Doma Holdings Inc (DOMA) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Doma third-quarter 2023 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，感謝您的支持。歡迎參加 Doma 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。 （操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。

We'll now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, David DeHorn. Please go ahead.

現在我們將會議交給第一位發言人 David DeHorn。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Doma's third quarter of 2023 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Doma issued a press release announcing its third-quarter results, which are also available at investor.doma.com. Leading today's discussion will be Doma's Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Max Simkoff; and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Smith. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open up the call to questions.

謝謝你，接線生。大家下午好，感謝您參加 Doma 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。今天早些時候，Doma 發布了一份新聞稿，宣布其第三季業績，該業績也可在 Investor.doma.com 上查閱。 Doma 創辦人兼執行長 Max Simkoff 將主持今天的討論；和首席財務官邁克·史密斯。在管理階層準備好發言後，我們將開始提問。

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our discussion will contain predictions, expectations, forward-looking statements and other information about our business that is based on management's current expectations as of the date of the presentation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to Doma's expectations or predictions of financial and business performance, market conditions, competitive position, and industry outlook.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，我們的討論將包含預測、期望、前瞻性陳述和有關我們業務的其他信息，這些信息基於管理層截至演示之日的當前預期。前瞻性陳述包括但不限於 Doma 對財務和業務表現、市場狀況、競爭地位和產業前景的預期或預測。

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from historical results and/or from our forecast, including those set forth in Doma's most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC. For more information, please refer to the risks, uncertainties, and other factors discussed in Doma's most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings.

前瞻性陳述受到風險、不確定性和其他因素的影響，這些因素可能導致我們的實際結果與歷史結果和/或我們的預測有重大差異，包括 Doma 最近提交的 10-K 表格年度報告和隨後向SEC 提交文件。欲了解更多信息，請參閱 Doma 最近提交的 10-K 表格年度報告和其他 SEC 文件中討論的風險、不確定性和其他因素。

All cautionary statements that we make during this call are applicable to any forward-looking statements we make wherever they appear. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties and other factors discussed in Doma's SEC filings. Do not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as Doma is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any responsibility for updating, altering, or otherwise revising any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

我們在本次電話會議中所做的所有警告性聲明均適用於我們在任何地方所做的任何前瞻性聲明。您應該仔細考慮 Doma 的 SEC 文件中討論的風險和不確定性以及其他因素。請勿過度依賴前瞻性陳述，因為 Doma 不承擔任何義務，並明確不承擔更新、更改或以其他方式修改任何前瞻性陳述的責任，無論是由於新資訊、未來事件或其他原因，除非法律要求。

Additionally, during this conference call, we will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures including retained premium and fees, adjusted gross profit, adjusted EBITDA, and the other measures described in our earnings release. Our GAAP results and a description of our non-GAAP measures with a full reconciliation to GAAP can be found in the third-quarter 2023 earnings release, which has been furnished to the SEC and is available on our investor website.

此外，在本次電話會議中，我們還將參考非公認會計準則財務指標，包括留存保費和費用、調整後毛利、調整後 EBITDA 以及我們收益報告中所述的其他指標。我們的 GAAP 結果以及我們的非 GAAP 措施的描述以及與 GAAP 完全一致的資訊可以在 2023 年第三季財報中找到，該報告已提交給 SEC，並可在我們的投資者網站上找到。

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Max Simkoff, CEO of Doma.

接下來，我會將電話轉給 Doma 執行長 Max Simkoff。

Thank you, Dave. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our third-quarter earnings call. Last quarter, we unveiled several core components of our narrowed strategy in utilizing our instant underwriting technology to drive meaningful improvements to homeowner affordability.

謝謝你，戴夫。大家下午好，感謝您參加我們的第三季財報電話會議。上季度，我們公佈了縮小策略的幾個核心組成部分，即利用我們的即時承保技術來推動房主負擔能力的有意義的改善。

Today, we are providing specific details on how the strategy will work, including an exciting new product that we believe will help us drive profitable growth during a challenging time for the housing market. And while the overall housing market is experiencing unprecedented headwinds, we feel that we have successfully repositioned our business model and our cost base to allow for us to write an important new chapter for the company and for our industry overall.

今天，我們將提供有關該策略如何運作的具體細節，包括一款令人興奮的新產品，我們相信該產品將幫助我們在房地產市場充滿挑戰的時期推動獲利成長。儘管整個房地產市場正在經歷前所未有的逆風，但我們認為我們已經成功地重新定位了我們的業務模式和成本基礎，使我們能夠為公司和整個行業寫下重要的新篇章。

We'll discuss three key themes on the call today. First, I will provide an update on our path to reaching adjusted EBITDA profitability for Q4 of this year and the diligent steps we are taking towards achieving that goal despite a persistently challenging macroeconomic environment.

我們將在今天的電話會議上討論三個關鍵主題。首先，我將介紹我們實現今年第四季調整後 EBITDA 獲利能力的最新進展，以及儘管宏觀經濟環境持續充滿挑戰，但我們為實現這一目標所採取的努力措施。

Second, I will provide an update on the rollout of our new strategy for the business including more specific details on the growing category of demand that is driving our focus on providing a newly configured solution to meet this demand. I will also shed more light on the key commercial institutions in the broader mortgage ecosystem across both the primary and secondary markets who we are focused on partnering with in order to deliver a far better, faster, and more affordable suite of title solutions to American homeowners. Specifically, I'll also be announcing an exciting partnership that we are planning to launch in Q1 of 2024 with one of the largest mortgage market participants in the country.

