Good morning, and welcome to our 2026 annual meeting of the shareholders of SB Financial Group, Inc., right here from our corporate headquarters in Defiance, Ohio. My name is Mark Klein, Chairman, President, and CEO. Our theme for 2026 is Leading with Vision, Growing with Purpose, reflecting our intent to lever our successes from 2025 well on into 2026 and beyond. Before we begin, however, I'd like to ask our Inspector of Election to please report on the number of shares represented at this meeting. Ms. Robbins?
Mr. Chairman, 4,677,323 common shares of the corporation are represented by proxy. There are no common shares represented in person. Combined, 4,677,323 common shares are represented at this annual meeting, either in person or by proxy.
Thank you, Ms. Robbins. Ladies and gentlemen, with 74% of our outstanding shares present and accounted for, I'll call this meeting to order. As you may recall, our 2025 annual meeting theme, Resilient Roots and Visionary Growth, reflected our intent to capitalize on our strong 125-year-old roots and our vision of growth in our newer urban markets. Looking back, I'm pleased to report we did just that by strengthening not just our presence in our eight legacy markets, but also greater presence and scale in our newer urban markets. In doing so, we purposely grew our balance sheet this past year by $166 million. As a result, net interest margins widened, operating revenue increased, and net income expanded. This morning, after the organizational portion of our meeting, I'll provide you some additional details on our overall results for the year, as well as some of our plans for 2026.
This meeting represents now our 12th year hosting our annual meeting live over the internet to connect with a broader base of our stockholders. I might add, as with previous years, questions regarding the three shareholder proposals before you today may be placed in the queue electronically through our portal until approximately 10:35 Eastern Time. At that time, we will 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 this annual meeting, and Keeta Diller will serve as secretary. Carol Robbins and Alex Scheele will serve as our Inspectors of Election. Notice that this annual meeting was mailed along with proxy materials on March 6th to shareholders of record as of February 23rd.
Once again, we'll dispense with the reading of the minutes of last year's annual meeting, but I'll remind you they remain available for your view on our website under Investor Relations. Finally, this presentation will also be available on our website following today's meeting. On the agenda today are three proposals requiring a shareholder vote, an overview of our 2025 financial performance, and we'll share some of our expectations for 2026. The first of three proposals before us today is to elect three directors who serve for terms of three years each. Mr. Timothy L. Claxton, Mr. Gaylyn J. Finn, and Ms. Sue A. Strausbaugh. Second, to ratify the appointment of Forvis Mazars LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for SB Financial Group for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. Third, to vote upon a non-binding advisory resolution to approve the compensation of our named executive officers.
May I have a motion with respect to these three proposals? Let the record reflect that a motion has been made by shareholder Mr. Ron Swisher to adopt all three proposals as presented. Is there a second? Let the record reflect that shareholder Ms. Sarah Italy seconded the motion. At this time, our Corporate Secretary, Ms. Keeta Diller, will retrieve any questions and comments from our shareholders online on our three proposals. While she's doing that and our Inspectors of Election are tabulating votes, I'd like to pause briefly to recognize our board leadership this past year. Mr. Richard Hardgrove serves as our Lead Independent Director and provides oversight and guidance to our full board. Under his leadership, our full board met 14 times this past year, and I'm pleased to report that all directors met required attendance levels.
Mr. Hardgrove also provides guidance to our Governance, Compensation, and Risk Committees. Mr. Gaylyn Finn leads our Audit Committee as chairman, while also serving as our audit financial expert. This committee met four times this past year. Mr. Finn also serves on our Director Loan Review Committee. Mr. George Carter delivers oversight to our Compensation Committee, and they met three times this last year. Mr. Carter also adds depth to our Audit and Risk Management Committees. Mr. Timothy Stolly directs our Governance and Nominating Committee, meeting three times. Mr. Stolly also provides support to our Risk Management Committee. Mr. Tom Helberg guides our Director Loan Review Committee, meeting three times this past year. Mr. Helberg also serves on our Audit Committee. In January of this year, he also assumed the leadership of our Trust Investment Review Committee.
Previously, our Trust Investment Review Committee was guided by Ms. Rita Kissner, who, as many of you know, retired after a 21-year career on our board. I want to personally thank and recognize Rita for her loyal support of our company, our strategies and management, and for her insight on helping us deliver a community-focused, high-performing organization. The Trust Investment Review Committee met four times this past year. Ms. Kissner also provided guidance to our audit and compensation committees. I note upon unanimous vote by our board, Ms. Kissner was named Director Emeritus. We thank her for her guidance over the years and certainly wish her well in her retirement. As a result, Ms. Sue Strausbaugh, a 13-year Defiance Advisory Board member, was unanimously appointed to join the boards of SB Financial and State Bank in December.
