Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ellington Credit Company fourth fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2026 results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. At any time, if your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star 0. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Aladin Chalet, Associate General Counsel. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are non-historical in nature and involve risks and uncertainties detailed in our registration statement on Form N-2. Actual results may differ materially from these statements, so they should not be considered to be predictions of future events. The fund undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Joining me today are Larry Penn, Chief Executive Officer of Ellington Credit Company, Greg Borenstein, Portfolio Manager, and Chris Murnoff, Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings conference call presentation is available on our website, EllingtonCredit.com. Today's call will track that presentation, and all statements and references are qualified by the important notice and end notes at the back of the presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Larry. Thanks, Aladine, and good morning, everyone.

We appreciate your time and interest in Ellington Credit Company, which we often refer to by its New York Stock Exchange ticker, EARN, or EARN for short. Please turn to slide three. The first calendar quarter of 2026 was marked by continued volatility in the CLO market. As we previously communicated in our monthly portfolio updates, the broader market environment exerted significant pressure on asset valuations and led to a decline in our NAV, but our active trading and upping the capital stack bias once again drove our outperformance versus peers. We believe that the first quarter largely represented a technical dislocation that reset valuations and expanded the opportunity set, rather than a fundamental deterioration in underlying credit quality. Much of the asset valuation declines in the sector stemmed from yield spread widening and heavy selling pressure in CLO mezzanine and equity tranches amid thin liquidity and concerns around software sector exposure, as opposed to any broad-based weakening in borrower fundamentals. Importantly, we were able to issue debt capital at the end of March, which enabled us to move quickly to capitalize on this opportunity-rich environment by deploying those proceeds promptly and opportunistically. Market conditions have subsequently improved so far in the second quarter, and this is This has been a tailwind for what is shaping up to be a strong quarter. I will cover the details of that debt capital raise and deployment, as well as our performance in April, shortly. Let's start by reviewing our results for the first quarter. The quarter began on a constructive note, with credit spreads tightening and leveraged loan prices rising early in the new year. But that initial momentum faded in late February, as concerned over AI-driven disruption in the software sector, which is a small but meaningful component of most CLO collateral pools, triggered a sharp decline in those credits. By quarter end, U.S. and European leveraged loan prices had fallen by more than 2% from their January peaks. This weakness, amplified by geopolitical tensions, fueled a broader risk-off sentiment that widened spreads on CLO debt tranches, as shown on slide 3. While the senior AAA through single A rated CLO tranches held up relatively well, CLO mezzanine debt came under significant selling pressure in February and March, with lower-rated tranches, particularly double-B-rated tranches, experiencing sharp yield spread widening. CLO equity faced multiple headwinds, including compressed excess spread from a loan repricing wave in January, wider market clearing yields, and concerns surrounding those lower-quality loan borrowers. As estimated by Nomura Research, the median CLO equity return for the quarter was negative 13%. That said, many valuation declines, particularly in CLO equity, occurred on light trading volume, and in our view, reflected technical market dislocations and liquidity-driven price weakness, rather than deterioration in underlying fundamentals or broad-based credit impairment. For EARN, unrealized losses on CLO equity assets were the primary driver of the NAV decline in the first quarter, more than offsetting net investment income, trading gains, and gains from mezzanine trance redemptions. Turning to our capital structure, in late March, the fund issued $54 million of 8.5% five-year senior unsecured notes. This transaction strengthened our balance sheet by extending our liability profile, adding non-mark-to-market financing, and providing dry powder to capitalize on the dislocated market. At March 31st, our CLO portfolio totaled $308 million, and we held a sizable $58 million in cash. Consistent with our positioning throughout the volatility, we prioritized CLO mezzanine debt over equity during the quarter, favoring the subordination levels and structural protections afforded by debt tranches while staying disciplined in our hedging strategy. As illustrated on slide 10, we increased our credit hedge portfolio to approximately $187 million of high-yield CDX notional equivalents at March 31st, up from $175 million a year-end. With overall corporate credit spreads remaining tight relative to CLO spreads, we were able to add this protection at compelling levels on both a relative value basis and an absolute value basis. Following the significant spread widening in the latter part of the first quarter, market conditions improved materially in April and into May. Real-money buyers have come back into the market, improving liquidity and driving CLO yield spreads tighter. From our standpoint, the sell-off has reinvigorated the opportunity set. Pre-payments and repricings have slowed, partially relieving the excess spread compression experience in 2025. Investment yields have moved higher, and CLO managers can again build par and preserve excess spread by acquiring performing loans at discounted prices, a dynamic that enhances the long-term return