Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Cohen & Company's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Diego, and I will be your operator for today. Before we begin, Cohen & Company would like to remind everyone that some of the statements the company makes during this call may contain forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made during this call are made only as of the date of this call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Cohen & Company advises you to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in its earnings release and its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. Earlier today, Cohen & Company issued a press release announcing second quarter 2024 financial results. Today's discussion is complementary to that press release, which is available on the company's website at cohenandcompany.com. This conference call is being recorded, and a replay of it will be available for three days, beginning shortly after the conclusion of this call. The company's remarks also include certain non-GAAP financial measures that management believes are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP measures is provided in the company's earnings release. After the prepared remarks, the call will be opened up for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Lester Brafman, Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Company.

Thank you, Diego and thank you, everyone, for joining us for our second quarter 2024 Earnings Call. With me on the call is Joe Pooler, our CFO. We are pleased with the performance of our full-service investment banking operation. Cohen & Company Capital Markets, CCM has generated $6.4 million of advisory revenues and acted as lead book runner for two SPAC IPOs. CCM has grown to 24 professionals, and we intend to continue to opportunistically add investment bank talent to our CCM team. We are optimistic about CCM's pipeline and look forward to consistent CCM production through the end of the year. While our second quarter results were weakened by the impact of ongoing unfavorable mark-to-market adjustments on our principal investment portfolio, we are pleased to have improved the company's performance as the adjusted pretax loss line by $10.4 million year-to-date versus 2023. We remain confident about our future earnings potential and our focus on enhancing long-term sustained value for our stockholders, including to continued payment of our quarterly dividend. Now I will turn the call over to Joe to walk through this quarter's financial highlights in more detail.

Thank you, Lester. I'll begin with a discussion of our operating results for the quarter. Our net loss attributable to Cohen & Company Inc. was $2.3 million for the quarter or $1.47 per fully diluted share compared to net income of $2 million for the prior quarter or $1.28 per fully diluted share and net loss of $6.6 million for the prior year quarter or $4.34 per fully diluted share. Our adjusted pretax loss was $8.6 million for the quarter compared to adjusted pretax income of $7.7 million for the prior quarter and adjusted pretax loss of $1.6 million for the prior year quarter. As a reminder, adjusted pretax income is a key earnings measurement for us as it incorporates enterprise earnings attributable to our convertible non-controlling interest, which is substantially held by our Founder and Chairman, Daniel Cohen. Daniel holds his interest in the enterprise through the primary operating subsidiary, Cohen & Company, LLC which is a consolidated subsidiary of Cohen & Company, Inc. New issue and advisory revenue was $6.5 million in the second quarter, a decrease of $17.9 million from the first quarter and an increase of $5.1 million from the year ago quarter. Our revenue earned from new issue and advisory revenue has been and we expect will continue to be volatile. We earn revenue from a limited number of engagements, a small change in the number of engagements can result in quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in the revenue recognized. The average revenue per engagement can also fluctuate and our revenue is generally earned when an underlying transaction closes, thus the timing of underlying transactions increases the volatility as well. Net trading revenue came in at $8.8 million in the second quarter, down $1.1 million from the first quarter and up $1.4 million from the second quarter of…

Thanks, Joe. Please direct any off-line investor questions to Joe Pooler at 215-701-8952 or via e-mail to investorrelations@cohenandcompany.com. The contact information can also be found at the bottom of our earnings release. Operator, you can now open the call lines for questions. And thank you all for joining us today.

Well, thanks everyone for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you for our third quarter results. Enjoy the rest of the week. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.