Company: FGBI
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001408534-25-000015
Chunk: 18

Company: First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 18
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 regular review of our investment activities and the review and approval of our investment policy. These committees monitor our investment securities portfolio and direct our overall acquisition and allocation of funds, with the goal of structuring our portfolio such that our investment securities provide us with a stable source of income but without exposing us to an excessive degree of market risk. During the last five years, our securities portfolio has generated $66.0 million of pre-tax income. For the year ended December 31, 2024, we had no allowance for credit losses on available for sale securities and a $0.2 million allowance on held to maturity securities.

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Competition

We face intense competition both in making loans and attracting deposits. Our market areas in Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky and West Virginia have a high concentration of financial institutions, many of which are branches of large money center, super-regional and regional banks that have resulted from consolidation of the banking industry in Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky and West Virginia. Many of these competitors have greater resources than we do and may offer services that we do not provide, including more attractive pricing than we offer and more extensive branch networks for which they can offer their financial products.

Our larger competitors have a greater ability to finance wide-ranging advertising campaigns through their greater capital resources. Our marketing efforts depend heavily upon referrals from officers, directors and shareholders, selective advertising in local media and direct mail solicitations. We compete for business principally on the basis of personal service to customers, customer access to our officers and directors and competitive interest rates and fees. We also offer new technologies such as our mobile app and mobile check deposit for consumers and remote deposit capture for commercial customers.

In the financial services industry in recent years, intense market demands, technological and regulatory changes and economic pressures have eroded industry classifications that were once clearly defined. Financial institutions have been forced to diversify their services, increase rates paid on deposits and become more cost effective as a result of competition with one another and with new types of financial services companies, including non-banking competitors. Some of the results of these market dynamics in the financial services industry have been a number of new bank and non-bank competitors, increased merger activity, and increased customer awareness of product and service differences among competitors. These factors could affect our business prospects.

Human Capital Resources

First Guaranty Bank recently reached the milestone of 90 years in operation, and throughout our history, we have worked to build and grow trust and relationships, operating with a strong commitment to the welfare of our customers and communities. Our workforce