其次，我將提供有關我們新業務策略推出的最新信息，包括有關不斷增長的需求類別的更多具體細節，這些需求正在推動我們專注於提供新配置的解決方案來滿足這一需求。我還將更多地介紹一級和二級市場上更廣泛的抵押貸款生態系統中的主要商業機構，我們專注於與這些機構合作，以便為美國房主提供更好、更快、更實惠的產權解決方案套件。具體來說，我還將宣布我們計劃在 2024 年第一季與全國最大的抵押貸款市場參與者之一建立令人興奮的合作夥伴關係。

Third, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the growing strength of our core underwriter platform, which is a stable source of profit for Doma that continues to perform well despite difficult market conditions. I will then turn the call over to our CFO, Mike Smith, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

第三，我想花幾分鐘談談我們核心承銷商平台不斷增強的實力，這是 Doma 的穩定利潤來源，儘管市場條件困難，但該平台仍然表現良好。然後我會將電話轉給我們的財務長麥克史密斯，他將更詳細地討論我們的財務表現。

Regarding our first theme, we remain highly focused on our ambitious goal of reaching adjusted EBITDA profitability for Q4 of this year, and we continue to make steady progress in that regard. Our adjusted EBITDA loss for continuing operations was $5 million in Q3, a significant improvement from our adjusted EBITDA loss of $12 million in Q2 of this year.

關於我們的第一個主題，我們仍然高度關註今年第四季度實現調整後 EBITDA 盈利能力的雄心勃勃的目標，並且我們將繼續在這方面取得穩步進展。第三季度，我們的持續經營業務調整後 EBITDA 損失為 500 萬美元，比今年第二季度調整後 EBITDA 損失 1,200 萬美元有了顯著改善。

This quarter-over-quarter improvement was driven mainly by workforce reductions, the sale of our local business, and further cost-reduction actions we have taken. Looking ahead to Q4, we expect to see the continued effect of our cost structure improvement initiatives as well as our new strategy helped to get us within striking distance of our goal of reaching adjusted EBITDA positive in Q4 of this year.

這一季度環比的改善主要是由於裁員、出售本地業務以及我們採取的進一步成本削減措施所推動的。展望第四季度，我們預計成本結構改善措施的持續影響以及新策略將幫助我們實現今年第四季調整後 EBITDA 為正值的目標。

That said, while we believe we are within striking distance of achieving this goal and expect to see continued significant improvement in our overall adjusted EBITDA, we do believe that there is risk to us achieving full quarter profitability in Q4, primarily due to the continued degradation of the housing market. As of now, we expect that risk to persist into the first quarter of 2024 against the backdrop of continued macroeconomic uncertainty and a seasonal low point for the housing market in Q1.

也就是說，雖然我們相信我們距離實現這一目標已經很近了，並且預計我們的整體調整後EBITDA 將持續顯著改善，但我們確實認為，我們在第四季度實現全季度盈利能力存在風險，這主要是由於持續惡化房地產市場。截至目前，在宏觀經濟持續不確定性以及第一季房地產市場出現季節性低點的背景下，我們預計這一風險將持續到 2024 年第一季。

Despite all of this, we have successfully executed significant cost-reduction actions while still enhancing the customer service levels at our underwriter and our enterprise division and also funding investments to support our future growth opportunities, particularly as it relates to our new strategy. As our significant improvement in P&L this quarter illustrates, we are confident that these adjustments are largely behind us now, and our efforts and our focus are currently on growing our revenues and expanding our margins, addressing the massive demand and need for a much lower cost title insurance solution and getting our existing technology to market to meet these critical needs.

儘管如此，我們仍然成功地執行了重大​​成本削減行動，同時仍然提高了承銷商和企業部門的客戶服務水平，並為投資提供資金以支持我們未來的成長機會，特別是與我們的新策略相關的投資。正如我們本季損益表的顯著改善所表明的那樣，我們相信這些調整現在基本上已經過去了，我們的努力和重點目前是增加我們的收入和擴大我們的利潤，滿足巨大的需求和對更低成本的需求產權保險解決方案並將我們現有的技術推向市場以滿足這些關鍵需求。

This brings me to the second key theme of our earnings call: an update on the implementation of our new strategy. As we discussed on our last quarterly earnings call, our go-forward business strategy is centered around providing solutions to the growing market chorus for more affordable and tech-driven title and closing offerings. By licensing our patented instant underwriting technology upstream directly to the largest mortgage market participants in the country while continuing to serve independent agents through our underwriting channel, we are confident that we can meet market demands and bring down costs for homeowners.

這讓我想到了我們財報電話會議的第二個關鍵主題：我們新策略實施的最新情況。正如我們在上一季財報電話會議上所討論的那樣，我們的未來業務策略的重點是為不斷增長的市場提供解決方案，以提供更實惠、技術驅動的產權和成交產品。透過將我們的專利即時承保技術直接授權給國內最大的抵押貸款市場參與者，同時繼續透過我們的承保管道為獨立代理商提供服務，我們有信心能夠滿足市場需求並降低房主的成本。

Today, we are providing more specific details about exactly how this strategy will work, the growing category of demand that is driving our focus on providing a newly configured solution to meet this demand, and the key commercial institutions in the broader mortgage ecosystem across both the primary and secondary markets who we intend to partner with in order to deliver a far better, faster, and more affordable suite title solutions to American homeowners.

