Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. We ask that you please have patience. We will begin in a couple of minutes. Again, we will begin in a couple of minutes. Thank you for standing by. Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Fandrick Greetings and welcome to the Eagle Point Income Company Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the conference over to Mr. Darren Daugherty from ProSecPartners. You may now begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Welcome to Eagle Point Income Company's earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2026. Speaking on the call today are Thomas Majewski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dan Koh, Senior Principal and Portfolio Manager for the company's advisor, and Lina Umnova, Chief Accounting Officer for the advisor. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the matters discussed on this call include forward-looking statements, or projected financial information that involve risks and uncertainties that may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from such projections. For further information on factors that could impact the company and the statements or projections contained herein, please refer to the company's filings with the SEC. Each forward-looking statement or projection of financial information made during this call is based on the information available to us as of the date of this call. We just claim any obligation to update our forward-looking statements unless required by law. Earlier today, we filed our third quarter 2026 financial statements and investor presentation, which features an updated format with the SEC. These are also available in the investor relations section of the company's website, EaglePointIncome.com. A replay of this call will also be made available later today. I will now turn the call over to Thomas Majewski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Eagle Point Income Company.

Tom? Thank you, Darren, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your joining Eagle Point Income Company's earnings call this morning. EIC had a strong quarter as our net investment income, less realized losses, was 67 cents per share, which is more than double our aggregate distributions for the quarter of 33 cents per share. Our earnings were boosted by income from the early repayment of one of our private infrastructure credit investments that was sourced through the broader Eagle Point platform. This contributed 30 cents per share to our quarterly earnings. Excluding the contribution from this early prepayment, our normalized net investment income and realized gains would have been 37 cents per share, still well in excess of our aggregate distributions for the quarter. This transaction demonstrates the value of our access to differentiated investment opportunities across the broader Eagle Point platform, which we expect will continue to generate incremental earnings for EIC. As of September 30th, our net asset value was $12.39 per share, down 1% from June 30th, and our gap return on common equity was 1.6% for the quarter. Turning to the broader market environment, More market participants are expecting higher interest rates in the near term. This creates a favorable backdrop for EIC's predominantly floating rate portfolio. As of September 30th, 53% of EIC's portfolio consisted of floating rate CLO debt investments, which provide attractive current income and are positioned to benefit from higher benchmark interest rates. Leveraged loans, which are also floating rate, saw prices improve modestly. while the underlying loan spreads remain relatively stable during the quarter. With only 27.7% of loans trading above par at quarter end, loan repricing activity also remained relatively limited. Despite continued uncertainty around the path of interest rates, underlying credit fundamentals have remained resilient and we have not seen signs of widespread credit deterioration. Dan will provide some additional color on the loan and CLO markets later in the call. Turning to our investment activity, during the quarter we deployed $31 million across 16 new investments at a weighted average effective yield of 15.6%. Our new investment activity spanned a range of asset classes, including infrastructure credit, portfolio debt securities, regulatory capital relief transactions, asset-backed securities, specialty financings, and equipment leasing investments. These investments are originated through dedicated teams across the broader Eagle Point platform giving EIC access to specialized investment expertise opportunities across a wide range of credit markets. As demonstrated by our third quarter results, these investments can also generate meaningful incremental investment income, complementing the recurring income from our portfolio. Turning to our capital structure, during the quarter we issued about $1 million of our 6% Series AA convertible perpetual preferred shares. We expect to issue more of this type of preferred equity in the coming quarters as this fixed rate perpetual financing is an attractive source of long-term capital for us and provides additional flexibility to deploy capital when opportunities arise. We view this financing as a competitive advantage as we are unaware of any other public CLO debt-focused fund with a similar perpetual convertible preferred program. I'll now turn the call over to Senior Principal and Portfolio Manager Dan Coe for an update on the market.

