Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to First Guaranty Bancshares' 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting. This year's meeting is being recorded. We will upload to the Investor Relations page for anyone who cannot be here today. Please start the recording. I'm Kristen Williams, Executive Assistant at First Guaranty Bank, and I have the honor of kicking off today's meeting. We are hosting a hybrid meeting. Some shareholders will join us virtually and others in person, and all participants will have the ability to hear and see our presentation. For those attending virtually, if you need help at any time during this meeting, please call 813-308-9980 and enter access code 675813. I suggest everyone take a moment to write down this information as we will not revisit it during the presentation. If you have mailed in your proxies, there is no need to take any action at this time.
However, if you have not and you are attending this session virtually, I encourage you to send it in now. You may send your proxy ballots to First Guaranty via fax at 985-375-0447 or email a scanned copy to investorrelations@fgb.net. Please do so within the next five minutes. For those here in person, you will have the opportunity to submit your proxy later in the meeting. Our standard disclosures regarding forward-looking statements are on slide four. At this time, I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Marshall Reynolds, Chairman of the Board.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Marshall Reynolds, Chairman of the Board. On behalf of the directors, officers, and staff of First Guaranty Bank, I would like to welcome everyone here this afternoon to the 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting of First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. At this time, I'd like to introduce Mr. Tony Berner, one of our First Guaranty Bank directors representing Ponce Touto, who will lead us in invocation to begin our meeting today. Would you please stand?
Everybody is? Heavenly Father, as we gather for this meeting, unite our hearts and minds in common purpose. Grant us the wisdom to work together effectively and the humility to value each person's perspective. Guide our discussions and decisions that they may honor You and serve our shared goals. For it is in Your holy name that we pray. Amen.
Amen. Thank you, Mr. Berner. We'll send you a ticket for a minute to reflect. And reflecting back on 2024 is really not a really good experience. You know, we look at all the things that have happened in 2024. We obviously are quite a bit fewer people today than we were then. We lost our CEO, Alton Lewis, who was CEO for 14 and a half years, took his bank from $700 million– $3.5 billion, and did just a fantastic job. But I wanted to tell you that a guy told me once when I was just a kid that tough people do not last, but tough people do. And I want you to know that Mike Menier and this management team are tough people, and they're making their headway through this. And I think you'll see a tremendous difference by the end of this year.
Lord, we'll surely be clear out of the regulatory books at the end of 2026 at some point in time. But that's my reflection on a bad story. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. Appreciate you and your leadership. Good afternoon and welcome to the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting of First Guaranty Bancshares. I now declare the meeting officially convened. I'd like to proceed with the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting of First Guaranty Bancshares. As we start, I want to expand upon a legacy of leadership, what Mr. Reynolds spoke of. I am reminded of a song. Who's going to fill these shoes? Who's going to stand this tall? Who's going to give their heart and soul to all? George Jones. Sometimes we can't stand in those shoes. Sometimes we can't walk on that path. We can look to the leadership that we were given, take its guidance, and proceed. The words that we're about to speak of today are just a minor reflection of the many years of commitment.
I can't give enough words to say for the support and appreciation that we all have had for Mr. Alton Lewis. Alton Lewis joined First Guaranty Bancshares in October of 2009 as Chief Executive Officer after practicing law in Louisiana for 30 years and being elected to the board of the bank in 2002. Under his leadership, First Guaranty Bank went public in 2015 as First Guaranty Bancshares, setting FGB up for new opportunities of growth and expansion. First Guaranty had grown its total assets to $3.5 billion and established a strong presence throughout Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Mr. Lewis, one of his proudest achievements, as were all of us as a part of that, was when First Guaranty Bank was recognized by LendingTree and Newsweek as the best small bank in the United States of America for three consecutive years.
