Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 24, 2023 3:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Kelly Polonus - IR

Joe Turner - President & CEO

Rex Copeland - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Andrew Liesch - Piper Sandler

Damon DelMonte - KBW

John Rodis - Janney

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Great Southern Bancorp's Fourth Quarter 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] As a reminder, today's program is being recorded.

And now, I'd like to introduce your host for today's program Kelly Polonus, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kelly Polonus

Thank you, Jonathan. Good afternoon and welcome. The purpose of this call is to discuss the company's results for the quarter ending December 31, 2022. Before we begin today, I need to remind you that during this call, we may make forward-looking statements about future events and financial performance. Please do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made.

Please use our forward-looking statements disclosure in our fourth quarter 2022 earnings release for more information. President and CEO, Joe Turner; and Chief Financial Officer. Rex Copeland are on the phone -- are on the call with me today.

I'll now turn the call over to, Joe.

Joe Turner

All right. Thanks, Kelly. Good afternoon to everybody. We appreciate you joining us today for earnings call. Our fourth quarter results reflected another strong quarter for Great Southern. We benefited of course from rising market interest rates and our 2022 net income and earnings per share were exceptional.

On a macro basis, 2023 appears to be a year that will be marked by a great deal of uncertainty. We're focused on ensuring that our company is positioned for this uncertainty as we move forward in light of the changing interest rate environment and other macro headwinds that are forecasted for 2023.

As usual, I'll provide some brief remarks about the company's performance and then turn the call over to Rex Copeland, who will get into more detail on our financial results. Then of course, we'll open it up for questions.

In the fourth quarter 2022, we earned $22.6 million or $1.84 per diluted common share, compared to $15.3 million or $1.14 per diluted common share in the same period in 2021. The 2021 period did include some large non-recurring interest -- non-interest expense items, which reduced our net income and EPS.