Welcome to our 2025 annual meeting of the shareholders of SB Financial Group, Inc. Right here from our headquarters in Defiance, Ohio. It's great to have you with us today. My name is Mark Klein, Chairman, President, and CEO. At this time, I'd like to ask one of our Inspectors of Election, Ms. Robbins, to report the number of shares represented at this meeting. Ms. Robbins?
Mr. Chairman, $4,843,547 common shares of the corporation are represented by proxy. There are no common shares represented in person. Combined, $4,843,547 common shares are represented at this annual meeting either by proxy or in person.
Thank you. Ladies, gentlemen, with 74% of our outstanding shares present and a count of four today, we have a quorum represented, and I'd like to call the meeting to order. As you might recall from our 2024 annual meeting, our focus was to build on resilience and innovation to drive growth, and we've done just that. Even as we faced declining margins, higher loan and deposit costs, and higher residential loan rates, we were still able to grow our deposit base by over $82 million and our loan book by $47 million. We complemented our organic growth with an all-cash acquisition of the $60 million Marblehead Bank that our board approved in October and closed in January. Scale in our industry and for State Bank remains a key driver of high performance. We intend to deliver it organically and through opportunistic acquisitions.
This morning, after the organizational portion of our meeting, I'd like to provide you an update on our overall results for 2024 and some of our plans for 2025 going forward. This is now our 11th year hosting our annual meeting live over the internet to connect with a broader base of our shareholders. This year also includes an opportunity for on-site participation right here at our headquarters in Defiance, Ohio. I might add questions, as in prior years, regarding our four shareholder proposals before you today may be placed in the queue electronically through the portal until approximately 10:35 A.M. Eastern Time. At that time, we'll address any questions or comments. Our polls will close, and we'll report on the results of our voting. Once again, I will serve as Chairman of our annual meeting, and Ms. Keeta Diller will serve as Secretary.
Carol Robbins and Sean Gorman will serve as our inspectors of election. Notes of this annual meeting were mailed along with proxy materials on March 7th to shareholders of record February 21st. As with prior years, we'll dispense with the reading of the minutes of last year's annual meeting, but remind you that they're always available on our website under Investor Relations. Finally, this presentation will also be available on our website following today's meeting. On the agenda today, four proposals requiring a shareholder vote. As I mentioned, an overview of our 2024 financial performance and a brief look around the corner at some of our prospects for 2025 and beyond. The first of four proposals before us today is to elect three directors to serve for terms of three years each: Mr. Richard L. Hardgrove, myself, Mark Klein, and Mr. William G. Martin.
Second, to ratify the appointment of Forvis Mazars, LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of SB Financial Group for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025. Third, to vote upon a non-binding advisory resolution to approve the compensation of our named executive officers. Fourth, to vote upon the frequency of future advisory votes on compensation of our named executive officers. May I have a motion with respect to these proposals? Let the record reflect that a motion has been made by shareholder Tyler Schaefer to adopt all four proposals as presented. Is there a second? Let the record reflect that shareholder Ms. Linda German seconded the motion. At this time, our Corporate Secretary, Ms. Diller, will retrieve any questions or comments from our shareholders online and present today on our four proposals.
While she's doing that, as with prior years, our inspectors of election are tabulating the votes, and I'd like to pause just briefly to recognize our board leadership this past year. Mr. Richard Hardgrove continued to serve as our lead independent director and provides strategic direction for our board. In fact, our board met 15 times this past year, and I'm pleased to report that all directors met required attendance levels. Mr. Hardgrove has over 50 years in bank leadership and supervision, including CEO experience, and as superintendent of Ohio Banks. He also provides guidance to our governance committee, compensation committee, and our newly formed risk committee. Mr. Gaylyn Finn guided our audit committee as chairman while also serving once again as audit financial expert, meeting four times this past year. Mr.
