Adamas Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Adamus Trust Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. If you have a question, please press the star, followed by 11 on your touch-tone phone. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. If you're using speaker equipment, we do ask that you please lift the handset before making your selection. This conference is being recorded on Thursday, October 30th, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to Christina Salem, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to the third quarter 2025 earnings call for Adamus Trust. A press release and supplemental financial presentation with Adamus Trust's third quarter 2025 results was released yesterday. Both the press release and supplemental financial presentation are available on the company's website at www.adamasreach.com. Additionally, we are hosting a live webcast of today's call, which you can access in the events and presentation section of the company's website. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during the conference call, which are not historical, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although Adamus Trust believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, at this time, I would like to introduce Jason Serrano, Chief Executive Officer. Jason, please go ahead.

Good morning. Joining me today to describe our third quarter results are Nick Ma, President, and Christine Ario, CFO. Christine will provide commentary on quarter results, and Nick will follow with an update on the progress of our business plan. Before we begin, I want to thank you for being part of our first earnings call as Atomos Trust. Our company rebranding reflects a broader strategic vision, moving beyond any geographic affiliation. The name Atomos, meaning firm, unbreakable, and lasting, symbolizes a vision of strength and durability that guides our company's future. We fully embrace this theme as the third quarter marked a strategically significant period for Atomos. EDA rose to $0.24 per share for the quarter compared with $0.22 in Q2, marking our sixth consecutive quarterly increase. This consistent earnings growth supported a meaningful dividend increase to $0.23 per share, which highlights the strength of our capital rotation strategy into a period where the Fed restarted its easing cycle in September with a 25 basis points cut, its first rate reduction in 2025. As treasury yields declined in the quarter across the curve with a steepening bias as inflation moderated, we took a more aggressive path to increase exposure to the agency sector. In fact, the third quarter included the highest level of quarterly net investment activity in the company's history with an increase of $1.8 billion, or 20%. This strong momentum led by disciplined and deliberate rotation of our capital from multifamily exposure into highly liquid agency RMBS and Other core residential credit strategies positioned our balance sheet for greater earnings durability and long-term shareholder value. We ended the quarter with agency RMBS representing 57% of total capital, nearly tripling our capital allocation from a year earlier. This rotation was designed to enhance liquidity and drive higher earnings developer distribution, attracted market spreads. We are pleased with the high-quality portfolio we have aggregated over the past two years. As announced on our previous earnings call, we also strengthened our position within the housing investment ecosystem in the third quarter by acquiring the remaining 50% interest in constructed loans, a leading business purpose loan platform. With housing affordability near historical lows and supply constraints persisting, we expect the national homeownership rate to remain pressured, gradually reverting from the mid-60s percent range today towards the level last seen three decades ago. We view this dynamic as a long-term opportunity creating a sustained tailwind for business-purpose lending. Atomos is committed to realizing the Constructa's full potential and translating that growth into lasting value for our stockholders. We are encouraged by the strong results of the strategic pivot we made a couple of years ago to strengthen earnings stability, evident in the continued expansion of our agency, RMBS for Prolio, and the compelling growth trajectory of Constructa's origination business. We continue to believe Atomos's equity represents a compelling value opportunity. Shares trade a meaningful discount of 30% of adjusted book value. And considering the adjusted book value of just Atomos's agency RMS position alone, our shares are still discounted by 17% to this holding. We believe this clearly highlights the depth and durability of value embedded within our platform. After a historically active quarter for Atomos, the momentum generated to further advance EAD in the fourth quarter obtainable given a full quarter of interest income that we can generate. We look forward to further demonstrating Adamus' value with continued improvement to our recurring earnings. At this time, I'll pass the call over to Christine to provide our third quarter financial highlights.

Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. I'll cover the key factors behind our third quarter financial results. Overall, the third quarter marked another period of strong earnings growth and balance sheet expansion. As Jason noted, we increased our investment portfolio to $10.4 billion from $8.6 billion last quarter. This growth, along with continued rotation into interest-earning assets, drove a 9% sequential increase in EAD per share. Adjusted net interest income per share rose 7% quarter over quarter and 47% year over year to 47 cents, reflecting our continued investment in agency securities, partially offset by higher corporate debt interest expense from the senior unsecured notes issuance in July. Our net interest spread remained stable at 150 basis points, reflecting the offsetting impact of lower financing costs and the decline in asset yields. We improved our average financing costs by 15 basis points, benefiting from lower base rates and more favorable securitization financing following the redemption of higher cost securitizations. Meanwhile, our yield on average interest earning assets declined by 15 basis points, reflecting our continued emphasis on lower yielding agency securities and BPL rental loans relative to shorter duration BPL bridge loans.

During the quarter,

We recorded 54.9 million in net unrealized gains, primarily driven by improved valuations in our agency RMBS and residential loan portfolios. These gains were partially offset by 13 million of losses on derivative instruments, primarily interest rate swaps, and 5.6 million of realized losses mainly related to conversions of residential loans into foreclosed properties that remain on our balance sheet, as well as short payoffs on non-performing BPL bridge loans. Importantly, the realized losses on the residential loans were fully offset by the reversal of previously recognized unrealized losses on the same assets resulting in minimal total P&L impact. As Jason discussed earlier, We completed the acquisition of the remaining 50% interest in Constructive, giving us full ownership of this leading business purpose loan originator. For the quarter, Constructive generated $14.1 million in mortgage banking income related to origination and sale activity and incurred $3.8 million in direct loan origination costs and $8 million in direct G&A expenses, resulting in a $2.3 million return. On a consolidated basis, the constructive segment reported a net loss of 3.8 million, reflecting the transitional integration costs and allocations that we expect to decline over time. As integration progresses and efficiencies are realized, we believe constructive is positioned to become a meaningful driver of earnings growth. G&A expenses increased during the quarter from 23.3 million from 11.8 million, primarily due to the consolidation of constructive and higher incentive compensation accrual. Portfolio operating expenses declined, reflecting lower servicing fees on our BPL Bridge portfolio as balances continued to decline. We also incurred $7.9 million of non-recurring costs related to the issuance of senior unsecured notes and two residential loan securitizations, which were fully expensed during the quarter due to our fair value election. Gap in adjusted book value per share ended the quarter at $9.20 and $10.38, respectively, representing increases of 1% and 1.2% compared to June 30. A recourse leverage ratio increased to five times and portfolio recourse leverage to 4.7 times, up from 3.8 times and 3.6 times, respectively, primarily reflecting financing activity to support agency RMBS acquisitions. the consolidation of constructive, and the issuance of senior unsecured notes. Portfolio recourse leverage in our credit and other investments increased to .9 times from .5 times, driven by lower equity allocation. Overall, our strategic repositioning has strengthened our ability to generate consistent recurring income. With continued balance sheet growth and the integration of constructive, we remain focused on delivering sustained earnings growth and stable returns for our stockholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Nick for a market and strategy update.

