TPG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc.

Welcome to the AG Mortgage Investment Trust 4th Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. My name is John and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you do have a question, please press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. Please note the conference is being recorded. And now I'll turn the call over to Jenny Neslin.

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fourth quarter 2021 earnings call for AG Mortgage Investment Trust. With me on the call today are David Roberts, our chairman and CEO, T.J. Durkin, our president, Nick Smith, our chief investment officer, and Anthony Rosiello, our chief financial officer. Before we begin, please note that the information discussed in today's call may contain forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to certain risks and uncertainties which are outlined in our SEC filings, including under the headings Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements, Risk Factors, and Management Discussion and Analysis. The company's actual results may differ materially from these statements. We encourage you to read the disclosure regarding forward-looking statements contained in our SEC filings including our most recently filed Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and our subsequent reports filed from time to time with the SEC. Except as required by law, we are not obligated and do not intend to update or to review or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. During the call today, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. please refer to our SEC filings for reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures. We will also reference the earnings presentation that was posted to our website this morning. To view this slide presentation, turn to our website, www.agmit.com, and click on the link for the fourth quarter 2021 earnings presentation on the home page in the investor presentation section. Again, welcome to the call, and thank you for joining us today. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Jenny. 2021 was a successful year for AG Mortgage Investment Trust in many ways. But most importantly, we are proud to have achieved our transition to a pure play residential credit REIT. We begin this year, 2022, with the liquidity, the infrastructure, and the talent to continue to be a growing and focused leader in residential mortgage origination and securitization. We have demonstrated our ability to execute this strategy through the rapid acceleration of our originations and subsequent securitizations in the latter part of 2021 and into 2022. Over time, we believe this will lead to increased earnings and increased dividends for our shareholders. That is how we evaluate ourselves and how we believe in time the market will evaluate us. A notable event in 2021 was our equity capital raise of approximately $80 million. The most important effect of this capital is that it will fuel our growth for the foreseeable future. Of course, we would have been far more pleased to have raised equity at a higher stock price than we did. That said, From the long-term view of our earnings and dividend progress, we consider the capital raise to have been necessary to not only support our continued growth, but also to strengthen our position, making us well capitalized to seize on the opportunities that are unfolding in the face of the current volatility in the markets. I would also point out that in 2021, Through a combination of the common equity capital raise, a significant increase in book value from earnings, and some exchanges of common equity for preferred equity, we were able to take the preferred equity percentage of total equity capitalization from 58 percent at the start of the year down to 39 percent at year-end. We believe this year-end capital structure positions the company much more solidly to achieve our goals. As we are all well aware, the start of 2022 has seen volatility in nearly all financial markets. The bottom line is we have been and are well protected against interest rate rises. The widening of credit spreads will cost our current book in the near term. However, given our robust liquidity at both MIT and our mortgage affiliate, ARK Home, that same volatility is providing us with increased opportunities which we have already started to capitalize on. In terms of our dividend policy, we will continue to be guided by our view of earnings on a go-forward basis. As we have highlighted in the last few calls, given our current business model, we consider gap earnings to be a more meaningful go-forward guide than core earnings in evaluating our business and our dividend policy. Finally, We are well aware that the stock market has not yet given us credit for what we believe is our significant growth opportunity. We will strive to make believers of both existing and new shareholders. If you have followed our ownership filings, you will see that we members of the management team have backed up our own belief and confidence in MIT's future with sizable ownership stakes. With that, I will now pass the call over to T.J.