potential for CLO equity investors. In addition, as a meaningful portion of our CLO equity portfolio exits its non-call period, refinancing and reset opportunities should enhance underlying cash flows, further improving our asset yields and supporting future growth in our net investment income. These factors created an attractive market environment for deployment. We responded to this favorable environment by rapidly investing the majority of our dry powder into new opportunities, with deployment substantially complete by the end of April. Improved secondary market liquidity has also allowed us to be highly active in portfolio construction. In mezzanine debt, we have rotated out of many lower coupon investments priced near par, where we believe the market is overstating the probability of a near-term call, and we have moved into higher coupon, wider spread opportunities with stronger underlying credit fundamentals. In equity, we have added longer duration, high cash flow structures with solid covenant cushions, while reducing exposure to shorter duration, more highly leveraged positions with greater sensitivity to loan price volatility. These recent maneuvers contributed to our strong monthly economic return of nearly 7% in April and position us for improved earnings capacity as we rebuild net investment income and as we continue rotating out of investments with limited upside into more attractive risk-adjusted opportunities. I'll now turn it over to Chris to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Chris? Thanks, Larry, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide four. For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, which concluded our inaugural fiscal year as a CLO closed-end fund, we reported a gap net loss of $0.86 per share. As detailed on slide 6, the primary driver was market-market losses in CLO equity, while CLO mezzanine debt proved comparatively more resilient. As Larry discussed, the first quarter was characterized by a sharp risk-off move that disproportionately impacted lower rated CLO securities you low mezzanine debt particularly double B rated tranches experienced significant yield spread widening and selling pressure while Celo equity was pressured even more severely by lower excess spread water market clearing yields and heightened concerns around more vulnerable borrowers these dynamics drove meaningful mark-to-market volatility across the sector despite relatively stable underlying credit fundamentals. Within our CLO mezzanine debt portfolio, net investment income and trading gains, together with the positive impact of deal calls of positions owned at discounts to par, offset a portion of the mark-to-market write-downs. Credit hedges were also a moderate drag on results. Adjusted net investment income declined by $0.02 sequentially to $0.19 per share for the quarter, driven by lower asset yields on our CLO equity positions. The weighted average cost yield for the quarter on our CLO portfolio was 12.5 percent, down from 13.7 percent in the prior quarter, primarily driven by lower projected cash flows. As illustrated on slide seven, the size of our overall CLO portfolio declined during the quarter, driven by net sales, paydowns, and market-market reductions. Consistent with our active trading approach, we executed 44 distinct trades during the period, purchasing $30.7 million of investments, 93% in CLO debt and 7% in CLO equity, and selling $34.2 million. At March 31st, CLO equity represented 53% of total CLO holdings, up slightly from 52% at year-end, while European CLO investments accounted for 10%, down to 12% at Dec. 31st. These figures do not capture the impact of deploying the proceeds from the unsecured no transaction, which closed at quarter-end and was substantially deployed by the end of April. During April, we continued actively repositioning the portfolio, and as of April 30th, our CLO portfolio has grown by more than 6% to approximately $320 million overall. Slide 8 provides an overview of the corporate loans underlying our CLO investments. The collateral remains predominantly first lien floating-rate leveraged loans, representing roughly 95% of the underlying assets. Our industry exposure is well-diversified, led by technology, financial services, and health care, with no single sector exceeding 11 percent. Loan maturities are spread over several years, with the largest concentrations in 2028-2031 and minimal near-term maturities, resulting in an average – weighted average loan maturity of 4.3 years. Facility sizes skew towards larger borrowers, with a weighted average size of $1.7 billion, dollars, which supports secondary market liquidity. Slide 9 provides further detail on the underlying loan collateral. Notably, the weighted average junior over collateralization cushion on our CLO equity tranches only declined by six basis points quarter-over-quarter to 4.29 percent, further evidence that the Q1 sell-off was more technical than fundamental in nature. Slide 10 presents a snapshot of our credit hedges as of March 31st. As noted earlier, we further increased our corporate credit hedges during the quarter with that portfolio reaching $187 million in high yield CDX no-show equivalents at quarter end, up from $175 million at December 31st. We also continue to maintain a foreign currency hedge portfolio to manage its closure from our European ZLO investments. Turning to slide 11, our NAV at March 31st was $4.09 per share and cash-to-cash equivalents totaled $57.7 million. On March 30th, we issued $54 million of 8.5% five-year senior unsecured notes, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ELLA and incurred approximately $2.3 million dollars of issuance costs, which were fully expensed during the quarter. As noted earlier, the deployment of the proceeds was substantially complete by the end of April, with most of the proceeds deployed into new CLO investments and the balance used to repay short-term secured borrowings. As of April 30th, the estimated range on our NAV per share was $4.26 to $4.32, with a midpoint of $4.29. With that, I'll turn it over to Greg to discuss the CLO market environment, our portfolio positioning, and our outlook.

