Southside Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBSI) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 27, 2023 12:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Lindsey Bailes - VP, IR
Lee Gibson - President and CEO
Julie Shamburger - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Will Jones - KBW
Brad Milsaps - Piper Sandler
Brian Conner - Hovde Group
Operator
Good day and thank you for standing by and welcome to Southside Bancshares, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Year End 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today, Lindsey Bailes, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Lindsey Bailes
Thank you, Justin. Good morning everyone and welcome to Southside Bancshares' fourth quarter and year end 2022 earnings call. A transcript of today's call will be posted on southside.com under Investor Relations.
During today's call and other disclosures and presentations, I will remind you that any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described in our earnings release and our Form 10-K.
Joining me today are Lee Gibson, President and CEO; and Julie Shamburger, CFO. First, Lee will share his comments on the quarter and then Julie will give an overview of our financial results.
I will now turn the call over to Lee.
Lee Gibson
Good morning everyone and welcome to Southside Bancshares' fourth quarter and year-end earnings call for 2022. This morning, we reported excellent fourth quarter and annual results for 2022. Highlights for the quarter included earnings per share of $0.87, a return on average assets of 1.47%, a return on average tangible common equity of 21.35%, annualized linked quarter loan growth of 8.2%, a linked quarter, four basis point increase in our net interest margin, an efficiency ratio of 30 -- excuse me, 46.38%, and continued strong asset quality metrics.
During 2022 of loans, net of PPP loans, increased 14.8% or $533.5 million. The net interest margin increased 16 basis points and the efficiency ratio decreased to 47.39%. I want to thank the entire Southside team for their continued contributions and efforts, which made these results possible. We're extremely pleased with our continued solid loan growth during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Our loan pipeline, while not currently as strong as it was this time last year, remains solid and we are encouraged by the loan growth prospects for 2023. In addition, we are seeing advances in our construction portfolio increasing as loans that closed several quarters ago are now beginning to fund. Given the outlook for the markets we serve, we are budgeting for 9% loan growth during 2023.