and thank you for joining Equity Bank Share's first quarter earnings call. A quick note before we dive in. Today's call is being recorded and is available via webcast at investor.equitybank.com.

As can market, more excited, America's March return on average lies ahead.

Nor 80 cents per $5.7 million in the current period, 2025. The after-tax impact of co-deposit and tangible amortization of $1.5 million and $1.0 million, respectively equity for twenty seven point seven million for purchase accounting accretion came in eight hundred thousand ahead of forecast for twenty nine not interested come out steady at nine point in fee lines inspection losses and swap fee revenue for the period a charges and only four point one million an eleven and a half percent increase in life basis eight thousand in provisioning for unfunded commitments it's the same period in twenty twenty five the ratio has improved from one twenty three per share or 33.1%. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.7%, impacted by periodic items and not-expected rate of 21.18%. The ending reserve ratio, inclusive of merger-related discounts, closed at 1.77% purchase authorization, buying back 500,000 shares, 1,600,000. PCE closed the quarter at 9.0%, while CEP1 and total capital were 11.5% and 14.4%, respectively. At the bank level, the PCE ratio closed at 9.8%. We're headed to Rick to walk through asset quality.

Non-underlying credit. Non-performing assets closed at $58.3 million, smoothly navigating a new renewal process post-conversion. We see nothing systematic that would suggest that this becomes the new normal for net charge and average loans of three basis points below.

The Frontier portfolio is granular and we do not expect 3.3 million or 19 basis points required loans, normalizing to approximately 2.5 million in future quarters. Adjusting March results for its margin of 4.5. Frontier contributed its funding portfolio with a higher cost of funds as compared to legacy equity. Improving future liability sensitivity while creating the anticipated near-term margin Average interest-rearning asset growth of 22.2%. Average interest-bearing liability growth of 22.2%. And the ending interest-bearing liability to interest-earning assets ratio of 76.3%. Closet ratio closed the corner at 86%. Margin in the 420 to 435 range.

The shorting effort of the equity bank team over the last 180 days. This has been a truly transformational period for our company, and it would not have been possible without this. As we enter 24-year funding position...

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in or would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to ask your question, simply press star 1 again. We'll go first to Jeff Rulis at DA Davidson.

Thanks. Good morning. Just a question on the acquired loan balance. Do you have the frontier loan balance at acquisition in millions? I know you said $1.3 billion, but also at acquisition end, at quarter end, trying to get back into what sounds like some decent organic growth. But if you had those frontier balances, that'd be great.

Yeah, Jeff, it was about $1.28 billion in terms of acquired assets pre-purchased accounting mark. The decline period over period, excluding that, is about $40 million. as we talked about yesterday, and Rick can expand on here, is effectively what we saw is some short-term optimization decline in the frontier footprint offset by what is positive production everywhere else in the footprint. So really a good outcome for us in our minds in terms of periodic production, but some of those headwinds exist at the beginning of the integration of that frontier footprint. Right.

But maybe put another way, do you have, you know, it's a combined company as of January 1, but do you have, like, legacy organic growth that you could also identify, or is that difficult to carve out?

Yeah. I mean, so on the loan side specifically, we grew about just under 1% on our non-acquired market. So, if you take out Oklahoma and you take out Nebraska, so we grew about 1% on a, you know, kind of point-to-point basis. So, you know, just under 3%, you know, annualized or something like that, 3-point-something annualized in those legacy markets on the loan side.

I appreciate it. And then maybe a similar question on the non-accrual increase. you know, I think roughly eight added from Frontier 4 from sort of the legacy unit. Maybe if you could put any color on the type of loans that's been on. And then second piece to that, I think, Rick, you mentioned, sorry, I missed the piece about the, sounded like there was a past due. Maybe if you could just outline the balance of that one. and that was the balance of those loans. Maybe last one, if I could, the margin. Maybe Chris, you kind of talked about a 429 core. Do you know what that core NIM was for the month of March? It sounds like you've got an opportunity to kind of alter Frontier's funding mix a bit, and it sounded not, but do you have a March figure that would compare to the 429 core for the quarter?

Yeah, Jeff, March actually compares pretty consistently with that 429 figure. There are still some potential tailwinds as we look into Q2 and beyond as we're working to reprice some of those frontier deposits, but that's been happening throughout the quarter and really accelerating towards the end of the quarter, so we're not seeing that benefit in March. We'll see more in April and beyond. on the range that's kind of provided in the outlook. You know, I have some optimism that we can hit the high end of that range based on some of those dynamics, but I think because of the periodicity of accretion and, you know, the challenges of continuing to work through a balance sheet, there's a risk there as well. So somewhere in that range is fully accomplishable. I think the high end is also accomplishable based on some of those dynamics, but, you know, we have to actually keep on it.

Great. Thanks, Ed. Thanks.

We'll move next to Adam Kroll at Piper Sandler.

Hi. I'm on for Nate Race. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Yeah, so maybe starting on funding costs, you know, with deposit costs rising this quarter with the Frontier Acquisition. And I know they had a piece of broker deposits. So I guess I'm curious, you know, if you could provide some additional color into repricing opportunities you have on the deposit side from both DV and a non-maturity.

