Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 24, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Matthew Sealy - Senior Vice President, Director of Corporate Strategy and FP&A
Jude Melville - Chairman, President and Cheif Executive Officer
Gregory Robertson - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Rose - Raymond James
Matt Olney - Stephens Inc.
Feddie Strickland - Hovde Group
Manuel Navas - D.A. Davidson
Christopher Marinac - Janney Montgomery Scott

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Business First Bancshares Q3 2024 Earnings Call.

Just a reminder that today’s call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to hand things over to Mr. Matt Sealy, Senior Vice President, Director of Corporate Strategy and FP&A. Please go ahead, sir.

Matthew Sealy

Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining. Earlier today, we issued our third quarter 2024 earnings press release, a copy of which is available on our website along with the slide presentation that we’ll refer to 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 www.b1bank.com. Please also note our Safe Harbor statements are available on Page 7 of our earnings press release that was filed with 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 Bancshares’ Chairman, President and CEO, Jude Melville; Chief Financial Officer, Greg Robertson; Chief Banking Officer, Philip Jordan; and President of b1BANK, 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 good afternoon, everybody.

To begin, I want to be sure to say thank you to everyone currently on the call or listening to it or re-reading the transcripts at some point in the future. We know you have choices to make and we appreciate you making us a priority today.

I can be relatively brief as the quarter was straightforward and generally positive. Primary thing, I’d like to highlight is the improvement in operating leverage achieved through a combination of continued expansion of our net interest margin and expense control.