Good morning. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Equity Bancshares, Inc. 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key followed by the number 1. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Brian Katzfey, Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining Equity Bancshares, Inc.'s first quarter earnings call. A quick note before we dive in. Today's call is being recorded and is available via webcast at investor.equitybank.com with our earnings release and presentation materials. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. After the presentation, we will open the floor for questions and further discussion. Thank you for being here with us today. We have a lot of exciting news to share. Joining me are Rick Sems, our bank CEO, and Chris Navratil, our CFO. With that, let me turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Brad Elliott.

We hit the ground running in 2026, welcoming new customers and team members in Nebraska on January 1. Entering the Nebraska market has been a strategic priority for us, and I could not be more excited about what we will accomplish for the communities we now have the privilege to serve. The Frontier acquisition drove a 20% increase in assets and contributed to record quarterly revenue. It will be a great organic driver setting us up for an exceptional 2026 and beyond. As we grow the teams in Nebraska, as we have been growing the teams throughout our entire footprint, this is going to be a great strategic platform for us to grow organically. In February, we completed the Frontier core system conversion on time and on plan. The ability of our team to align vendors, allocate resources, and execute complex integrations is a genuine competitive advantage. Julie Huber, David Pass, and every team member who worked with them and made this possible, I want to say thank you. As reflected in the year-over-year changes, we have accomplished a great deal over the past twelve months. Compared to March 2025, our asset base has grown by more than 40%. While driving that level of growth through strategic acquisitions, we have grown tangible book value per share by 5% and just posted a quarter with core EPS of $1.32 and a core return on average tangible equity of 16.1%, exceeding the same period of 2025 by 324 and 6%, respectively. Core net income for the quarter grew faster than model expectations for the combined company. When you put this with less tangible book value dilution than we expected, the result is an exceptional start to 2026. Having added Oklahoma City, Omaha, Lincoln, Des Moines, and many other exceptional community markets to…

Last night, we reported net income of $17 million, or $0.80 per diluted share. Adjusting for noncore items in the quarter, including merger expense of $5.7 million and Frontier-related provisioning of $6.1 million, adjusted earnings were $26.2 million, or $1.23 per diluted share, up from adjusted earnings of $23.3 million, or $1.21 per diluted share, in the prior quarter. Purchase accounting accretion on the loan portfolio was $3.3 million in the current period, compared to $2.3 million in Q4 2025. Excluding the after-tax impact of core deposit intangible amortization of $1.5 million and $1.0 million, respectively, adjusted earnings on tangible common equity were $27.7 million versus $24.3 million. Adjusted return on average tangible common equity was a strong 16.1% for the quarter. Net interest income was $73.7 million, up $10.2 million linked quarter. Margin came in at 4.33% versus 4.47% last quarter. That dynamic—higher earnings, slightly lower margin—reflects the expected impact of integrating Frontier's balance sheet. Purchase accounting accretion came in $800 thousand ahead of forecast. Normalizing for that, margin would have been 4.29%, right in line with expectations. Noninterest income held steady at $9.5 million. Expanding fee lines, including debit card, credit card, mortgage, insurance, and trust and wealth, offset declines in securities transaction losses and swap fee revenue for the period. Noninterest expenses for the quarter were $55 million. Adjusting for M&A charges in both periods and the prior period's litigation settlement accrual, noninterest expenses were $49.2 million versus $44.1 million, an 11.5% increase linked quarter driven by the Frontier integration. On a normalized basis, adjusted noninterest expense as a percentage of average assets improved 25 basis points to 2.57%. Pretax pre-provision net revenue, excluding M&A costs and $748 thousand in provisioning for unfunded commitments, was $34.7 million, or $1.63 per share, up from $28.8 million, or $1.56 per share, in the prior quarter. Comparing to the same period in 2025, the ratio has improved from $1.23 per share, or 33.1%. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.7%, impacted by periodic items not expected to recur; we continue to forecast a full-year effective rate of 22% to 23%. Our GAAP net income included a $6 million provision for loan losses attributable to loan balances added through the Frontier acquisition. Ending ACL coverage was 1.18%. The ending reserve ratio, inclusive of merger-related discounts, closed at 1.77%, up from 1.67%. During the quarter, we were active under our repurchase authorization, buying back 500 thousand shares at a weighted average cost of $44.74. A total of 327 thousand 662 shares remain under the board's September 2025 authorization. TCE closed the quarter at 9%, while CET1 and total capital were 11.5% and 14.4%, respectively. At the bank level, the TCE ratio closed at 9.8%. Now let me hand it to Rick to walk through asset quality.

