Earnings Labs

Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (AGM)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 16, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation's Fourth Quarter 2014 Investor Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tim Buzby. Please go ahead, sir. Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Good morning. I'm Tim Buzby, Farmer Mac's President and CEO. The Farmer Mac Management team and I are pleased to welcome you to our 2014 fourth quarter and yearend investor conference call. Before starting this morning, I will ask Steve Mullery, Farmer Mac's General Counsel to comment on forward-looking statements that management may make today, as well as Farmer Mac's use of non-GAAP financial measures. Stephen P. Mullery - Secretary, Senior Vice President & General Counsel: Thanks, Tim. Some of the statements made on this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements under the securities laws. We make these statements based on our current expectations and assumptions about future events and business performance. We do not undertake any obligation to update these statements after the date of this call. We caution you that forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In evaluating Farmer Mac, you should consider these risks and uncertainties, as well those described in our 2014 annual report on Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC this morning. Farmer Mac uses core earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure to measure corporate performance and develop financial plans. In 2014, Farmer Mac also presented core earnings excluding the effects of two short-term initiatives. First, a cash management and liquidity initiative implemented in…

Operator

Operator

Our first question comes from Bose George of KBW. Please go ahead. Please go ahead. Chas Tyson - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hey, guys. Good morning, this is actually Chas Tyson on for Bose. Just wanted to ask the first question about the portfolio. It looked like it grew pretty nicely in the fourth quarter, I know it's a pretty healthy business volume but also a pretty low amount of pay downs. Just wanted to ask on the pay downs if there's anything in particular that drove that in 4Q and how you guys are thinking about that in 2015? Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think as far as pay downs slowing a bit, it is simply a function of those who were in the portfolio who were going to refinance likely have already done so. So comparing to prior years where you did see more refinancing activity, which was open in payoffs. We didn't see that this year and probably don't expect that to see a resurgence of any refinance activity going forward. So we expect slower prepayments to continue throughout the year. R. Dale Lynch - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: And we didn't have maturities in the fourth quarter either, Chas, so that certainly helped. Chas Tyson - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Right, right. That makes sense. In terms of the prepayment rate that you're seeing on the portfolio, just thinking about it over 2015, should we be using kind of a fourth-quarter-type rate or should we maybe bump that up to a little more where you've seen over the rest of 2014? Or what is the right way to think about that? Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we do have…

Operator

Operator

. Our next question comes from Kevin Barker of Compass Point. Please go ahead. Kevin James Barker - Compass Point Research & Trading LLC: Good morning. Can you talk a little bit more about the effective spreads and how they continue to widen specifically around the Farm & Ranch loans? Is there any particular driver that you are seeing there? Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Oh, I'd say as largely Dale mentioned in his words earlier, that we did increased these spreads on our pricing for new incoming business that was about the midway point through the year. So that's causing spreads to come up a little bit on new business, also some of the business that's rolling off that affects the overall spreads as well so it's really a mix of the two items. We've had made a conscious effort during the year to look at our spreads which had been contracting for a couple of years to try and reverse that trends, and we were successful in doing that across all lines of business. So I think that bodes well as we go forward as well with rates – overall interest rates where they are currently so low that has tended over the past couple of years to kind of narrow spreads as well. So as overall interest rate environment may rise over the course of the next couple of years that may also create an opportunity for us to further widen spreads a bit. Kevin James Barker - Compass Point Research & Trading LLC: Was any particular type of credit or region that you are targeting, specifically on your Farm & Ranch loans to increase their spreads? Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Not in particular. The business has skewed…

Operator

Operator

At this time, I'm seeing no further questions. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tim Buzby for any closing remarks. Timothy L. Buzby - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, everyone, for listening and participating this morning. We look forward to our next call to report our first quarter 2015 results in May. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.