Ms. Strausbaugh brings a keen sense of entrepreneurship, civic involvement, and common sense leadership to our board. She will join our Trust Investment Review and Audit committees. Mr. Willie Martin continues to chair our Executive Loan Committee, and they met three times throughout this past year. He also adds oversight to our Compensation and Governance committees. Finally, Mr. Tim Claxton leads our Risk committee, and they met four times this past year. Mr. Claxton also adds depth to our Governance and Loan Review committees. As you know, we value the depth of knowledge and leadership provided by our board and committee chairs and thank them for their service to each of our stakeholders. Ms. Diller, any questions or comments from our shareholders today?
Since there are no questions or comments regarding the three proposals or otherwise, we will conclude the business portion of our meeting and ask our inspectors of election to please report the results of the voting. Ms. Robbins?
Proposal one, to elect three directors to serve for a term of three years each. Mr. Timothy Claxton, Mr. Gaylyn Finn, and Ms. Sue Strausbaugh 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, 2026, has been adopted. Finally, proposal three, to vote upon a non-binding advisory resolution to approve the compensation of SB Financial's named executive officers, has been adopted.
Thank you, Ms. Robbins, and finally, thank you to all of our shareholders for your continued vote of support and confidence. Before I give an update on our financial results, I would like to pause briefly and remind everyone that proper due diligence is always required of anyone considering an equity position in SB Financial Group. Even in the midst of some challenging economic headwinds and geopolitical uncertainty this past year, we were still able to deliver our second highest level of earnings per share in our history. In doing so, ignite our vision of growth in 2026 with an even greater sense of purpose. Let's look at highlights from this past year. We delivered net income of $14 million, or $2.19 earnings per share, a 27% increase over 2024.
We grew our deposit base by $155 million or 13.4%, and provided the funding of our loan growth of $134 million or 12.8%. With this greater scale, our margin revenue expanded to over $48 million and accounted for 74% of our total revenue of $66 million, producing a return on average assets of 93 basis points and a return on tangible common equity of 13.22%. We also delivered $278 million in residential real estate loan volume as gain on sale escalated to over $5 million, or $500,000 higher than the prior year, while also leveraging our 70-year-old wealth division to drive assets under our care to over $566 million. Strong asset quality continues to pay dividends for our company. With a loan loss reserve of 1.36% and a coverage ratio of non-performing assets at 344%, we lead high-performing peer banks.
We also drove our net interest margin up 41 basis points to 3.47%. Finally, our strong performance was recognized this year by the investment firm Piper Sandler with their Sm-All Stars award for 2025. We emerged as just one of the 24 publicly traded banks in the United States and the only bank in Ohio left standing out of 366 banks nationwide with a market cap of less than $2.5 billion that exceeded all 7 key performance metrics to gain this coveted recognition. With a strong commitment to achieve our vision of high performance, momentum accelerated throughout the year. In doing so, we retained 73% of our net income after dividends and drove adjusted tangible book value to a historical high of $21.44 per share. Delivered dividends of $0.60 per share or $3.85 million to our ownership, representing an average yield of 2.9%.
Also deployed $5.5 million of our net income to repurchase 283,000 shares of our stock at approximately $19.50 per share. Drove our total market capitalization higher by over $3 million, or up 2.3% at year-end to $139 million. As I mentioned, achieved $66 million in total operating revenue, an increase of $8.6 million this past year. Integrated the $60 million Marblehead acquisition into State Bank while preserving their 121-year-old brand. Finally, opened our 26th full service office in Angola, Indiana, and our 27th office in Napoleon, Ohio. Each of these performance metrics I mentioned played a key role in driving our strong results in 2025. Return on average assets summarizes these metrics into a universal measurement to reveal operational efficiency. Our goal continues to be to come in the top quartile of our peer banks, a goal we achieved seven times in the last 11 years.
As you can see here from the blue bars, two of our last six years' performance, specifically 2020 and 2021, were above the dark blue lines, representing our performance at or above the 75th percentile of our peer banks. With our 65 bank peer group now representing banks with assets between approximately one and three billion, they represent banks with greater scale and as a result, superior operational efficiency. However, absent a top quartile ROA performance this year, our level of earnings per share, represented by the green line, still elevated to our second highest level in our history. Driving our performance relative to peer banks was our loan growth at the 90th percentile, deposit growth at the 70th percentile, and its earnings per share growth at the 78th percentile.
