SIMMONS FIRST NATIONAL CORP

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

To the Stockholders, Board of Directors and Audit Committee

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Opinion on the Consolidated Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Simmons First National Corporation (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, the related consolidated statements of income (loss), comprehensive income (loss), stockholders’ equity and cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2025, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2025, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”), the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”) and our report dated February 25, 2026, expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits.

We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures include examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments.

The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

The Company’s loan portfolio totaled $17.5 billion as of December 31, 2025 and the allowance for credit losses on loans was $224.4 million. As more fully described in Notes 1 and 4 to the Company’s consolidated financial statements, for loans receivable, the Allowance for Credit Loss (ACL) is a contra-asset valuation account, calculated in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification Topic 326-20 that is deducted from the amortized cost basis of loans to present the net amount expected to be collected.

The amount of allowance represents management’s best estimate of current expected credit losses on those financial instruments considering all available information from internal and external sources, relevant to assessing exposure to credit loss over the contractual term of the instrument. Loans with similar risk characteristics are aggregated into homogenous segments for assessment. Expected credit losses are estimated by either lifetime loss rates or expected cash flows based on three key parameters: probability of default (PD), exposure-at-default (EAD) or loss given default (LGD). The estimates include economic forecasts over the reasonable and supportable forecast period based on projected performance of economic variables that have a statistical relationship.

Management qualitatively adjusts its model results for risk factors that are not considered within the modeling processes but are still relevant in assessing the expected credit losses within the loan pools. In some cases, management determines that an individual loan exhibits unique characteristics which differentiate the loan from other loans with the identified loan pools. In such cases the loans are evaluated for expected credit losses on an individual basis and excluded from the collective evaluation.

Auditing management’s estimate of the ACL involves a high degree of subjectivity due to the high degree of judgment used in management’s identification and measurement of the qualitative factor adjustments.

The primary procedures we performed as of December 31, 2025 to address this critical audit matter included:

•Obtained an understanding of the Company’s process for establishing the qualitative adjustment.

•Evaluated and tested the design and operating effectiveness of controls over the establishment of qualitative factors.

•Evaluated the qualitative adjustments to the ACL including assessing the basis for adjustments and the reasonableness of the significant assumptions.

•Evaluated credit quality trends in delinquencies, non-accruals and charge-offs.

Goodwill

The Company reported goodwill of $1.32 billion in the consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2025. As disclosed in Note 7 to the consolidated financial statements, goodwill is tested for impairment at least annually or more frequently if indicators of impairment require the performance of an interim impairment assessment.

Auditing management’s impairment tests of goodwill is complex and highly judgmental due to their use of several assumptions that have a high level of subjectivity and judgment. These assumptions are dependent on projected market and economic conditions. The significant assumption used to estimate the terminal value of the Company is projected forecasts.

The primary procedures we performed as of December 31, 2025, to address this critical audit matter included:

•We obtained an understanding of and evaluated the design and operating effectiveness of controls over the Company’s goodwill impairment assessment process.

•We tested the controls over the Company’s review of the significant assumptions utilized in estimating the fair value of the reporting unit.

•We tested the completeness and accuracy of the historical data used by the company in preparing the forecasts used in the estimate of the terminal value

•We tested the forecast assumptions used by the company to determine the terminal value.

•We compared forecast assumptions to current industry and economic trends.

•We compared the results of previous forecasts to actual results to back test management’s model.

•We utilized an internal valuation specialist to assist in evaluating the methodology and assumptions used by management.

As reflected in the Company’s consolidated financial statements Note 1, 3 and Note 9 as of December 31, 2025, the Company sold approximately $3.2 billion in securities during the year at a loss totaling $625.6 million. The Company concluded that the losses should qualify for ordinary loss treatment under the Internal Revenue Code and therefore be able to offset ordinary income. Management had to make significant judgment regarding the application of the tax code to the structure of the transaction to determine whether it was more likely than not that the position would be upheld upon examination.

Auditing management’s treatment of the losses as ordinary losses required significant judgment in concluding that it was more likely than not that the position would be upheld upon examination.

In order to test management’s conclusion, we performed the following procedures:

•We obtained an understanding and evaluated the design and operating effectiveness of controls over the Company’s analysis of the tax treatment of the realized losses.

•We read management’s memo describing the transactions and relevant tax law and the tax opinion received from a reputable third party regarding the treatment of the losses.

•We involved an internal tax specialist to assist in evaluating management’s treatment of the losses.

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 1972.

Forvis Mazars, LLP

/s/ Forvis Mazars, LLP

Little Rock, Arkansas

February 25, 2026