Q4 2023 Guild Holdings Co Earnings Call

Participants

Terry Schmidt; CEO & Director; Guild Holdings Company

David Neylan; President & President & COO; Guild Holdings Company

Amber Kramer; SVP & CFO; Guild Holdings Company

Don Fandetti; Analyst; Wells Fargo

Rick Shane; Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co

Eric Hagen; Analyst; BTIG, LLC

Derek Sommers; Analyst; Jefferies LLC

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Guild Holdings Company Fourth Quarter 2023 earnings conference call (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. And before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments on this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expected operating and financial performance for future periods and industry trends. These statements are based on the Company's current expectations. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements due to a number of risks or other factors that are described in greater detail under the section titled Risk Factors.
Garrett's most recently filed Form 10-Q and in other reports subsequently filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Additionally, today's remarks will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the corresponding GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release furnished today with the SEC and are also available on Gail's Investor Relations website. I'd now like to turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Terry Schmidt. Terry?

Terry Schmidt

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results and strategic update. I am joined by our President, David, Neil, and as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Amber Kramer throughout 2023.
In the fourth quarter, we have remained consistent with our strategy to grow market share by being a lender of choice in the communities we serve across the country. I am proud of our achievements throughout the year as we grew our market share delivered full year positive adjusted net income and executed on attractive acquisitions. We accomplished this amidst the macro headwinds that we and others in the industry have been discussing, including elevated interest rates and tight housing inventory.
For the full year 2023, we generated $15 billion of in-house originations, 93% of which were from purchase business, and we generated a net loss of $39 million and adjusted net income of $48 million. By being disciplined and focusing on maintaining a robust capital position. We have successfully completed complementary and compelling acquisitions and team additions, which position us for accelerated growth when the cycle turns.
Including the post year end announcement of our acquisition of Academy mortgage, which David will discuss, we have completed five transactions over the past 1.5 year. Each of these transactions helps us to further our strategic growth of growing market share by adding new geographies, loan officers, products and enhanced relationships, which support our focus on the purchase market. These transactions have helped to lift Guild to become the eighth largest non-bank retail mortgage lender.
In addition, according to the MLS data, we have increased our number of licensed individuals by 34% since just prior to the first of these transactions in November of 2022. This illustrates our success at growing and retaining our sales teams and positioning them to take full advantage of the next cycle in the housing market.
We've also continued to enhance enhance our product depth with the addition of reverse mortgages and builder products among others, which in turn enhance relationships with key partners such as builders. All of this growth has been facilitated by our consistent focus on execution, and we are confident it will continue to distinguish yield in the marketplace and allow us to create meaningful value for our stockholders over time.
Market conditions were challenging throughout the year with higher interest rates and limited home inventory. Despite this backdrop, we continue to grow our market share. We prioritized being integrated members of the communities we serve and the foundation of our approach is our relationship-based loan sourcing strategy and being able to provide our customers with innovative products that serve their needs. While we anticipate the current headwinds will continue through much of 2024.
We are encouraged by our market share growth and disciplined approach. We'll deliver results when sentiment improves and the rate environment is today more than ever. We are confident in our model and that the platform that we have established. This includes our focus on purchase mortgage originations as well as our strategy of retaining our servicing allowing us to generate more reliable cash flow. Maintaining our customer relations that supports our Customer for Life philosophy, positions us to be a lender of choice for our customers for future transactions.
Furthermore, we continue to view the current environment as an opportunity to be even better positioned as the cycle turns. We have maintained a disciplined approach to capital management as demonstrated by our year-end leverage ratio of 1.3 times, which allows us to selectively pursue growth opportunities.
We have built a brand with a stellar reputation and in fact, in the 2023 mortgage CX best in class award by the Strathmore group field had the most overall winners in the large independent mortgage bankers category with six of the top 10 up loan officers working for Guild by maintaining our reputation for integrity and service. We are able to continue to attract loan officers, potential M&A prospects and customers. We are proud of our ability to continue to execute on our plan, expand our platform and create value for our stockholders. And now I'd like to turn the call over to David Neyla. David?