We remain confident that with our vision of greater scale and a bit steeper yield curve this year, absolute and relative performance to peers will follow suit. More assets under our care, that included an acquisition and organic balance sheet growth, drove our 2025 performance improvement. Total assets under our care now stand at $3.6 billion. That includes our $1.6 billion bank, that $1.5 billion sold residential portfolio, and as I mentioned, our $566 million in wealth assets. Translating those earning assets into earnings per share of $2.19 delivered our $14 million in net income. Historically, mortgage banking was a critical element in our ability to perform on a higher level. With elevated residential real estate rates constraining our mortgage banking revenue, an expanded balance sheet represented by a broader retail deposit base helped drive strong commercial lending revenue.
With some relief in the 10-year Treasury in 2026 leading to hopefully greater residential real estate volume, our revenue diversity will elevate EPS. Our secret sauce remains our regional leadership structure that also includes 42 advisory board members. Together, they represent the driving force to deliver our five key strategic initiatives. I'd like to remind you, those are growing and diversifying our revenue stream, adding scale to the organization with a broader footprint, more households in that footprint, greater scope with a larger share of the client's wallet, always operational excellence, and of course, asset quality. Let's discuss revenue diversity. With the asset growth this year of $166 million, total operating revenue, as I mentioned, grows to $66 million, a 15% improvement. Fee-based revenue was approximately $17 million, representing 26% of total revenue, but well below our traditional level of 35%.
Traditional margin revenue, represented by the blue bars, reflects our larger balance sheet and wider margins that delivered the balance of our revenue for approximately $49 million. Diversity of this revenue stream is one of our strength and also reflects title insurance premiums gained on sale of SBA and mortgage loans and various account servicing fees. When we combine total revenue growth with expense control, performance prevails. Our attention to growth with purpose delivered our record net income this year. As I mentioned, historically, non-interest income contributed approximately 35% of our total operating revenue. With a decline to approximately $17 million on average the past three years, reflecting lower residential real estate loan sale gains, we still consistently exceed both peer median as well as those at the 75th percentile.
Interestingly, what helped drive our higher level of fees through residential real estate lending that dominated, as I mentioned, in 2021, has given way to greater recurring margin revenue that now reflects that larger balance sheet. As I just mentioned, mortgage gain on sale reflected by the bar graph has traditionally been a significant source of non-interest income as this volume of residential real estate loans reflected by the green line that delivers those gains. While the COVID years and near-zero interest rates drove higher loan volume and gain on sale, stabilization of interest rates this past year enabled us to improve production slightly to $278 million, compared to just $261 million the prior year. Residential real estate lending remains a critical path to greater scale, new households, more products and services in those households, and with those, greater diversity of revenue.
As rates continue to subside in 2026, prospects for greater loan volume and loan sale gains heightened. Now, with 24 mortgage professionals and lenders spread across 16 counties in North, Central, Southeast Ohio, and Eastern Indiana and Lower Michigan. We remain well positioned to deliver greater volume and loan sale gains in 2026. Adding to our fee-based revenue stream is our wealth division that, as I mentioned, is celebrating 70 years of growing and preserving our clients' wealth. This past year, we added $80 million of additional assets under our care, while attrition and annuitizations consumed $64 million. Net effect was a stable revenue stream of $3.5 million and a slight expansion of our asset base to $566 million. I might add, we are also pleased to announce our strategic association with Advisory Alpha, a registered investment advisor firm located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Their strong market presence and talented group of chartered financial planners and chartered financial analysts will provide greater depth and market perspective to our nearly 900 wealth households. On the top graph, we identify the cost of our entire funding base. Our strong brand in the marketplace enables us to grow our deposit base in each of our eight legacy markets. As you can see here in the top graph, it also permits us to manage our annual deposit costs. As a result, our overall cost of funding and total deposit costs and interest-bearing deposits all declined this past year. On the bottom is a graph depicting our dollars of margin revenue and percent of net interest margin or spread. Clearly, the elimination of the inverted yield curve that prevailed over the last 5 years has given way to improving margin trends.