今天，我們將提供更多具體細節，說明該策略的具體運作方式、不斷增長的需求類別（促使我們專注於提供新配置的解決方案來滿足這一需求），以及更廣泛的抵押貸款生態系統中的關鍵商業機構。我們打算與一級和二級市場合作，以便為美國房主提供更好、更快、更實惠的套房產權解決方案。

Over the past several years, we have seen an increasing frequency of data points telling us that the housing industry is in desperate need of more affordable options, not only across the entire spectrum of homeownership, but in title and closing specifically. And among lower-income minority borrowers, this problem is particularly acute.

在過去的幾年裡，我們看到越來越多的數據點告訴我們，房地產行業迫切需要更實惠的選擇，不僅涵蓋整個住房所有權範圍，而且特別是在所有權和交割方面。在低收入少數族裔借款人中，這個問題尤其嚴重。

In 2022, two of the government-sponsored enterprises or GSEs released equitable housing plans that specifically pointed to a need to help facilitate the deployment of lower-cost title and closing solutions. Fannie Mae released research that analyzed approximately 1.1 million home purchase loans acquired by the enterprise in 2020 that showed that within low-income, first-time homebuyers, 21% of black homebuyers pay closing costs equal or greater than their down payment.

2022 年，兩家政府資助的企業或 GSE 發布了公平住房計劃，特別指出需要幫助促進部署低成本產權和交割解決方案。房利美發布的研究報告對該企業在2020 年獲得的約110 萬筆購房貸款進行了分析，結果顯示，在低收入首次購房者中，21% 的黑人購房者支付的成交費用等於或高於首付。

Just last month, the CFPB released a report showing that total loan costs and fees in 2022 increased 22% over the previous year, while the average monthly payment, excluding taxes and insurance for borrowers taking out a conventional, conforming, 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose 46% from December 2021 to December 2022. This was driven almost entirely by the rise in mortgage interest rates.

就在上個月，CFPB發布的一份報告顯示，2022年貸款成本和費用總額比上年增加了22%，而採用傳統的、符合規定的30年期固定利率的借款人的平均每月還款額（不含稅費和保險費）從 2021 年 12 月到 2022 年 12 月，抵押貸款增加了 46%。這幾乎完全是由抵押貸款利率上升所推動的。

Further, in the last 12 months, our top-three largest lending customers in our enterprise division let us know that they are actively looking for ways to reduce the fees that their borrowers spend, specifically on title and closing. Put simply, American homeowners and particularly low-income minority homeowners or potential homeowners are approaching a level of desperation when it comes to being able to afford to buy or refinance a home.

此外，在過去 12 個月中，我們企業部門的三大貸款客戶告訴我們，他們正在積極尋找減少借款人花費的費用的方法，特別是在產權和結帳方面。簡而言之，美國房主，尤其是低收入少數族裔房主或潛在房主，在是否有能力購買或再融資房屋方面正接近絕望的程度。

In a nutshell, our new strategy is focused squarely on providing a solution to these needs of American homeowners in the current housing market to be offered much more affordable title solutions. Key to this strategy is shifting the placement of our instant title technology, further upstream toward the beginning of the mortgage origination process, which allows us to significantly reduce our own cost of service, opens up higher-margin software revenue for us and thus allows us in turn to offer greater discounts to the homeowners who are burdened with bearing the cost of lender's title insurance at this time of critical needs.

簡而言之，我們的新策略專注於為當前房地產市場中美國房主的這些需求提供解決方案，以提供更實惠的產權解決方案。這項策略的關鍵是將我們的即時產權技術的部署轉移到抵押貸款發放流程的上游，這使我們能夠顯著降低我們自己的服務成本，為我們帶來更高利潤的軟體收入，從而使我們能夠反過來，為在這個關鍵時刻需要承擔貸款人產權保險費用的房主提供更大的折扣。

Our large enterprise lender partners have told us for years that moving our instant underwriting decision closer to the loan underwriting decision itself or even in some cases before the loan underwriting decision enables them to significantly reduce key areas of cost in operational activity. Today, we are answering the significant demand for more streamlined upfront, affordable title solutions with a groundbreaking new product, which will put our new strategy into practice and allow for us to start driving meaningful benefits to home affordability to homeowners across the country.

我們的大型企業貸款合作夥伴多年來一直告訴我們，將我們的即時核保決策更接近貸款核保決策本身，甚至在某些情況下先於貸款核保決策，使他們能夠顯著降低營運活動中的關鍵成本領域。今天，我們透過突破性的新產品滿足了對更簡化的前期、負擔得起的產權解決方案的巨大需求，這將使我們的新策略付諸實踐，並使我們能夠開始為全國各地的房主帶來有意義的住房負擔能力。

We are calling this new product Upfront Title and we intend to make it generally available to both mortgage software providers as well as the government-sponsored enterprises as soon as the end of this year. Because this new product is so central to our new strategy, it's important to understand exactly how it will work as well as how it will drive meaningful benefits for borrowers, lenders in the secondary mortgage market as well as Doma itself.

我們將這個新產品稱為“Upfront Title”，我們打算盡快在今年年底向抵押貸款軟體提供者以及政府資助的企業普遍提供該產品。由於這款新產品對於我們的新策略至關重要，因此準確了解它將如何運作以及它將如何為二級抵押貸款市場的借款人、貸方以及 Doma 本身帶來有意義的利益非常重要。

Our new Upfront Title insurance product will enable us to provide an instant title underwriting decision as well as rate and coverage quoting all within or in communication with the core platforms used to determine eligibility for loan underwriting itself. Specifically, we have designed the product to integrate seamlessly with, number one, mortgage software systems utilized by large lenders to process borrower demand and issue prequalification decisions for mortgages; and number two, the core automated underwriting systems utilized by the government-sponsored enterprises.

