New York Mortgage Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the New York Mortgage Trust Third Quarter 2021 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 the one on your touch-tone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. If you are using speaker equipment, we do ask that you please lift the handset before making your selection. This conference is being recorded on Tuesday, November 2, 2021. A press release and supplemental financial presentation with New York Mortgage Trust third quarter 2021 results was released this morning. Both the press release and supplemental financial presentation are available on the company's website at www.nymtrust.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 New York Mortgage 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 Exchange Commission. Now, at this time, I would like to introduce Steve Mumma, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead, Steve.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being on the call. Jason Serrano, our president, will be speaking to our investment portfolio, and Christine Nario, our CFO, will be speaking in more detail about our financial results. We will all be speaking to our supplemental financial presentation that was released this morning and is available on our website. We will allow questions following the conclusion of our presentation. The company continued to deliver solid results in the third quarter, with gap earnings per share of $0.10 and comprehensive earnings per share of $0.08. However, the numbers of the quarter were negatively impacted by non-recurring one-time charges, including $3.4 million in expenses related to the early redemption of our 7-7.8 Series C preferred stock, which was refinanced into a 6-7.8 Series F preferred stock, lowering our cost of capital by 100 basis points. Additionally, we called a 2020 residential securitization that resulted in the acceleration of $1.6 million of deferred debt issuance costs. The loan pool was refinanced in August, lowering our cost of debt by approximately 210 basis points. We expect to continue to raise the company's cost of funds with future structured transactions. This trend will have a positive impact on our earnings going forward. Now turning to page six of the supplemental presentation, You'll see our investment portfolio totaled $3.3 billion, and our market capitalization was $2.2 billion. The portfolio was up approximately $100 billion with our market capitalization unchanged from the previous quarter. Our capital is currently allocated at 74% to single family and 20% to multifamily, with 6% in other assets, which is largely attributable to our liquidity positions. We continue to focus on credit investments, as we believe we can generate better risk-adjusted returns with more stable funding. On slide seven, we highlighted some of our key developments during the quarter. We declared a $0.10 common stock dividend. Our book value was $4.74, unchanged from the previous quarter, and we generated a quarterly economic rate of return of 2.1%. As I said before, we redeemed our 2020-1 securitization for $204 million in July and issued $256 million in our 2021-1 securitization in August, lowering the average cost of funds by 210 basis points. We also redeemed $105 million of our 7 and 7-8 Series C preferred stock and replaced it with $139 million of 6 and 7-8 Series F preferred stock, again lowering our cost of capital by 100 basis points. We continue to focus on longer-term financing options to fund our growing business to help us navigate the ever-changing financial landscape. On slide nine, we cover key portfolio metrics on a quarter-over-quarter comparison. Our net interest margin for the third quarter was 3.25%, an increase of 28 basis points from the previous quarter. With our portfolio weighted average asset yield at 6.39%, an improvement of eight basis points, and our funding costs improving by 20 basis points, ending at 3.14%. This is largely due to our refinancing of the 2021 securitization that I previously spoke about. Our leverage ratio remains low at .3 times, and our liquidity remains strong as we go into the fourth quarter. I'd now like to turn the presentation over to Christine Nario, our CFO. Christine?

Christine Nario Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for being on the call. In discussing the financial results for the quarter, I will be using some of the information from the quarterly comparative financial information section included in slides 23 to 30 of the supplemental presentation. Slide 10 summarizes our activity in the third quarter. We acquired residential loans for $371 million funded multifamily joint venture and mezzanine lending investments for $53 million and $43 million, respectively, and purchased $29 million of investment securities. We sold residential loans for proceeds totaling $50 million and non-agency RMBS and CMBS for proceeds totaling $133 million. We also had total repayments of approximately $307 million, primarily from our residential loans that were purchased at a discount. We had net income of $37 million and comprehensive income of $31.5 million attributable to our common stockholders. Our book value ended at $474 unchanged from the previous quarter. Slide 11 details our financial results. We had net interest income of $31 million relatively flat as compared to the previous quarter. Our continued investment in higher yielding business purpose loans during the quarter contributed to the $1.7 million increase in single-family interest income, offset by a $1.5 million decrease in multifamily interest income due to sales of CMBS early in the quarter and payoffs related to our mezzanine lending investments accounted for as loans. Although there was a decrease in mezzanine investments accounted for as loans, our mezzanine investments accounted for as equity increased during the period, contributing $6.2 million in preferred return during the quarter. Had these mezzanine lending investments qualified for loan accounting treatment under GAAP, it would have contributed 39 basis points in net interest margin. Interest expense on single-family portfolio decreased by $0.6 million, primarily due to the completion of a new RPL strategy loan securitization in the third quarter, replacing a redeemed 2020 RPL strategy securitization at a lower cost. In addition, We recognized a full quarter impact of 58 basis points in interest cost savings related to our BPL securitization that closed in the latter part of the second quarter. We had non-interest income of $49.4 million, mostly from net unrealized gains of $30.1 million due to continued improvement in pricing on our assets, particularly our residential loans and investment in consolidated SLSTs. We also generated 8.3 million of net realized gains, primarily from the sale of CMBS and non-agency RMBS and residential loan prepayment activity. In addition, as discussed earlier, our mezzanine investments accounted for as equity contributed 6.2 million of preferred return. We also generated other income of 0.8 million, which is primarily related to 2.1 million of income recognized by an equity investment that invest in residential properties, partially offset by the $1.6 million of loss related to the redemption of a 2020 RPL strategy loan securitization for an amortized debt issuance cost remaining at the time of redemption. Included in our results for the quarter is a net loss activity related to multifamily apartment properties in which the company has equity investments. because of certain control provisions, we consolidate these properties in our financial statements in accordance with GAAP. We receive variable distributions from these equity investments on a pro-rata basis and management fees based upon property performance. We also participate in allocation of excess cash upon sale of multifamily real estate assets. We pursue these investments for the potential participation in value appreciation of the underlying real estate. These properties generated operating income of $4 million and incurred interest expense and operating expenses of $1.1 million, $8.5 million, respectively. After reflecting the share in the losses to the non-controlling interest of $0.4 million, in total, these multifamily apartment properties incurred a net loss of $5.3 million for the quarter. It should be noted that the net loss in these properties includes a $5.7 million of depreciation expense and amortization of lease intangibles related to the real estate. We had total G&A expenses of $12.5 million, relatively flat compared to the previous quarter. We had portfolio operating expenses of $7 million, which increased primarily due to the growth of the business purpose loan portfolio. Jason will now go over the market and strategy update. Jason?