UWM Holdings Corp (UWMC) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Abby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UWM Holdings Corporation first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) And Mr. Blake Kolo, you may begin your conference.

Good morning. This is Blake Kolo, Chief Business Officer and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the first quarter 2025 UWM Holdings Corporation's earnings call. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call includes forward-looking statements. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please refer to the earnings release that we issued this morning.

Our commentary today will also include non-GAAP financial measures. For information on our non-GAAP measures and metrics and the reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for the reported results, please refer to the earnings release issued today as well as our filings with the SEC. I will now turn the call over to Mat Ishbia, Chairman and CEO of UWM Holdings Corporation and United Wholesale Mortgage.

Thanks, Blake, and thank you, everyone, for joining today. I'm very excited for what we accomplished this quarter on many fronts and for what lies ahead here at UWM. We will continue investing in technology to widen the gap between us and our competition regardless of how the industry or markets may change due to technology rates, we will continue to lead the way.

Since 2022, the mortgage broker channel share of the industry is up almost 40% from about 19.7% to almost 28%, the highest level we've seen since 2008, I believe. This is incredible growth that we are very excited about. I say this a lot, but I would ask all of you go back and visit our earnings call from early 2023 or even '22 or '21, but '23 when we talked about gain on pricing and how we're going to invest in the business, invest in the channel to grow, many people are concerned about lowering the margins like we did. However, I knew and we knew it would be best for the broker channel long term.

The current numbers prove that we made the right decision, and we're just getting started with all the success from that decision years ago. Switching gears, I want to address a topic that many of you recently acquired about. Last week, we announced our strategic decision to bring servicing in-house. This is something we've been contemplating for many years. However, we believe now is the time to make this investment.

By leveraging the latest technology in AI, our plan is to be the most efficient servicer in America. We are excited to control this part of the process and look forward to the cost savings that we will achieve, which some people can estimate between $40 million and $100 million a year.

We're very excited about that opportunity once we get this fully done and going. During our past few earnings calls, we discussed how is uniquely prepared to win in any type of market. And with the significant volatility of the Pasco once, we showcased that preparation several times.

When there were brief periods of low rates, our refi and operational excellence enabled us to double our daily production levels without sacrificing speed, quality or service. And when the rates retire, we demonstrate our continued dominance on the purchase market.

The numbers tell an even better story. So let's get into them. We closed $32.4 billion in production for the quarter, obviously finance that's 7% growth year over year, which outperformed the whole industry. We also delivered about $10.6 billion of refi volume, almost double what we delivered in the first quarter of 2024. A large portion of that came in a small window between the end of February and the beginning of March, really illustrating the power of our business.

The game margin was 94 basis points. While we posted a $247 million net loss, I want to make sure everyone realizes that this is inclusive of a $388 million reduction in fair value of our MSR portfolio.

As we've discussed several times, we have zero control over this and MSR values, whether it goes up or down. So it's really not that relevant to me. But we did have an amazing quarter and we're profitable on all the measures we look at. I want to highlight two other key operational metrics. First, our submission is clear to close for the quarter was 12.7 days.

While some of the best in industry are still running 40 to 45 days, 12.7 is outstanding. Beyond that, we improved this metric by over a day from 13.9 in the first quarter of 2024 despite doing almost 20% more business.

So as you see our AI initiatives and things that we've been rolling out, actually impacting the business day-to-day by seeing that speed and success. Second, our Net Promoter Score for the quarter was 87.3. Companies with MPS in the 60s and 70s are viewed as world-class.

This is one of the best NPS scores in the last couple of years and reflect of our industry-leading service levels, which you know from our experience will continue to drive more volume in the second quarter.

As you can see, this is another really strong quarter for UWM. While the macro environment may remain choppy, we will continue investing and winning. And I can promise you there's no other mortgage lender that is better equipped and prepared to help brokers, borrowers, regardless of what the market does, and we're excited to show to you as soon as the opportunity shows.

I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, Rami Hasani, is our new CFO, here at UWM has been a key member of our finance team since 2020, and he was the obvious choice to become our next CFO. So I'll turn it over to you, Rami.