Finn has been a board member since 2010 and previously served as head of the Bowling Green State University's finance division. He also serves on our director loan review committee. Mr. George Carter continues to guide our compensation committee. They met three times. Mr. Carter joined our board in 2013, having served on our polling advisory board for six years. He was previously CEO of a regional electric co-op and adds a depth to our audit committee and risk management committees. Our governance and nominating committee was led by Mr. Tim Stolly, meeting three times. Mr. Stolly is the past president of Stolly Insurance, a regional independent insurance agency. He also provides support to our risk management committee. Our director loan review committee was spearheaded by Mr. Tom Helberg. They met four times this past year. Mr.
Helberg is legal counsel and principal in a commercial real estate development and investment firm. He joined our board in 2018 and also serves on our audit committee. Our trust investment review committee was guided by Ms. Rita Kissner, meeting four times. Ms. Kissner is past mayor of Defiance, having also served as finance director and auditor. She has served our shareholders for 20 years and also provides guidance to our audit and compensation committees. Our executive loan committee, directed by Mr. William G. Martin, met 12 times throughout this past year. Mr. Martin is a CPA with over 36 years' experience in finance and accounting and now leading Spangler Candy Company as its president. He joined our board in 2014 and has oversight to our compensation and governance committees. Finally, this past year, we formed a new risk committee with oversight provided by Mr. Tim Claxton as chairman.
This committee met two times this past year. Mr. Claxton is an attorney specializing in business acquisitions, banking, and estate planning. He came to our board by way of the Fort Wayne Advisory Board in 2021 and adds depth to our governance and loan review committees. Please report each of our board committees met required attendance levels. We value the knowledge and leadership provided by our committee chairs and thank them for their service to each of our stakeholders. Ms. Diller, any questions or comments from our shareholders present or online? Since there are no questions or comments regarding the four proposals or otherwise, we'll conclude the business portion of the meeting, and I'd like to ask our inspector of election, Ms. Robbins, to report on the results.
Proposal one to elect three directors to serve for a term of three years each: Mr. Richard L. Hardgrove, Mr. Mark A. Klein, and Mr. William G. Martin has been adopted. Proposal two to ratify the appointment of Forvis Mazars, LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of SB Financial Group, Inc for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025 has been adopted. Proposal three to vote upon a non-binding advisory resolution to approve the compensation of SB Financial's named executive officers has been adopted. Proposal four to set the frequency of future advisory votes on the compensation of SB Financial's named executive officers to every year has been adopted.
Thank you, Ms. Robbins, and thank you to all of our shareholders for your continued support and vote of confidence. Before I give you an update on our financial results, I would like to pause briefly and remind everyone that, of course, appropriate due diligence is always required of anyone considering an investment in SB Financial Group. As I mentioned earlier, even in the midst of a number of headwinds this past year, we were still able to deliver meaningful results. Highlights for this year include net income of $11.5 million or $1.72 earnings per share, just slightly below the $12.1 million we delivered in 2023. We grew our deposit base by over $82 million, or 7.7%, and used this liquidity to fund our loan growth of $47 million, or 4.7%.
As a result of this balance sheet growth, we expanded our margin revenue to $40 million and accounted for 70% of our total revenue of $57 million. It produced a return on average assets of 84 basis points and a return on tangible economic equity of 11.34%. Rates on residential real estate loans remained stubbornly high and constrained our volume this year to just $261 million, while producing $4.6 million in loan sale gains. We now service 9,000 households and a $1.4 billion sole portfolio balance. Working to deliver holistic client care, we grew our assets under management and our wealth division by $46 million, or 9.1%. Our asset quality continues to contribute to our stabilized earnings stream. With a loan loss reserve of 1.44%, coupled with a coverage of non-performing assets at 274%, we compare quite favorably to our peer leaders.