我們新的預付產權保險產品將使我們能夠提供即時產權承保決定以及報價和保險範圍，所有這些都在核心平台內或與核心平台通信，用於確定貸款承保本身的資格。具體來說，我們設計的產品能夠與大型貸方使用的第一個抵押貸款軟體系統無縫集成，以處理借款人的需求並發布抵押貸款資格預審決定；第二，政府資助企業使用的核心自動化承保系統。

By offering our new Upfront Title product to mortgage software platforms as well as the GSEs directly, we will enable the lender customers of these platforms to be able to get instant title certainty at the point of deciding whether or not to underwrite the loan as well as to provide their homeowner customers a price generally far below current industry standard rates for title insurance. Additionally, this configuration of our technology will help us shift more of our revenue toward higher-margin software licensing revenue. In other words, meaningful savings for the borrower, instant certainty for lenders and a stickier high-volume, high-margin revenue stream for us.

透過直接向抵押軟體平台和 GSE 提供我們新的 Upfront Title 產品，我們將使這些平台的貸方客戶能夠在決定是否承銷貸款以及為房主客戶提供的價格通常遠低於當前的產權保險行業標準費率。此外，我們的技術配置將幫助我們將更多收入轉向利潤率更高的軟體授權收入。換句話說，為借款人節省大量資金，為貸款人提供即時確定性，為我們提供更具黏性的大批量、高利潤收入來源。

Because the distribution channels for this new product are highly consolidated and these platforms already have well-established customer acquisition and technology integration connections to nearly all of the mortgage lenders in the country, we believe our narrow go-to-market focus on mortgage software providers and the GSEs themselves will allow us to scale up Upfront Title with significantly lower cost of customer acquisition going forward.

由於這種新產品的分銷管道高度整合，並且這些平台已經與該國幾乎所有抵押貸款機構建立了完善的客戶獲取和技術集成連接，因此我們相信我們的市場進入範圍僅限於抵押軟體提供商GSE 本身將使我們能夠擴大預付費用，同時大幅降低未來的客戶獲取成本。

We are now in the process of filing rates for the title insurance component of this new product and believe that these rates will generally be up to 50% below the average already discounted rates utilized by large centralized lenders and up to 80% below the average rates utilized by smaller regional lenders. We intend to charge partners who utilize our Upfront Title offering a reasonable software licensing fee to access our title decisioning and provide this information to their lender customers.

我們目前正在為該新產品的產權保險部分提交費率，並相信這些費率通常比大型集中貸款機構使用的平均已折扣費率低 50%，比平均費率低 80%由較小的區域貸款機構使用。我們打算向使用我們的預付產權的合作夥伴收取合理的軟體授權費，以存取我們的產權決策並將此資訊提供給其貸方客戶。

And we also believe that the magnitude of the discount we provide on our associated title insurance policies will help drive meaningful additional premium volume from the transactions themselves. And even with the reduced premium rates we're passing on to the homeowner, we have confidence based on how we've designed this product configuration that on both the software licensing component as well as the underwriting component, we can run long-term gross margins well above 60%.

我們也相信，我們為相關產權保險保單提供的折扣幅度將有助於從交易本身推動有意義的額外保費量。即使我們向房主傳遞的保費率降低了，我們仍然有信心根據我們設計此產品配置的方式，在軟體許可部分和承保部分上，我們可以運行長期毛利率利潤率遠高於60%。

We are also excited today to announce that we will be partnering with one of the largest mortgage software platforms in the country to launch our Upfront Title product via a pilot program to demonstrate both the benefit of the solution for lenders and their borrower customers. In this initial launch, we have worked collaboratively with a major national lender customer on our partner's platform to be able to deliver instant underwriting and title certainty to this lender as a key part of the underwriting decision they make in our partner's software. This will in turn, allow them to pass on our significantly discounted rates to their end borrower customers, which we believe will drive meaningful new title insurance premium business for our underwriter.

今天我們也很高興地宣布，我們將與全國最大的抵押貸款軟體平台之一合作，透過試點計畫推出我們的 Upfront Title 產品，以展示該解決方案對貸方及其借款人客戶的好處。在首次發布中，我們與一家主要的國家貸款機構客戶在我們合作夥伴的平台上進行了合作，以便能夠向該貸款機構提供即時承保和產權確定性，作為他們在我們合作夥伴的軟體中做出核保決策的關鍵部分。反過來，這將使他們能夠將我們大幅折扣的利率轉嫁給他們的最終借款人客戶，我們相信這將為我們的承保人帶來有意義的新產權保險保費業務。

As part of this initial launch, our partner will be paying Doma, a software licensing fee for utilizing our instant decisioning. We anticipate being able to go live with this pilot by early Q1 of 2024, subject to agreement and documentation of final commercial terms, with the goal of being in a position to expand our partnership upon demonstrated program success in the second half of 2024. With this initial partner's significant position in the mortgage software market, their platform is utilized to process a meaningful amount of the nation's mortgage origination volume. So this is a significant launch for us.