Thank you, Mat. I appreciate it. Jumping into the numbers, Q1 2025 revenue of $613 million, net loss of $247 million, inclusive of $388 million reduction in the fair value of our MSR portfolio and adjusted EBITDA of $58 million. As we've discussed before, our focus continues to be on investing in our people, processes, and technology. as well as our broker partners to prepare UWM and our brokers collectively for continued growth in 2025 and beyond.

We continue to invest in growing our operations, underwriting and technology teams to support increased production volume, which we experienced in Q1 of '25 compared to Q1 of '24, a 17% increase. We continue to originate more than $20 billion a quarter in purchase volume for eight quarters in a row, and we view that as our base, a base that no other lender can approach.

We almost doubled our refi volume year over year from $5.5 billion to $10.6 billion despite the rate environment being less than optimal. While our costs have increased compared to Q1 '24, our costs are substantially aligned to Q4 of '24, which is on strategy for investing for continued growth.

More specifically, we believe our business is currently in a position to handle twice our 2024 origination volume with minimal impact to our fixed costs. We also maintained our liquidity and capital and leverage ratios within what we believe to be acceptable ranges in the current environment. As of the end of Q2, we had $485 million of cash, $2.4 billion of total accessible liquidity, and an MSR portfolio with a fair value of $3.3 billion. Overall, a strong liquidity position.

In summary, Q1 was a period of continued investment in our operational capabilities to remain prepared for what we see as significant market opportunities for UWM and our broker partners. We have also continued to remain prepared for these opportunities from a capital and liquidity perspective, and we believe that we remain well-positioned operationally and financially for any market cycle. I will now turn things back over to our Chairman, President, and CEO, Mat Ishbia, for closing remarks.

Thanks, Rami. So I'll close with a couple of quick points before the Q&A. The way I think about the business is really simple, volume, gain margin and expenses, and we're winning on all of these. The expenses part, we're investing in the business, and we feel great about it, even though they're higher in Q1 because those are investments, investments in the growth and success of our business.

The game margin was a little lower in Q1, but we were trending higher overall, and our volume was up 70% year over year. That's how we run the business. As long as we manage these three things, we will continue to dominate.

We are the leaders, not just in the mortgage business, but also the leaders in tech here at UWM. The things that we're rolling out in the next few weeks and months are game changers. Just so you guys know whatever you think you know about our business and how dominant we are out to change in a big way. We're about to roll out some things and the best technology you've ever seen or heard of and it's coming real soon, like not 2030, like 2025, 2026, the cool things we're going to be doing, that will impact the business.

Also, as I talked to a lot of our large shareholders and investors, I consistently get the message about getting more float in the market. As you guys know, I own about 87% of control, 87% of the shares. Back in March, I put out a 10b5 program that you'll see in the 10-Q that will go in effect June 17 to basically get more flow -- and make it a consistent process rather than some of the one-off things we've done to try to increase float, which we've done a good job of now will be consistent across the board you know exactly what to expect.

There will be no more uncertainty and no more creative ways to get flowed out. There are going to be consistent with the 10b5. And although I believe even when I did the documents back in March, it's undervalued, but I believe that if I sell enough float to get out there and get more float in the market, that the other 80%, 81%, 82% of shares I own still after this next year or two that we do this, will be worth much, much more. And so we're excited to hopefully serve what the shareholders want.

On top of that, on the shareholder side, we're excited to announce our dividend. Again, we're going to consistently pay the dividends we have for four-plus years now, as you guys know. And even at these share prices is a fantastic deal, but we always reward our shareholders, and we have been for years, and we're excited about rolling that out again this quarter of $0.10 or $0.40 for the year is what we've been doing.

Lastly, I'm very excited that many of you on this call in over 5,000 of our clients from all 50 as are going to be here in Pontiac next week for UWM Live. It's going to be formative eventful today that will hopefully change the industry in a huge way. I can't wait to share with what we got going.