In fact, this earlier headwind actually became a tailwind in 2025, driving our net interest margin, as I mentioned, to 3.47%, and literally became the foundation of our earnings per share growth. Adding to our revenue diversity is our title company, Peak Title, that began in 2019. This purchase added $834,000 in revenue in 2019, and now coupled with a more intentional referral strategy by State Bank, we've expanded total revenue this year to $2.2 million, and resulting in net income of $583,000. Complementary business line and an expanded source of revenue for our company combined to deliver greater revenue diversity. Second key initiative, strengthen penetration in all markets served, more scale, broader footprint. As we shared in last year's annual meeting, while organic growth is desired and welcomed, M&A is truly divine.
The all cash purchase of The Marblehead Bank was approved by our regulators in late 2024, and we integrated them seamlessly into our company in early 2025. As you might recall, we obtained approximately $20 million in loans and $50 million of low-cost deposits. We immediately deployed this liquidity into higher yielding loans early in 2025, and it quickly became the tailwind to expand our margins and net income. To date, the Marblehead brand remains. We have the same great staff, expanded deposit and lending products for their clients, and have proudly retained 95% of their initial deposit base. This is our example, one example, of M&A done right. This slide reveals the organic balance sheet growth trends that reflect the greater scale that I mentioned.
Here, total asset growth, total loan, and deposit growth have all been expanding at a medium single-digit pace over the last five years, as earnings growth reflects wider margins and the larger balance sheet. A year in, we expanded our asset base to over $1.55 billion. On the left, loans as a percentage of total assets remained consistent from the prior year at 75%, while our level of securities declined to 13%. As a result, our loan to deposit ratio, when coupled with the strong deposit growth I just mentioned, remained stable at 90%. On the right, our loan book expanded this year to $1.18 billion. As with prior years, our loan mix remains fairly well-balanced with a slight concentration in commercial real estate and single-family residential, but all on variable rate loans with minimal duration risk.
Loan growth commands deposit growth, and this past year, we delivered both. Our base of total deposits grew by $154 million to $1.31 billion and now comprises over 85% of our funding. Interestingly, the average balance of our total deposit client relationship remains approximately $27,000, with our level of FDIC-insured deposits now standing at a healthy 75%. Once again, diversity in our deposit portfolio remains well and balanced and a counter to unexpected shifts in the rate curve. Said differently, liquidity and funding of our balance sheet at the 9% level remains strong and well within compliance with our internal benchmark of between 5% and 15%.
For the past five years, deposit growth has expanded in the aggregate by $253 million, up to, as I mentioned, $1.31 billion, and that includes the $50 million from the Marblehead acquisition. Growing our loan book with core deposits is prudent balance sheet management. Third key initiative, greater scope, more products and services in our households. Our decentralized leadership model is reflected here by our seven operating regions. These regional leaders work hand in glove with our seven business line leaders and our regional advisory board members to deliver our community bank brand and expand our reach. When we couple a strong commitment to our regions with the acceleration of the market disruption through competitor consolidation we've witnessed recently, opportunities emerge.
We continue to believe that a broader presence with a strong regional structure delivers the scale that we crave and the scope of services that we earn. As a result of this regional leadership and dynamic backroom servicing staff, our number of households, services, and online banking users continue to expand. These two graphs reveal some of that success. On the top is our business online banking clients, and on the bottom, retail users. Each has grown significantly over the past six years. Adoption of electronic platforms in the business segment has delivered an increase of over 86% to nearly 4,000 users. While the level of adoption in our consumer segment has increased 16% to over 16,000 clients. Seamless connection with our clients 24/7 strengthens our brand and positions us for greater market presence.
To ensure we continue on this ascent, our newly named digital banking officer, in conjunction with our chief technology innovation officer, will further drive initiatives to leverage AI, technology, and third-party digital banking platforms to expand our reach. Given this digital transformation, our trends in client interactions continue to diverge. Electronic transactions for consumers and businesses, represented by a light blue line, have risen to nearly 17 million transactions annually. While our in-office transactions, represented by the dark blue line, have stabilized at approximately 560,000 annually. Each, however, being a critical delivery channel for the intended target market. Our focus remains to not only provide digital access any time to the client when they need it, but clearly face-to-face client care when they want it.
Whether we engage one-on-one with our clients in one of our 27 full-service offices, 27 ATMs, or through one of our 110,000 servicing calls to our contact center, the goal remains the same. Engage with our clients at their time on their terms. This slide reveals the benefits to each of our stakeholders when we work interdependently with each of our seven business line partners. In fact, this past year, we identified 1,400 potential client needs for our business partners and resolved over half of them for $92 million in new business. The result, a broader definition of client care, indispensable staff engagement, an expanded bank balance sheet, and an elevated level of bank performance. Colloquially, a win-win-win. Our fourth key initiative, deliver gains in operational excellence, a commitment, as I mentioned, for many years by our entire staff to never lose a client due to gaps in service levels.
