Walker & Dunlop, Inc. (NYSE:WD) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 15, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Kelsey Duffey - Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

Willy Walker - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Greg Florkowski - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Kyle Joseph - Jefferies

Steve Delaney - Citizens JMP

Jay McCanless - Wedbush Securities

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Q4 2023 Walker & Dunlop, Inc. Earnings Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Kelsey Duffey, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kelsey Duffey

Thank you, Taryn. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining Walker & Dunlop’s fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. I have with me this morning our Chairman and CEO, Willy Walker and our CFO, Greg Florkowski.

This call is being webcast live on our website and a recording will be available later today. Both our earnings press release and website provide details on accessing the archive webcast. This morning we posted our earnings release and presentation to the Investor Relations section of our website, www.walkerdunlop.com. These slides serve as a reference point for some of what Willie and Greg will touch on during the call. Please also note that we will reference the non-GAAP financial metrics, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted core EPS during the course of this call.

Please refer to the appendix of the earnings presentation for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial metrics. Investors are urged to carefully read the forward-looking statements language in our earnings release. Statements made on this call, which are not historical facts, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements describe our current expectations and actual results may differ materially. Walker & Dunlop is under no obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as result of new information, future events, or otherwise and we expressly disclaim any obligation to do so. More detailed information about risk factors can be found in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC.

I’ll now turn the call over to Willy.

Willy Walker

Thank you, Kelsey and good morning everyone. 2023 was a challenging year for the commercial real estate industry and the fourth quarter started out with the same headwinds that we saw throughout the year, but the lower than expected CPI print in November drove a 100 basis point rally in rates and the deals in our pipeline held together for the first time all year, resulting in $9.3 billion of total transaction volume in the quarter. This was still down 17% from Q4 of ‘22, but up sequentially from the third quarter and our highest quarterly volume of the year, a nice way to end the year.