Good day, everyone. And welcome to the Enterprise Financial Services Corp First Quarter Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. For opening remarks, I’ll now turn the call over to Mr. Jim Lally, President, CEO of Enterprise Financial Services Corp. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Debbie. And thank you all very much for joining us today. I would like to welcome you to our 2018 first quarter earnings call. Joining me this afternoon is Keene Turner, our Company’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Offier and Scott Goodman, President of Enterprise Bank & Trust. Before we begin, I would like to remind everybody on the call that a copy of the release and accompanying presentation can be found on our Web site. The presentation and earnings release were furnished on SEC Form 8-K yesterday. Please refer to Slide 2 of the presentation, titled Forward-Looking Statements and our most recent 10-K, for reasons why actual results may vary from any forward-looking statements that we make today. Our corporate score card is found on Slide 3. Reported EPS for the quarter was $0.90 per diluted share. On a core basis, we earned $0.84, a 42% increase over the first quarter of 2017. From all aspects of the business, we are very pleased with our results. Loans and deposits both grew as expected during the quarter. Year-over-year we are able to drive net income growth in dollars by 21% by expanding core net interest margin we saw an increase of 11 basis points. It should be noted that our loan balances continued grow in very prudent way as evidenced by our credit statistics. In the past, we’ve highlighted continued improvement in our operations and how we have successfully linked back side of our business with front. The facility to drive operational efficiency continued this quarter and we saw a 2% decrease in the efficiency ratio compared to a year ago. Our 2018 goals are presented on Slide 4. It has been our sense here into our plan and these goals that have driven our results. The first two achieving organic loan and deposit growth and focus on long-term strategic involvement are woven into the fabric of our Company. The third is improvement of our current sales culture through refreshed sales process and external message is a personal challenge and remains a work in process. However, we are convinced that success here will further distinguish our sales teams more competition and will allow us to continue to achieve the great results that we all have become accustomed. As I stated previously, we are very pleased with these results, but we’ll remain focused on our plan and are committed to further improve in every aspect of our business throughout the remainder of 2018 and beyond. I would now like to turn the call over to Scott Goodman who will provide much more detail on our growth during the quarter.

Thank you, Jim. Our loan growth continued on a healthy pace as outlined on Slide number 5. It’s up 8% year-over-year and 10% annualized for the quarter. The growth in Q1 is a continuation of the strong momentum built during the latter part of 2017 in our organic loan origination process, and is well balanced across C&I, owner occupied CRE and investor based CRE. Focusing on C&I lending, Slide number 6 illustrates our ongoing double-digit pace. TTM growth of 12% results from the continued emphasis on operating businesses within our regional footprint, while growth within the specialty business lines also remained steady. Breaking this down, Slide number 7 examines the portfolio by segment. Investor CRE grew by $36 million in the quarter, representing several new projects, acquisitions of property to the senior living, industrial and multifamily space by investor clients, as well as a ramp-up of lending on existing construction loans. Following a soft quarter in Q4, enterprise value lending posted solid growth of $31 million in Q1 of 2018. After taking opportunities to realize some returns in the latter part of 2017, private equity sponsors became more active in originating new opportunities. The increased loan demand represents closing on new portfolio companies, and elevated usage of lines of credit generally used to make acquisitions. Growth in the general C&I owner occupied CRE and tax credit combined a $21 million for the quarter. These categories all represent financing used to enhance operating company relationships through new capital expansion, equipment purchases and increased lines of credit for working capital needs. Business owners in our markets are generally optimistic about the current environment. And this disposition is beginning to result in greater willingness to make longer-term investments in their business. You will notice on this table that we’ve broken out agricultural lending,…