David Neylan

Thank you, Terry. In the fourth quarter, we delivered total in-house loan originations of $3.5 billion compared to $4.3 billion in the third quarter, reflecting both market headwinds and seasonality. We anticipate we will see continued pressure on originations in the coming quarters, aligned with higher rates and limited housing supply. However, on a relative basis, we benefit from our focus on the purchased mortgage market.
In the fourth quarter, we originated 93% of our closed loan origination volume from purchase business compared to the Mortgage Bankers estimate of 81% for the industry for the same period. As Terry mentioned, subsequent to quarter end, we acquired the retail lending assets of Academy Mortgage Corp., a privately held Utah based lender that has license to operate in 49 states and Washington, D.C. Academy boasts approximately 200 branches and more than 1,000 employees who have transitioned to yield, including more than 600 licensed mortgage originators.
The addition of Academy mortgage represents a 25% increase to origination volume based on results through the third quarter of 2023. According to data from inside mortgage finance publications. Just like the other transactions we have completed in the previous several quarters, we pursued a combination with Academy due to their close alignment to our culture, values and approach of having local sales and fulfillment that supports our customers for life strategy.
Additionally, we are encouraged by our ability to attract organic talent and M&A opportunities over the past several quarters and that we are being recognized as a partner of choice as the platform for local retail mortgage originators seeking long-term growth and stability. We have continued to pursue our goal of facilitating homeownership in the communities that we serve. And to that end, throughout the year, we introduce a number of new products that make sustainable home ownership attainable, including rate buy-down programs, down-payment assistance and options for no lender fee refinancing. The entire industry faces ongoing pressure.
However, we remain confident that Gilead's balanced business model and strategy that we have always adhere to is one that will again prove to be successful in this cycle and will allow us to continue to increase our market share and deliver attractive earnings growth over time. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Amber Kramer, to discuss the financials in more detail.

Amber Kramer

Thank you, David. As is our standard practice My comments will focus on sequential quarter comparisons. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we generated $3.5 billion of total in-house loan originations compared to $4.3 billion in the third quarter. Net revenue totaled $57 million compared to $257 million in the prior quarter, which generated a net loss of $93 million compared to net income of$ 54 million in the third quarter.
The 2023 results were negatively impacted by fair value adjustments with respect to the Company's MSRs. Adjusted net income was $13 million, or $0.2 per diluted share, and adjusted EBITDA was $13.2 million. For the full year 2023, we generated $15 billion of total in-house loan originations compared to $19.1 billion in 2022.
Net revenue totaled $0.7 billion compared to $1.2 billion in the prior year, which generated a net loss of $39 million compared to a net income of $329 million in the prior year. Adjusted net income was $48 million and adjusted EBITDA of $75 million for the full year 2023.
Focusing on our originations segment, our gain-on-sale margins came in at 330 basis points compared to 377 basis points in the third quarter Unfunded origination. Gain on sale margins on pull-through adjusted lock volume was 347 basis points compared to 389 basis points in the prior quarter. And total pull-through adjusted locked volume was $3.3 billion compared to $4.1 billion in the prior quarter.
For our servicing segment, our portfolio grew to $85 billion. We reported net loss of $32 million compared to net income of $84 million in the third quarter. The losses due to non-cash downward valuation adjustment of MSRs of $122 million, reflecting the interest rate declined from the fourth quarter. Our servicing portfolio continues to be a valuable source for ongoing cash flow, future opportunities for loan recapture, and it reinforces our Customer for Life strategy. Our balance sheet remains strong and provides us with the flexibility to continue to invest in our growth.
Turning to liquidity, as of December 31st, cash and cash equivalents totaled $120 million for unutilized loan funding capacity was $1 billion and unutilized mortgage servicing rights lines of credit was $336 million based on total committed amounts and borrowing base limitations. Our leverage ratio, defined as total secured debt, including funding divided by tangible stockholders' equity, was 1.3 times.
Book value per share at the end of the quarter was $19.36, while tangible net book value per share was $15.90. We believe we are well-positioned to manage through the current more challenging operating environment while allowing us to investments to create additional value.
In addition, during the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 98,000 shares at an average stock price of $11.69 per share. On March 7, 2024. Our Board of Directors extended the share repurchase program to May 5, 2025. As of December 31, 2023, there were $11.2 million remaining under their original $20 million share repurchase authorization.
In the first two months of 2024, we generated $2.2 billion of loan originations and $2.6 billion of pull-through adjusted lock volume. We closed on the acquisition of Maconomy mortgage at the end of February and consistent, consistent with the experience of prior acquisitions, we anticipate a short term earnings impact as loan originators integrate into our pipeline and production volumes ramp up on the platform. We anticipate continued pressure on origination volume and gain on sale margin. However, we remain confident in our balanced business model, which we believe results in more durable and sustainable performance across market cycles. And with that we'll open up the call for questions. Operator?