Yeah, Adam, I think there's an ample amount of repricing capacity. I mean, for Southern Color, they had about $100 million that did get repriced in Q1 that was at a weighted average cost of $450. So that's an aspect of their cost of funds that, again, it accelerated towards the end of the quarter that we've been able to reposition into what is comparatively cheaper. You know, even the newly issued brokered in the period is about $375, so that's, you're picking up 75 basic points, not $100 million. You know, they brought in a relatively higher overall cost of funding base, so we'll continue to see opportunities to reprice. some of that did have some duration on it there is some lockout so we'll continue to have some heavier cost over time but we're going to continue to see opportunities to bring some of those things down and anticipate being able to do so.

Got it I appreciate the cover there. Maybe moving to capital management you know it's nice to see the step up in the buyback during the quarter and you've obviously been active on the M&A front with the two deals over the past year. Do you expect to continue to be active on the buyback and you know are you seeing opportunities on the M&A front as well?

We look at capital utilization all the time. Yes, we continue to look opportunistically at buybacks and we also look and we also think we have plenty of capital for continued M&A and so we've got good capital ratios. We're building capital at, you know, a little over $25 million of capital generation a quarter. And so, we've got good capital generation from the operating company, and so we have lots of different prospects and lots of different opportunities we're talking to on the M&A front, and we will still remain active on the – if it works on the buyback side.

Got it. Thanks for taking my question.

We'll go next to Matt Olney at Stevens.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Wanted to ask more about the expense outlook from here and get some updated thoughts around deal cost savings from Frontier. With that conversion now behind us, I'm curious how the cost savings are looking compared to the original expectations. And would just love to get some thoughts on when you expect to get the fully loaded cost savings this year.

Yeah. So a couple things on that, Matt. On the technology side, so the integration as well as some of the people that we maintain through that conversion date, all of those items have been fully taken out of run rate at this point. So the cost savings on technology and people there are in line with what we expected, and we'll start to realize that. We started to realize it at the back end of the first quarter, and we'll fully realize it in the second quarter. You know, I think generally speaking, as it relates to the cost savings around the transaction, they were relatively conservative, you know, something of 23%-ish on expected cost savings. And I think our execution will realize that or better as we think into Q2 and beyond. So we anticipate being in line to a little bit ahead of where we originally anticipated as we contemplated the transaction.

Okay. And I guess the other part of that is just there was a mention of reinvestments, new producer hires, just maybe an update on kind of what you're seeing thus far, new producer hires and what's in the pipeline.

Yeah, so we've hired probably about between Oklahoma City and Omaha and Lincoln, we've probably hired about 10 additional or new bankers. Some are replacements and others are at that point in time. So all repositive. The pipeline remains kind of consistent with where it was at the end of the year. And so – but that number really bodes well for second and third quarter with what that is. So production numbers look really good. We're actually seeing a number of additional projects and things that, you know, both Brad and I are getting out to see customers and prospects on things. And so it looks like, you know, it's going to be fairly robust opportunities for us. And, you know, as we kind of mentioned before, pricing always comes into play on this. And, you know, every once in a while you never count it, so it's in. We're not seeing – we do have a couple of crazy competitors on things, but for the most part people are, I think, coming back to a little bit more in line with where we are on pricing. So that's positive.

Perfect. Thank you, guys.

And we'll take our next question from Damon Del Monte at KBW.

Hey, good morning, guys. Everybody's doing well. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess the first question is just kind of probably for Chris on the reserve and kind of the provision outlook. You know, the reserve came down six basis points quarter over quarter, you know, even though there was purchase marks against the applied loans. So just trying to kind of get a feel for where you're comfortable with where the loan loss reserve can trend over the coming quarters.

Yeah, David, I'd look at it as being consistent with where it is on a relative to assets basis. You know, as we start to see depletion of those purchase accounting marks and look at it on a relative total position to the portfolio, there may be opportunity or need to build back up to a 123 type of reserve. But I think in the near term, thinking about it as 118 basis points from here plus whatever production is. So my anticipation for me to provide, you know, absent any significant specific reserve items, specific deterioration in credits, is that it's going to account for the production of the portfolio. So as we grow the portfolio, so too will we grow the reserve.

Okay. So the $6 million to $8 million guidance for 26 for the total provision, you know, if you back out the one-time, you know, the CECL impact on the first quarter, Or do we kind of just extrapolate the remaining three quarters to fall in between that range?

Maybe a little bit less, Damon. So I think thinking about it as kind of a million and a half to two run rate, depending on growth, is a good way to continue to think about it.

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then I guess secondly here, or lastly, you know, in the fee income side of things, can you talk about some of the opportunities to kind of tap into the frontier franchise and what, you know, what products and services you guys think have the best opportunity to kind of ramp up some revenues for you guys?

Yeah, so first and foremost, treasury management. You know, our product in there, we've actually brought in a new head of treasury management, and we see that as a real opportunity. That wasn't something that was really in the forefront of what they were doing, number one. Number two, they had a decent-sized mortgage business, and so we're continuing to see some potential for mortgage fees going forward. And we see that across the footprint, so continue to get the team built out. And we use that as a product to really, for our core customers and for bringing in core customers. We're not really a mortgage shop just to bring in mortgages. And then the third piece of it is on the wealth management side of it. And so we're already seeing some real positive results there on being able to grow with wealth management. And so we're actually looking to add a couple of additional people in our markets. We do really well in the community markets. So in Nebraska, Fall City, Tender, Norfolk, and Madison where we are, we see those as real opportunities for growth for us in the future as well.

Great. Thank you very much for the call. I appreciate it.

And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1. We'll pause just a moment. And at this time, we have no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may not disconnect.