Ellington Credit Company (NYSE:EARN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 15, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Alaael-Deen Shilleh - Associate General Counsel
Larry Penn - CEO
Chris Smernoff - CFO
Mark Tecotzky - Co-CIO
Gregory Borenstein - Co-Head of Corporate Credit

Conference Call Participants

Crispin Love - Piper Sandler
Doug Harter - UBS
Matthew Erdner - JonesTrading

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ellington Credit Company 2024 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Alaael-Deen Shilleh, Associate General Counsel. Sir, you may begin.

Alaael-Deen Shilleh

Thank you. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements are not historical in nature as described under Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K and Part 2 Item 1A of our quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from its beliefs, expectations, estimates, and projections. Consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.

Unless otherwise noted, statements made during this conference call are made as of the date of this call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Joining me on the call today are Larry Penn, Chief Executive Officer of Ellington Credit Company; Mark Tecotzky, our Chief -- our Co-Chief Investment Officer; and Chris Smernoff, our Chief Financial Officer.

As described in our earnings press release, our first quarter earnings conference call presentation is available on our website, which we changed to ellingtoncredit.com. Our comments this morning will track to the presentation. Please note that any references to figures in this presentation are qualified in their entirety by the notes at the back of the presentation.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Larry.

Larry Penn

Thanks, Alaael-Deen, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and interest in Ellington Credit Company. Please turn to Slide 3 of the presentation. I will begin by reviewing our strategic transformation which we announced back on April 1. In late March, our Board approved a strategic transformation of EARN's investment strategy to focus on corporate CLOs, and more specifically CLO mezzanine debt and CLO equity.