作為首次啟動的一部分，我們的合作夥伴將向 Doma 支付軟體許可費，以使用我們的即時決策。我們預計能夠在 2024 年第一季初啟動該試點項目，但須遵守最終商業條款的協議和文件，目標是在 2024 年下半年證明該項目取得成功後能夠擴大我們的合作夥伴關係。該初始合作夥伴在抵押貸款軟體市場中佔有重要地位，他們的平台用於處理相當數量的國家抵押貸款發放。所以這對我們來說是一次重要的發布。

In summary, our newly announced Upfront Title insurance product addresses the rising demand for significantly lower cost title and closing solutions at a time of severe housing affordability constraints. By shifting our product capabilities and focus to utilize our same patented technology via much lower cost of customer acquisition channels and a higher-margin platform configuration, we believe we are positioning the company to take share at a more rapid pace while our new strategic vision leads out front in the critical mission to significantly reduce the high cost that face homeowners during a period of limited affordability.

總而言之，我們新推出的預付產權保險產品滿足了在住房負擔能力受到嚴重限制的情況下對成本大幅降低的產權和成交解決方案不斷增長的需求。透過轉移我們的產品能力和重點，透過更低的客戶獲取管道成本和更高利潤的平台配置來利用我們相同的專利技術，我們相信我們將讓公司以更快的速度搶佔市場份額，同時我們的新戰略願景將引領在顯著降低房主在承受能力有限期間面臨的高成本方面，我們處於領先地位。

It's critical to note that our Upfront Title product has minimal remaining engineering work required to go live as it is built on our already patented scalable and unbiased underwriting platform. And it was built to factor in all of the existing requirements of our intended commercial partners, including those of the GSEs. The underlying technology for this product has been scale-tested to accurately underwrite title risk over a period of nearly six years.

值得注意的是，我們的前期產權產品上線所需的剩餘工程工作量最少，因為它是建立在我們已經獲得專利的可擴展且公正的核保平台上的。它的建構考慮了我們目標商業合作夥伴（包括 GSE 的要求）的所有現有要求。該產品的基礎技術經過規模測試，可在近六年的時間內準確承保產權風險。

While we are excited to announce our pilot program with one of the leading mortgage software platform for upfront title insurance, our intent is to work over the next few quarters to discuss and hopefully finalize commercial partnerships with a broader set of mortgage software platforms and GSE partners so that we can deliver meaningful cost savings for homeowners at a time when these homeowners are demanding cost relief.

雖然我們很高興宣布與領先的抵押貸款軟體平台之一合作進行試點計劃，用於預付產權保險，但我們的目的是在接下來的幾個季度內討論並希望最終與更廣泛的抵押貸款軟體平台和GSE 合作夥伴建立商業合作夥伴關係這樣，當房主要求降低成本時，我們就可以為他們提供有意義的成本節約。

As part of our go-forward strategy and in parallel with the distribution of our technology on a license basis, our title insurance underwriting business and our independent agents remain of critical importance and will continue to be a core part of our business, which brings me to the third key theme of our earnings call, which is to provide an update on our core underwriting platform and its strong performance despite challenging market conditions.

作為我們前進策略的一部分，與在許可基礎上分配我們的技術並行，我們的產權保險承保業務和我們的獨立代理人仍然至關重要，並將繼續成為我們業務的核心部分，這使我我們財報電話會議的第三個關鍵主題是提供我們核心核保平台的最新資訊及其在充滿挑戰的市場條件下的強勁表現。

Following the sale of our local business, as we work towards new initiatives and launching new products, Doma's transformation is still underway. In any event, we believe that our business will continue to benefit from the healthy stability provided by our underwriting division. You'll see in our press release today that we are now providing financial information for our two business divisions going forward: underwriting and enterprise technology.

出售本地業務後，隨著我們致力於新措施和推出新產品，Doma 的轉型仍在進行中。無論如何，我們相信我們的業務將繼續受益於核保部門提供的健康穩定。您將在今天的新聞稿中看到，我們現在正在為未來的兩個業務部門提供財務資訊：核保和企業技術。

Our underwriting division includes all revenue and expenses generated by the business of underwriting title insurance across our various distribution channels. Our enterprise technology division includes all revenue and expenses resulting from the continuation of our existing enterprise distribution activities, which we continue to grow and develop as well as results from our expanded efforts to license our technology via innovative distribution channels, such as our new Upfront Title product.

我們的核保部門包括透過我們的各種通路承保產權保險業務所產生的所有收入和費用。我們的企業技術部門包括我們持續發展和發展的現有企業分銷活動所產生的所有收入和費用，以及我們透過創新分銷管道（例如我們新的前期標題）擴大技術許可的努力的結果。

Our underwriter continues to perform remarkably well despite difficult market conditions. Even if our newer initiatives and shift in strategy within enterprise technology take longer than expected to materialize, our underwriter has demonstrated it can be standalone profitable, and we believe that there are additional levers we can pull to manage our consolidated business through a prolonged down period.

儘管市場條件困難，我們的承銷商仍然表現出色。即使我們的新措施和企業技術內的策略轉變需要比預期更長的時間才能實現，我們的承銷商已經證明它可以獨立盈利，而且我們相信，我們可以利用額外的槓桿來管理我們的合併業務，度過長期的低迷期。

The latest market share from the American Land Title Association shows that we continued to gain share both sequentially and year over year in Q3 among all title underwriters in the country to an all-time high of 2%. And despite the market headwinds, our underwriting team's continued hard work helped us deliver one of the highest revenue-producing weeks we've seen all year during September.