Thanks, Tom. I'd now like to share some additional thoughts on the loan and CLO markets. The S&P UBS Leverage Loan Index generated a total return of 2.0% in the third quarter. While loan prices improved modestly, underlying loan spreads remained relatively stable and repricing activity was limited. We believe the recent stabilization in loan spreads is a positive development following the compression experienced in prior quarters. Despite these generally stable conditions in the underlying loan market, CLO equity valuations continue to face pressure from weaker investor sentiment and broader market technicals. Turning to underlying credit fundamentals, the average corporate revenue and EBITDA growth numbers remain positive during the quarter, reflecting continued resilience among leveraged loan borrowers, despite broader macroeconomic uncertainty. The trailing 12-month leveraged loan default rate declined to 0.6% as of September 30th, compared with 1.0% as of June 30th, and a long-term average of approximately 2.5%. Importantly, EICs looked through exposure to defaulted loans with just 22 basis points at quarter end, reflecting the quality of our underlying loan holdings and our disciplined approach to CLO selection. Within the leveraged loan market, we have also seen encouraging signs of stabilization in the software sector, including relatively limited default activity and a 2.3% increase in loan prices since the end of the first quarter. As we have discussed on prior calls, we believe concerns about AI disruption may be overstated for many software businesses, particularly those providing mission critical solutions with strong customer retention and recurring revenues under long-term contracts. While we continue to believe AI is more likely to complement these businesses than replace them, We remain attentive to evolving developments and their potential implications for the sector. In terms of CLO market activity, CLO issuance remained robust during the third quarter with 46 billion of new issuance, 48 billion of reset activity, and 38 billion of refinancing activity. Refinancings and resets continue to provide opportunities for CLO equity investors to reduce liability costs and extend reinvestment periods, while also creating potential early repayment opportunities for CLO debt investors. For CLO debt positions purchased at a discount, this activity creates opportunities to realize gains earlier than expected. Beyond the opportunities created by refinancing and reset activity, we continue to see attractive income potential in CLO junior debt. With predominantly floating rate coupons, these investments benefit from elevated benchmark rates, while CLO equity returns are driven more by the arbitrage between the underlying loan spreads and the CLO debt costs. Combined with EIC's capital structure, we believe this positions the company to generate attractive investment income in the current interest rate environment. With that, I'll hand it over to our advisor's chief accounting officer, Lina Umnova, to walk through our financial results.

Thank you, Dan. During the third quarter, the company generated net investment income, or NII, of $0.73 per share. NII, less realized losses from investments, was $0.67 per share. compared with negative 29 cents per share in the second quarter of 2026 and positive 26 cents per share in the third quarter of 2025. Including unrealized losses, gap net income attributable to common shareholders was 4.6 million or 20 cents per share for the third quarter. This compares with gap net income of 84 cents per share in the second quarter of 2026 and 43 cents per share in the third quarter of 2025. Cash loss from company's investment portfolio totaled $9 million or $0.40 per share during the quarter, compared with aggregate distributions on company's equity and total expenses of $0.44 per share. We paid three monthly distributions of $0.11 per share during the quarter, and earlier today, we have declared monthly distributions of $0.11 per share through the first quarter of 2027. As of September month end, our leverage ratio was 17.3% and remained below our target range of 25 to 35%, where we generally expect to operate the company under normal market conditions. We anticipate leverage to increase over time as we continue our Series A, A, A, B perpetual convertible preferred shares program, bringing us closer to the target. Continuing with our capital structure, on October 30th, We paid Series A term preferred shares, or EICA, under their scheduled maturity. This totaled $38 million. Looking at our portfolio activity during the month of October, the company received approximately $9 million in cash flows from its investment, with additional cash still expected to come in later in the quarter. As of October month end, the company had over $9 million of available cash and revolver capacity for investments and other purposes. We also estimated our NAV at October month end to be between $11.92 and $12.02 per share. At the midpoint, this represented a 3% decrease from September month end. I will now turn the call back to Tom for his closing remarks before we open the callback questions.

Thanks, Lina. Before we want to wrap up, I did want to highlight our updated investor presentation, which provides shareholders with a new, more comprehensive view of our investment portfolios. Looking ahead, we remain constructive on the opportunity set for CLO junior debt, particularly as base rates rise, and as well as our complementary private credit investments, many of which are also floating rate. Combined with disciplined portfolio management and access to differentiated investment opportunities across the broader Eagle Point platform, we believe EIC is well positioned to generate attractive income and long-term returns for shareholders. We appreciate your continued support and thank you for your time and interest in Eagle Point Income Company. Lena, Dan, and I will now open the call to your questions. Operator? Thank you.

We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing these star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Timothy D'Agostino with B Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Timothy D' Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the questions today. I see obviously the new investor deck, which is great. I guess looking at slide 11, I think it's pretty interesting what you laid out here in terms of Eagle Point, CLO, WB Investments in terms of downgrades and picks. So I guess it would be great to maybe just get some general market commentary on these two and then a little bit about why you think EIC is better positioned compared to the market. Thank you.

