ARMOUR Residential REIT, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Armour Residential REIT first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that today's is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Scott Ulm, CEO, Armour Residential REIT. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning. I'd like to welcome you to the Armour Residential REIT first quarter 2024 conference call. This morning, I'm pleased to welcome our new CFO, Gordon Harper, as well as our new co-CIOs, Sergey Lysov and Desmond McCauley to the call. All are experienced members of the Armour team whom we promoted to their new roles in March, and I have tremendous confidence in them all. Gordon has been with us since 2015, and Sergey and Desmond have been on our portfolio management team since 2016 and 2013, respectively. We're all excited to lead the business into this next chapter. Our priorities are unchanged, and we are all united on our focus on delivering value to shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Gordon to run through the financial results. Gordon?

Thank you, Scott. By now, everyone has access to Armour's earnings release, which can be found on Armour's website, www.armourreit.com. This conference call includes forward-looking statements, which are intended to be subject to the safe harbor protection provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The risk factor section of Armour's periodic reports filed with the Securities Exchange Commission described certain factors beyond Armour's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. Those periodic filings can be found on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. All of today's forward-looking statements are subject to change without notice. We disclaim any obligation to update them unless required by law. Also, today's discussion refers to certain non-GAAP measures. These measures are reconciled with comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release. An online replay of this conference call will be available on Armour's website shortly and will continue for one year. Now turning to results for the quarter. Armour's Q1 gap net income available to common shareholders was $11.5 million or 24 cents per common share. Net interest income was $5.3 million. Expenses included $9 million of non-recurring professional fees related to the special committee internal investigation. Distributable earnings available to common stockholders was $40.4 million, or 82 cents per common share. This non-GAAP measure is defined as net interest income plus TBA drop income adjusted for interest income or expense on our interest rate swaps minus net operating expenses. Armour Capital Management continues to waive a portion of their management fees, waiving $1.65 million for Q1, which offsets operating expenses. The waiver continues until further notice. Armour paid monthly common stock dividends of $0.24 per common share per month for a total of $0.72 for the quarter. We aim to pay an attractive dividend that is appropriate in context and stable over the medium term. Taken together with the contractual dividends on the preferred stock, Armour has made cumulative distributions to stockholders of $2.3 billion over its history. Quarter end book value was $22.07 per common share. Our most recent current available estimate of book value is as of Tuesday, April 23rd, and was $20.48 per common share. I will now turn the call over to Scott Alm to discuss Armour's portfolio position and current strategy.