On behalf of the board, on behalf of the staff, on behalf of the community, we all want to extend our heartfelt wishes to Mr. Alton Lewis for a wonderful and well-deserved retirement. We thank you for your leadership, and no one can fill those shoes. May we all stand and give a round of applause. Thank you again, Mr. Lewis. We appreciate you. At this time, I would like to introduce the following individuals. As I introduce you, I would ask you to stand to be recognized. If you cannot and do not feel like so, then please raise your hand. First, the Secretary to the Board is Ms. Vanessa R. Drew. Thank you, Vanessa. Now, to the members and nominees of First Guaranty Bancshares, the Board of Directors are as follows. In your proxy, you will find the biography of each.
Again, I would ask you to stand or raise your hand as you were spoken. Our Chairman, Marshall T. Reynolds. William K. Hood. Vanessa R. Drew. Robert W. Walker. Bruce McAnally. I believe not present, but also with us in spirit is Edgar R. Smith III. Members of First Guaranty Bank's Board of Directors are as follows: Anthony J. Berner, Jr. Gloria M. Dykes. Not present, but is Dr. Philip Fincher. Robert H. Gabriel. Andrew Gasaway, Jr. William K. Hood. Edwin L. Hoover, Jr. Bruce McAnally. Not with us, but as well as Morgan S. Naughty. Jack M. Reynolds. Nancy C. Rebus. Not in person, but also is Jack Rossi. Richard W. Sittman. Ann A. Smith, not in person, but with the board as well. Lastly, Edgar R. Smith III. I, Michael R. Menier. Next, I will introduce individuals designated as proxies: Chairman Marshall T.
Reynolds and our CFO, Eric J. Dosch. We'll now introduce inspectors of the election for today's meeting: Kristen Williams, Diane Lanier, Landa Domain, and Catherine Campbell. At the inspectors of the election table, the following material is made available for review. The list of shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 24, 2025. An affidavit showing proof of notice of meeting and proxy statement and form of proxy, which have been given to every shareholder of record as of March 24, 2025. Inspectors of election oath of office, as well as the quorum certificate of inspectors of the election. The inspectors of the election have informed me that a quorum is present either by proxy or in person. Such certificate is available for review at the inspectors of the election table.
Today, there are four proposals on the ballot for the meeting to elect the Board of Directors to serve until next annual meeting of shareholders until their successors are duly elected and qualified. They are as follows: William K. Hood, Marshall T. Reynolds, Jack Rossi, Bruce McAnally, Edgar R. Smith III, Vanessa R. Drew, Robert W. Walker. To approve an advisory non-binding resolution regarding our executive compensation as described in this proxy statement. To ratify the appointment of Griffith, Delaney, Hillman, and Lett CPAs as First Guaranty’s independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025. Lastly, to transact such other business as may properly come before this meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Since there are no other nominations in accordance with the holding company’s bylaws, the nominations are closed. The polls are now open.
Are there any votes to be cast by proxy or by ballot? If so, inspectors of the election, would you please collect the ballots? Seeing none, we have those all accounted for. Has everyone had time to cast their ballot? I now declare the polls closed. Inspectors of the election, would you please count the votes and return with the election results? Next, I would like to hear a motion to dispense the meeting, the reading of the minutes from the 2024 Annual Shareholders Meeting. I would like to have Mr. Hoover as a motion to dispense of those minutes. Mr. Gabriel has seconded. All in favor say aye. Any like signed nay. Motion to dispense is approved. At this time, I'd like to introduce Eric J. Dosch, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer. He will be presenting our first quarter 2025 financial highlights.
Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon. The story of the first quarter was continuing with our business strategy to address our non-performing assets and work to reduce them. In the first quarter, we sold $70 million worth of loans that had credit deterioration. That ended up with a $5.8 million provision expense as a result of the sales. Our total provision for the quarter was $14.5 million. As a result of those two, that's why we reported a loss of $0.54 per share. Our non-performing assets, again, which our management team is aggressively addressing, it's really concentrated in about six credits.
