Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us for today's Farmer Mac 2025 Earnings Results Conference call. As a reminder, all phone lines are in a listen-only mode to prevent background noise, but if you would like to ask a question during today's question and answer session, simply press star and one on your telephone keypad. Pressing star and one will place your line into a queue, and we will take your questions later in today's presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Senior Director of Investor Relations, Jalpa Nazareth. Welcome, Jalpa.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. I'm Jalpa Nazareth, Senior Director of Investor Relations and Finance Strategy here at Barmer Met. As we begin, please note that the information provided during this call may contain forward-looking statements about the company's business, strategies, and prospects. These statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please refer to FARMAC's 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors. On today's call, we will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. Disclosures and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures can be found in most recent Form 10-K and earnings release posted on our website. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, Brad Norholm, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Zach Carpenter, and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Matt Pullins. At this time, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Brad Norholm. Brad?

Thanks very much, Jalpa. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. 2025 was another strong year for Farmer Mac. We surpassed $33 billion in outstanding business volume. achieved record revenue of $410 million, a 13% increase relative to the prior year, and produced $183 million in core earnings, our 10th consecutive year of record annual core earnings. We thoughtfully balanced returning capital to our shareholders with investing for future growth while continuing to execute on our mission of providing vital liquidity to agriculture and rural America. As you saw in this afternoon's earnings release, we announced a 10 cent per share increase in our quarterly dividend to $1.60 per share. This is our 15th consecutive annual increase, reflecting our confidence in the durability of our earnings profile and our long-term cash flow generation. We were active in share repurchase program in the fourth quarter, which was modified last August by a board of directors to approve share repurchases of up to $50 million of PharmaMax Class C common stock. During the fourth quarter, we completed $12.9 million under the amended program, and we have $37.1 million remaining under the current authorization. In total, We returned $78 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in 2025. Looking ahead, we remain committed to this balanced capital allocation approach that prioritizes prudent growth, balance sheet strength, and consistent shareholder returns. During the quarter, we also completed our seventh farm securitization transaction. further building liquidity and efficiency in the agricultural mortgage-based securitization market. This risk transfer tool strengthens our ability to optimize capital and enhance the amount of market liquidity we can provide through our businesses. By transferring a portion of the underlying credit exposure to investors, we free up capital, which is then available to be redeployed into new mission aligned lending activities. We are very pleased with the tremendous support we've seen for this program, and we look forward to exploring other credit risk transfer opportunities in order to grow our platform while continuing to deliver high-quality opportunities to our various classes of investors. We anticipate introducing a new product in the market this year that will support the strong investor demand for agricultural assets while also remaining in alignment with our mission fulfillment. The agricultural real estate market remains very active. The USDA expects demand for real estate mortgages will remain robust in 2026, with the total volume of transactions projected to increase by 5% this year relative to 2025 levels. As it relates to our portfolio, we were pleased to see a very positive outcome from recent property sales for a distressed borrower which we expect will result in recognizing previously unaccrued fees and interest and meaningfully reducing our 90 plus day delinquencies during the first half of 2026. Despite the volatility and uncertainty in today's environment, whether from interest rate movement, commodity price fluctuation, supply change disruptions, consumer behavior changes, or broader geopolitical and policy dynamics, PharmaMac continues to be resilient. Our diversified business model, strong capital position, and disciplined risk management position allows us to provide vital liquidity to agriculture and rural infrastructure sectors in all economic environments. Matt Polans, who joined us as our new Chief Financial Officer in mid-December, We'll review our financial results in more detail, but I want to hasten to add that we are thrilled to have Matt join the team. He brings more than two decades of experience in corporate finance, capital markets, and strategic planning, paired with a personal connection to American agriculture. His combination of deep financial expertise and authentic understanding of rural America makes him an exceptional addition to PharmaMac. and we're excited for the impact he will have on our organization. Now, I'll turn the call over to Zach, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to discuss our customers and market developments in more detail. Zach?