Q1 delivered strong underlying credit. Nonperforming assets closed at $58.3 million, up $11.6 million, primarily attributed to the addition of Frontier. As a percentage of total assets, they moved just three basis points higher to 0.8%. Nonaccrual loans rose similarly to $52.4 million from $40.3 million, again primarily driven by the addition of Frontier assets. Our nonaccrual exposure is granular, with only four relationships exceeding $1.5 million. Charge-offs reflect continued resolution activity on credits we previously flagged. Loans past due and nonaccrual as a percentage of end-of-period loans increased to 1.86% from 1.53% linked quarter. The move is primarily in the 30- to 59-day bucket, concentrated in one acquired market. It is a merger process issue, not a credit issue. These bankers are simply navigating a new renewal process post-conversion. We anticipate full resolution in Q2. We see nothing systematic that would suggest that this becomes the new normal for our portfolio. Net charge-offs annualized were 10 basis points for the quarter as a percentage of average loans, up three basis points linked quarter. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our credit trajectory. Despite macro uncertainty, credit quality trends across our portfolio are stable and running below historic norms. The Frontier portfolio is granular and well underwritten, as evidenced by their track record, and we do not expect a meaningful impact on our credit quality going forward.

As I mentioned, margin closed the quarter at 4.33%, ahead of expectations. Loan purchase accounting contributed $3.3 million, or 19 basis points, in the period. Absent near-term payoffs on acquired loans, we anticipate purchase accounting normalizing to approximately $2.5 million in future quarters. Adjusting March results for anticipated accretion yields a normalized margin of 4.29%. Frontier contributed a funding portfolio with a higher cost of funds as compared to legacy Equity Bancshares, Inc., improving future liability sensitivity while creating the anticipated near-term margin tightening. The addition of Frontier balances drove average interest-earning asset growth of 22.2%, average interest-bearing liability growth of 25.6%, and the ending interest-bearing liabilities to interest-earning assets ratio of 76.4%. Our loan-to-deposit ratio closed the quarter at 86%. We continue to expect full-year results consistent with our outlook in the slide deck, including margin in the 4.20% to 4.35% range, with periodic variability tied to purchase accounting.

Before I get into loan production, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the extraordinary effort of the Equity Bank team over the last 180 days. This has been a truly transformational period for our company, and it would not have been possible without the best community bankers in the business showing up every single day. As we enter 2026, we operate in six states, including seven major metros and a deep network of strong communities. We have the tools, the products, and the motivated teams to deliver outstanding performance. During Q1, our production teams continued to fire on all cylinders across the footprint. Loan production was $267 million, up 21.7% linked quarter. Originations came on at an average rate of 6.87%, continuing to drive accretion to current coupon yield, with a 10 basis point increase versus the prior period. Both our metro and community legacy markets contributed positively to the production outcome and were net positive for loans in the quarter. As we discussed, the first nine to twelve months following a merger involves intentional portfolio optimization and planned integration-related attrition, a dynamic we have managed proactively. We have recruited and hired new bankers in Wichita, Oklahoma City, Lincoln, and Omaha, and we will keep adding talent across the footprint. The opportunity to deepen commercial relationships—both loans and deposits—across these new markets is significant, and our teams are locked in on growing our organic engine. Our pipelines continue to build throughout the banker network. At quarter end, our 75% pipeline stands at $517 million. Line utilization was up slightly for the quarter at approximately 56%, with unfunded positions rising alongside production growth, and the addition of Frontier creating meaningful opportunity going forward. Total deposits increased approximately $1.2 billion during the quarter. In addition to the contribution of Frontier,…

I take enormous pride in everything this team continues to accomplish. Growing our asset base by more than 40% across two transactions, both fully converted and integrated, is a remarkable achievement that speaks directly to the caliber of our people. I have never been more confident in what we will build together in 2026. We are committed to empowering our people, serving our customers and communities with excellence, and delivering strong, consistent returns for our shareholders. Our board and leadership team are fully aligned, and we are ready to keep executing on our mission. Sourcing, negotiating, and integrating franchise-accretive M&A transactions is a core competency of Equity Bancshares, Inc. Our team has significant experience in this area given the number of transactions we have completed, and I am proud to announce that we are consistently achieving results better than what was expected at the time of announcement. This is a testament to the team's hard work and prudent and realistic modeling assumptions. This outperformance allows us to drive enhanced earnings and shorter tangible book value earnbacks. We fully appreciate the importance of tangible book value growth over time as a key metric for shareholders' performance and are committed to executing M&A transactions that align with our goals. We are putting the right tools, strategies, and people in place to drive both organic and acquisitive growth, and I genuinely believe we are setting ourselves up for sustained long-term success across the entire footprint. Thank you for joining us today. We are happy to take your questions.