Now quickly on guidance. We expect our second quarter production to be between $38 million and $45 billion. As a reminder, we did $33.6 billion in Q2 2024. And I think in the last three years since I don't think we've done over $40 billion. I'm actually hoping we eclipsed the $40 billion range and dominate this quarter as we really see the purchase market being strong and opportunities for us to continue to grow here.

Now with the game margin, I expected between 90 basis points and 115 basis points before. As I said, we control this and we decide what we think is best, and it will be between 90 and 115 in the second quarter as we continue to help our brokers win and grow their business as we continue to grow as well. Now I'm going to turn it over to Q&A, and look forward to talking to all of you guys.

(Operator Instructions)

Eric Hagen, BTIG.

On moving the servicing in-house, I mean, what kind of timeline are you looking at? Can you talk about any onetime costs of the resources or investments you need to make that happen? And then are you -- how does it maybe improve the recapture effort as a result of bringing it all in house?

Yeah. Thanks a lot, Eric. Appreciate it. Yeah, we're -- like you know, everything we do, we do fast. So our expectation is to bring servicing in-house and start boarding loans at the beginning of '26 and hopefully have it all in-house by the end of next year, if you think of it that way.

So we'll get to see those significant expense reductions. And at the same time, as you pointed out, the more important part is one, the recapture rate, but two, the service levels we can provide to consumers.

The consumers get such amazing service working with a mortgage broker with UWM and then maybe they don't get that same feel all the way through the process when they're paying their mortgage payment for the next couple of years. They'll have that now because we'll control that process 100%.

In addition to that, recapture will be even easier to help communicate with the borrowers on behalf of our brokers and make sure our brokers can stay in front of their clients. But recapture has actually not been a huge issue for us.

It's -- we do pretty good. Our brokers are doing better and better with that. But the big thing is cost savings, control the process, make us a better experience for consumers and then thus they're going to want to work with UWM even more.

And so we're excited about that change and that investment we're making. But there are no huge onetime expenses or costs that are going to change anything from that would make it even hit the radar on the financial side.

Yeah. Got you. Definitely support that move from you guys Imagine almost all of the production last quarter was fixed rate loans. But at what point do you think ARMs make a come back? Like do you see that being a compelling affordability product for borrowers, especially like right now?

And are you in a position to competitively offer ARMs? And then like how do you think a shift to adjustable rate loans could maybe get valued in the MSR market if the intention is to sell those loans?

Yeah. So obviously, as rates go up, or become more exciting, especially with the yield curve being more normalized. But with that being said, people still think ARMs is a four-letter word and people are scared arms. And so I don't think many people so how much ARMs will be? Could it be 10%?

I mean 15%. I don't think it gets close to those numbers. And so I don't think it's really that important. We do have some ARM programs. We do some a little bit here and there.

But most consuming the rates -- the 10-year goes down to 4.10, 4.05, and no one will touch an arm again, right? And so it's just -- it just depends on the situation in the market. ARMs are probably more of a refi program. We're doing some temporary buy-downs, which is an interesting thing on a purchase, which kind of gives them a little bit lower rate for the first 12 or 24 months.

And then it sets them up for future refinance down the road if rates go down like everyone expects. But -- so arms are interesting, but I don't think there is viable and is big when opportunities maybe they were five, seven, eight years ago from my perspective. But we are prepared and we do a little bit of it, and we will probably do a little bit more, but it won't be meaningful enough that it will hit your guys radar.

Bose George, KBW.

I just wanted to follow-up on the MSR question. Actually, given the change with servicing in-house, could that change how you dispose of MSRs, could you hold more MSRs to sort of capture more value that way as well?

Yeah, absolutely. So we look at all those things all the time. We were not selling MSRs because we were subservicing and we're not going to hold them because we were serving to see it ourselves. We're going to be opportunistic like we always have. Now the fact that we control the process that we can control the experience even more, it makes me lean a little more towards retaining more of it, but it's all dependent on the opportunities.

Once again, people want to offer me 6.5, 7 multiples, 7.5 multiples on MSRs, I have a lot of MSRs, right? And those opportunities are there. But the reality of it is understanding what's best for the business is what we always think about what's best for our clients as in the brokers with best for consumers, what's best for our team members, and what's best for our shareholders.