Finally, our Columbus region continues its strong representation in Central Ohio. With another year of strong performance, our roots have grown deeper and our vision for growth stronger. We expanded our share of deposits in our eight-county legacy markets to 4.4%, up 94 basis points, or $104 million in the last five years. We drove our total market capitalization higher by over $33 million, up 32% to over $135 million. As I mentioned, we announced the acquisition of a $60 million bank in Marblehead, Ohio, while establishing our seventh loan production office into the metropolitan market of Cincinnati, Ohio, and received regulatory approval to convert our loan production office in Angola, Indiana, into our 26th full-service office. Additional initiatives for organic growth clearly remain on the horizon. Return on average assets remains a universal metric to measure bank performance.
Our goal has always been to be in the top quartile of our peer banks, a goal we achieved seven in the last 10 years. As you can see here from the blue bars, three of our last six years were above our peer-level goal of 75th percentile, with the last three years falling just short of our goal, but still well above peer median in the last two. Likewise, earnings per share, represented by the green line, have stabilized at approximately $1.75 per share. We remain confident that stable deposit costs, attention to cost control, and improved mortgage volume will return us to our historical performance trends. Total assets under our care now stand at $3.4 billion. That includes a $1.4 billion bank, that $1.4 billion residential loan portfolio, and $550 million in wealth assets.
Translating those earning assets into $1.72 earnings per share delivered our $11.5 million net income for the year. Interestingly, with our mortgage volume at historical lows, including Peak Title's volume, our traditional margin revenue delivered over 80% of our net income. With prospects for non-interest income to return to more traditional levels of 35% of total revenue in 2025, we expect earnings per share to respond positively. We continue our vision to deliver high performance through the lens of our five key strategic initiatives: growing and diversifying the revenue stream, adding scale to our organization with a broader footprint and more households in that footprint, greater scope with a larger share of the client and household's wallet, supporting our brand with operational excellence, and finally, always peer-leading asset quality. First, revenue diversity.
A larger balance sheet coupled with stabilized interest margins delivered a consistent level of revenue of $57 million this past year and just below the average of our six-year trend of approximately $60 million. Our model that seeks to provide revenue diversity certainly felt the pressure this past year of higher residential borrowing costs. In fact, with residential real estate gains on sale bottoming at $5 million and well off our historical high of $20 million, traditional margin revenue filled the gap. SBA gains driven by PPP loans in 2021, represented here by the blue bars, will once again become a focus for SB Financial in 2025 and beyond. Non-interest income still remains a critical component of higher performance. As I mentioned, our level of non-interest income to total revenue fell to 30% from our average of approximately 35%, but still well above the 75th percentile.
However, even with historical high levels of non-interest income that have averaged $22 million over the last six years, represented here by the dark blue line, our overall profitability that has landed us near the top quartile of our peer group has become less reliant on this annual fee-based revenue stream. Despite this decline in non-interest income this year by over $5 million from our average, our total revenue actually increased by $2 million over 2023, whereas our net income only declined by $700,000. Point here being, while non-interest income has high potential to drive us into the top quartile of performers, recurring sustainable margin revenue from a larger balance sheet remains very highly correlated with growth in shareholder value. A significant portion of our non-interest income rests in mortgage volume you see here, represented by the green line.
This year, we saw a slight improvement in housing inventory levels and stabilized rates that drove our volume up slightly to $261 million. However, with portfolio production comprising a greater percentage of our total volume, gain on sale trailed our historical levels. In fact, every region of our production felt the wrath of these industry headwinds. With the addition of a new mortgage team in Cincinnati, we now are even more optimistic about our ability to return to prior levels of production. Our wealth management business line remains another key source of non-interest income for SB Financial. Our $548 million in assets under our care represents a growth this year, as I mentioned, of $46 million, or 9.1%, and generated $3.5 million in revenue. We remain committed to this business line and intend to identify initiatives and the talent to grow it to our strategic goal of $1 billion.