Thank you. We will now open the call for questions. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. We will go first to Jeff Rulis at D.A. Davidson.

Thanks. Good morning. Just a question on the acquired loan balance. Do you have the Frontier loan balance at acquisition in millions? I know you said $1.3 billion, but also at acquisition and at quarter end, trying to get back into sounds like some decent organic growth. But if you had those Frontier balances, that would be great.

Yeah, Jeff. It was about $1.28 billion in terms of acquired assets pre-purchase accounting mark. The decline period over period, excluding that—about $40 million we talked about yesterday, and Rick can expand on here—is effectively what we saw in some short-term optimization decline in the Frontier footprint, offset by what is positive production everywhere else in the footprint. So really a good outcome for us in our minds in terms of periodic production, but some of those headwinds exist at the beginning of the integration of that Frontier footprint.

But maybe put another way, do you have—it is a combined company as of January 1—but do you have, like, a legacy organic growth that you could also identify, or is that difficult to carve out?

On the loan side specifically, we grew just under 1% in our nonacquired markets—so if you take out Oklahoma and you take out Nebraska—on a point-to-point basis. So just under that, call it roughly 3% to 4% annualized, in those legacy markets on the loan side.

Okay. Appreciate it. And then maybe a similar question on the nonaccrual increase. I think roughly $8 million added from Frontier, $4 million from sort of the legacy unit. And maybe if you could put any color on the type of loans that were brought on? And then second piece to that—I think, Rick, you mentioned, sorry, I missed the piece about the—sounded like there was a past due. If you could just outline the balance of that one that was brought on that sounds like it has a quick resolution ahead.

It really was not a single loan. We have one specific market from Nebraska that did not understand how to get renewals done and manage those during that time. Those are all correcting themselves or already have been corrected at this point, Jeff. Brad, what was the balance of those loans?

It is a little over $30 million. But it is not one loan. It is about 30 or 40 different relationships.

Okay. And then maybe last one, if I could. The margin—maybe, Chris, you kind of talked about a 4.29% core. Do you know what that core NIM was for the month of March? It sounds like you have an opportunity to kind of alter Frontier's funding mix a bit, and it sounded more leaning upward than not. But do you have a March figure that would compare to the 4.29% core for the quarter?

Yeah, Jeff, March actually compares pretty consistently with that 4.29% figure. There are still some potential tailwinds as we look into Q2 and beyond as we are working to reprice some of those Frontier deposits. But that was happening throughout the quarter and really accelerating towards the end of the quarter, so we are not seeing that benefit in March. We will see more of it in April and beyond. The range that is provided in the outlook—I have some optimism that we can hit the high end of that range based on some of those dynamics. But I think because of the periodicity of accretion and the challenges of continuing to work through a balance sheet, there is a risk there as well. So somewhere in that range is fully accomplishable. I think the high end is also accomplishable based on some of those dynamics, but we have to execute on it.

Great. Makes sense. Thanks.

We will move next to Adam Kroll at Piper Sandler.

Hi. I am on for Nathan Race. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Maybe starting on funding costs—you know, with deposit costs rising this quarter with the Frontier acquisition, and I know they had a piece of brokered deposits—so I guess I am curious if you could provide some additional color into repricing opportunities you have on the deposit side from both DDA and nonmaturity.

I think there is an ample amount of repricing capacity. For some color, they had about $100 million that did get repriced in Q1. That was at a weighted average cost of 4.50%. So that is an aspect of their cost of funds that, again, accelerated towards the end of the quarter, that we have been able to reposition into what is comparatively cheaper. Even the newly issued brokered in the period is about 3.75%, so you are picking up 75 basis points on $100 million. They brought in a relatively higher overall cost of funding base, so we will continue to see opportunities to reprice. Some of that did have some duration on it—there is some lockout—so we will continue to have some heavier cost over time, but we are going to continue to see opportunities to bring some of those things down and anticipate being able to do so.