Thanks, Christine. This quarter, we achieved a record level of investment activity for the firm, surpassing the previous high reached in the first quarter. In total, we acquired $2.3 billion of residential investments, primarily concentrated in agency RMBS and whole loans. Within our core strategies, we deployed 1.8 billion in agency RMBS, 260 million in BPL rental, and 262 million in BPL bridge. During the quarter, we had meaningful inflows of capital from multiple sources, which we channeled towards funding our elevated investment volume. Key sources of this capital include 115 million baby bond issuance in July, Two securitizations executed at competitive advance rates and asset resolutions across both our core and non-core portfolios. Following the quarter's acquisitions, our overall investment portfolio has risen above $10 billion. Strong and sustained asset growth over the past few quarters have contributed to steadily increasing recurring earnings. This has culminated in a key milestone of raising our dividend. With a solid base of productive assets, our goal of continued portfolio expansion will power future earnings growth. Interest rate volatility has declined steadily since April, serving as a major tailwind for agency spreads. This was especially pronounced in the third quarter as current coupon agency spreads tightened by 20 basis points to 126 basis points. While agency spreads to treasuries have normalized over the quarter, agency spreads to swaps have tightened but still remain compelling by historical standards. After a record quarter of agency purchases, our agency portfolio currently stands at $6.7 billion. Despite the increased pace of investments, agency leverage has declined from 8.6 times to 7.8 times. In terms of portfolio construction, we have continued to target five and five and a half coupon spec pools with lower pay-ups. Given the mix of current purchases, the average coupon of our agency portfolio declined slightly from 5.59% to 5.51% in the quarter. Going forward, we plan to target production coupons to maintain a modest carry and lower duration profile. In the third quarter, we surpassed our 50% target capital allocation to agencies. Since the first quarter of 2023, we strategically built and scaled our agency RMBS portfolio capitalizing on attractive spread levels while achieving broad diversification from our credit assets. Today, with SPRITs tighter and the portfolio more balanced between agencies and credit, we intend to take a more measured approach to agency allocation in the future. Our expectation is that while agency allocation will continue to grow in the near term, it will come at a more deliberate pace. Residential securitization markets were highly active in the third quarter, with $57 billion worth of issuance. Strong investor appetite supported steady deal flow across the full spectrum of residential credit, tightening spreads and maintaining a well-functioning market throughout the quarter. Against this backdrop, Atomos successfully priced two securitizations. The first was a $370 million re-lever securitization of re-performing and performing loans, and the second was a $275 million securitization of BPL rental loans. We achieved attractive pricing and structure for both deals. During the quarter, AAA spreads in BPL rental and in broader non-QM securitizations tightened by 10 to 20 basis points to around 130 basis points, providing a favorable environment of continued deal issuance for the rest of the year. This securitization market supports our expanding whole loan activity and strengthens the strategic fit of Constructive to our business. BPL Rental has grown to our largest concentration of residential credit exposure at $1.16 billion, reflecting a 24% quarter-over-quarter growth. This remains our core strategy with the greatest growth potential, as Atomos sources the majority of its BPL Rental loans from Constructive. In aggregate, 98% of our BPL rental loans have prepayment penalties to help mitigate the negative convexity of the portfolio. We also prioritize acquiring loans with strong DSCR ratios, targeting property-related cash flow coverage as a buffer against credit deterioration. Our credit selection criteria remains restrictive on BPL rental loans with DSCRs less than 1%. with only 1% of our BPL rental loan portfolio falling into that category. Overall, our BPL rental strategy continues to perform well, with 60 plus days delinquencies hovering at 1.3%. We see the potential for this asset class to outperform across a range of economic outcomes. The BPL bridge market remains highly competitive. Robust securitization markets have enabled new market entrants and repeat issuers to access debt capital through revolving bond structures. This increased capital availability coupled with increasing investor demand has intensified competition for assets within the BPL bridge market. This has, in turn, applied pressure to both purchase volumes and available pass-through rates. Maintaining our credit selection standards, we have intentionally reduced acquisition volumes ahead of our revolving securitizations exiting their reinvestment periods in 2026. In the quarter, the BPL Bridge portfolio declined by 4% to $919 million. As the BPL Bridge portfolio shrinks, we are actively working to reduce delinquent loan exposure while maintaining disciplined credit standards to exclude outlier risk profiles on our go-forward purchases. We expect that near-term BPL bridge allocations will continue to decline, and we will deploy recycled capital to agency RMBS or BPL rental. We maintain flexibility to increase portfolio exposure if more favorable market conditions return. Within our multifamily segment, as Christine noted, we successfully completed the exit of our joint venture portfolio during the quarter. The full wind-down of the JV equity book allows our multifamily team to focus exclusively on advancing the resolution of our mezzanine lending portfolio. Performance metrics remain strong, with occupancy rates at 92% and only one asset in the portfolio that is non-performing. The mezzanine portfolio generated a 32.4% payoff rate in the quarter, well above the historical average of 25.8%. We expect payoff activity to continue as the portfolio continues to season. Finally, we are pleased to announce the successful integration of Constructive into Atomos in the third quarter. The Constructive business has not missed a step. Origination volumes remain strong through the transition, reaching $439 million in the third quarter, 9% higher than the prior quarter. Originations over the last 12 months were heavily weighted towards BPL rental loans, comprising 94% of total production. with BPL Bridge accounting for the remaining share. Given the strength of the securitization market, competition for loans are more pronounced. Our near-term objectives are to continue prioritizing origination quality by enhancing underwriting standards and streamlining origination processes, while maintaining a diversified distribution network. In the quarter, Atomos purchased less than half of Constructiv's originations. demonstrating the continuation of Constructive's broad market access. We expect Constructive to play an increasingly important role in Atomos' profitability and strategic positioning in 2026 and beyond. I will now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again.

Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Doug Carter with UBS.

Please go ahead.

Good morning. It's actually Melissa Lobo on for Doug today. I was hoping you could talk to us about how developments with the GSEs are impacting your thinking around capital allocation, and what are some of the regulatory factors that are impacting how you position in the BPL space?

Yeah, thank you for the question. So I think overall, you know, there's been a lot of talk about, you know, GSE reform, what that could mean for the sector as a whole. I think every component of the mortgage sector, particularly in the non-QM space, has, you know, would create a massive tailwind for opportunities. However, I think that, you know, we're more balanced on what we think that opportunity would look like for the company, given that, you know, that there's a lot needs to happen for, you know, a full, you know, removal of the guarantee and what that would do to, you know, credit availability to the mortgage sector and borrowers across the United States. You know, we know the administration's goal is to reduce, increase the housing affordability and reduce rates, and I think that would go in the opposite direction with a guarantee that has been removed. So I think overall, you know, we're continuing to run our business without, you know, planning for that particular event to happen. However, we know if it does, there will be a tailwind, particularly in areas, you know, in the non-QM space, Constructive, we believe, would be able to access many new channels in that situation. But again, that's not something that we see as being a primary opportunity for us at the moment.

Great. Thank you. And just if you could expand on the decision to buy the rest of the Originate Constructive and what that means for ongoing capital allocation. I think you mentioned a 50% target to agency still. How should we think about that going forward?

Yeah, so the opportunity for us was we first initially took the first 50% was to really understand the business. It was a slow approach to full acquisition, but we wanted to look at how the market was developing, and this was multiple years ago, on the opportunity. So the advancement of the full acquisition of the company was a result of seeing some long-term tailwinds that would help, you know, constructives' growth, particularly in homeownership rates and affordability, et cetera. The other side was to, we really wanted to step in a position to control the outcomes of origination and product development. And so taking 100% of the business was a function of of controlling some of the underwriting aspects as well as distribution. So in that end, we thought it would be necessary to take that and also we saw a great opportunity in radiation volume to increase, particularly with capitalizing the company through Atomos. So we think it's an excellent opportunity. We think there's lots of new development and products that could be offered through the company. We think we have an excellent management team, an experienced management team that's been looking at non-QM and BPL opportunities for over a decade. So we're excited to take the next step with Constructiv.

Great. Thank you. And if you could just provide an update for us on how book value is faring quarter to date.

Sure. As of October 28th, we see adjusted book value up somewhere between 2.5% to 3%. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.

Everyone, good morning. Actually, just one follow-up on the book value question. Is the increase coming from both sides this quarter, the agencies and credit, or more on one versus the other?