Organic balance sheet growth remains a key priority in our high-performance operating model. As I just mentioned, these include funding loan growth with fully insured core deposits. With smaller deposit accounts, making up approximately 78% on average of our $1.3 billion deposit base, liquidity risk is constrained. When we couple this stable core deposit base with complementary resources' liquidity represented here by the dark blue line, we add financial flexibility to our operation and greater confidence of our clients. A business line that's highly responsive to our level of execution and one that pivots around an engaged professional staff is residential real estate lending. Over the last 10 years, our structure has enabled us to close nearly 17,000 loans for over $3.8 billion, representing a servicing portfolio, as I mentioned, approximately $1.5 billion and 9,000 households.
Our footprint, covering 14 counties and three states, is strong, with our 24 producers committed to delivering best-in-class service. Our strategic goal of a $2 billion portfolio has been temporarily disrupted, with marginally higher mortgage rates and widespread limited housing inventory, two metrics we look to improve upon in 2026. Capital management remains a key area of focus in our overall growth strategy. When we risk-weight our earning asset base, we reveal less risk while leveraging our strong capital base. Even when we consider the $286 million in balance sheet growth over the past five years, we've maintained a risk-weighted capital level of 63% higher than the regulatory minimum to be classified as a well-capitalized institution. The strength reflected here not only considers organic balance sheet growth, but also the capital we used to acquire Edon and Marblehead strategies that have expanded our asset and customer base.
Prudent use of our capital is critical to our growth strategies, both organically and for potential acquisitions. This graph reflects our success in building our book value per share after capital distributions through a steady stream of earnings per share represented by the orange line. In fact, over the last 10 years, our adjusted tangible book value has increased from $10.39 in 2015 to $21.44 this past year, an improvement of over $11 per share or nearly $67 million. This improvement helped drive our market price up to $22.27 at year-end, or an improvement of 100% over $11.14 in 2015. Shareholder dividends are a critical element in our capital strategy, and we have returned, on average, 25% of our earnings to our owners, as detailed in the chart on the left.
On the right of the slide, the chart depicts our consistent growth in those dividends, which have compounded annually near 10%. Finally, our fifth metric, asset quality. Here we showcase our low level of non-performing assets as compared to our peer group. Our current level of 0.3% trumps the median level peer performance of 0.41%, and falls just outside the top quartile peer group at 0.16%. Success here bolsters both sides of the income statement. Revenue remains strong with a higher level of earning assets, and for expenses, lower levels of recovery and collection costs. With this lower level of non-performing assets, net charge-offs remain very favorable. In fact, over the past five years, we have averaged just one basis point charge-off and right in close proximity with top-performing peer banks. Strong asset quality metrics also lead to a higher level of reserve coverage of our non-performing loans.
Our ratio now stands at a healthy 356% and right in line with peer leaders. With average losses of $82,000 the last five years, our reserve of $16.1 million now covers our historical annual losses nearly 200 times. Our coverage of non-performing loans in our loan book of $1.1 billion remains strong, and our level of reserve is top quartile among our peer banks at 1.36%. Another key performance metric that reflects a strong asset quality trend is our low level of criticized loans, which includes special mention and more severely rated classified credits. Total of these criticized loans, which have been trending down over the last four years, now stand at just 0.49%. Strong client balance sheets and ample liquidity and a strong, stable economy converge to deliver strong metrics. In summary, we are extremely proud of the strong performance we have delivered this year.
Second highest earnings per share in 20 years. Deposit growth of $154 million, a level achieved involving all eight of our legacy markets. Loan growth of $135 million. Returned $9.3 million to our owners in the form of dividends and share buybacks, and received confirmation of our strong performance by Piper Sandler as the only bank in Ohio to receive the coveted Small Cap All-Star Award for 2025. A very successful year by many measures. Our decentralized high-touch regional leadership model is working, and when coupled with our passion for digital innovation, we position ourselves quite well to gather even greater momentum in 2026 and beyond. I thank you all for joining us today. In closing, I want to thank our staff, management and board for their contributions in building one of America's great community banks.
With no other business to be conducted, I declare the 2026 Annual Meeting of SB Financial Group adjourned. Thank you all for joining, and goodbye.