First national financial company (OTCPK:FNLIF) Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call, October 30, 2024, 10:00 a.m. ET

Participating company

Jason Ellis – President and CEO
Robert Inglis – Chief Financial Officer

Conference call participants

Nikolaus Priebe – CIBC Capital Markets
Etienne Ricard – Stock Research BMO Capital Markets
Jaeme Gloyn – National Bank Financial
Graham Ryding – TD Securities Stock Research

Operator

Hello and welcome to First National’s third quarter earnings call. This call is recorded on Wednesday, October 30, 2024. At this time, all callers are in listen-only mode. Later, we will hold a Q&A session with the analysts. (Operator Instructions)

I now have the pleasure of turning the call over to Jason Ellis, President and CEO of First National. Go ahead, sir.

Jason Ellis

Thank you and hello. Welcome to our call and thank you for your participation. Rob Inglis, our CFO, joins me and will provide his comments soon.

I remind you that our comments and responses may contain forward-looking information about future events or the future performance of the company. This information is subject to risks and uncertainties and should be considered in conjunction with the risk factors detailed in the management report.

For the third quarter, income before fair market value of $75.3 million was 21% lower than last year. This was largely due to the decline in residential origination, as well as our decision to increase direct securitization in our commercial segment versus placing mortgages to investors.

As you have learned from our previous calls, direct securitization means that we incur costs associated with the current quarter while deferring revenue to future periods. When developing our 2024 financial plan a year ago, we assumed that single-family title originations would be lower than the previous year. In practice, as noted previously, the impact of the largest lender in