Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Landmark Bancorp Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Michael Scheopner, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining our call today to discuss Landmark's earnings and results of operations for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ending 2018. Joining the call with me today to discuss various aspects of our 2018 performance is Mark Herpich, Chief Financial Officer of the company. Before we get started, I would like to remind our listeners that some of the information we will be providing today falls under the guidelines for forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of these guidelines, I must point out that any statements made during this presentation that discuss our hopes, beliefs, expectations, or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements and our actual results could differ materially from those expressed. Additional information on these factors is included from time-to-time in our 10-K and 10-Q filings, which can be obtained by contacting the company or the SEC. We reported net earnings of $2.5 million or $0.56 per share on a fully diluted basis for the fourth quarter of 2018. For the year ending December 31, 2018, Landmark's net earnings totaled $10.4 million or $2.39 per diluted share. The company continues to deliver good performance on ROA and ROE. Return on average assets calculates to 1.09% for the full year and return on average equity was 12.09% for 2018. Mark will provide additional detail on Landmark's financial performance and asset quality metrics later in this call. I'm also pleased to report that our Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.20 per share to be paid March 6, 2019 to shareholders of record as of February 20, 2019. This represents the 70th consecutive quarterly cash dividend since the company's formation, resulting from the merger of Landmark Bancorp, Inc. with MNB Bancshares, Inc. in…

Thanks, Michael and good morning to everyone. As Michael has already commented on our net earnings for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2018, I would like to make a few comments on various elements comprising those results. Starting with the fourth quarter income statement highlights, net interest income was 7.2 million, an increase of $609,000 or 9.3% in comparison to the prior year's fourth quarter. The improvement in net interest income was attributable to an increase of 40.2 million or 4.8% in average interest earning assets to 872.3 million. This was almost entirely attributable to loan growth. Net interest margin on a tax equivalent basis remained relatively stable at 3.37% in the fourth quarter of 2018, as compared to 3.38% in the same period of 2017. The net interest margin was impacted by an increase in average loan balances, increased short-term interest rates on deposits, and the reduction in 2018 federal corporate income tax rates from 34% to 21%, following federal tax reform enacted in December 2017. The lower income tax rate reduced the tax equivalent yield on our tax-exempt, municipal investments and loans. Looking at our provision for loan losses, our analysis of the allowance for loan losses resulted in providing 500,000 to the allowance in the fourth quarter of 2018 as compared to 200,000 in the fourth quarter of 2017. This increase was primarily due to our loan growth, as well as an increase in classified asset levels. Noninterest income decreased 140,000 or 4% to 3.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to the same period of 2017. This was primarily related to a decrease of 171,000 in gains on sales of loans due to lower volumes of loans sold in the secondary market. Also contributing to the decline in non-interest income, we…

Thanks for your comments, Mark. In pursuing the loan growth we achieved in 2018, we continued our credit risk focus to maintain a diversified mix in the loan portfolio, both in loan types and in geography across the state. As of year-end 2018, our construction and land loan portfolio balances totaled 20.1 million or 4.1% of our total loan portfolio. Outstanding loan balances in our commercial real estate portfolio totaled 139 million, representing 28.1% of our total loan portfolio. Landmark's loan balances in the construction land category as of December 31, 2018 totaled 20% of risk-based capital, which is well below the regulatory guideline of 100%, a level where regulators would view the total was a concentration, requiring heightened risk management practices. Our commercial real estate portfolio was 154% of risk-based capital, far below the 300% regulatory guideline in that category. Commercial and industrial loans were 74.3 million as of December 31, or 15% of the current portfolio. With regard to the agricultural loan portfolio, total balances were 96.6 million or 19.5% of our total loan portfolio as of December 31. As I mentioned in my introductory comments, our 2018 commercial and agribusiness banking efforts resulted in a 12.8% increase overall in net loans outstanding as of December 31, 2018 compared to the year-end 2017 period. Our mortgage one-to-four family loan portfolio represented 27.6% of the portfolio at $136.9 million as of December 31, 2018. Residential real estate activity across the state continues to show stable sales activity with a tight market supply of inventory in most of our markets. Our mortgage banking production during 2018 involved an 86% concentration on purchase money transactions versus refinances. The performance of this segment of our portfolio continues to be strong with low levels of delinquency and limited collection issues. Our pipeline of…

[Operator Instructions] : :

And in showing no questions in the queue, we will conclude the question-and-answer session. I would like to hand the conference back over to Michael Scheopner for his closing remarks.

Thank you and I want to thank everyone for participating in today's earnings call. I appreciate your continued support and confidence that you have in our company. I look forward to sharing news related to our first quarter 2019 results at our next earnings conference call.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. At this time, you may disconnect your lines.