And so we look at all those things, we think bringing servicing in-house is best for us at this point. It's been in a function point we've been 50-50 for a while on it, and we kind of pushed over the edge recently, and we're excited about that savings, that experienced enhancement. And once again, it couldn't make us hold MSR differently or think of it absolutely. But we're looking at all things at all times.

Okay. Great. And then in terms of GSE reform, obviously, there's a lot of noise on private potential privatization. Can you just talk about what you're hearing and anything you might be doing in terms of preparing for that potentially happening?

Yeah. I mean I think that, that stuff is way, way far in the future if it even happens. Here's what I'd say about it. I think you've got great leaders now running the mortgage market from FHFA Director, Bill Pulte, to HUD Director, Scott Turner. You got people on top of the mortgage business.

Obviously, all of that goes up through the President. I think people that actually care and understand it. So I think they're going to make the right decisions for all of us.

And so my view on it is, whatever happens, we will win with it because we are nimble, we react quickly. We make changes and we impact the business and our brokers in a positive way. And if nothing changes, we'll continue to win that way.

And so nothing is changing as of now. I think the best part is you have great leaders in the FHFA Director, the Head of HUD and people to actually care and want to do what's best for consumers and the mortgage lending landscape and the housing market in general, and they understand it, which is a little bit different than maybe we've had in the past.

Jeff Adelson, Morgan Stanley.

Now I was wondering if you could just maybe help us understand what's sort of embedded in the second quarter outlook. I know you mentioned hopefully you can get over the $40 million. I'm just wondering, is that more of a stable environment, rate environment for where we're sitting today? Or just maybe help us understand where else is speaking into that.

Thanks, Jeff. Nice to connect with you buddy. So I guess I'd say this. Nothing -- it's not like interest rates are really low and I'm saying, let's do $40 billion-plus, I'm saying, we've been building. We've been investing.

All of these things are happening in the broker channel is now at its highest it's been since 2008. So all the things that we've been talking about for years are starting to happen.

Now they have rates drop a little bit and we won't talk about $40 billion, we'll talk about $60 billion, right? Like there's opportunities right there, and we're ready to do that tomorrow if the 10-year dropped, right? So the way I look at it is -- but I am trying to guide you guys towards that, hey, we haven't hit over $40 billion since the refi boom times. And we are going to do that this quarter. And I know I got it $30 billion to $45 billion, but I expect us to do over $40 billion.

And that's a big statement compared to what we did last year in the second quarter compared to what we did even in the first quarter this year where everyone else is kind of hovering our investment have been working. Our broker channel is winning.

And then on top of that, the technology stuff that's going to come out in the second quarter, Jeff, I think you're going to be a UWM live along with other people on this call, it's going to blow your mind. And it was just the beginning, just the beginning what we're doing.

And so you'll understand the strategy even more as you see the things we're doing and brokers are going to grow, UWM is going to grow, and we're all going to win together and watch out because if rates drop, I got bigger numbers and different things. But if they don't, you got -- we do see where we're trending and how we're doing things and that's what we're going to keep doing.

Okay. Great. And obviously, there's been a big deal house in this space. I'm just sort of wondering, do you guys have a view of how that might change competition in the space at all? And what's United's own view on M&A as well as it looks going forward.

In addition to all the you're looking at here, is there anything that you'd be looking to maybe bolster your own tech ambitions in the space?

Yeah. You broke up a little bit at the beginning, you said because of M&A?

Yeah. I was just saying there's obviously a big transaction in the space more of your competitors. So I'm just sort of wondering your reaction to the impact on --

Yeah. So yes, I guess my take and I think in general, my take is we look at everything and opportunities from an M&A perspective, but we're a build versus buy type of company. I can buy something and then make you guys feel really good and you guys can try to pump my stock price for a little bit, but it wouldn't be the right decision for our long-term business.

