Velocity Financial, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 May 2021

[Operator:]

Good day and welcome to the Velocity Financial First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Oltmann. Please go ahead.

[Chris Oltmann:]

Thank you, Bessie. Hello everyone and thanks for participating in Velocity Financials first quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining me today are Chris Farrar, Velocity's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Szczepaniak, Velocity's Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this afternoon, we released our first quarter 2021 press release, and the accompanying earnings presentation which are available on our Investor Relations' website.

[Chris Farrar:]

Great, thank you Chris and welcome everyone to the 2021 Q1 call. Our team is very pleased with the results we presented today, as our business continues to perform very well. Originations were up from the prior quarter, and our pipeline for the second quarter continues to grow. This is especially impressive for two reasons. First, we produced almost the same volume in Q1 versus last year without offering any short-term loans, which were about 30% of last year’s Q1 volume. Second, we accomplished this with fewer team members which obviously indicate a significant operating efficiency. Clearly, things are going well on the origination front. In terms of our portfolio, our special servicing team had another very strong quarter of recoveries, as we continue to resolve delinquent loans profitably. I think it’s important to highlight that our portfolio yield is within a few basis points of the actual coupon, demonstrating that our recoveries are almost completely offsetting the interest shortfall from non-accrual loans. While real estate markets are very strong nationwide, and continue to help us, our hands-on special servicing team is doing a great job. Looking forward, there are two important areas we plan to detail in the future course. From a financial reporting perspective, most other lenders use fair value accounting, and we choose to use an amortized cost method which reduces quarterly volatility. As a result, we have significant embedded gains in the business that are not readily apparent. We plan to develop an economic book value in future quarters to easily identify the inherent unreported value we’ve created, which is significant and hopefully helpful to investors when comparing our company to others.

[Mark Szczepaniak:]

Thanks Chris, and hi everybody. On Page 4, we take a look at the reconciliation between our GAAP income for the quarter and book income or GAAP income was $3.4 million. But on a core basis, the core income was $6.7 million. And Chris alluded to the $3.3 million delta there which related to the debt refinancing, we did refinance our corporate debt in Q1 and we paid off the existing, the older corporate debt. We paid off the existing corporate debt, we had some deferred deal costs, write-offs and some prepayment fees as a result of paying off that debt. And that resulted in about $4.5 million of write-offs pre-tax or that $3.3 million that you're seeing a net effect of adjusting the GAAP income to the core income. So on a core basis $6.7 million.

[Chris Farrar:]

Great. Thank you, Mark. I'll just wrap up here on 11 and then we can take some questions. I think from a high-level view of the economy, we were starting to see things improve and loosen up, definitely see that government stimulus and programs is starting to help some of our borrowers and their tenants indirectly, so we hope that, that will continue to help us resolve those delinquent loans and as well as make new loans to new borrowers. I think, I mentioned, but I think everybody knows the real estate market is extremely strong right now, so that's obviously helping us as well. And then, from just a capital and liquidity perspective we've got plenty of financing in place to handle our growth. We're out in the market right now with our first securitization of the year, so I can't really say anything about that. But we'll update everyone as soon as we can on that. And I think we're very well positioned to take advantage of all the different growth we see going forward. So that wraps up our prepared presentation and we'll turn it back for questions.

[Operator:]

We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Don Fandetti:]

Hi, I was wondering if you can elaborate a little bit on where your embedded gains would be coming from, given that it's a loan portfolio.

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes, sure Don. We -- I think if you just look at the economic value or fair value even of the loans that we have on the sheet, it would be much higher. I mean, you could -- .indirectly if you wanted to take a quick look at it, you could just look at our fair value disclosure footnote, and that would probably be the best way to see it on the asset side, but we're going to fine tune that a little more and make a full presentation and obviously if we were to use fair value accounting, that increase in the loan -- on the loan side would come through to equity as well as through the earning statement in the equity and an increase in a book value, so that's where it's coming from.

[Don Fandetti:]

Got it. And is there anything to the MTL improvement I mean is that just going to -- we should just expect to see that slow improvement throughout the year, that's just sort of the pace?

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes, I think that's our expectation as if in mid-term, it's slow and steady, it's going to take a while and we don't expect it to just quickly recover, we think a lot of these resolutions are going to take time to work through the process and work themselves out.

