SmartFinancial, Inc.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Smart Financial second quarter 2026 earnings release and conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand over to Nate Strall, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Erica. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Smart Financial's second quarter 2026 earnings webcast and conference call. During today's call, we will reference the slides and earnings released available in the Investor Relations section of our website at smartbank.com. Billy Carroll, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will begin the call, followed by Ron Gorczynski, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide additional commentary. We will be available after the call to answer your questions. Our comments today include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Factors that could cause these actual results to differ materially are described in our earnings release and SEC filings, which are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as required by law. During today's call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures related to the company's performance. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendices to the earnings relief and investor presentation filed with the SEC on July 20, 2026. And now, I'll turn it over to Billy Carroll.

Thanks, Nate, and good morning, everyone. Great to be with you, and thank you for joining us today and for your interest in SMBK. As usual, I'll open up our call with some commentary and hand it over to Ron to walk through the numbers in some greater detail. After our prepared comments, we'll open it up with Ron, Nate, Rhett, Miller, and myself available for Q&A. We followed a strong first quarter with an even better second quarter as our team continued to build outstanding organic momentum. The foundation we have worked so hard to build over the past several years is clearly demonstrating its strength as we continue to grow operating leverage. Our team's focus on this execution remains outstanding, and the second quarter of 2026 was yet another clear example of that. So let me jump right into some of our highlights. and as I always say, one of the most important metrics to me, we continue to increase the tangible book value of our company, which is now at $28.22 per share, up from $26.86 a year end. For the quarter, we posted operating earnings of $16.3 million or $0.96 per diluted share, with total revenue coming in at $55.9 million. We continue to execute with outstanding growth on both sides of the balance sheet, posting 15% annualized growth in loans and 6% annualized growth in core deposits. Our history of strong credit continues with only 23 basis points and non-performing assets, down two basis points from the prior quarter. I'm very pleased with our credit performance and our extremely low level of NPAs. and operating non-interest expenses also came in on target at just under $34 million as we continue to exhibit our expense discipline. Looking at the first few pages in the deck, you'll see our continuation of some very nice trends. We're building on our return metrics and most importantly, growing total revenue, EPS and TVD. All of those charts are great graphics to illustrate our execution. So a couple of additional high-level comments from me. On growth, our balance sheet expansion continues. We are building a strong foundational sales culture led by our divisional and regional presidents, along with our collaborative credit leadership. The work of these teams has been outstanding, and the energy and hustle they exhibit as they focus on new client acquisition is exciting to see. I continue to believe we are among a select top-of-class group of top-performing banks when it comes to pure organic growth. As I stated, we grew our loan book 15% annualized quarter over quarter as sales momentum stays strong and balanced across all of our regions. Our average portfolio yield, including fees and accretion, held up well at 6.07%. Regarding deposits, again, core deposits were up 6% annualized. Even with some expected second quarter seasonality, we continue to drive nice core deposit growth. It's important to note how we're building this bank with core relationships as we have a keen focus on both sides of the balance sheet. A couple of other key highlights noted in the release bullets include crossing the $6 billion in asset mark, another nice milestone for our team as we grow strategically and profitably. And as I mentioned, our tangible book value per share grew at 13% annualized for the quarter. But in addition to great numbers, I'm also very proud of our Great Place to Work recertification. It is great to be recognized for the outstanding culture we are building and the tireless work of our associates in these efforts. As you can see, we are gaining operating leverage, but also gaining momentum, and we're balancing that with appropriate investment in our franchise. We will keep investing in people, technology, and strategically in facilities, but do so while maintaining positive leverage. We are seeing some nice opportunities right now with the disruption taking place in the southeast, and we want to take advantage of that. The franchise we've built is positioned to effectively compete for business against larger regional players, but also nimble enough to flex down when we need to. It's a pretty nice position to be in. Gaining share and getting deeper in these great markets continues to be our primary focus. So all in all, a very nice way to wrap the first half of 2026. So I'm going to stop there and hand it over to Ron to dive into some details for us. Ron?