Hello, and welcome to Great Southern Bancorp Inc. third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. I would now like to hand the conference over to Kelly Polonus. You may begin. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2023 earnings call. The purpose of this call today is to discuss the company's results for the quarter ending September 30th, 2023. Before we begin, I need to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements about future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated or projected. For a list of some of these factors, please see the forward-looking statements disclosure in our third quarter earnings release and other public filings. President and CEO, Joe Turner, and Chief Financial Officer, Rex Copeland, are on the call with me. I'll now turn the call over to Joe. All right, thanks, Kelly, and good afternoon, everybody. We appreciate you joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. Our third quarter performance was solid, but down a bit, as you saw, as we continue to navigate through a challenging operating environment. We earned $1.33 per diluted common share, or $15.9 million, compared to $1.46 per diluted common share, or $18.1 million during Q3 of 2022. Earnings performance ratios were again solid, with an annualized return on assets of 1.11 and an annualized return on equity of 11.47. We mentioned on our last couple of calls some anticipated headwind that we would face related to net interest margin. Net interest margin did decline to 3.43 for the third quarter, compared to 3.96 for the same period in 2022, and 3.56 for the second quarter of 2023. The margin contraction primarily resulted from increasing interest rates on all deposit types during the third quarter and a full quarter's impact from net settlements related to two Interest rate swaps. Like many banks in 2023, we have experienced much higher deposit costs compared to 2022, reflective of increasing market interest rates and significant competition for deposits. Deposit costs again moved higher in the third quarter of 2023, but the pace of increase is moderated compared to the second quarter. Rex will provide some color around our funding costs and deposit mix during his presentation. Also of note, we had an ongoing significant professional fee expense item totaling about $900 thousand related to training and implementation costs of the upcoming core systems conversion. As far as liquidity and capital, our liquidity and capital positions continue to be strong. At the end of September 2023, available secured funding lines through the Home Loan Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, and on-balance sheet liquidity were approximately $2.2 billion. As noted last quarter, our company's deposit base is diverse and by customer type and geography, and has a low level of uninsured deposits. Approximately 16% of our total deposits are uninsured, excluding internal subsidiary accounts. Total stockholders' equity decreased by $1.4 million from the end of 2022, and decreased more substantially by about $14.6 million from June of 2023, as a result of increased unrealized AOCI losses due to market interest rate increases in the third quarter of 2023. Importantly, though, the retained earnings component of our stockholders' equity has increased $20.8 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2023. Our capital remains substantially above regulatory well-capitalized thresholds, and our tangible common equity ratio was 9.1% at September 30, 2023. In the third quarter, the company declared a $0.40 per share common dividend. In addition, in our effort to enhance long-term stockholder value, the company continued to repurchase shares of common stock during the quarter. We bought back almost 107,000 shares at an average price of $50.52. The dividend and stock repurchases combined reduced stockholders' equity by about $10.1 million during the third quarter. At September 30, 2023, about 801,000 shares were available in our stock repurchase authorization. During the third quarter, new loan production and general activity was down compared to 2022, as expected. Net outstanding loan balances modestly grew by about $58 million since the end of 2022. Growth primarily came from the multifamily loan segment, much of this from projects completed and moved from the construction category to multifamily and commercial business loans, partially offset by a reduction in the commercial real estate category. At the end of September 2023, the pipeline of loan commitments and unfunded lines declined to about $1.4 billion, including $922 million in the unfunded portion of construction loans. For comparison, at the beginning of 2023, loan commitments and unfunded lines totaled about $2.1 billion, with $1.4 billion in unfunded construction lines. For more information about our loan portfolio, I'll remind you of our quarterly loan portfolio presentation that we have on file with the SEC and is available on our investor relations site under the Presentations link. Our quarterly loan presentation provides helpful information regarding our loan portfolio mix by type and geography. Overall, our commercial portfolio is strong, diverse, and performing well. As expected, we are experiencing some payoff activity. Overall, credit quality metrics remained strong during the quarter. Non-performing assets to total assets were 0.19% at September 30, 2023, decreasing by one basis point from June 30, 2023. Delinquencies in our loan portfolio continue to be at historically low levels. More information about our non-performing and potential problem loans are included in our earnings release. That concludes my prepared remarks. At this time, I'll turn it over to our CFO, Rex Copeland. All right. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate that. I'll just start with the discussion about net interest income and margin, and I'll begin with just a general comment that, you know, not maybe unlike others, our net interest income comparisons in the third and probably, you know, the fourth quarters this year will show declines from the same periods in 2022. Market interest rates obviously increased pretty significantly in 2022, and we were able to increase rates on assets quicker than liabilities last year. We achieved, you know, for us, you know, peak net interest income and net interest margin in the second half of 2022, and spilled over a little bit into the first quarter of 2023. Since that time, you know, some of our net interest income and margins have come down for reasons we've talked about a little bit last quarter, and I'll discuss a little bit today. Net interest income for the third quarter of 2023 decreased $6.2 million, or approximately 11% to $46.7 million, compared to $52.9 million for the third quarter of 2022. That was really driven by increasing interest rates on deposit, various deposit types during the third quarter of 2023, and also the negative impacts of interest rate swaps, which began settling in the second quarter of 2023 and would not have been affecting the quarters in 2022. Those swaps, in particular, had a negative impact of $2.7 million in the third quarter of 2023. Net interest income was $48.1 million for the second quarter of 2023, so we had a decrease in net interest income between Q2 and Q3 this year of about $1.4 million. The negative impact of those newly settling interest rate swaps was about $1 million more in the third quarter of this year versus the second quarter this year. The Company's net interest income was negatively impacted in the third quarter by a high level of competition for deposits across the industry and in our local markets. The Company also had a substantial amount of time deposits maturing at relatively low rates in the second quarter of 2023, as we discussed before, and now these time deposits were renewed at higher rates, or we had to replace without external funds. The impact of that was, you know, fully there for the all of Q3 versus a portion in Q2. In addition, you know, we had in the first quarter of 2023, we experienced higher than normal reduction in balances of non-interest-bearing deposits. That outflow of non-interest-bearing deposits moderated in the second quarter, but it increased a bit again in Q3 of 2023. Customer balances in both non-interest-bearing checking and interest-bearing checking accounts have fluctuated in the first nine months of this year. As market interest rates for certain checking account types and time deposit accounts have increased, some customers have chosen to reallocate funds into relatively higher rate accounts. The company has more low-rate time deposits maturing in the fourth quarter of this year, a little bit more than what matured in the third quarter, but not as much as what we had maturing and repricing in the second quarter of 2023. The difference in the rate being paid on those time deposits maturing in the fourth quarter of 2023 versus the expected rate that will be paid on renewal of those is not as great as it was, you know, earlier in the second quarter of this year, but there should be some increase, most likely. Just to give you an idea, we noted this in our release, but subsequent to September 30, we've got time deposit maturities over the next 12 months to kind of break down as follows: within three months, about $354 million, with a weighted average rate of 3.16%. Within three-six months, another $352 million, with a weighted average rate of about 3.88%. Within 6-12 months, about $350 million, with a weighted average rate of 3.93%. We kind of think that based on, you know, the current replacement rates that we envision on that, they'll probably be replacing at rates between maybe 4.25%-4.75%. Besides the higher funding costs on deposits, net interest income was also negatively affected by the company's interest rate swaps, as I mentioned, and as described in our earnings release. If market interest rates remain near where their current levels, the company's interest rate swaps will continue to have a negative impact on net interest income. Based on the interest rates on these swaps at September 30, the negative impact of all the interest rate swaps that we have combined in the fourth quarter of 2023 is expected to be approximately $3.7 million. The negative impact of all the swaps combined in the third quarter of 2023 was about $3.5 million. As a reminder, again, one of those swaps will terminate March 1, 2024. That interest rate swap itself had a negative impact on net interest income of $2.8 million and a negative impact on net interest margin of 21 basis points in the third quarter of 2023. It's expected that, you know, again, rates being where they are, it will have a negative impact to net interest income of about $2.