Sanford A. Ibrahim
Analyst · Compass
Thank you, Emily. Thank you, all, for joining us and for your interest in Radian. Today, I will provide highlights of our third quarter financial results and share my thoughts on the topics and trends important for our company and our industry. Following my remarks, Bob will cover the details of our financial position. Earlier today, we reported a net loss for the third quarter of 2013 of $13 million or $0.07 per diluted share. This includes minimal fair value and other financial instrument gains and minimal losses on investments. Results for the quarter also included a $22 million incurred loss initially booked for the Freddie Mac agreement announced in August and approximately $17 million of variable compensation expense directly related to the increase in our stock price during the quarter. The results for the quarter compared to net income for the quarter ended September 30, 2012, of $14 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, which included combined net losses from change in fair value of derivatives and other financial instruments of $42 million and net gains on investments of $85 million. Book value per share at September 30, 2013, was $5.17. I am pleased with Radian's improved financial performance this year and the generally positive trends we're seeing in the economy, housing market and overall business environment. Here are a few important highlights from the third quarter. First, we continued to write a high volume of new mortgage insurance business in an extremely attractive market, adding to the volume of business we have written after 2008. This business is projected to be a major driver of future profitability for Radian. In July, we broke a company record, writing the largest monthly volume of flow business ever before in Radian's more than 35 year history. And this quarter's $13.7 billion of new flow business was the company's second highest quarterly volume. Second, this high volume of new business improves the credit profile of our portfolio. In the third quarter, the high-quality books of mortgage insurance business written after 2008 represented 57% of our total portfolio. If you combine this book with loans that have completed the HARP refinance, it represents more than 2/3 of our primary mortgage insurance portfolio. In addition, the most problematic 2006 and '07 books are now down to less than 15% of the total portfolio. You can see the breakdown on Slide 19 of our webcast presentation. Third, we entered into an agreement with Freddie Mac in August that eliminates our claim exposure on 14,342 loans and helped reduced our total primary delinquent loans by 31% from the third quarter of last year. Fourth, Slide 17 shows that for the first 9 months ended September 30, 2013, the primary earned premiums, less incurred losses from our 2009 and later MI vintages are positive and far exceeded the comparable negative sum from the 2008 and prior vintages. In fact, the $238 million of premium earned for the 9 months of this year was greater than the $210 million of premium earned in all of last year. Fifth, the MI incurred loss ratio was 76% in the quarter, which represents another positive trend which we have seen for the last 3 quarters. And finally, since 2008, we have successfully reduced the exposure in our financial guaranty business by 77%, including many of the riskier segments of the portfolio. Radian maintained strong holding company liquidity of approximately $700 million and Radian Guaranty's risk-to-capital ratio was 19.8:1 at September 30, 2013. We continue to expect to maintain a risk-to-capital ratio for Radian Guaranty of 20:1 or below while also preserving the strong level of holding company liquidity. Bob will provide more detail on our capital contribution in the quarter and future expectations. The details of the new GSE eligibility capital requirements for MI are still unknown, but we continue to hear that they will be issued by year end. We fully expect to have the ability to comply with the new requirements within the implementation timeframe. We have written a total of $122 billion of new mortgage insurance business from 2009 through October, which we expect to produce attractive returns. Our primary insurance in force now stands at $159 billion compared with $135 billion a year ago, which is an increase of 18%. This insurance in force growth represents the success we've had at Radian in driving new high-quality mortgage insurance business over the past few years. We have retained our business from the nation's largest lenders while adding new customers, including credit unions, community banks and independent mortgage lenders. In fact, 26% of our NIW in 2013 came from customers new to Radian in the last 2 years and the pipeline of prospective customers remains strong. Yet there are challenges in today's business environment that may impact near-term volume. While the improvement in the economy have many aspects of our business, it also caused interest rates to rise above the record low levels we've seen in the past few years. And those higher interest rates have recently driven a significant decline in refinance volume, a trend we expect to continue into 2014. It is important to note that this interest -- increase in interest rate is likely to increase our persistency rates which will help us grow our insurance in force. On average, every 1% increase in persistency translates into approximately $1.6 billion of insurance in force remaining on our books each year. Experts view the future demand for homes, and therefore, mortgage loans to be strong as the number of U.S. households owning a home is expected to accelerate. Much of this growth will be driven by demographic groups, including the Hispanic community seeking to fulfill their dream of becoming homeowners. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Latinos are expected to contribute 40% of the 17 million new households projected to be formed from 2010 to 2025. In order to support this growing population of first-time homebuyers, Radian entered into a 2-year exclusive partnership last month with the nation's largest industry trade group for this community, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. This partnership allows Radian to work directly with the association to provide its membership with information, tools and resources to make the right choices for sustainable homeownership. Turning back to market trends. The decline in refinance activity, combined with the typical effects of seasonality in the fourth quarter, will most likely meaningfully reduce total national mortgage origination volume and thus Radian's NIW in the fourth quarter. While Radian's monthly volume in October remained relatively strong at $3.5 billion, industry experts forecast a smaller overall origination market next year. We also anticipate increased competition in our industry from new and existing MI companies. These headwinds will be partially offset by growing purchase market where MI penetration is about 3x to 4x greater than for refi loans and with more lenders choosing private MI over FHA. The positive factors of higher purchase volume and increased share from the FHA is illustrated by our industry's penetration of the insured market of 12% to 13% in the third quarter. This represents an increase of 40% from the second quarter of this year and an impressive 70% since the third quarter of last year. We believe that 1/3 to 1/2 of the business that the FHA is writing today meets our credit standards, and therefore, represents additional new business opportunity in the future. Turning to the business environment. Competitors recently reduced their borrowed-paid mortgage insurance premiums by 5 basis points, which we promptly matched. Given the credit quality of today's new business, we are comfortable that these premium rates will provide us with attractive returns. Now I'd like to summarize the progress made against 3 important priorities for Radian: Writing new mortgage insurance business, mitigating losses in our mortgage insurance portfolio and reducing our financial guaranty exposure. First, we wrote $13.7 billion of new mortgage insurance business in the third quarter, which was the second highest quarterly volume in Radian's history. Second, for the 9 months ended September 30, 2013, the primary earned premiums less incurred losses from our 2009 and later vintages are positive and far exceed the comparable negative sum from the 2008 and prior vintages as shown on Slide 17. We are encouraged by this trend. Next, we successfully completed a transaction with Freddie Mac to help reduce the total number of primary delinquent loan by 17% from the second quarter of this year and 31% year-over-year. The agreement also have reduced the default rate on our primary book in the third quarter to 7.8%. Finally, our financial guaranty business serves as an important source of capital for Radian Guaranty. We have successfully reduced our financial guaranty exposure from a peak of $115 billion in 2008 when Radian Asset stopped writing new business to $26 billion in the third quarter of this year. Over the same period, statutory surplus increased from approximately $950 million to $1.2 billion. In addition to statutory surplus of $1.2 billion as of September 30, 2013, Radian Asset had additional claims-paying resources of $380 million, including $256 million of contingency reserves. We stay actively engaged with key policymakers in Washington on the legislation and regulation affecting our industry. Overall, we continue to hear resounding support on Capitol Hill for a healthier balance between the public and private sectors in today's mortgage market, which is extremely positive for our industry. Now I would like to turn the call over to Bob for details of our financial position.