Thanks Scott. Obviously, we’re pleased with the first quarter results. We’ve continued the strong momentum for both growth of the balance sheet, as well as continued financial performance for the first quarter. On Slide 10, we reported $0.90 per share of earnings with core contributing $0.84 per share. On the next slide, we demonstrate the linked quarter changes within core EPS, which reflect seasonal results with overall fundamental improvement. As the chart depicts, core earnings per share grew 9% or $0.07 per share to $0.84 per share for the quarter as seasonality reduced non-interest income by $0.08 per share, while expenses grew $0.03 per share. Provision for loan losses was $0.04 better due to better net charge-offs despite stronger loan growth; combined with the relatively stable core net interest margin to expand net interest income by $0.02 per share, despite two fewer days; and further improving seasonally strong pretax income of $23 million with 15% effective tax rate, which benefited not only from changes to federal tax law for 2018, but also vesting of share based compensation awards; actual core returns on average assets and tangible common equity were 1.49% and 19%, respectively; the new federal income tax code increased these metrics by approximately 18 basis points and 2%, from already admirable profitability levels. Irrespective of the changes, we’re off to a great start for 2018. On that note, let's move on to some more details on net interest income trend on Slide 12; core net interest income increased by $0.5 million to $45.4 million for the first quarter; net interest income dollars increased despite two fewer days, reflecting strong fourth and first quarter growth, as well as stable net interest margin; tax equivalent adjustments should have been a headwind, but net interest margin improved 1 basis point to 3.74%.…

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. We’ll take our first question today from Jeff Rulis with D.A. Davidson.

May be just a question for Scott on, looking at the money market balance increases on the deposits. Is that tied to the some of the new specialties that you’ve referenced, is that part of that success?

Jeff, there is some of that in there. I think that is also parts of that that are new balances from existing clients as well. I think we particularly saw an uptick towards the end of the first quarter. But yes, there are some balances in there that are part of the new strategies that I touched on.

And is that by -- is that a specific product or you just -- that customer you’re offering the whole gamut of deposit products?

Yes, it’s more of targeting specific kinds of companies then it is product design. And then similar to I think what we've done on the specialty lending side, so it’s more targeting…

From your offering though you offered -- from your products, it’s not a set within the money market per se, you're going to these companies with the broad product mix?

Yes, that's correct.

And then maybe just to hit on the loan growth guidance again it was pretty good start to the year and maintaining a conservative guidance number. I guess, was there's heavy production in Q1 that may have pulled some out of 2Q or is it just the product staying somewhat conservative as we’re only three months into the year?

Look, I think we feel really good about the way we started. We feel good about that high single-digit loan growth. I think we also probably were a little shorter than we wanted to be last year on the loan growth, and we started strong. And if you look at loan averages, they were strong early in the quarter. So maybe not pulling so much back from second to first as there was a little bit of a carryover from fourth to first. And we’re standing by our guidance but we’re optimistic that we’ll have a really strong year, and continue to grow both net interest income dollars and loans at consistent levels throughout.

And maybe one last housekeeping item. The non-core acquired assets that led to $1 million in other income. What was that? And can you say that that certainly is not occurring next quarter?

Yes, that was -- it was just a deal that had recovery of something that we completely written off, and that was an interest recovery and policy for the prior year period goes through other versus going through the net interest income. Again, I think our guidance for the year that would be outside of what we had guided. And if you back that out, we’re still at $3 million or $5 million pretax from that non-core acquired book.

We’ll take our next question from Michael Perito with KBW.

Keene, I want to start on the expense guidance. I just wanted to make sure I have my head wrapped around it correctly. So obviously 35% to 45% of revenue growth will be attributed to expense growth. But I guess what type of -- what’s the revenue growth number that we should be thinking about. Are we thinking about like a core revenue growth number or just an overall reported revenue growth number? Any help that -- if you can help us out a little just on what you guys are thinking when you give that guidance?

That really relates to core, it’s a good question. So it really relates to core and then that we give you that pretax contribution of the non-core acquired. So we’re not factoring that it on the expense level. That already has those expenses accounted for. So we’re talking about that growth on that $29.1 million number in the quarter.

So if you’re talking 5% to 7% non-interest income growth, 7% to 9% loan growth flat and then you figure revenue growth will probably be in that upper single digit range. I mean, that will point to expense growth in the 3% to 4% range. It seems like looking at the core run rate in Q1, you guys might be a little ahead of that and would suggest that there might be some moderation going forward. Is that a fair way to think about it or am I missing a piece of it somewhere?

No, I don’t think you’re missing anything. I think overall for the year, that’s more what we’d expect. First quarter was a $1 million heavy with what was going on with incentive payments and employer payroll taxes, and some of the related contributions to that. We expect that that will give us some of the room, going forward. I think you probably see similar level of expenses in both first and second quarter, and then you'll see that overall growth will come in from there. So I think overall those things fit together, but first quarter was definitely higher due to that seasonality.