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, and then $1.9 million in the first quarter of 2024, and then subsequent to the first quarter, no impact in subsequent periods. As Joe mentioned earlier, net interest margin was 3.43% in the third quarter of 2023, compared to 3.96% in the same period in 2022, which was a decrease of about 53 basis points. It also decreased about 13 basis points compared to net interest margin of 3.56 in the second quarter of 2023. In comparing a couple of yield items in there and rates between the 2023 and 2022 third quarter periods, the average loan yield increased about 113 basis points, while the average rate on interest-bearing deposits increased about 203 basis points. Joe mentioned liquidity briefly earlier, and I'll just say a couple more things about that. You know, our liquidity levels continue to be resilient. We have readily available funding sources totaling about $2.2 billion at the end of September of 2023, with about $1.1 billion almost availability at Home Loan Bank. We have those funds readily available if should we need anything there. We also have some unpledged securities that we have that we could pledge if we chose to do that, and that's over $500 million worth of those. At September 30, 2023, total deposits were nearly $4.9 billion. During the three months ended September 30, 2023, the company's total deposits increased about $27 million. Total broker deposits decreased less than $1 million in that time frame. Time deposits generated through our banking centers and corporate services networks increased $21 million, and time deposits generated through internet channels decreased $5 million in the third quarter. Interest-bearing checking balances increased $49 million, or about 2.3%, and non-interest-bearing checking balances decreased $38 million, or about 3.9%, during the third quarter of 2023. Non-interest income items. In the quarter, we really didn't have any variance items there. The total decrease was about $132,000 compared to the third quarter of 2022. No real large component changes in the quarter comparisons. For the year-to-date, we did have a few things that changed, or I'm sorry, for the quarter for non-interest expense, we did have expense overall increased about $799,000 to $35.6 million. Some of the components in there that had a little bit larger variances from a year-ago quarter, salaries and employee benefits increased about $697,000 from the previous year quarter. Portion of this is just normal annual merit increases in various lending and operations areas. In 2023, some of those were a little bit larger than maybe they were in previous periods. In addition, compensation costs related to originated loans, which we defer under accounting rules, a portion of those, and that decreased by $233,000 in comparing the two periods, so that resulted in higher expense levels in the 2023 period, as loan volume originations were lower this year compared to 2022. Occupancy expense, we did have an increase there, this year's quarter versus previous year quarter of about $531,000. We had various components of computer license and support expenses, which we had implemented during this period that maybe we had kind of gotten to end of life last year and didn't have the same level of expense. That increased our cost by about $333,000 comparing the two periods. We also had some just various repairs and maintenance expenses throughout our network that added about $106,000 more than the previous year. The next two items, there's a couple of things I'll mention on those and then a little bit of additional clarification on some things on that. Total insurance expense increased $498,000 from the prior year quarter. This was primarily due to the previously announced increases in deposit insurance rates for FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund coverage. We will continue to have a little bit extra, probably in the fourth quarter. We estimate that there'll be a little higher than normal expense again of about $180,000. That was really in Q3 and probably will continue in Q4. After that, there shouldn't be that extra level in there. Starting in Q1, we should be caught up with the Deposit Insurance Fund increase level. Going forward, it should just be the normal amounts after Q4. Legal, audit, professional fees, we did have a higher, I'm sorry, those decreased by $390,000 from the prior year. In the previous year, we had $372,000 of one-time