美國土地產權協會的最新市場份額顯示，第三季我們在全國所有產權承銷商中的份額持續增長，達到 2% 的歷史新高。儘管市場逆風，我們的核保團隊的持續努力幫助我們在 9 月實現了全年收入最高的一周之一。

In addition, significant tech initiatives that we've recently launched in the underwriting division have allowed us to lead with technology in ways which have been critical to our success by facilitating the addition of new agents and increasing the wallet share of existing agents. For example, we started with the instant underwriting of refinance transactions for independent agents last year and now have it available to agents in all states where we offer title production services. We've used this foundation to build new capabilities for the title production team that will be used to benefit our title production services more broadly.

此外，我們最近在核保部門推出的重大技術舉措使我們能夠透過促進新代理商的增加和增加現有代理商的錢包份額，以對我們的成功至關重要的方式引領技術。例如，我們去年開始為獨立代理商即時承保再融資交易，現在已向我們提供產權製作服務的所有州的代理商提供該服務。我們利用這個基礎為遊戲製作團隊建立了新的能力，這些能力將用於更廣泛地惠及我們的遊戲製作服務。

Over the last several months, we have taken several steps to increase the operational efficiency of this division. We've released significant upgrades, and we believe that rolling out our technology will benefit our independent-agent-focused title production team by saving them time and expense while also offering us opportunity to drive margin expansion in this division in the coming quarters. We are also in the process of rolling out enhanced reporting for our independent agents to help these agents determine how they are performing with respect to their competition, which we believe will ultimately allow our partners to make better data-driven decisions and further benefit from a partnership with Doma.

在過去的幾個月裡，我們採取了多項措施來提高該部門的營運效率。我們已經發布了重大升級，我們相信，推出我們的技術將有利於我們以獨立代理為中心的遊戲製作團隊，節省他們的時間和費用，同時也為我們提供了在未來幾個季度推動該部門利潤擴張的機會。我們也正在為我們的獨立代理商推出增強型報告，以幫助這些代理商確定他們在競爭中的表現，我們相信這最終將使我們的合作夥伴能夠做出更好的數據驅動決策，並進一步從與多瑪的合作。

In closing, I am proud of our team and their ability to navigate a continually challenging macroenvironment. It's clear to us that consumers need lower-cost title solutions. And as we discussed earlier, we believe that many in the industry echo our views. As key players in our industry move towards innovative, more efficient, and lower-cost solutions for title and closing, Doma is ready and able to make a lasting impact on the housing affordability crisis. We look forward to updating you on our progress throughout the year.

最後，我為我們的團隊及其應對持續充滿挑戰的宏觀環境的能力感到自豪。我們很清楚，消費者需要低成本的產權解決方案。正如我們之前所討論的，我們相信業內許多人都同意我們的觀點。隨著我們行業的主要參與者轉向創新、更有效率、成本更低的產權和成交解決方案，Doma 已準備好並能夠對住房負擔能力危機產生持久影響。我們期待向您通報我們全年的進展。

I will now pass the call over to our CFO, Mike Smith, to provide you with further details on our recent financial performance. Mike?

我現在將把電話轉接給我們的財務長邁克史密斯，向您提供有關我們近期財務業績的更多詳細資訊。麥克風？

Thank you, Max, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll be providing an overview of Doma's third-quarter financial results. Please refer to our earnings release filed earlier today for full details of the quarter. Unless otherwise specified, all the comparisons cited in my remarks are sequential comparisons to the second quarter of this year.

謝謝你，麥克斯，大家下午好。今天，我將概述 Doma 第三季的財務表現。請參閱我們今天早些時候提交的收益報告，以了解本季度的完整詳細資訊。除非另有說明，我的發言中所引用的所有比較都是與今年第二季的連續比較。

The latest MBA mortgage finance forecast is projecting that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will remain above 7% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and will remain above 6% for the duration of 2024. As we stated in the past, these elevated rates will likely continue to put pressure on refinance and purchase order volumes industry-wide for the foreseeable future.

最新的MBA 抵押貸款融資預測預計30 年期固定抵押貸款利率將在2023 年第四季度保持在7% 以上，並在2024 年期間保持在6% 以上。正如我們過去所說，這些升高的利率將在可預見的未來，可能會繼續對全行業的再融資和採購訂單量造成壓力。

As we discussed on our August Q2 earnings call, we exited all of our local retail operations nationwide. And during Q3, we have worked through the majority of the transition periods related to these sales. As a result, the local branches and their associated operations are classified and reported as discontinued operations in our financial results beginning in the third quarter of 2023. My remaining comments are focused on our continuing operations.

正如我們在 8 月第二季財報電話會議上討論的那樣，我們退出了全國範圍內所有的本地零售業務。在第三季度，我們已經度過了與這些銷售相關的大部分過渡期。因此，從 2023 年第三季開始，當地分公司及其相關業務在我們的財務表現中被歸類為非持續經營業務。我剩下的評論主要集中在我們的持續經營業務上。

Overall, our primary measure of unit economics is adjusted gross profit, which was $6 million in the third quarter of 2023 and which compares to $5 million in the second quarter of this year. Adjusted gross profit as a percentage of RPF increased to 39% in the third quarter compared to 30% in the second quarter of this year, an overall increase of 9 percentage points due to lower provision for claims as a result of lower claim activity.