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Don Fandetti, Wells Fargo.

Don Fandetti

Good evening. But can you talk a little bit about gain on sale margins for Q1? It sounds like there's continued pressure there. And then secondarily, just any comments around the competitive environment?

Amber Kramer

Sure. Thanks, Dan and know we don't provide guidance going forward and we've continued to see gain on sale really stabilized with no change. And we're not seeing anything that is moving that up or down. And so we know where we've been in this pressured environment over the last year and a half, I think is going to hold until we see some changes in housing inventory capacity opening up and fed rate move.

Don Fandetti

And then can you just comment a little bit on what you're seeing just competitively in general? And also, do you think you have that opportunity bit more acquisitions?

Terry Schmidt

Yes. And you know, things are still competitive, and I think there's still some excess capacity in our in our industry. But our growth strategy is working. We're still seeing a lot of activity on the M&A front as well as the organic growth front. There is others owners that are looking for, you know, another home with a company that's a little bit more larger. Can offer more to their employees and same thing with loan originators. They're looking for stability and, you know, a company that's growing and investing in their future.
So we feel like there's still opportunity out there and our strategy's working. If you if you look at the fourth quarter of '23, you compare that to the fourth quarter of '22 for originations in the industry, the industry was down about 2.4%. Guild was we increased by about 18%. So overall, we're about 20% ahead as the industry. And so we believe that our strategy is working.

Don Fandetti

Thank you.

Operator

Rick Shane, JP Morgan.

Rick Shane

Thanks for taking my questions, everybody on just one quick thing, and I think given the questions we've chatted about in the past, this isn't going to be a surprise the percentage of MSR that was retained this quarter was down to 77%. I'm curious if that is related to any on existing contracts related to acquisitions and that you will gravitate back towards your historical target of 90%. And curious on particularly because you've made such a large acquisition entering 2024 on if there's any distortion related to forward sales on MSRs that we should be aware of.

Amber Kramer

Yes. Thanks, Rick. Overall the percentage of service retained versus released is going to be driven mostly just by profitability and execution. And, you know, some of the aggregators are paying up for it, and we're seeing that pickup there, and we'll take that opportunity and capitalize on it to pick up the extra basis points in gain on sale.
The acquisitions are they don't impact it that the last acquisition that we had will take some time to ramp up. So they're not in any of our volume numbers anyway. And I think the other big part of this is a lot of the recent acquisitions come to Guild is because of our Customer for Life strategy. And so we continue to focus on that and balance that out with, you know, looking at execution and profitability.

Rick Shane

Got it. And I'm in the context of that customer for life, are you selling on certain when you're doing when you're selling servicing released, are you selling to purchasers who aren't necessarily seeking recapture business on because they have a different intent with the MSR hedge for them and not necessarily potential future pipeline?

Terry Schmidt

Not necessarily. We're just looking at the execution as far as pricing, if there's a correspondent and out there's correspondent lender that that is aggressively pricing to where we can't justify, for example, the value of their servicing, for example, then we're going to take advantage of that, that price and execute through the correspondent on a service release basis.

Rick Shane

Got it. And on what on those sales servicing for LeaseStar, I'm parsing my language here on the sales servicing release. Is it do you see it as a jump ball going forward, if you're selling to a lender who is seeking recapture, are there any covenants preventing you given your knowledge and frankly, close relationship with the borrower on to be able to recapture refis as that becomes a bigger part of the market. I'm trying to understand if there's an opportunity cost that you're giving up by selling the MSR servicing release d.

Terry Schmidt

Understood.