And then on the margin side, so the stable core NIM. I mean, you mentioned that loan yields are up about 10 bps or 25 basis points hike at this point on average given what you’ve seen thus far. And it looks like in the most recent quarter, you had similar increase in deposit cost. So I mean, is that the dynamic I guess that you expect to continue going forward? The reason I asked I guess is because the deposit cost increase has been accelerating quarter-to-quarter. I mean, you’re at a point now where you’re hopeful that it won’t be much more like 10, 11 bps on a 25 basis point hike, or is there still room for that to increase and potentially drag down on that core NIM.

I think we think of core NIM within a relatively consistent band, so don’t take my comments as 1 or 2 basis points either way. I think we feel pretty comfortable within 5 basis points on either side of it. And the good news is that the asset side of the balance sheet is moving and giving us that room to defend. The other good news is that we have strong growth. And so, we’re using may be a little bit more; one, to make sure we defend and don’t have to go out and get as much new; and two, there’s still an opportunity for us even if the overall cost of deposits grows to use that to keep overall funding cost unchecked. And so deposits, even somewhat interest rate sensitive, deposits are still a better trade for us than using wholesale funding incrementally to the extent that we can keep that from bleeding into our existing deposit cost of our assets that aren’t sensitive to rates to the extent they are. So those are the dynamics that play. And so I am not surprised that in the quarter where DDA was down pretty much early and we have a lot of heavy usage in payments in our customer base as the cost of deposits went up significantly. But it is also -- so I am also not saying that, certainly the shape of the line and the steepness of the line in terms of deposit cost is steeper the last six months than it was the six months prior.

And then just one last one for Scott or Jim on the credit outlook specifically within the enterprise value lending business. Just curious if you’ve seen any changes in that marketplace, maybe a bit more cautious or if your partners there are still pretty healthy in the businesses overall, or are still pretty healthy at this point?

We look at that portfolio closely. We feel very good about it. I guess we would say that it’s lumpy though. If the company has an issue, it can be severe but we feel very good about where the portfolio stands today and how our partners are working with us. So it’s been closely watched and we feel good about it.

We’ll go next to Nathan Race with Piper Jaffray.

On to the margin discussion earlier, just curious where loan pricing is in the current quarter relative to the portfolio yield around 4.03, or if you guys are starting to see -- closer 4.88 and if you guys are starting to see any acceleration in commercial loan pricing over the last quarter or so?

Nathan, I think in my comments I hit on this. We’re actually fairly pleased with the way the new loan production pricing. It’s certainly competitive and I don’t want to Scott and Jim, are glaring at me here. But it’s certainly competitive and our teams fight hard every day for all those few extra basis points. But generally across the board, we’re seeing that new loan pricing is actually helping to move the overall portfolio yield up, in addition to the interest rate increases that are moving the existing variable-rate loans up. So that's a good trend for us. I'm not sure how long that continues. We see that gets repeated away at times and we saw that late last year. So it's hard to say that that’s the trend, but that is what we saw in the current quarter.

And then just on securities portfolio, it sound like that’s one area where you could help defend your NIM going forward just as perhaps there any asset next becomes more weighted into loan. So just curious on your thoughts in terms of the absolute size of the securities portfolio going at least through the end of 2018, I suppose?

I wouldn't expect and we said this before. I wouldn’t expect the securities book to proportionately get smaller in terms of the balance sheet. We run our loan to deposit between 95% and 100%, and we like to make sure that we have ample liquidity and other measures. So we’re more interested in net interest income dollars. And so we’ll continue to keep the size of the investment portfolio growing with the rest of the balance sheet. That will potentially create a headwind for NIM. But again where it still generate very low risk net interest income dollars. So we’re happy to take that trade and we’ll bring clarity to that. But the reality is that a lot of the trades in addition that we do in the portfolio are fairly modest that don’t move the yield much either way despite the fact that reinvestment rates have actually improved.

And then just lastly on capital, you see flat in the quarter with the share repurchases. So just curious if there's any change or updated thoughts on just how you guys are prioritizing capital returns, going forward, in light of now the increased earnings power and you have the tax reform. And obviously, within that context curious Jim do you have any updated thoughts on the acquisition environment out there? What you're seeing in terms of books and so forth at this stage?