Calendar Q1 is presenting both challenges and opportunities to stable credit and broader market sell-off in portfolios of the loan market. Private credit and direct pressures were compounded in March, when geopolitical conflict increased globally. Largely technical sell-offs only at the end of Q25 in the low market, and 2026 began in much the same way. The share of loans trading above par from 58% at the end of December to 26% at the end of January, leaving investors hopeful from there to drop nearly two by 46 cents from those lows by February and March saw price declines in both junior mezzanine and equity CLO. Concerns around credit dispersion and CLO equity in particular, not surprisingly, the much-needed relief from our hedges, mezzanine positions, and, most significantly, issuing unsecured debt and then deploying the proceeds. The investment opportunity was not just limited to CLO equity, as we saw many compelling offerings in mezzanine debt as well. The CLO market dynamics in Q1 were very different from those in Q4 of last year. A portion of the price declines, a portion in loans, and moderate fundamental loss reflected in our improved NAV at April month end, but should also benefit us in the months ahead. As markets have stabilized, secondary trading volumes in CLOs, which has allowed us to rotate the portfolio and improve positioning, opportunity in the secondary market in April has become less compelling as the market has tightened. With the number of repricing eligible loans estimated by PitchBook to be around three concerns have reemerged, albeit to a much lesser extent than in Q4. We continue to believe that new issue CLO equity remains less compelling given more attractive risk-adjusted returns available in the secondary markets.

