Great Southern Bancorp : Annual Report - 2021

STRENGTH THAT BUILDS

2021ANNUALREPORTFORSTOCKHOLDERS

CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS 1451 E. Battlefield

Springfield, MO 65804 800-749-7113

AUDITORS BKD, L.L.P. P.O. Box 1190

Springfield, MO 65801-1190

MAILING ADDRESS P.O. Box 9009 Springfield, MO 65808

DIVIDEND REINVESTMENT

For details on the automatic reinvestment of dividends in common stock of the Company, call Computershare at 800-368-5948, (outside of the U.S. 781-575-4223), or visit computershare.com.

FORM 10-K

The Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission may be obtained from the Company's website at GreatSouthernBank.com, the SEC website or without charge by request to:

Kelly Polonus

Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. P.O. Box 9009

Springfield, MO 65808

INVESTOR RELATIONS Kelly Polonus

Great Southern Bank P.O. Box 9009 Springfield, MO 65808

LEGAL COUNSEL

Silver, Freedman, Taff and Tiernan, L.L.P. 3299 K St., N.W., Suite 100 Washington, DC 20007

Carnahan Evans, P.C. P.O. Box 10009 Springfield, MO 65808

TRANSFER AGENT AND REGISTRAR Computershare

Shareholder correspondence: Computershare

P.O. Box 505000 Louisville, KY 40233-5000

Overnight correspondence: Computershare

462 S. 4th St., Suite 1600 Louisville, KY 40202 800-368-5948 781-575-4223 outside of the U.S. Hearing Impaired # TDD: 800-952-9245

Questions and inquires via our website computershare.com

Corporate Profile

Great Southern Bank was founded in 1923 with a $5,000 investment, four employees and 936 customers. Today, it has grown to $5.4 billion in total assets, with more than 1,100 dedicated associates serving 137,000 households.

Headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, the Company operates 101 offices in 12 states, including 93 retail banking centers in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota, seven commercial loan offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Omaha, Nebraska, Phoenix and Tulsa, and one home loan office in Springfield, Missouri. Great Southern offers one-stop shopping with a comprehensive lineup of financial services that give customers more choices for their money. Customers can choose from a wide variety of checking accounts, savings accounts and lending options. With the understanding thatconvenient access to banking services is a top priority, customers can access the Bank when, where and how they prefer, whether it's through a banking center, Digital Banking, an ATM or by telephone.

Stock Information

The Company's common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "GSBC."

As of December 31, 2021, there were 13,128,493 total shares of common stock outstanding and approximately 2,000 shareholders of record.

The last sale price of the Company's Common Stock on December 31, 2021 was $59.25.

HIGH/LOW STOCK PRICE

2021

2020

2019

HighLow

HighLow

HighLow

• First Quarter

• Second Quarter

• Third Quarter

• Fourth Quarter

$60.55 $47.22 58.48 52.81 57.01 49.53 59.90 55.00

$63.55 $32.23 46.35 32.62 41.42 34.32 50.72 35.79

$57.95 $45.44 60.92 52.24 60.94 54.33 64.48 54.87

REGULAR DIVIDEND DECLARATIONS 2021

2020

2019

• First Quarter

• Second Quarter

• Third Quarter

• Fourth Quarter

$.34 .34 .36 .36

$.34 $.32

.34 .32

.34 .34

.34 .34

SPECIAL DIVIDEND DECLARATIONS 2021

First Quarter

----2020 $1.00

2019 $.75

WILLIAM V. TURNER Chairman of the Board

JOSEPH W. TURNER President and

Chief Executive Officer

We would also like to thank our Board of Directors for their leadership and guidance throughout 2021. We value the diversity of talent, knowledge and experience that our Board members bring to our Company.

STRENGTH THAT BUILDS

TO OUR STOCKHOLDERS:

It is our pleasure to share with you the 2021 Great Southern Annual Report. We begin this letter by thanking our more than 1,100 associates for their extraordinary efforts over the past year, and for everything they do to support our customers, and each other, every day. Our strong results in 2021 underscore our associates hard work and commitment.

In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects continued to present new and ongoing challenges to the economy and society, including the "Great Resignation," from which we were not immune. During these difficult times, we relied heavily on our Company's many strengths built through the years - our dedicated and talented team of associates, our culture of resilience, our pride in service excellence, our conservative business practices and our strong financial footing. We continually work on building and nurturing these strengths as a foundation for our long-term success. Managing through a pandemic underscored the significance of doing so.

2021 Results

We're pleased to report that we ended 2021 in a strong financial position, providing good momentum as we enter 2022. You can find details on our financial results in the following pages of this Annual Report. In summary, earnings in 2021 were $74.6 million, or $5.46 per diluted common share, significantly higher than 2020 earnings of $59.3 million, or $4.21 per diluted common share. The increase in earnings over 2020 results was primarily driven by negative provision for credit losses and higher non-interest income, coupled with continued strong expense control. Net interest income, our primary source of income, was $177.9 million for the year 2021, up modestly from $177.1 million for 2020. Earnings performance ratios in 2021 were solid with return on average common equity of 11.89%, return on average assets of 1.36%, an efficiency ratio of 59.03%.

The Company ended the year with assets of $5.4 billion. Total stockholders' equity was $617 million, or 11.3% of total assets, equivalent to a book value of $46.98 per common share. A key objective for our Company is to always maintain sufficient capital to allow for organic growth and other corporate initiatives. We also look for opportunities to return capital to our stockholders, both through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. During 2021, the Company declared regular cash dividends of $1.40 per common share. The Company also repurchased approximately 715,000 shares of stock at an average price of $54.69 during 2021, in an effort to increase stockholder value.

During 2021, loan growth was extremely challenging, despite record-setting loan production. We fought significant headwinds of loan repayments, includingapproximately $169 million of debt forgiveness of the Small Business Administration-managed Paycheck Protection Program portfolio. Total gross loan balances, including the undisbursed portion of loans but excluding the FDIC-assisted acquired loans and mortgage loans held for sale, decreased $2.0 million, or 0.04%, from the end of 2020. This decrease was primarily in multi-family loans, commercial real estate loans, commercial business loans and consumer auto loans. This decrease was partially offset by increases in construction loans and single family real estate loans. Outstanding net loan receivable balances decreased $289 million, from $4.30 billion at December 31, 2020 to $4.01 billion at December 31, 2021.

Our loan production (funded and unfunded portions) totaled nearly $2.3 billion in 2021. Our pipeline of loan commitments and unfunded loans remained strong at the end of 2021, increasing by $409 million from December 31, 2020. For the sixth year in a row, our commercial lenders originated more than $1 billion in new loans - $1.6 billion in 2021 - with 39% of the production generated through our six loan production offices (LPOs) in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Omaha and Tulsa. Our Residential Lending team had record production in 2021, driven by historically low interest rates. Some of these residential loans were retained in the Company's loan portfolio and some were sold in the secondary market.

Credit quality metrics remained excellent and at historic levels during 2021. Non-performing assets to period-end assets were 0.11% at the end of 2021 and we recorded net recoveries during the year of $116,000.