Our first party, obviously, is to support organic growth capital. On the M&A front, we’re looking for companies that complement our business model. And obviously, if we can't be successful there then we can look at dividends and share repurchase. And I’ll let Keen to expand a little bit on that front. But we’re actively watching capital and managing it closely.

This is obviously a biased answer. But we’ve done a really nice job leveraging capital through organic growth. We were up significant and made a really great acquisition with JCB and that’s leveraged capital and saw structure of the deal, so there is cash in it and 100 basis points leveraging PC. We’ve been active in repurchases and we’ve also, prior to that, had an increase to dividend. So we’ll use it all as we see fit; and number one, we’ve got strong capital to give ourselves optionality; number two, we’ve got a really nice earnings growth rate with 150s ROA, so we’re happy about that. And we continue to be proactive and thoughtful about the way we manage capital. But want to make sure that we don't impair our ability for our first two priorities. And so you saw in the quarter us take out $3 million of capital and share repurchases just to mitigate some of the dilution from share-based award. So I think you’ll see more the same going forward. And to the extent that capital build had a more robust rate, we’ll get more intentional and we’ll announce our intentions there.

[Operator Instructions] We’ll go next to Andrew Liesch with Sandler O’Neill.

Scott, you talked about some early successes with the new deposit specialties. Just curious the funds that you’re adding, at what rates are those at and would they bring down the average cost of deposits or overall funding?

It’s mixed. We’re obviously going after new relationship. So there's a portion of those funds, which are going to be non-interest-bearing. I would say that the rest of them become -- are generally are going to be money market balances, which are going to probably be at average on par with the blended rate of the portfolio, maybe slightly higher as we go into a pretty aggressive environment. But I don't think you’re going to see those strategies significantly move our cost of funds.

And then just pulling together your comments on loan growth this year, it sounds like it’ll be smoother from quarter-to-quarter than in years past. Last couple years, the second quarter has been little bit weaker, but safe to assume that it’d be more smoothed out throughout this year?

The world we used was optimistic. But it’s easy to say that when you have a really strong quarter. So I think we’re feeling good about how growth is shaping up for the year. But time will tell and it’s too early to call victory. We’re going to fight every quarter and for the rest of the year to get as much growth that makes sense for the credit window.

So it sounds like a little less variable than in prior years?

Yes, I would say the strategies that we’ve had that are seasonal will remain characteristics with we’ve seen in the past. And I think the general C&I, CRE will be -- left would be.

And we’ll go next to Brian Martin with FIG Partners.

Maybe one for Keene, just on net income, the $1 million pickup, I guess in your guidance the $3 million to $5 million. So that does not include that there -- I guess even that was moved to the fee income side as part of the acquired portfolio, it’s not included in your number of $3 million to $5 million. Is that right?

That's correct. We consider that an acceleration, so really that number is four to six.

So the accretion was a little bit on the lower end this side relative to getting to your annual target. Fair to say?

I think it was right on what we expected. I mean we’re -- I think we’re running right around $0.03 a quarter.

And then how about just the -- Scott, you talked about the deposit strategy and how it’s playing out. I mean the broker deposits were up a little bit this quarter at least on the spot basis. And I thought in someone’s remarks, it was Keene’s or someone’s, you talked about this being obviously a bit more. I mean, I guess is there a range on how you want to manage those brokered funds versus the strategies you’re putting in place to gather the other funds. And just how to think about is there a band on how to think about where those broker deposits stand as you go over the balance of the year?

I would say, Brian historically, the use of wholesale and brokered funds has been most significant for us in the first half of the year. I think our clients use a lot more money and deploy it. And we see them accumulate balances in the second half. I think Scott alluded to a lot of good account and deposit gathering that actually helped to minimize and mitigate a lot of that. And I think if you're looking for goals, it would be to essentially not have use of brokered deposits but they’re an important tool for us and we’ll continue to use it and manage it as necessary. But I do think that the broker deposits along with other federal home loan bank borrowings does present an opportunity as we start to try to accelerate deposit growth and some of the strategies…

I thought it was just seasonality I just wanted to make sure certain of that. And then the tax rate just with the options adjustments, I guess it’s more in the 18% to 20% range is how you are suggesting over the next couple of quarters?

