Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Cohen & Company’s First Quarter 2019 Earnings Call. My name is Maria and I will be your operator for today. Before we begin, Cohen & Company would like to remind everyone that some of the statements the company makes during this call may contain forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements made during this call are made only as of the date of this call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Cohen & Company advises you to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in its earnings release and in its most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Lester Brafman, Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Company.

Thank you, Maria and thank you everybody for joining us for our first quarter 2019 earnings call. With me on the call is Joe Pooler, our CFO. Although, we continue to make progress executing on our strategic priorities, including the GCF repo business, U.S. insurance asset management and residential transition loan trading businesses. We were disappointed with our overall revenue generation during the first quarter. We continue to believe that these new businesses will help diversify our company and eventually increase revenue across business segments. We were pleased to announce during the quarter that our sponsors’ special-purpose acquisition company, Insurance Acquisition Corp, NASDAQ ticker INSUU, raised over $150 million in its initial public offering. Insurance Acquisition Corp. will pursue a business combination over 18 months from the date of initial public offering. Now I will turn the call over to Joe to walk through this quarter’s financial highlights in more detail.

Thanks, Lester. I will start with our statement of operations. Our operating loss was $63,000 for the quarter compared to operating income of $2.3 million for the prior quarter and operating loss of $360,000 for the prior year quarter. Our loss before income taxes was $1.9 million for the current quarter compared to income of $6,000 for the prior quarter, and loss of $2.2 million for the prior year quarter. The net loss attributable to Cohen & Company shareholders was $1.2 million or $1.06 per diluted share for the current quarter compared to net loss of $418,000 or $0.37 per diluted share for the prior quarter, and net loss of $1.5 million or $1.26 per diluted share for the prior year quarter. Net trading revenue came in at $8.7 million in the first quarter, down $377,000 from the fourth quarter of ‘18 and up $2.5 million from the first quarter of ‘18. Our asset management revenue totaled $2 million in the quarter, down $2.7 million from the prior quarter and up $198,000 from the year ago quarter. The fourth quarter of ‘18 included $3 million of subordinated management fees in arrears, recorded and received due to the successful auction and liquidation of the Alesco 2 CDO in October of ‘18. The increase from the prior year quarter was primarily a result of one-time incentive fees in our European-managed accounts, recorded during the current quarter. First quarter 2019 principal transactions revenue was $350,000, up from the prior quarter and down slightly from the year ago quarter. Compensation and benefits expense for the first quarter was $6.4 million, down $61,000 from the prior quarter and up $1.2 million from the prior year quarter. Compensation as a percentage of revenue was 57% in the first quarter of ‘19 compared to 41% in the…

Thanks, Joe. Please direct any investor questions to Joe Pooler at 215-701-8952. His contact information is at the bottom of our earnings release or via e-mail to Investor Relations at cohencompany.com. Thank you for joining us today. Operator, you can now end the call.

Thank you for joining, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.