Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:ABR) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Paul Elenio - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Ivan Kaufman - President and Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steven DeLaney - JMP Securities

Stephen Laws - Raymond James

Crispin Love - Piper Sandler

Rick Shane - JPMorgan

Jason Sabshon - KBW

Lee Cooperman - Omega Family Office

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Quarter 2023 Arbor Realty Trust Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to your speaker today, Paul Elenio, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Paul Elenio

Okay. Thank you, Britney. Good morning, everyone and welcome to the quarterly earnings call for Arbor Realty Trust. This morning, we'll discuss the results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023. With me on the call today is Ivan Kaufman, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Before we begin, I need to inform you that statements made in this earnings call may be deemed forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including information about possible or assumed future results of our business, financial condition, liquidity, results of operations, plans and objectives. These statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and expectations of our future performance, taking into account the information currently available to us. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Arbor's expectations in these forward-looking statements are detailed in our SEC reports. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today. Arbor undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after today or the occurrences of unanticipated events.

I'll now turn the call over to Arbor's President and CEO, Ivan Kaufman.

Ivan Kaufman

Thank you, Paul and thanks to everyone for joining us on today's call. After coming off our best year as a public company in 2022, we've had a tremendous start to 2023 with another exemplary quarter as our diverse business model continues to offer many significant advantages over everyone else in our peer group, with a premium operating platform with multiple products that generate many countercyclical income streams, allowing us to consistently produce earnings that are well in excess our dividend. This has allowed us to increase our dividend another 5% or $0.02 a share to $0.43, reflecting our 11th increase in the last 13 quarters or 40% growth over that time period, all while maintaining the lowest payout ratio in the industry, which was 68% for the first quarter.