Yes, that will be the Q2 through Q4 and then that gets you to ‘17 and ’19 for the year with all four quarters blended in.

And then just the last two things, just on the -- Jim, talked about the M&A activity. I mean there’s been -- there’s not been a pick up or -- just how would you characterize discussions. And then lastly, if you can just give a little bit more color on, you guys talked about the ag portfolio. Just how big you’d expect that to get. It sounds like you’re comfortable with it getting bigger given the quality of it. And just in particular what type of loan sizes are we looking at here and just still a bit more color would be helpful.

Brian this is Jim. Let me handle the M&A front and I’ll turn it over to Scott for the details on ag. I think we approach the M&A like any one of our client efforts. It’s just consistent. It’s ongoing. It’s targeted. And you know as well as we do that there is a process in place. There’s got to be a willing seller along the willing buyer. So we’re spending more time there and having a lot of conversations. But we’re really focused on our business day-to-day and that’s the goal. I’ll turn to Scott to talk about the ag.

Brian, I guess may be some more color on the ag would be, as I said, this is a team that has been together at Farm Credit, at JCB. We’ve added some depth on the credit side since they’ve joined us, and we’re being opportunistic coming out a down cycle. They are calling on businesses and business owners that they’ve known and banked for many years. And we’re able to somewhat cherry pick the ones that have managed well through the downturn that are well capitalized. And I think our model right now also, because of the stress and maybe how other banks have looked at that portfolio, we’re getting good opportunities. So it’s generally within 150 mile radius of our Midwest markets, pretty traditional real crop swine cattle. These are large family owned and midsized farms that they have operating history, generally pretty good risk management tools that they’re using, good contractual or long-term history with their clients. So our goal is to have a balanced portfolio. I think a great portfolio would be 30% row, 30% swine 30% cattle with some dairy in there that’s what it looks like now. That said, I think we’re looking at it, watching it, managing it, just like we do our other specialties. Right now, we’re watching for indicators that would -- if there is a turn in that market, we’ll react. But the results we’re seeing now from the year end from those clients are meeting or exceeding our expectations. So we like what we see so far.

And just maybe one last thing, if I can sneak it in. Keene, just last year with the state tax income that was accelerated or piece of it was accelerated in the fourth quarter. We kind of think about annual ’18. I mean, I guess should be -- fourth quarter still be elevated or is that just -- was that an outsized level last year that we looking over year-over-year comparisons that -- what's the best way to think about that now that you’ve gotten fourth and first quarter under your belt?

That’s a very difficult question, I'm going to give you an answer and I know it’s going to be wrong at some point, but I hope it to be close. So that's about $2.5 million revenue business. And historically, we would expect it to be about $2 million in the fourth and about $0.05 in the first. But I'm always very cautious of giving actual number answers.

And just capital, you guys -- the buyback you did this quarter. I guess, is there additional shares on an authorization or how you’re thinking about that at this point?

I think it's about 1.6 million or so shares left, so there’s plenty of shares more so than we intend to execute on in the short-term.

[Operator Instructions] And we’ll go next to Eric, a Private Investor.

I tuned in a couple minutes late and you were talking about Arizona. And I also -- some reason your Web site, the presentation is not downloading right now. So what I wanted to find out was, you talked about the loan yield trends that -- I think you said newer loans are actually additive to your loan yield. And I just wanted to find out is that from a particular geographies, specialties, lending. What what's causing that maybe above and beyond just the course of interest rates?

I think in my comments, Eric is the Keene. I think what I said is it’s really coming from variable-rate loan, which are driving that up. So I think as you heard from Scott, it's fairly widespread across the board in terms of where it grew and we’re seeing that loan-by-loan. And so I think it’s a positive trend, but it's not like it's concentrated in one area where it just EVL or just Arizona yields that are driving those rates up in other markets there below. So we’re seeing it pretty much across the board and that I think, in particular, because we use similar pricing and return thresholds and discipline across all of our business units and organization.

So it's not from a new area of lending or some change in the risk profile and it’s more on the…

No…

And with no other questions at this time, I will turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Thank you, Debbie. And thank you all for joining us this afternoon and for your interest in our company. We look forward to speaking to all of you at the end of the second quarter. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.