fee expenses related to origination of some Interest Rate Swaps that we did there. One other thing I'll point out, it really wasn't a large amount, but probably in the third quarter, there was about $150,000 maybe of what I call non-recurring type expenses that we didn't necessarily call out in the release. There were just some fees in there for some services that were provided to us that we do periodically, but not certainly every quarter. The efficiency ratio then for the third quarter was 65.13%, compared to 57.09% for the same quarter in 2022, as expenses increased a bit, and net Interest Income in the denominator decreased. Provision for Credit Losses. During the third quarter of 2023, we didn't record any provision expense on our outstanding loan portfolio, and that compared to $2 million of provision expense during the same period in 2022. Also, for the three months ended September 30, 2023, the company did record a negative provision for losses on unfunded commitments of $1.2 million compared to a provision expense of $1.3 million for the three months ended September 30, 2022. As we mentioned before, our total level of unfunded commitments has come down from the previous quarter, as we were able to relieve some of the reserve on that. Total net charge-offs were $99,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2023. That compared to $297,000 in net charge-offs in the three months ended September 30, 2022. At the end of the third quarter of 2023, the allowance for credit losses, as a percentage of total loans, was 1.40%. Income taxes in the period for the three months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, the company's effective tax rate was 21.5% this year and 20.5% in the quarter last year. These effective rates were near or below the statutory federal rate of 21%, due primarily to utilization of investment tax credits and certain tax-exempt investments and loans, which reduced our effective tax rate a bit. The company expects this effective tax rate, both combined federal and state, will be about 20.5%-22.0% in future periods and will be affected by the overall level of earnings and the utilization of these tax credits and tax-exempt income. Also, it is affected a bit by state tax expenses. We estimate those continually, and they do evolve over time, and so those can affect the overall effective tax rate as well as we look through some of those various state taxing authority expenses. That concludes the prepared remarks that we have today, and at this time, we'll entertain questions. I'll ask our operator, please, to once again remind the attendees of how to queue in for questions. *Wait, "Thank you."* Yes. *Wait, "Your line is open."* Yes. *Wait, "star one one".* Yes. *Wait, "star one one".* Yes. *Wait, "Andrew Liesch".* Yes. *Wait, Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Just want to drill in on the margin here. It sounds like you got more CD rate pricing here, and based on the commentary and the release and you're in today, it seems like maybe 13 basis points might be a little too steep for the fourth quarter. I'm just curious how you guys are thinking about the margin this quarter, and then should it stabilize beyond that? I know you have some more CD repricing, but as the Fed seemingly done with raising rates and reaches some stabilization on the margin as well. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a shot and then Rex can jump in, Andrew. I mean, I think, you know, I think we are getting, you know, it's a little bit hard to say because, you know, every time you think things are going to stabilize, then you see more deposit specials and those kinds of things. You see, you know, with our CD repricing, this is kind of the last point at which the deposits that we're repricing, the CDs that we're repricing are, you know, substantially below market rates. I mean, the other stuff that we reprice that's three-six months out and six-12 months out may be slightly below, but it's not as far below, so it won't be as impacting. Of course, you know, we think, you know, the interest-bearing checking or non-time interest-bearing stuff should kind of reprice continually, so you shouldn't see that. You know, we do have fixed-rate assets that are repricing that should help. But it's hard to zero in on that exactly. Yeah, I mean, we're seeing it kind of calmed down for a while, but we're seeing some banks in different locations that we compete with that are, you know, showing rates above 5%. I mean, it's just kind of their base rate on certain products, CDs, primarily, certain term CDs and things like that. You know, it kind of comes and goes, and so we do, you know, see some heightened competition in some ways, in some places. I think that, you know, like I said, in the fourth quarter of this year, those $350-ish million of CDs are going to reprice. Those are sitting there at an overall rate of about 3.16%. You know, there is some space to go there. We'll probably be repricing those in the, you know, low 4s maybe, or something like that. But then, like Joe said, beyond