整體而言，我們衡量單位經濟效益的主要指標是調整後的毛利，2023 年第三季的毛利為 600 萬美元，而今年第二季的毛利為 500 萬美元。第三季調整後毛利佔 RPF 的百分比增至 39%，而今年第二季為 30%，整體成長了 9 個百分點，原因是索賠活動減少導致理賠撥備減少。

Adjusted EBITDA, our main profitability measure was negative $5 million compared to negative $12 million in Q2 2023, an improvement of $7 million. This improvement was primarily the result of our previously discussed workforce reduction actions and company-wide efforts to reduce operating spend.

調整後的 EBITDA，我們的主要獲利能力指標為負 500 萬美元，而 2023 年第二季為負 1,200 萬美元，提高了 700 萬美元。這項改進主要是我們先前討論的裁員行動和全公司範圍內減少營運支出的努力的結果。

Moving on to our top-line performance in the third quarter, we recorded revenue on a GAAP basis of $76 million, which compares to $81 million in Q2 of 2023, a decrease of 6% primarily caused by the sale of our local retail operations and partially offset by the continued strength seen in the homebuilder market.

接下來是我們第三季的營收表現，以GAAP 計算，我們的營收為7,600 萬美元，而2023 年第二季的營收為8,100 萬美元，下降了6%，這主要是由於出售我們的本地零售業務和房屋建築商市場的持續強勁部分抵消了這一影響。

As a reminder, GAAP revenue includes the portion of agent premiums that Doma does not retain. So we focus on Doma's retained premiums and fees or RP&F as an important metric, which excludes the premiums retained by third-party agents. We believe this is a much better representation of Doma's underlying top-line performance.

提醒一下，GAAP 收入包括 Doma 不保留的代理費部分。因此，我們將重點放在 Doma 的保留保費和費用或 RP&F 作為重要指標，其中不包括第三方代理商保留的保費。我們相信這更能體現了 Doma 的基本營收表現。

With this in mind, our RP&F was $15 million in the third quarter, down 7% compared to the second quarter, driven by the sale of our local retail operations. Underwriting RP&F within our third-party agent channel decreased 3% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, primarily from a decrease in policies from our independent agent network and partially offset by RP&F growth in our homebuilder business.

考慮到這一點，受本地零售業務出售的推動，第三季我們的 RP&F 為 1500 萬美元，比第二季下降 7%。與第二季度相比，第三季度第三方代理管道內的 RP&F 承保量下降了 3%，這主要是由於我們的獨立代理網路保單減少，部分被我們的房屋建築商業務 RP&F 的成長所抵消。

As we noted on our prior earnings call, we are focused on the performance of the underwriter. During the third quarter, the underwriter performance was aided by the strength in the homebuilder portion of the business and positive improvement in gross profit resulting from favorable reserve development. And we also expect to see continued positive momentum in our underwriting business, benefiting from lower costs driven by our most recent cost reduction actions.

正如我們在先前的財報電話會議上指出的那樣，我們關注承銷商的表現。第三季度，承銷商的業績得益於房屋建築商業務的強勁以及有利的儲備開發帶來的毛利的積極改善。我們也預計，我們的核保業務將繼續保持積極勢頭，受益於我們最近的成本削減行動帶來的成本降低。

As Max mentioned, we look forward to executing on our new strategy, and we remain highly focused on becoming adjusted EBITDA profitable on a sustainable basis.

正如馬克斯所提到的，我們期待執行我們的新策略，並且我們仍然高度關注在可持續的基礎上實現調整後的 EBITDA 盈利。

I'll now pass the call back to Max for closing remarks before we open the call to questions.

現在，在我們開始提問之前，我將把電話轉回給馬克斯，讓他作結束語。

Thanks, Mike, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on our call today. We are focused on our critical mission of making the home-buying process of better, faster, and more affordable. While our efforts have been largely on adjusting our cost structure to align with the current macroeconomic environment and we have significantly reduced our expenses over the past year, we believe that these efforts are largely complete and will provide us with a sustainable cost base as we shift gears into resuming growth in our business.

謝謝麥克，謝謝大家今天加入我們的電話會議。我們專注於我們的重要使命，讓購屋過程變得更好、更快、更實惠。雖然我們的努力主要是調整我們的成本結構以適應當前的宏觀經濟環境，並且我們在過去一年中大幅減少了開支，但我們相信這些努力已基本完成，並將在我們轉變時為我們提供可持續的成本基礎努力恢復我們業務的成長。

As we work towards offering our solutions via lower cost of customer acquisition channels and higher-margin opportunities, we are excited about the growth potential ahead of us. We look forward to updating everyone with our progress on our next earnings call. Operator, we are ready for questions.

當我們致力於透過更低的客戶獲取管道成本和更高的利潤機會提供解決方案時，我們對未來的成長潛力感到興奮。我們期待在下次財報電話會議上向大家通報我們的最新進展。接線員，我們準備好回答問題了。

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝。這時，我們將進行問答環節。 （操作員說明）

Michael Ward, Citi.

邁克爾·沃德，花旗銀行。

Hey, guys. Good evening. Thank you for taking the question. I was wondering if you guys could maybe discuss specifically for 4Q, what goes into the expectation for the EBITDA improvement.

大家好。晚安.感謝您提出問題。我想知道你們是否可以專門討論第四季度的 EBITDA 改善預期。

You bet, Mike. Thanks for the question here. One of the things, when we look at the fourth quarter, you can see the trend that we've made -- and we've made some great progress here on adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter -- we expect that to continue into the fourth quarter, but we do believe that's at risk.