It's coming from both sides. We have seen thus far, as of October 28th, that rates have come down generally. Spreads on the agency side have come in. On the non-agency or hold-in side has come in, but not as much, but overall positive trends on both sides.

okay great thanks and then in terms of leverage you know your leverage on the credit side you know remains low but it went up to 0.9 from 0.5 what's an appropriate level of leverage for that piece and then on the agency side is the leverage kind of you know where the run rate there's seven you know kind of the where it is this quarter yeah so uh the way we think about leverage is um you know balancing it with the opportunity that we have and you know as

we mentioned accessing the securitization market to us is important. So the leverage will ebb and flow based on the accessibility and our ramp with respect to our DSCR channels. And so you would see it bounce around a little bit due to the timing of those securitizations. We think below one time is actually quite low for just a credit rate in general. And We've looked to utilize securitization markets as a primary source of financing for our credit book over the long term. And you should expect us to continue utilizing that path. And so in that end, it's a pretty efficient model for us to finance and generate ROE, our home loan position. And what was the second part of your question?

On the agency side, the leverage should be expected to kind of remain roughly the same.

Yeah, the leverage on the agency side, you know, we're looking to keep that, you know, around eight times. And so this is, you know, a comfortable level for us.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Next question comes from Jason Weaver with Jones Trading. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Given Nick's comments that capital allocated to agencies is above target and will be more measured ahead, what are you thinking is possible avenues for deployment for the capital coming back from the Mez and Bridge investments? And would share repurchase become a bigger part of the strategy given the discount?

Yeah, so, you know, on the capital allocation side, you know, we saw a tremendous opportunity. in the quarter to advance our balance sheet with respect to the agency book. We were looking for certain events to happen for some spread tightening. We saw that there's still a thirst for supply in the agency RMS market against pretty robust demand in the market for the asset. So ROEs still remained above 15%, which is accretive for many avenues of capital, and therefore we We took part of that story in the quarter with historic purchases for the company. Going forward with agency spreads now below, clearly below about 120 basis points, the opportunity is more balanced between what we see in the credit side and agency side. Again, we're We're looking to maximize ROE based on availability of the opportunity. We're not wedded to a certain ratio of agency versus credit on our balance sheet. It's very much opportunistic to the extent that we see spreads continue to tighten in on the agency side. We will look to allocate more on the whole on-site equation. In particular, we're excited about the advancement of constructive and and seeing higher origination volumes there. And we think there's avenues to increase it from here. So, you know, that's going to be a focal point for us as well. On the share repurchase side, you know, in the last two quarters, we did access that and did look to take advantage of where our shares trade in the market at discount. But, you know, I would say, you know, we think of it as an incremental investment strategy, just like, you know, another avenue to allocate capital. We are very conscious about the equity shrinkage caused by the repurchase and not being able to produce long-term returns on that capital that's been used for repurchases. We balanced that with the opportunity. Again, last two quarters, first quarter, second quarter, we took advantage of that. In this quarter, third quarter, with our historic purchases in the market, we thought that the balance went to the asset portfolio. So, you know, it's something that's considered, but we do look at the long-term impact of, you know, taking our capital and removing it, you know, with the share repurchase versus the asset opportunity.

Got it. Thank you. And then just to clarify, you know, with the size, I think you said 32% pay down on the MEDS, and you expect that to remain elevated going forward. Is it a more muted pace, or are we still looking at, you know, 25%? or so million coming back every quarter?

I think that the historical average is a good barometer. I think we may trend slightly higher as the seizing of the portfolio starts to take hold and also the continued conversations that our team has with the various borrowers. But I think from a long-term, I don't expect that the long-term average is going to be, in the future, once everything's resolved, it's going to be too different. But for the next few quarters, it may be a little bit higher.

Got it. I appreciate the color, guys.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Jason Serrano for closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you for joining us this morning. We look forward to discussing our fourth quarter results with you in February. Have a great day.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.