Now there are things that we look at and we could buy. But from a technology stuff, I mean I'm going to -- I'm not going to go out and buy a bunch of these companies go out and buy a bunch of these companies and try to like fluff pump by stock, whatever the word you want to use, and spend billions and billions of dollars, but just to get a couple more leads. Like our business is organic. It's been dominant, and it will continue to be dominant.

Now we're opportunistic. If an opportunity comes up, we always look at it. But that's really not the strategy right now. The strategy is, let's donate. And the same thing on the tech side the tech side, you then go buy this company that could do this, they can come up with some AI stuff like or I'm just going to sit here with my almost 2,000 technology people and build the best stuff in the world.

And so that's kind of how I lean on that stuff. But we're open to everything and everyone has their own strategy, and we're going to keep doing it our way. But we're always opportunistic if the right thing came up.

Mikhail Goberman, Citizens.

Excited to hear about these technological changes coming down the -- coming up. And just wondering, how do you guys expect those changes to affect the expense base going forward?

Good question. So the technology enhancements, the AI investments in how it's going to impact expenses. I mean we're going to continue to invest. And so will our cost go down? Absolutely.

Will our revenue go up? Absolutely. So if those are the things you care about and focus on, then you'll probably be happy with all the things we're doing. With that being said, I obviously not going to roll out or explain what I'm doing now on this call, but we look at all these things.

And on the expense side, the fixed costs are kind of at a peak based on where we think of things, but realize that you think they're higher way I look at it is I'm just investing and other people can't. They can't afford to invest right now. And we are prepared.

And like I just said on I think a question or two ago, like we're going to be $35 billion, $40 billion, $45 billion a lot of these quarters, we're going to do some great things, but then rates drop we'll do $60 billion. Nobody else can do that.

And our gain on sale margin will be higher and our volume will be higher and our expenses will basically stay the same from a fixed perspective.

And so imagine that, and that's how we will build the business where nobody else can prepare for that. So we feel good. I think our expenses, as you will say, are up 25% from last year's first quarter. Oh, my goodness, our volume is up 17%.

So there's an 8% delta I think that's pretty good, to be honest with you, based on the amount of investments and stuff that we've been working on. So I focus on investing in the business in the future. I'm not focused on expenses.

If I was to spoken on expenses, as my primary thing, we would not be prepared to dominate as we are right now. And so when that domination -- I mean we've been dominant for three, four years now, as you guys have seen, but it's all another level what you'll see in the near future.

Doug Harter, UBS.

In your prepared remarks, you talked about the -- being comfortable with the leverage range that you're in right now. Can you just maybe put some numbers around that, what is kind of the target non-funding debt-to-equity range that you're looking at?

Doug, that stuff is not the focus of the business. We're really in a great position on that stuff. I know you like to focus on things that are not relevant, but that's not relevant. What's relevant is the domination of our business. The build -- we're built to succeed and win. Every single ratio -- our ratios are in a great position, and I can let Rami speak to that stuff.

But the truth is, like, that's just like someone that looks at a spreadsheet all days asking me that question, not someone that actually understands the mortgage business in our industry and what we're trying to do. And so like come out the UWM Live, I think you're going to be there, so you'll understand the tech investments, what we're doing, like our non-funding debt ratios, all those things are in a great position.

We feel really good about our cash position, our net worth, all of our ratios, and we have a lot of room in there to continue to grow. And I think you'll see that stuff after the second quarter. And I think you'll be excited to see those numbers go to the way you might like.

And that will wrap up the Q&A portion. I would like to turn the call back over to Mat Ishbia for closing remarks.

Thanks to everyone for the questions. We're really happy with the quarter, to be honest with you, and I'm actually even more excited about the second quarter. So we feel like we're in a great, great position as a company. I'd like to say never been stronger because I know what we're about to roll out and how we're going to do different things over the next 3 to 12 months.

But in general, I appreciate all your support. I look forward to seeing a lot of you at UWM Live. It really means a lot to us for spending time with you guys there and talking about the business and we can open up a little bit more about the great things we're doing here. It's going to be a lot of great things coming out soon and then soon after that as well. So thank you for the time. Have a great day, and look forward to see you guys soon.

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.