你敢打賭，麥克。謝謝你在這裡提問。其中一件事，當我們看第四季度時，你可以看到我們所取得的趨勢——我們在第三季調整後的EBITDA 方面取得了一些巨大進展——我們預計這種情況將持續到第四季度。第四季度，但我們確實認為存在風險。

And additionally, as we move that into the first quarter as well, that's a historically weak -- seasonally soft period is the first quarter. But we expect to see a lot of the efforts and cost-reduction measures that we've executed here in the recent past, along with our sale of our local business to come to bear here in the fourth quarter, and we still feel that that's -- profitability is well within striking distance in the quarter.

此外，當我們將其移至第一季時，這是歷史上的疲軟時期——第一季是季節性疲軟時期。但我們預計，我們最近在這裡執行的大量努力和成本削減措施，以及我們出售本地業務的舉措將在第四季度發揮作用，我們仍然認為這就是——本季度的盈利能力已近在咫尺。

Got it. Thank you, Tom. And the -- maybe the pilot program with the software company and also the deal with a national lender. Wondering if is the earnings stream from those an underwriting stream or is it more of like a royalty stream?

知道了。謝謝你，湯姆。也許是與軟體公司的試點計劃以及與國家貸款機構的交易。想知道這些收入流是承銷流還是更像是特許權使用費流？

Yeah, good question, Mike. And this is Max. It's both. So this is part of why we're so excited about this particular launch of the new product, Upfront Title, and the structure this product. We have effectively configured our patented and proven instant underwriting technology to be licensed really a lot further upstream in the mortgage decisioning process. Think about it as much closer to or even before that decision to qualify the borrower for the loan to be underwritten. \

是的，好問題，麥克。這是麥克斯。兩者都是。因此，這就是為什麼我們對新產品 Upfront Title 的特別發布以及該產品的結構如此興奮的部分原因。我們已經有效地配置了我們的專利且經過驗證的即時核保技術，以便在抵押貸款決策過程的更上游獲得許可。考慮一下，在決定借款人是否有資格獲得承保貸款之前，甚至更接近這項決定。 \

And because we can license that decisioning, we anticipate getting both software licensing revenue for that piece of it. But then the configuration and the accessibility of that algorithm upfront in the process allows us in turn to offer a significantly discounted rate of title premium for the insurance policy itself. So the primary benefit, again, accrues to the benefit of homeowners, who are facing an unprecedented affordability challenge.

因為我們可以許可該決策，所以我們預計會獲得該部分的軟體授權收入。但在此過程中，該演算法的預先配置和可近性又使我們能夠為保險單本身提供大幅折扣的產權保費率。因此，主要的利益再次歸於房主的利益，他們正面臨前所未有的負擔能力挑戰。

But it has the dual purpose of providing us a pretty significant advantage in driving on a new insurance premium revenue stream. And even at a discounted amount where it benefits homeowners, we believe that that insurance premium revenue can be highly accretive and to our underwriter and helps improve our margin profile.

但它具有雙重目的，即為我們提供相當顯著的優勢，推動新的保費收入來源。即使以有利於房主的折扣金額，我們相信保險費收入也可以為我們的承保人帶來巨大的增值，並有助於改善我們的利潤狀況。

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And if I could sneak a third, a number of exciting opportunities, it sounds like. Just curious if there's one that you see as being the biggest driver of earnings growth, call it, next year or next 12 months?

知道了。謝謝。這很有幫助。如果我能偷偷獲得第三個、許多令人興奮的機會，聽起來像是。只是好奇您是否認為明年或未來 12 個月是獲利成長的最大推動力？

Sure. So I mean, I'd say thematically, what we're most excited about as a strategy of the business, which clearly, we're investing resources into drive a significant new source of revenue and earnings growth, is our ability to be arguably the only provider in this landscape who is going to be offering a technology-driven solution to help provide significant relief for homeowners who are facing an unprecedented affordability challenge, right?

當然。所以我的意思是，我想說的是，作為一項業務策略，我們最興奮的是，我們正在投入資源來推動一個重要的新收入來源和盈利增長，這顯然是我們有能力該領域唯一一家提供技術驅動型解決方案的供應商，可以為面臨前所未有的負擔能力挑戰的房主提供重大緩解，對吧？

We cited some of the data in the script itself, but no matter what metric you look at -- I think that the simplest one is if you were to just run a Google search today for housing affordability, the top story is that housing affordability is at 39 year low -- the lowest level it's been since 1984.

我們引用了腳本本身中的一些數據，但無論你看什麼指標——我認為最簡單的一個是，如果你今天只用谷歌搜索住房負擔能力，最重要的是住房負擔能力是創39 年新低，為1984 年以來的最低水準。

So what drives our strategy and what we anticipate will drive revenue and earnings growth for us in the future will be our ability to offer a much lower cost and much more streamlined solution for homeowners who desperately need relief. And we think we've got a strong competitive advantage in the way we've configured the product to do that, and we're excited to invest behind the growth of that.

因此，推動我們策略的因素以及我們預計未來將推動我們收入和獲利成長的因素將是我們為迫切需要救濟的房主提供成本低得多、簡化得多的解決方案的能力。我們認為我們在配置產品的方式上擁有強大的競爭優勢，我們很高興能夠在其成長背後進行投資。

Awesome. Thank you guys so much.

驚人的。非常感謝你們。

(Operator Instructions) If there are no more calls -- questions, excuse me, this does conclude the question-and-answer session, and it does conclude today's conference. You may now disconnect. Thank you.

（操作員說明）如果沒有更多的電話－問題，對不起，問答環節就結束了，今天的會議也就結束了。您現在可以斷開連線。謝謝。