Declining net interest margins were a headwind to high performance depicted in these two graphs. On the top is the rising total deposit costs that have increased over 600% to 1.86% since a low in 2021. On the bottom, stable asset yields that, even when combined with higher deposit costs, still delivered net interest income of $39 million, or a net interest margin of 3.16%. Mitigating the stress on these net yields was the expanded base of earning assets that I mentioned earlier. With our growth trends continuing on into 2025, coupled with the prospects of a bit wider margins, it gives us optimism for growth in earnings per share. Second key initiative: strengthen penetration in all markets, serve more scale, larger footprint, more households in that footprint. Acquiring scale through acquisitions accelerates performance.
As I mentioned, late last year, we approved an all-cash purchase of a $60 million bank in Marblehead, Ohio, closing earlier this year. Strategically, we obtained a $20 million high-quality loan portfolio and a $50 million book of low-cost funding. When coupled with the liquidation of their $30 million security portfolio, with funds being diverted to higher-yielding loans, earnings per share rise. Conservatively, the premium we paid for this balance sheet and new market potential will be realized well within our projections. In fact, we've recently launched new consumer loan products to capitalize on their broad client base and our expanded lending capacity. This slide reveals our organic balance sheet growth trends. Here, total assets, total loans, total deposit growth have all been expanded at approximately a medium single-digit pace over the last five years. Again, as earnings growth reflects a bit thinner margins.
That year, we expanded our asset base by $37 million to over $1.38 billion. On the left, loans as a percentage of total assets expanded to 77% this year, up from 75% in 2023, while our loan-to-deposit ratio declined to 91% from 93% as a result of our outsized deposit growth I mentioned earlier of over $82 million. On the right, our loan mix remains fairly well balanced with some concentration in commercial real estate that is still well within regulatory guidance and, of course, single-family residential. Also, I might add, only 33% of our portfolio is in non-owner-occupied real estate, with minimal exposure in traditional office space. As I mentioned, our deposit growth was significant this year, thanks in part to the State of Ohio Homeb uyer Plus program. It was this low-cost funding program that delivered $50 million of 1.56% cost of funds.
When combined with organic deposit growth from many of our legacy markets, transactional, lower-cost deposits now comprise 77% of our deposit base. Our diverse footprint, product lineup, and strong brand are providing a tailwind for us into 2025. Liquidity and funding remain strong at 8.9% and well within compliance within our internal benchmarks of between 5% and 15%. As you can see here, deposits have grown over $300 million in the last six years. Our legacy markets continue to identify greater deposit levels that have provided funding for loans to some of our lower-share, higher-growth markets. Third key initiative: more products, more services, more scope in each of our households. As with the prior decade, we continue to embrace a decentralized Main Street management structure to drive organic growth higher.
These individuals remain our secret sauce that defines and differentiates us from the competition and delivers a potentially stronger brand and higher growth. When we couple this regional leadership with nearly 50 local advisory board members committed to community engagement, our potential to take market share improves. The number of products and services in our households has expanded from 77,000 to nearly 109,000. Likewise, our number of households has grown from 26,000 to over 36,000 for an average annual growth rate of approximately 4.3%. When we add more households in our footprint and the number of services in those households, the prospects for higher performance follow. Key to maintaining this inertia in 2025 and beyond is the continued identification by our Chief Technology Officer of initiatives to drive our digital strategy more intentionally and deeper into every household.
A trend led by changes in client behaviors and demographics continues to be the desire of our clients to access their data 24/7. As you can see here, our traditional walk-in traffic has given way to significant increases in digital interactions over the last decade. As a result, we've attempted to right-size our retail office staffing levels to capitalize on our centralized contact center, which, by the way, has responded to over 100,000 client interactions in 2024. Here you can see some of the success in our current digital initiatives. Our online banking users have grown from a low of 7,000 to approximately 10,000 today, while our mobile banking clients have expanded from under 7,000 users to over 9,000. Each of these services enables our clients to bank securely anytime and anywhere. Our entire team acknowledges that he who has the biggest sales force wins.
