Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) Q4 2023 Results Conference Call January 23, 2024 5:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Matthew Sealy - SVP, Director of Corporate Strategy and FP&A

Jude Melville - President and CEO

Greg Robertson - CFO

Philip Jordan - Chief Banking Officer

Jerry Vascocu - Chief Administrative Officer

Conference Call Participants

Matthew Olney - Stephens Inc

Graham Dick - Piper Sandler

Michael Rose - Raymond James

Brett Rabatin - Hovde Group

Feddie Strickland - Janney Montgomery Scott

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Krista, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Business First Bancshares Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the conference over to Matt Sealey, Senior Vice President, Director of Corporate Strategy and FP&A. Matt, you may begin your conference.

Matthew Sealy

Thank you, Krista. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all for joining. Earlier today, we issued our fourth quarter 2023 earnings press release, a copy of which is available on our website along with the slide presentation that we will reference during today's call. Please refer to Slide 3 of our presentation, which includes our safe harbor statements regarding forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures.

For those of you joining by phone, please note the slide presentation is available on our website at www.b1bank.com. Please also note our safe harbor statements are available on Page 7 of our earnings press release that was filed at the SEC today. All comments made during today's call are subject to the safe harbor statements in our slide presentation and earnings release.

I’m joined this afternoon by Business First’s President and CEO, Jude Melville, Chief Financial Officer, Greg Robertson; Chief Banking Officer, Philip Jordan; and Chief Administrative Officer, Jerry Vascocu.

After the presentation, we'll be happy to address any questions you may have. And with that, I'll turn the call over to you, Jude.

Jude Melville

Okay, thanks Matt, and thank you everybody for joining us. We understand the demands of the season and appreciate your prioritizing this conversation with us. I'll briefly overview our fourth quarter highlights and then take a step back to place the year in a broader context. Our team closed out an eventful year positively with another quarter of solid and consistent fundamental performance. Greg will go into detail in a few minutes on our non-core adjustments, but once they're shipped out, we generate a core ROAA of 1.03%, core ROAE of 12.27%, a core efficiency ratio of 62.6%, and the core EPS is $0.66, all exceeding consensus expectations.