SouthState Bank Corporation

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the South State Bank Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings 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 one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference call over to Will Matthews, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Matthews, please go ahead

Good morning. This is Will Matthews, and welcome to South State's second quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm here with John Corbett, Steve Young, and Jeremy Lucas. We'll follow our typical pattern of brief prepared remarks and then move into Q&A. And I'll refer you to the investor relations tab of our website for the earnings materials. Before we begin our remarks, I want to remind you that comments we make may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws and regulations. Any such forward-looking statements we may make are subject to the Safe Harbor rules. Please review the forward-looking disclaimer and Safe Harbor language in the press release and presentation for more information about our forward-looking statements and risks and uncertainties which may affect us. Now I'll turn the call over to you, John.

Thanks Will. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. South State delivered another strong quarter. We generated a return on assets of 1.36% and a return on tangible common equity of 17.6%, which extends the consistent high performance over the last several quarters. Our results reflect solid balance sheet growth, stable margins, improving efficiency, and continued strength in credit quality. As we reach the midpoint of 2026, I'm encouraged by the progress we're making against the four priorities we outlined at the beginning of the year. Attracting top talent, growing the balance sheet, creating value through disciplined capital allocation and building artificial intelligence capabilities throughout the company. Starting with talent, South State's culture continues to be a differentiator. In a period of meaningful disruption across many of our markets, bankers are looking for a platform that empowers local decision-making, values long-term relationships, and creates opportunities for growth. Our division presidents have successfully expanded our commercial banking sales force by more than 10% in just the last three quarters. And we continue to be impressed by both the quality and diversity of talent joining the franchise. These are experienced relationship managers who understand our markets, fit our culture, and position us for future growth. That recruiting success is an investment in the company's future, and it's directly supporting our second priority, meaningful balance sheet growth. Over the last year, loans have grown 8% and deposits have grown 5%, both within the range of guidance we provided. There's been considerable discussion this quarter around the balance between growth and incremental profitability. And that's an important conversation. And frankly, it's one that we have every quarter. Our responsibility as capital managers is to balance three objectives simultaneously, soundness, profitability and growth. We don't optimize for one quarter. We optimize for long-term shareholder value. That requires discipline, judgment, particularly when opportunities are abundant. One thing we're confident in Thank you for watching. Equally important, we're maintaining our commitment to soundness. Asset quality improved during the quarter with non-performing assets declining 14%, and net charge-offs remaining exceptionally low at just six basis points. Credit metrics continue to reflect the disciplined underwriting culture that has long been a hallmark of South State. Turning to capital allocation, we remain confident that South State represents an attractive investment at today's valuations. Over the last year, we've repurchased nearly 5% of our shares outstanding while also increasing the dividend and maintaining a CET1 capital ratio above 11%. We view share repurchases as one of several tools available to create shareholder value. And when our stock trades at levels that we consider attractive relative to the long-term earnings power of the franchise, we intend to be opportunistic. While repurchase activity slowed a little during the second quarter, Our philosophy hasn't changed. We expect to continue returning capital in a disciplined manner, likely at a pace more consistent with our previously communicated, the 40 to 60% capital return framework. Finally, artificial intelligence remains an area of significant focus and opportunity. Our objective is to empower every department to identify opportunities where this technology can improve speed, quality, and scale. Today, we're already seeing productivity gains in areas such as credit operations, fraud management, call center support, and through the continued adoption of our internally developed small language model. When I step back and I look at the quarter, I see a team that's aligned and it's executing. We're growing. We're maintaining strong credit quality. We're investing in talent and technology, and we're continuing to allocate capital in ways that we believe will create long-term shareholder value. I want to thank our teammates for what they accomplished this quarter, and I'm optimistic about the opportunities ahead. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Will, to walk through the quarter in more detail.