We have a $33 million loan to Assisted Living Center in Alabama, a $27.5 million loan to an Assisted Living Center in Louisiana, a $26 million non-performing loan to an apartment complex in Texas, an $8.8 million loan on a retail shopping center that's in the Midwest, a $7.5 million loan to land development in Texas, and a smaller $2 million loan on residential property in West Virginia. That's the bulk of our non-performing assets. Our net interest income before provision was $22.2 million for the first quarter of 2025. That's an improvement from this quarter of a year ago, which was $21.9 million. Our non-interest income also did increase year over year. It was $2.4 million in the first quarter compared to $2.3 million in the first quarter of 2024.
Our non-interest expense was $18 million for the first quarter of 2025, which was lower than $18.9 million from this quarter last year. Now I'll give the floor back to Mike Menier, our CEO.
Thank you, Eric. I'm going to highlight the business strategy change since July of 2024. At the end of my presentation, we will open it up for questions and answer sessions with my management team as well as myself. There's a Q&A tab at the bottom of your screen if you want to submit those questions now if you're joining us electronically. Here are the things that we as a management team came to our board, and our board supported us in a change in business strategy starting July of last year. One was to reduce risk-weighted assets on the balance sheet to bring that number lower and to improve the capital ratios. This improved the bank risk-weighted capital ratio to 12.74% as of March 31, 2025, up from 11.28% in June of 2024. We will continue to drive that number higher.
We reduced the common stock dividend in order to increase capital at the bank level. We have had tremendous growth in the past, and by limiting the dividend to the holding company, we are now continuing to build capital at the bank level. We reduced construction lending commitments, and we are furthering to reduce our commercial real estate portfolio, moving toward a trajectory of 300% CRE concentration to total capital. We have limited the size of new loan originations in order to limit risk and improve diversification. We will eventually start throttling back up our lending machine when the time is appropriate. We have dramatically increased on-balance sheet liquidity. The engine runs on oil, which is liquidity, and we have improved that dramatically on our balance sheet. We've improved market sensitivity to interest rate risk to be much, much, much less liability sensitive.
In fact, we are neutralizing the balance sheet sensitivity. We have dramatically increased the provision for credit losses to deal with any situation of deterioration in the loan portfolio. We continually, emphatically, every day, aggressively address non-performing assets in order to reduce them. We've enacted cost reduction measures. Approximately $12 million in annualized savings achieved when compared to expenses of last year. We have a lot fewer staff. It's been a challenge, but we have the right staff to move forward. I will say to our board, to our shareholders, on behalf of the management team, I will quote Oliver Wendell Holmes: "To say the greatness is not where we stand, but it's the direction in which we are moving." Sometimes we sail against the wind, and sometimes we sail with it. But sail we must. We cannot drift or lie at anchor. We are working.
Lastly, to the management team, as a commitment to you, both shareholders and directors, enough is never enough. The only thing about yesterday is it created us a benchmark to do more today. That is our drive and our passion on behalf of our management team. Despite the challenges of our year, none of this would have been possible to achieve the results and the strength and support of our management team without them. This would not have happened. To each of you, I'm greatly thankful. We appreciate your presence here today. At this point, the online questions are closed. We will open it up for a Q&A session for both myself as well as our management team. Judy with Clear Trust. She's not online.
Yes. Good afternoon, sir. At this time, we have no virtual attendees submitting any questions for this section.
We will now open it up to the room for any questions within this room. Seeing no questions, we may have a report from the inspector of election chairperson, Kristen Williams.
Good afternoon. All of the votes have been tallied. The proposals presented today have all been elected by a majority of the votes.
Thank you, Ms. Williams. Do I hear a motion to accept the report of the inspector of election on the results of the election? Robert Walker. Ms. Rebus as a second. All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed like sign? Motion to accept. I now ask for a motion to approve and ratify all action of the board of directors, officers, and personnel since the last annual meeting. Do I hear such a motion? Ms. Rebus?
Yes.
Gloria?
Yes.
Second by Jack. All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed like sign? Motion to approve. If there are no other business, then I would ask for a motion for adjournment. Mr. Hoover, motions? Approved second. All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Motion adjourned. Thank you.