TPG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the AG Mortgage Investment Trust first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Brandon and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session during which you may dial 01 if you have a question. Please note it is 01, not star 1. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jenny Neslin. And Jenny, you may begin.

Thank you, Brandon. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the first quarter 2022 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 risk 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, 2021, 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 the slide presentation, turn to our website, www.agmit.com, and click on the link for the first quarter 2022 earnings presentation on the homepage 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, and good morning to everybody. In my fourth quarter comments, I said that we were proud to have achieved a smooth transition and become a pure play residential credit REIT. In this first quarter of 2022, we had to contend with a near doubling of interest rates and considerable widening of credit spreads. We can and did hedge against the moving rates, but when spreads increase rapidly, and we have a robust inventory of originated loans yet to be securitized, that will lead to mark-to-market losses. That was largely the tale of the first quarter and the main reason we lost 74 cents per share of GAAP earnings. When spreads widened, we moved quickly to adjust our pricing on newly originated loans. Despite the rise in rates and spreads, we were able to continue originating new loans at a rapid pace. Much of that is due to the fact that we have continued to roll out new origination programs and channels. As well, we have seen some of our competitors retreat from the non-agency origination arena. Finally, our mortgage affiliate, Arc Home, has continued to build out its human capital taking advantage of an improved environment for attracting talent. Despite our first quarter loss, we maintained a dividend of 21 cents per share. Our dividend policy will continue to be guided by our view of earnings on a go-forward basis over a multi-quarter period. I should note that we do not believe that the first quarter movement and spreads will be repeated. In April, spreads relevant to our business ceased to widen and we've begun to see some tightening. During the quarter, we executed three securitizations and we continued our momentum issuing another deal in April. One of our primary objectives is to make the transition from origination to securitization as seamless as we can. While the industry is experiencing an overall decline in origination volumes, this factor serves to benefit us, bringing up more capacity in the securitization markets to execute with increased efficiency. This should improve the company's return on equities going forward. All was not negative. We ended this quarter with ample liquidity to continue to propel our growth strategy at higher asset yields. We continue to be strong believers in our strategy as capable of delivering long-term earnings growth. And so we also believe we will be able to report better results as the year goes on. I'll now turn the call over to T.J. Durkin, our president.