[Don Fandetti:]

Got it. Thank you.

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Arren Cyganovich with Citi. Please go ahead.

[Arren Cyganovich:]

Thank you. The production volume number was impressive for the quarter, particularly in the investor one-four side. Is that just indicative of a change in demand or has there been some changes to your marketing to get that higher level of volume?

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes, hi Arren. Good to hear from you. That's, I think, it's a function of kind of both. We think it's increased demand, but also no change to our programs, but I think just operationally kind of hitting our stride and kind of getting back in the groove, and then also there's a little bit of seasonality in there that kind of January -- December, January, year-end stuff can always bounce around a little bit, but -- so I think all three of those combined add to the growth, but we definitely see across the board our account executives are being more productive. So, and that's not from changing our guidelines or new programs, that's just their inherent productivity.

[Arren Cyganovich:]

Okay. And then, offering your short-term loan product again starting in April, are you changing the underwriting standards at all or will it be kind of similar expected volumes as what you used to post?

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes, that -- it's hard to say, we're not sure yet how -- what kind of traction we're going to get there, I can tell you early on in the month of April we did see a lot of demand there, saw a lot of app. So I am pretty optimistic that it’s going to come back to somewhere at that level. We did brace our credit minimums and tightened the box a little bit. So, it might not be quite as robust as it was before. But, it should be significant after we get a couple of quarters under our belt.

[Arren Cyganovich:]

Okay. And then, just lastly you kind of following up on Don’s question, when we look at the breakdown on Slide 9, of the delinquency status of the loans, those non-accruals there, it looks like a big chunk of them are in for closure. What’s a typical timeline and I know it probably varies by state depending on it judicial or non-judicial? I know that sometimes some of the judicial states can take years, and I am just trying to think about like how long some of this might hang out?

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes. So, what you see it kind of -- the delinquency kind of quickly rolls 30, 60, 90 and then into foreclosure and then to your point sits in foreclosure quite a while, because that’s where it depends on how fast we can get through the various state processes, but on average we are running about 10 to 11 months in foreclosure in that foreclosure status before we see a resolution. So, that doesn’t mean that it’s a "foreclosure sale". It just means finally that the loan either comes current or gets paid off. And so, in some of the longer states you have borrowers who if they just see it, they wait till the very last minute and then they reinstate or pay us off. And then, you can have a short state like Texas where you can foreclose in 60 days. So, to your point, it varies across the U.S., but on average 10 months or so, that’s what we experience.

[Arren Cyganovich:]

Okay. Thank you.

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Chris Muller with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

[Chris Muller:]

Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. I’m on for Steve today. I have a couple of things I have, but I guess just a follow up on origination volumes. I guess once we do reach that normalized market, do you think that our volumes will be closer to that 30% in each bucket breakout or do you feel like the SFR is going to be -- have your rating going forward?

[Chris Farrar:]

Yes. So, on the short-term product that’s all one to four, so it will skew more heavily to the one to four because if we don’t offer that short-term product on for the commercial assets yet, we offer that sometime in the future. But, right now it’s all one to four.

[Chris Muller:]

Got it. And then, on the other side of the equation, do you guys have any expectations for repayment of loans for this year?

[Chris Farrar:]

We don’t. We don’t try to forecast that, it’s kind of too tricky to do. So, we are accruing default interest while it happens, so, whether it happens this week or next week, or next month, we are somewhat indifferent because it’s very profitable for us, and it’s lumpy, it’s very hard to predict. So, we don’t try to forecast that.

[Chris Muller:]

Alright. Thanks for that.

[Mark Szczepaniak:]

Sorry, I would like to add in there, when Chris said we accrue for default interest is really clear. We accrue when it happens meaning we record the default interest on a cash basis we don’t reserve or approve for, we just book it when we receive it.

[Chris Farrar:]

Right. And thanks Mark for clarifying it. Its accruing to the borrower at all times is what I meant to say it, I didn’t mean in our financial statements. But, it’s something that’s owed to us.

[Chris Muller:]

Right. Thanks for taking the questions.

[Chris Farrar:]

Okay.

[Operator:]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Farrar for any closing remarks.

[Chris Farrar:]

Thank you all for participating. We appreciate it and look forward to our next update after Q2. Thank you.

[Mark Szczepaniak:]

Thank you everybody.

[Operator:]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.