Hey Tim, it's Dan Coe here. Thanks for your question. This data really shows kind of how we performed the last time there was a kind of significant dislocation in the market. We do kind of err towards kind of higher quality BBs, Tier 1. I mean, we do like the ability to go and trade versus buying kind of some of the more illiquid Tier 3, which does have maybe a wider spread, but more susceptible for downgrades and picks based on Kenneth Paul Onorio,

Okay, great. And I guess just looking into both figures and thinking about the portfolio and maybe some of the verticals in the industries that it's in, is there something like software where you're seeing more downgrades or more picks, or is it in other areas? I guess just maybe industry-level commentary on where these downgrades or these picks are happening?

Oh, so this is at the CLO tranche level is what we're talking about, I guess. which ultimately kind of obviously if it's picking on the CLO BB tranche then you're not getting cash flow which is bad and downgrades obviously maybe not as impactful for EIC which doesn't have a ratings requirement but some of our institutional clients obviously are sensitive to going from a BB or BA3 to B1. So that's kind of what this is laying out.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it. That's all from me today.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Zwick with Lucid Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. This is Justin. I'm for Eric today. Curious if you have a percentage or dollar amount of investments that have yet to make their first payment.

I don't have that off the top of my head. I would say probably it's very low, I guess, on the CLO side. We did buy some new issue, but it isn't a huge portion of our portfolio. Most of the stuff has made its first payment, but we can get back to you on that. I suspect it's very low.

Okay, thanks, Dan. And maybe if we could just get your broader view on the NAV decline over the recent quarters, it sounds like it, I think it was 3% more months to date. Is that being driven more so on the CLO equity side of the book? And, you know, what do you think could be recaptured over time?

Yeah, as you said, Justin, it's really the CLL equity portion of the book that's been kind of driving that. I mean, CLL BBs have remained relatively stable along with kind of the other kind of private credit investments that we've made. So it's really the fact that loans have sold off, software being a little more than others, but the fact that the market is, I think, something like 80% to 90% of the loan market today is trading at a discount. So we can see that kind of recover back closer to par and then see that a little more of a near-term recovery if the loan market does come back. And then we're doing everything we can on the refinancings and the resets to kind of help cut the cost of the CLO debt in our CLO equity book. While we don't necessarily own majority in EIC, we are still involved as minority holders. and kind of pushing that so that we can kind of hopefully increase the equity cash flows and ultimately evaluations over time. But, you know, again, that takes a bit of time to kind of go through all the refinancings and the resets.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for taking my questions today.

No problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Nolan with Lattenberg Daumann. You may proceed with your question.

Hi, the infrastructure investment is interesting. What percentage, do you expect to do more of that and grow infrastructure investments to be a meaningful part of the portfolio?

So there are kind of two parts there. The biggest infrastructure investment in the portfolio is one from Nexus. We do have, what percentage of the portfolio are we overall? We're about nine, just shy of 10% right now. It wouldn't surprise me to see that number trickle up to the extent opportunities come about in our broader pipeline. We're not actively seeking to increase our infrastructure bucket specifically, but we do have a pretty attractive pipeline at Eagle Point of interesting infrastructure credit investments. A number of them we think are set up pretty well to have some good credit downside protection and the path to some upside. which we certainly benefited from in this most recent quarter, frankly, as well, related to one investment. More to come there. We don't have a target for that per se, but as investments opportunities pop up, we will certainly add them to the extent the portfolio has capacity.

Great. And as a follow-up, on the floating rate, how long does it take to flow through into the P&L following a

CLO BBs typically reset quarterly, and the rate is determined roughly the 10th day of each quarter, give or take. Every CLO varies a little bit. So if the Fed hikes rates on November 1st, we wouldn't see that until the January 10th coupon reset, which would then drive higher earnings in the first quarter. Great, thank you.

Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. And therefore, I'd like to turn the call back over to CEO Thomas Majewski for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. We're obviously very pleased with the returns on the company and the strong NII, even just on a recurring NII basis, excluding some of the other fortunate events that have played out. We look forward. We're in a portfolio here that is principally floating rate. and every time you hear about rates going up, you know, net that directly, you know, moves the coupon of many of our investments up, which is great. So we appreciate everyone's time and interest. If there are further questions or other inquiries, Lena, Dan and I are available later today to take follow-up emails or calls. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And this concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.