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 2024 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 touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. 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 Thursday, October 31st, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Christy Musalem, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining New York Mortgage Trust Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. A press release and supplemental financial presentation with New York Mortgage Trust third quarter 2024 results was released yesterday. 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 these 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.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for joining New York Mortgage Trust's third quarter earnings call. Joining me today is Nick Ma, President, and Christine Ario, CFO. The company reported sharply higher levels of income in third quarter with earnings per share at $0.36. The improved earnings were a result of a portfolio plan which began over a year ago. The internal view was to build a consistent foundation of recurring earnings through interest income versus the previous strategy of relying on the monetization of total returns to support our dividend. Thus, we began decreasing exposure to assets that contain either no carry or very low level of current interest, primarily found within our multifamily portfolio, and rotated that capital into high-coupon, short-duration credit loans and agency RBS at wider spreads. With this activity, we believe we could obtain the dual benefit of meeting equity return targets set for our capital, while also maintaining the flexibility for future capital mobilization. Said simply, we wanted to retain option value of raising our earnings power through the higher return opportunities in event of subsequent market dislocation. As we stated previously, we are concerned about a slowing U.S. economy and the consequences it may bring to certain sectors that we monitor. Last quarter, we shared a graph of record high U.S. consumer debt against a depressed consumer savings rate. Today, on page eight of our supplemental, we show a similar predicament, but on a much larger scale. The federal government is running a large primary deficit despite very low unemployment, which is historically a rare event. Ultimately, we are concerned about persistently high U.S. debt levels and its potential to crowd out private market trades. With that said, the market is performing extremely well today. There's plenty of liquidity within the warehouse financing and securitization markets. Nick will further discuss our activity here of meeting our leverage objectives to minimize recourse mark-to-market financing risk with credit investments. On page nine, we show some important developments related to our balance sheet growth. We increased our portfolio by $1 billion, or 17% from last quarter. Stepping back, the company's portfolio grew over one-third year-to-date. Admittedly, we were underinvested earlier in the year and consequently did not achieve our earnings potential. With 20 years of buy-side experience in these markets, our management team was in touch with large opportunities throughout the year to accelerate growth. However, we felt it was extremely important to maintain the course of a deliberate approach to balance sheet growth by prioritizing investments containing fundamentally stable income and did not veer from our objectives. Despite a measured pace of capital deployment each quarter, we have finally seen the momentum of the cumulative impact to our growth. We had over $100 million of adjusted interest income in the third quarter, a 39% year-to-date increase, and a 22% year-to-date increase to adjusted net interest income. Notably, We accomplished substantial portfolio growth without depleting our excess liquidity. At the end of the third quarter, we had $408 million or $6 million more than that of the first quarter of this year. With strong levels of liquidity, we see tremendous opportunity for the company to build on quarterly earnings, particularly without having near-term corporate debt maturities to contend with. We are excited about extracting full earnings potential of our capital by continuing to rotate assets, particularly from future expected redemptions received on nearly $300 million in our multifamily mezzanine lending book. Lastly, I wanted to wrap up my comments by discussing company book value. While Christine will comment on the details of the relatively flat quarterly move, I wanted to highlight the composition of our book, particularly against a 930 trading market cap, which is shown on page 10 of the supplemental. To start, our balance sheet is very different from recent past and contains a solid foundation to build off of. At the end of the third quarter, $5.80 per share is attributed to cash and capital allocated to the agency RMBS trades. We believe that a capital allocation of approximately 25% to 35% for the company in the agency sector in the near term will provide downside support to our market cap from potential broader market dislocation. Additionally, $3.22 per share is attributed to BPL bridge loans that is now mostly term finance inefficient securizations. As Nick will show, performance has been excellent, providing a steady source of recurring income to the company. After that, we show a total of $0.21 per share attributed to the multifamily JV equity book. This strategy has been the primary source of previous book value volatility. However, after recent dispositions, which Christine will discuss, $19 million of remaining exposure is immaterial to the company today. Finally, the remainder of our asset-less corporate financing is $1.64 per share. An additional $1.55 per share of book value can be potentially gained after consideration of our asset holdings maturing at par. By maintaining a medium to long-term view to shareholder value, we believe we are well positioned for growth in 2025, supported by a strong balance sheet and a growing income base. At this time, I'll pass the call over to Christine to discuss our financial highlights. Christine.