Cohen & Company Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 3 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cohen & Company Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Call. My name is Erica, and I’ll be your operator for today. Before we begin, Cohen & Company would like to remind everyone that some of the statements the company makes during this call may contain forward-looking statements under the applicable securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made during this call are made only as of the date of the call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Cohen & Company advises you to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements and its earnings release and in most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC.

[Lester Brafman:]

Thank you, Erica, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for our fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. With me on the call is Joe Pooler, our CFO. We are pleased with our fourth quarter and annual results and excited for the year ahead as we continue to execute on our strategic goals, including growing our mortgage and repo business, expanding our asset management revenue streams and position the company to attract new business opportunities and capital partners. Net trading revenue was $73.6 million for the full year 2020, up $35.4 million or 93% from 2019. This is due primarily from our mortgage repo and corporate trading groups. At the end of the year, our Gestation book had grown to $3.3 billion, up from $1.3 billion at the end of 2019, and our non-CDO assets under management increased 27% to $712 million, including growth in our European PriDe Funds and SPAC Funds. We also continue to make great strides in the development of our SPAC franchise and remain active in the SPAC market as a sponsor, asset manager, and investor. In the fourth quarter, our first company-sponsored SPAC, Insurance Acquisition Corp., closed its merger with Shift Technologies, contributing $18.3 million to the fourth quarter’s adjusted pre-tax income. More recently, our second company-sponsored SPAC, INSU Acquisition Corp. II, closed its merger agreement with Metromile, a digital insurance platform and pay-by-mile auto insurer, and our third company-sponsored SPAC, INSU Acquisition Corp. III, completed its $250 million IPO and is currently seeking a business combination. Our team has substantial experience in the SPAC space. We are excited to build on our momentum and continue growing our SPAC franchise. Looking ahead, we remain committed to executing on our strategic priorities, with continued focus on proactively managing our risk and our capital structure, as well as enhancing stockholder value. With that, I will turn the call over to Joe Pooler and he can walk you through the quarter’s financial highlights in more detail.

[Joe Pooler:]

Thanks, Lester. We’ll start with our statement of operations. Our net income attributable to Cohen & Company Inc. stockholders was $14.8 million for the quarter or $7.64 per fully diluted share, compared to $1.7 million for the prior quarter or $1.19 per diluted share and $800,000 for the prior year, quarter or $0.56 per diluted share. Our adjusted pretax income was $23.8 million for the quarter, compared to $3.6 million for the prior quarter and $1.7 million for the prior year quarter. As Lester mentioned, in the fourth quarter, our first company-sponsored SPAC closed its merger with Shift Technologies contributing $18.3 million to the quarter’s adjusted pre-tax income.

[Lester Brafman:]

Thanks, Joe. Please direct any offline investor questions to Joe Pooler at [phone] or via email to [e-mail]. The contact information can be also found at the bottom of our earnings release. Operator, you can now open the call lines for questions.

[Operator:]

And there are no audio questions in queue at this time.

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[Lester Brafman:]

Okay. Thanks operator and thanks all of you for joining us today. And we look forward to our first quarter call a little while. Thank you very much. Bye.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.