ServisFirst Bancshares, Inc. (SFBS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of ServisFirst Bancshares, Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Tom Broughton, Chairman of the Board and President of the company. Mr. Broughton, the floor is yours.

Good morning. I'm Tom Broughton. I'm Chairman of the bank and the holding company, and I'm also serve as Chairperson of this meeting. The purpose of the meeting today is to elect directors of the company to serve until the 2023 Annual Meeting and until their successors are elected and qualified, to hold an advisory vote on the company's executive compensation or what is called Say on Pay vote, to ratify the appointment of Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP as our independent registered accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2022, and to amend our Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of ServisFirst common stock. The notice of this meeting and availability of our proxy statement was sent to shareholder on record on or about March 21, 2022. We are hosting today's meeting through a virtual platform. We do welcome questions from all shareholders. When it comes to the Q&A portion of the meeting, we will take questions that are submitted online. You can submit your questions through the Q&A icon located on your screen. And please remember, you may vote your shares online at any time during this meeting prior to the closing of the polls. First, I'd like to indicate that all members of the Board of Directors are present today. Those directors include: Richard Cashio, Jimmy Filler, Mike Fuller, Chris Mettler, Hatton Smith, Irma Tuder and, I guess, Tom Broughton. I didn't see my name. William -- Bill -- Bud Foshee, our CFO, will serve as secretary of the Annual Meeting. And he will act as inspector of the election and conduct the formal tabulation of the vote. Sarah Saunders and Stephanie Blocksma from Dixon Hughes Goodman, our independent registered public accounting firm, are also participating in our virtual meeting today. They will be available to answer any questions about the company's financial statements. Should you ask a question, please use the Q&A icon. I already said that. The secretary has delivered an affidavit of notice, establishing that notice of this meeting was properly delivered to all shareholders entitled to vote. A copy of the notice and the affidavit of notice will also incorporate -- will be incorporated in the minutes of this meeting. All shareholders that are entitled to vote that are shareholders of record as of March 8, 2022. A list of the shareholders of record is accessible on the virtual meeting platform [ through ] the documents icon located in the top right corner of your screen. The first order of business is to see if we have a quorum. I've been informed in response to our notice of this annual meeting, the company has received proxies totaling 48,304,876 shares or 89% of the company's outstanding common stock. So we do have a quorum, and this meeting is properly convened. At this time, the polls are now open. They will remain open until the conclusion of any discussion on proposal 4, the vote to amend the Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of ServisFirst common stock. I would like to point out that most of you have also returned proxies authorized in the person's name in the proxy to vote on all propositions coming before this annual meeting. Stockholders who are voting by proxy need not cast the vote online unless they wish to change their vote on their proxy. So if there are any virtual shareholders in attendance who have not voted by proxy and now wish to vote, you may do so using the virtual meeting dashboard. The first matter is to -- the election of 7 directors to hold office until the 2023 Annual Meeting, and I've already listed those who are all present. And then also, you can vote online. Also, we'll propose -- proceed to proposal 2, which is a resolution on an advisory vote basis to approve our executive compensation. The proposal is this: Resolved that the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement for the 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders pursuant to item 402 Regulation S-K, including the compensation, discussion and analysis, compensation tables and narrative discussion, is hereby approved. If there are any questions, now is an appropriate time to raise them. The next matter is the ratification of Dixon Hughes Goodman as our independent registered public accounting firm. If there are any questions relating to proposal 3, now is the time to raise them. We'll now proceed to proposal 4, which is the amendment to our Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of ServisFirst common stock, is on Page 41 and list that proposal. And now is appropriate time to raise any questions regarding that proposal, if there are any. If there are any further questions or comments regarding these 4 proposals submitted to shareholders for action, I suggest those persons complete their online voting. [Voting]

I'll make a few comments about our performance for the year. 2021 was a year where we had tremendous loan and deposit growth. We also continued with round 2 of the Paycheck Protection Program. In sum, I think our -- the company earned $54 million in fees over the course of 2 calendar years, plus a little bit in 2022. Our goal in 2021 was to make loans so that we replaced the PPP loans when they run off and to make loans to use our excess liquidity. We did increase the dividend by 15% at the end of the year. And also, our book value increased 15% during the year. We did also move our listing of our common stock to New York Stock Exchange. We added 2 new regions during this period of time. One is in Orlando. Ted Sheppe is our leader in Orlando, doing an outstanding job. And Rick Manley has also joined us at the end of the year in the Piedmont region based in Charlotte, North Carolina. So those are the highlights of the year. And now I will ask Bud Foshee, the inspector of election, for his preliminary.

The ballots and proxies have been counted in preliminary, and it appears that results are as followed. More than a majority of the shares present or by proxy have been voted in favor of election of the 7 directors nominated in the proxy statement, approval of the company's executive compensation as defined in the proxy statement and ratification of Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2022. Additionally, more than a majority of the shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote have been voted in favor of amending our Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock.

Thank you, Bud. I'm informed there are no questions at today's meeting. I would like to adjourn the meeting now. I'd like to thank all of you for attending the meeting and your interest and support of the company. This meeting is now adjourned.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.