 5% annualized. and deposits at 6% annualized. And importantly, we were able to drive this growth while protecting our above average margin of 387 in the quarter. All profitability metrics remain strong, including our ROA of over 160, our PPNR ROA of 227 and our return on tangible common equity of 15%, even with our strong capital levels. We continue to concentrate on profitable growth and positive operating leverage which is evident in the improvement in our efficiency ratio hovering around 50% for the year. Our discipline management of the balance sheet has us well positioned for the future. Our reserve coverage is strong at 162 of total loans which represents 315% of portfolio MPAs. Our capital level with over 13% common equity tier one positions us well for future organic growth in our attractive southeastern markets. We will also consider additional share buybacks as our board recently approved another $200 million repurchase authorization. On an annualized basis, reported tangible book value per share grew 5% in the quarter, excluding the impact of AOCI tangible book value growth would have been over 14%. Our loan growth production was $2.3 billion in the quarter, which was consistent with last quarter's remaining at a very healthy level. And our profitable loan growth was driven by a mix of C&I, residential mortgage, and construction was partially offset by elevated CRE payoffs. On the deposit side, we saw growth in the mid single digit range with our focus being on core deposits and relationship banking. We have a granular deposit base and almost 30% of our funding from non-interest bearing accounts and almost 48% of our accounts are checking, both non-interest bearing and now accounts. Credit quality normalized some in the quarter but remains very favorable compared to peer CRE and construction concentrations finished the quarter at 251% and 50% respectively. Overall, I'm very pleased with our financial performance in the third quarter. We're well positioned as we go into 2027 as we continue to focus on organic and profitable growth in our attractive southeastern footprint. I'll stop there and turn it over to Nicole to discuss our third quarter financial results.