Productive and eventful, we completed our RIC conversion, we successfully transitioned the portfolio out of mortgage-backed securities and into CLO investments with minimal impact to NAV, and we thoughtfully scaled the CLO portfolio, expanding it by 23% year over year. Nearly three-quarters of our CLO purchases have been mezzanine debt tranches, underscoring our up-in-credit bias, particularly during the challenging past six months. In addition, we executed more than 260 trades over the course of the year to capture relative value across the CLO capital structure. At the same time, we strengthened our capital structure through the issuance of long-term unsecured notes, and we built a substantial credit hedging portfolio designed to mitigate downside risk and support opportunistic investing. As of March 31st, our fiscal year end, the high-yield CDX notional equivalents represented by our credit hedges actually exceeded our NAV, which I view as strong evidence of our conservative approach. We believe that AI-driven disruption, tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, and recession concerns continue to present real risks, and our diversification and active hedging and trading are specifically designed to mitigate these risks. For the full fiscal year, we declare total distributions of $0.96 per common share, and while unrealized mark-to-market losses resulted in a net loss overall, we believe that our underlying portfolio remains fundamentally sound and that many of these markdowns were technical in nature. We remain confident in the earnings prospects of our growing CLO portfolio and our robust hedging program. Even after the recovery we've seen in our portfolio so far in the second quarter, we believe that a meaningful portion of the recent price declines remains reversible, with potential for further recovery as credit stress continue to normalize. Relative to other CLO-focused close-end funds, we have delivered stronger and less volatile earnings over the past 12 months, reflecting our disciplined and highly active approach to portfolio construction and risk management. We are particularly pleased with the timing and execution of our unsecured note offering. Raising capital at the end of March enabled us to deploy into a dislocated market at highly attractive levels, and it is encouraging to see the market's recognition of the strength of earned credit story and risk management discipline. Since mid-April, our unsecured notes have consistently traded at a premium to their issue price, even at today's higher Treasury yields. As noted earlier, we believe that the market environment has shifted in our favor. With higher reinvestment yields and improving market sentiment, we see a stronger foundation for continued growth. We entered the new fiscal year with ample liquidity and a flexible balance sheet that supports increased earnings capacity, and the momentum in April and into May has reinforced our confidence and our ability to generate attractive total returns as the year progresses. Our balanced portfolio approach, mezzanine debt for stability, equity for upside, hedging for downside protection, and active trading to capture relative value, positions us well across a range of market environments. More than ever, we believe that our focus on liquidity, active trading, disciplined risk management, and tail risk hedging will enable us to capitalize in dislocations and generate alpha through periods of volatility. Thank you for your time and your continued support of Ellington Credit. And with that, let's open the floor to Q&A. Operator, please proceed.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press star 1 on your keypad. Delete the queue at any time, press star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question. And our first question today comes from Crispin Lowe with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Larry, you hit on it a little, but can you discuss just dry powder? You did the debt offering at the end of the quarter. It seems like much of that has been deployed through May. What do you have to deploy now, and then just how close are you?

Hey, first of all, it's JR. I can take that. So we made the point that through April, we were substantially deployed on those unsecured node proceeds. So we saw, you know, the sell-offs through March and kind of a golden opportunity to capitalize. And so, we were pretty quick to deploy and kind of deploy rapidly in new investments and replacing some short-term, you know, secure borrowings. You can see on our April one-pager from Monday night that the portfolio is up about $20 million month over month. And so, that's net of some sales. That's net of some paydowns and just some principal return on underlying investments. Looking forward, I think that, again, the proceeds are mostly deployed. We probably have a little bit of room to add secured borrowings on the margin, but I would characterize the proceeds from the notes as kind of deployed and invest at this point.

Yeah, and I think, you know, it would be probably more about recharging our adjusted net investment income through rotations, especially out of, as we mentioned, you know, certain types of equity profiles into other types of equity profiles, especially, will make a very meaningful, you know, meaningful change.

Okay, great. And then the first quarter, first calendar quarter, very challenging for a lot of the reasons you discussed. But just on the outlook here, second quarter so far, it seems constructive based on your comments. And then, Larry, on just recharging adjusted net investment income. Can you talk about your confidence in covering the dividend with adjusted NII over the near the intermediate term?

Yeah. So, look, I think, you know, we obviously, we just raised the debt capital at the end of March. So, we're not talking about April, I think. After this current quarter is over, right, that's when you'll see the momentum in our adjusted net advancement income, I think, you know, sort of be back on the upswing, right, given the timing of our debt deal. And, you know, I think that our next step is to get that adjusted NAI for the quarter into the low 20s. That's going to be our next step. And, you know, I think that once it's there, through just from that and from actively trading the portfolio and, you know, we are active traders and there's – the opportunities are, we think, much better than they've been, you know, we'll be where we want to be, which is we'll be paying a high dividend and hopefully with minimal or no-book value erosion. I mean, that's always our goal.

Great. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate taking my questions. Thanks, Susan.

Thank you. That was our final question for today. We thank you for participating in the Ellington Credit Company fourth fiscal quarter and did March 31, 1st, 2026 Revolts Conference Call. You may disconnect your line and have a nice day.