A strategy we've lived in principle and spirit over the last 16 years is our interest in collaboration and working with our business lines interdependently. It is this culture belief that bonds our team and elevates our performance. Over just the last six years, our team of bankers, advisory board members, and corporate board members has identified nearly 9,000 potential client needs, leading to over 4,700 new products and services for over $500 million in new business to our company. Couple this level of collaboration that all began merely as a referral. With our holistic approach to client care, our level of households and services in those households expands, and we achieve the power of addition by multiplication. Our fourth key initiative: deliver gains in operational excellence, a commitment by 100% of our staff to never lose a client due to a gap in service levels.
We continue to build our franchise one deposit at a time. This is evident in our ability to grow our deposit base without relying on less liquid non-FDIC insured accounts, shown more recently here at just 24% of our $1.15 billion in deposits. When we couple this stable core deposit base with complementary sources of liquidity, we add stability to our operation and the confidence of our clients. A product line that is highly responsive to client referrals and engaged MLOs is our residential real estate business. Over the last 16 years, we have closed nearly 28,000 loans for over $5.7 billion. $5.7 billion, 28,000 loans. Our footprint that now includes 16 counties and three states is quite strong, with 28 producers committed to delivering best-in-class service. We have bolstered our potential with producers in our growth markets of Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Columbus to complement our Northwest Ohio legacy markets.
Capital management is a safety measure that we evaluate continuously at SB Financial. Critical to this assessment is not only the makeup of the asset base, but the accumulation of earnings as well. Even with the growth in our asset base of over $400 million over the last six years, our leverage has remained low, with total risk-based capital well above regulatory guidance. The stability reflected here not only considers organic balance sheet growth, but also a dividend payout ratio of approximately 25% of our earnings. Absent two capital raises, we have now repurchased over $2 million in common shares. Whether capital returned to our shareholders has been in the form of dividends or share buyback, corporate earnings clearly provided the source of capital. Our success in building our book value per share after capital distributions is evidenced here through a steady stream of earnings you see.
At a high level, our adjusted tangible book value increased from $9.24 in 2014 to $20.66 this year, or a net improvement of $11.42 per share, or over $52 million. This improvement helped drive our stock price up to $20.91 at year-end, or an increase of approximately 36%. This slide reflects the dividend payout ratio of 25% that I mentioned earlier, and on the right, the consistency of those dividends. A stable payout ratio coupled with a 12% annual growth rate in dividends has certainly required consistent earnings. Driven payouts and dynamic level of dividends reflect our intentional strategy to reward our shareholders. Finally, fifth metric: asset quality. Our reserve for loan loss now stands at over $15 million and a peer-leading level to total loans, as I mentioned, of 1.44%. This slide reflects our level of non-performing assets as compared to our peer group.
While showing a slight increase over the prior year, our level of just 40 basis points remains quite low and well in line with prior year peer levels. With non-performing loans well in line with peer and past-due loans at historic lows, our level of net charge-offs reflected here confirms the overall quality of our loan portfolio. Even with a slight increase in our non-performing loans coupled with minimal charge-offs, our reserve coverage remains quite strong at 274% and well in line with peer median. In fact, over the last six years, our loan losses have averaged just $173,000 annually. Our reserve now covers this annual level of losses 87 times. When it comes to asset quality, trends clearly do matter. As you can see here, all categories of criticized loans continue to decline.
In summary, we continued building shareholder value this past year by improving our tangible book value, by rewarding our shareholders with 25% of our earnings, by continuing to repurchase our shares, maintaining a quality loan book, and by expanding our reach in new markets. Our model to take market share is working, and with a bit more stability in our economy, we will be well poised to build on our momentum and improve our financial performance well into 2025 and beyond. I'd like to thank you all again for joining us today. In closing, I'd like to thank our staff, management, and boards for their commitment to work hand in hand to help us build one of America's great community banks. With no other business to be conducted today, I declare the 2025 annual meeting of SB Financial adjourned. Thank you for joining, and good bye.