Amber Kramer

Yes. And I think the one important part of this is that we have a really strong CRM and we are in close contact with our borrowers and the realtors and so just because we're selling them service release doesn't necessarily mean that we're losing touch with that borrower overall. And so that's I think that's an important part of this.

Terry Schmidt

Got it. Okay. And I misspoke, when I said sold the MSR servicing release or sell the loan servicing released, I want to correct myself on that. Okay. That's very helpful, guys. Thank you.

Operator

Eric Hagen, BTIG.

Eric Hagen

Hey, yes, good afternoon and hope you're well, hey, did you say how much you paid for Academy in that in that acquisition? And is there a good way to think about the expenses going forward following the onboarding of that platform?

Amber Kramer

We did not say what we paid for the acquisition and or fault file our 10 K in the next couple of days. And you'll see in our subsequent event with the purchase price was on, but we have that's not public information at this time. And as far as the expenses going forward, it would fall into our normal expense structure over time, although the acquisition takes time to ramp up, usually 90-ish days plus on ticket onto our system. They come on as employees on day one and they integrate onto our platform and then we'll start closing their loans on within 90 days. So you do have an impact, as I mentioned in our my remarks to near term earnings from a cost structure perspective, right?

Eric Hagen

Yes, that's helpful.

Terry Schmidt

Historically, we used to show a profit on these types of acquisitions within four to six months, but we'll see that the margins being much thinner than they than they have been in the last 1.5 years to 2 years if we we're shooting for within 12 months to start showing profitability on these acquisitions.

Eric Hagen

Yes, that's helpful. Thank you so much. Hey, can you share how conventional mortgage rates are comparing to FHA right now and what you're seeing in terms of any changes in borrower credit quality between the two channels and even in which channel you can potentially be more active or aggressive in if rates were to fall?

Terry Schmidt

David, do you want to take that question?

David Neylan

Sure. Credit quality for our borrowers continues to remain high, and we continue to see in both the conventional and the government side that borrower standards are high. Underwriting standards continue to remain high there. There is a bit of a narrowing in the gap in terms of pricing, but we really continue to see options for both, particularly first time homebuyers, downpayment assistance programs being able to close the gap here a little bit. So it remains competitive and both we've got a ton of experience in operating in both areas and we have different areas of the country where some of that business shifts a little bit based on the geography. But again, we're seeing high credit quality standards, good underwriting, good collateral and some good performance as well.

Eric Hagen

Great. Thank you guys so much.

Operator

Derek Sommers, Jefferies.

Derek Sommers

And good afternoon, Tom, just as we're moving into '24 and some of the origination headwinds persist. How are you guys feeling about the balance in aggregate between your origination segment and Servicing segments?

Terry Schmidt

I mean, each quarter our and our origination segment continues to we continue to get our cost in order, even even though we're still adding via acquisitions and organic growth, we're still cutting our expenses. So we feel good about that. It's all going in the right direction. And of course, on the servicing side, I mean, we're it's solid. Our cash flows are really solid. I know we had an impairment this last quarter but you know, in reality, our prepayments and our payoffs just continue have continued to go down. So we feel like from the cash flow perspective, the value of our servicing still is still, you know, very strong. And we feel like that, that model of having originations and servicing it works well for us.

Derek Sommers

Got it. And then kind of some of the data, we track shows home inventory starting to loosen slightly, at least compared to the past couple of years. Does that reflect kind of what you're hearing from the field?

Terry Schmidt

Yes, yes, there has been some relief. It's still there still isn't enough inventory to, you know, to three. I think the demand is still so high compared to the inventory and it looks like the inventory year over year is about 20% higher than it was at. And we're seeing some price cuts in markets, more price cuts than we have in the past. So it's going in the right direction. But I think because we can we've continued to work on our growth strategy as this keeps getting better and starts turning, we're going to we're going to be in a great position and benefit greatly from it.

Derek Sommers

Got it. Thank you. That's all for me.

Operator

Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I'll now turn the call over to management for closing remarks.

Terry Schmidt

Thank you, everyone, and we're just going to keep doing what we do and executing on our strategy and we look forward to give you an update next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for joining us today. Have a great evening and we look forward to updating you on our next call.