that, then those rates are in the high 3s, almost to 4%. So. Mm-hmm. It does seem like after the fourth quarter, that the difference in rate, all things staying like they are today, would be less than what we saw. Like in the second quarter this year, I mean, we were repricing stuff that was in the 2s. Mm-hmm Back up into, you know, the 4% range. Mm-hmm. "it does" a false start? * If I say "It does. I mean, I would say it feels better", it's two thoughts. * If I say "It does Got it. Well, certainly that repricing gap is narrowing. You mentioned that the fixed-rate assets that are repricing now. I guess, do you have handy the percentage of, or the dollar amount of fixed-rate assets that have yet to benefit from the Fed's rate hikes since the beginning of last year? We don't. I don't have it, and I don't think Rex does either, Andrew, but we have good disclosures in our K. Do we have in our Qs as well about repricing, Rex? No. The 10-K that we filed at the end of the year, Andrew, there's a table at the end of the MD&A section. There's two tables, one that's a maturity table by year for the first five years and then beyond, and then there's a repricing table in there. We do have fixed-rate loans and variable-rate loans broken out in two separate lines in there. So you can get an idea. I mean, I don't have the number in my head, but, I mean, it's $few hundred million that hasn't repriced yet, I'm sure. Mm-hmm. The mortgages, in particular. That'll reprice in the next year or so. Well, they won't. That won't reprice for next year. Okay. I'm just thinking about some of our hybrid ARM products. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be fixed for a few years and then. Yeah Then reprice. Then- I would point you to that 10-K table, Andrew. I think that would give you good information. Got it. Very helpful. I will do so. Thanks so much, and I will step back. Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Damon Del Monte with KBW. Your line is open. Hey, good afternoon, guys. Hope you're both doing well today. Just wanted to kind of keep on the margin topic here. Could you give a little color as to, like, the rates at which these construction loans are funding that are in the pipeline right now, and then possibly, like, what new production is coming on at? You know, I would say, you know, generally, and this would be, you know, the rates that the loans are funding at, and new production would probably be somewhat similar. I would say anywhere from 250 over SOFR to 300 would be kind of the rate. Yeah, I mean, at the end of September, point in time on that day in our press release, toward the back, there's a couple of tables in there that show average balances and rates, and that portfolio of construction loans had a rate of 7.89%. Yeah. Assuming that that's sort of. Yeah Indicative of what's, you know, going to be coming. Yeah. I mean, I would say new production is a little higher than that, but, you know, that'd be about 250 over SOFR or something. You know, there might be some lower rate stuff in there. I would think that the kind of general rate might be a little higher than that, but right around in there. Got it. Okay, thank you. You know, how would you characterize the positioning of the balance sheet should the Fed start to cut rates in the back half of 2024? You know, I think we're fairly well-balanced. We, you know, we tend to think of ourselves as asset sensitive, but we took that asset sensitivity off the table with those swaps that we began net settlements on in May. So, you know, I think we're reasonably neutral. Would you say that, Rex? Yeah, and it just depends on how aggressive the cuts are. If the cuts are pretty gradual, pretty well-balanced, I think. If they're really fast, like they were in 2020, that's probably going to sting a little bit. Because when they go down, you know, 200 or 300 basis, I mean, we're at a level now, they could go down pretty far, pretty fast. Mm-hmm If we go off a cliff here on the economy. Yeah. The speed of rate cuts would be what would probably factor in a lot to that for us. Assuming that the Fed, you know, cuts in 25 or 50 increments and does it in a fairly, you know, nondramatic way, that probably is not overly bad for us. Got it. Okay. With respect to your outlook for loan growth, you know, how do you feel about like non-construction related CRE? Are you originating loans that don't go through the construction process? You gave some color on the construction pipeline and kind of where it is today versus like a year ago, I think it was. How do we kind of think about, you know, overall loan growth and the drivers of that? I mean, I think loan growth will continue to be fairly modest, Damon, because, you know, that's, you know, I think that's, you know, us taking a hard look at it, but I think it's also our customers taking a hard look at it. We had a meeting yesterday, and, you know, one of our senior lenders said, you know, he thought that our customers, to a large extent, had their pencils down right now. I mean, that they're struggling to make sense out of these rates, and so, you know, they're just going to wait for a little while. You know, I think in light of that, loan growth is going to be pretty tepid. Got it. Okay. Just lastly, if I could squeeze one more in. You know, you did buy back some shares this quarter, and you've kind of been doing that consistently in previous quarters. Is it fair to kind of assume that, you know, given current pricing levels, you'll continue to be opportunistic since you have some dry powder left on your current authorization? I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think we'll continue to be, you know, strategic about it. Yeah, I think we continue to be interested in that. Great. Okay, that's all that I had. Thank you very much. Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one one to ask the question. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Rodis with Janney. Your line is open. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Hey, John. John. Hope you guys are doing well. Rex, just wanted to circle back. Your comments on expenses were helpful. As far as the systems conversion, is that still slated to take place the middle of next year, so the $900 thousand-$1 million in added expense will keep going through roughly the second quarter next year? Yes, that should continue on. Okay. As far as in the press release, you had some comments about some disagreements and stuff. I mean, are there financial damages that could be unwound there or something like that? I'm just trying to understand that text. Yeah, John, I mean, we don't have a lot of color to provide beyond what was in the press release. You know, as we said, we have some contractual disputes, and we're in the process of trying to work through those. Okay. Okay. Rex, you kind of went through some line items, and if I heard you correctly, I think you said sort of non-recurring expenses in the quarter were roughly $150,000. I think you said occupancy should stay at this higher level, and then insurance a little bit higher at this current level for the fourth quarter and then start to come back down. If we look at the third quarter expenses, if you back out that $150,000 to maybe $200,000, is that the right way to think of expenses, at least for the fourth quarter? I would say, like I said, the deposit insurance is going to stay elevated in Q4 by, I think, roughly around $180,000, and then that should come back down in Q1. The $150,000 in legal and professional fees, that was some extra stuff, so that really should come down in Q4. Okay. Other than that, the other items are sort of as is and sort of a good run rate going forward. Is that right? Yeah, I don't think there's anything else that I noted in there that was sort of a one-off or unusual. Okay. Just two more questions. This securities portfolio was down maybe a little bit more than I would have expected. Should we expect some continued runoff, you know, going forward in the securities portfolio? I think, I mean, what was down in there probably, John, is just the unrealized loss being higher. We've got a little bit of cash flow coming off of it, but it's not, you know, big cash flow. I would think that the securities portfolio is not going to change a lot in the next quarter or two. Okay. You're not putting new money to work in there either right now, correct? We have not so far much this year, no. Okay. Just one final question, guys, and whether Joe or Rex, both of you. You know, if you look at the level of net charge-offs for you guys and really for the industry over the last few years, maybe even more, I mean, it's been, you know, it's been less than 10 basis points. I mean, for you guys, what, last year was like 1 basis point, the year before, 0. I mean, you've had net recoveries. My question is, in the current environment, based on what you currently see in your portfolio, I mean, do you see a situation where net charge-offs could be above 20 or 30 basis points based on what you currently see? I mean, we feel awfully good about our credit portfolio, John. I'm really not talking so much about what I see now. I guess I've been at it long enough that I'm somewhat skeptical to think that we've just all figured it out, you know, and there aren't going to be net charge-offs anymore. I mean, you know, in the history of banking, this seems like, you know, very unusual that we would have net charge-offs this low. You know, I don't see anything in our portfolio right now that makes me think that we're going to have large levels of net charge-offs. Just when you look back historically and think about the business, I can't think that we've necessarily figured it out. Although, I will say, I do think underwriting is substantially better than it has been in my career, which is, you know, over 30 years. I mean, that is a positive. You're saying a lot of people learn from 2008, 2009, I guess? I think so. Well concluded. Yeah. I hear you. No, no, I just wanted to throw that out there. I mean, that's a good shot. I appreciate it, guys. Take care. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, John.