Got it. I appreciate the color there. Maybe moving to capital management. It is nice to see the step up in the buyback during the quarter, and you have obviously been active on the M&A front with the two deals over the past year. Do you expect to continue to be active on the buyback, and are you seeing opportunities on the M&A front as well?

We look at capital utilization all the time. Yes, we continue to look opportunistically at buybacks, and we also think we have plenty of capital for continued M&A. We have good capital ratios. We are building capital at a little over $25 million of capital generation a quarter, so we have good capital generation from the operating company. We have different prospects and lots of different opportunities we are talking to on the M&A front, and we will remain active on the buyback side if it works.

Got it. Thanks for taking my question.

We will go next to Matt Olney at Stephens.

Wanted to ask more about the expense outlook from here and get some updated thoughts around deal cost savings from Frontier with that conversion now behind us. I am curious how the cost savings are looking compared to the original expectations, and would just love to get some thoughts on when you expect to get the fully loaded cost savings this year.

A couple of things on that, Matt. On the technology side—the integration as well as some of the people that we maintained through that conversion date—all of those items have been fully taken out of run rate at this point. The cost savings on technology and people are in line with what we expected, and we will start to realize that. We started to realize it at the back end of the first quarter, and we will fully realize it in the second quarter. Generally speaking, as it relates to the cost saves around this transaction, they were relatively conservative—something around 23% on expected cost savings—and I think our execution will realize that or better as we think into Q2 and beyond. So we anticipate being in line to a little bit ahead of where we originally anticipated as we contemplated the transaction.

And I guess the other part of that is there was a mention about reinvestments, new producer hires—just maybe an update on what you are seeing thus far, new producer hires, and what is in the pipeline?

We have hired probably about 10 additional new bankers between Oklahoma City, Omaha, and Lincoln. Some are replacements and others are adds. All real positive there. The pipeline remains kind of consistent with where it was at the end of the year, and that number really bodes well for second and third quarter. Production numbers look really good. We are seeing a number of additional projects and things that both Brad and I are getting out to see customers and prospects on. It looks like fairly robust opportunities for us. As we have mentioned before, pricing always comes into play on this, and you never count it until it is in. We do have a couple of competitors pricing aggressively on things, but for the most part people are coming back to a little bit more in line with where we are on pricing. So that is positive. That bodes well.

We will take our next question from Damon Del Monte at KBW.

Good morning, guys. Hope everybody is doing well. Thanks for taking my questions. Probably for Chris on the reserve and the provision outlook. The reserve came down six basis points quarter over quarter even though there were purchase marks against the acquired loans. Just trying to get a feel for where you are comfortable with where the loan loss reserve can trend over the coming quarters?

Yeah, Damon, I would look at it as being consistent with where it is on a relative-to-asset basis. As we start to see depletion of those purchase accounting marks and look at the total position relative to the portfolio, there may be opportunity or need to build back up to, call it, a 1.23% type of reserve. But I think in the near term, thinking about it as 1.18% from here plus whatever production is makes sense. My anticipation for need to provide—absent any significant specific reserve items or specific deterioration in credits—is that it is going to account for the production in the portfolio. As we grow the portfolio, so too will we grow the reserve.

Okay. So the $6 million to $8 million guidance for 2026 for the total provision—if you back out the one-time CECL impact in the first quarter—we kind of just extrapolate the remaining three quarters to fall in between that range?

Maybe a little bit less, Damon. I think thinking about it as kind of a $1.5 million to $2 million run rate depending on growth is a good way to continue to think about it.

Got it. Okay. That is helpful. And then lastly, on the fee income side of things, can you talk about some of the opportunities to tap into the Frontier franchise and what products and services you think have the best opportunity to ramp up revenues for you?

First and foremost, treasury management. We have brought in a new head of treasury management, and we see that as a real opportunity. That was not something that was really at the forefront of what they were doing. Second, they had a decent-sized mortgage business, and we are continuing to see some potential for mortgage fees going forward. We see that across the footprint—continuing to get the team built out—and we use that as a product for our core customers and for bringing in core customers. We are not really a mortgage shop just to bring in mortgages. Third is wealth management. We are already seeing some real positive results there and being able to grow wealth management. We are looking to add a couple of additional people in our markets. We do really well in the community markets, so in Nebraska—Falls City, Pender, Norfolk, and Madison, where we are—we see those as real opportunities for growth in the future as well.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1. At this time, we have no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.