SB Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBFG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript January 26, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Sarah Mekus - Executive Assistant and Corporate Secretary

Mark Klein - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Anthony Cosentino - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Steven Walz - Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer

Conference Call Participants

Brian Martin - Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC

Nina Burns - Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the SB Financial Fourth Quarter 2023 Conference Call and Webcast. I would like to inform you that this conference call is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will begin with remarks by management and then open the conference up to the investment community for questions and answers.

I will now turn the conference over to Sarah Mekus with SB Financial. Please go ahead, Sarah.

Sarah Mekus

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to remind you that this conference call is being broadcast live over the Internet and will be archived and available on our website at ir.yourstatebank.com. Joining me today are Mark Klein, Chairman, President and CEO; Tony Cosentino, Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Walz, Chief Lending Officer.

Today's presentation may contain forward-looking information. Cautionary statements about this information, as well as reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release materials, as well as our SEC filings. These materials are available on our website, and we encourage participants to refer to them for a complete discussion of risk factors and forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date made, and SB Financial undertakes no obligation to update them.

I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Klein.

Mark Klein

Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Highlights for our fourth quarter include net income of $3.9 million, up from both the linked and prior year quarters as total operating revenue with higher non-interest income and net interest income increased profitability. Pretax pre-provision return on average assets of 1.43% compared to the prior quarter of just 96 basis points with return on tangible common equity of 16.6%. Total interest income of $15.1 million was up $2.2 million or 16.9% from the prior year and up $330,000 or 8.9% annualized from the linked quarter.

Loan balances were higher from the linked quarter by $11.2 million and have now increased $38.1 million or 4% over the prior year quarter. We had annual growth in five of our markets with Fort Wayne increasing 40% and Columbus increasing 8% and collectively representing the bulk of our loan growth.