You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Across almost every measure, 2020 was a year of record performance for Walker & Dunlop during a tremendously challenging year for our country and the world.
The COVID pandemic, and it's far-reaching impact on jobs, the global economy and the health of colleagues and loved ones was felt by all Americans.
And the issues of racial justice and a tumultuous political season left enduring impacts on our society.
Yet despite the many challenges that 2020 presented, the W&D team continued to step-up for our clients, our communities and for one another every day.
After an exceedingly strong Q1 followed by the transition to remote work in Q2, the W&D team adapted to selling, underwriting and closing financings and property sales in Q3 and Q4 to generate record total transaction volume of $41.1 billion for the year, up 29% from 2019.
We closed out 2020 with record Q4 revenues of $350 million, up 61% over -- year-over-year pushing our annual total revenues to $1.1 billion.
As long-term investors in Walker & Dunlop know, we have established bold, highly ambitious five-year growth plans for our company.
And in 2015, established the goal of more than doubling our revenues to $1 billion by 2020.
As you can see on this slide, we grew total revenues an impressive 18% compound annual growth rate over the five-year period and grew debt financing volumes by a 17% compound annual growth rate to end 2020 at $35 billion.
And our servicing portfolio more than doubled over the five-year period to $107 billion, a 16% compound annual growth rate.
Finally, we grew our property sales business at a compound annual growth rate of 32%.
And even with the pandemic-induced shutdown of property sales for most of Q2 and Q3, we increased our volume to $6.1 billion in 2020, a truly spectacular 14% growth rate over 2019.
All of this growth and record transaction volume generated 2020 diluted earnings per share of $7.69, up 41% over 2019.
As you can see on this slide, we have grown earnings per share at an impressive compound annual growth rate of 24% over the past five years, while maintaining our weighted average diluted share count at around 31 million shares with less than 1% increase in diluted shares over the period due to prudent management of our share count.
And this consistent and dramatic growth in EPS, combined with our annual increase to our dividend that Steve will mention momentarily, has driven total shareholder return of 46% over one year, 107% over three years and 241% over five years, handily beating the market and our peer group.
I've been told time and time again that investors don't care about what you did yesterday, only what you are going to do tomorrow.
And while I both understand and appreciate that, I think it is extremely important for investors in Walker & Dunlop to hear and see the incredible compounding growth numbers of Walker & Dunlop over the past five years.
Because while history rarely repeats itself, as Mark Twain once said, it does often rhyme.
And as a high-growth company with a massive market opportunity, an incredibly talented team of professionals, our growth over the coming years will continue to rhyme with the past.
Driving our performance in 2020 was the combination of our exceptional people, expanding brand and actionable technology, which all came together to transform our business and produce exceptional results.
Despite the challenges presented by the remote work environment, our people continue to deliver and remain wildly productive.
We just hired employee number 1,000 at Walker & Dunlop.
And while we have had headcount over the past several years, in conjunction with our dramatic growth in transaction volumes and servicing portfolio, we have maintained our industry-leading metric of over $1 million in revenue per employee.
And while we now compete head-to-head with the largest commercial real estate finance and services firms, we have maintained the small company touch and feel that Walker & Dunlop was built upon by my grandfather and my father.
The combination of big company capabilities with small company touch and feel is a competitive advantage in the marketplace, which we aim to maintain going forward, whether we have 1,000 employees or 5,000 employees.
Our website traffic grew by 80% in 2020.
Our email list grew by over 500% and our PR media hits grew by over 400% last year, including an upswing in top-tier and broadcast media.
Compared to last year, we are reaching an audience that is 8 times larger overall, bolstering our brand as the premier commercial real estate finance company in the United States.
Finally, our investments in actionable technology came to life in 2020.
We began investing in databases several years ago, then acquired Enodo early in 2019 to apply machine learning to those databases, and then we turn that data over to our bankers and brokers.
And the results with regard to new clients, and new transactions to Walker & Dunlop has been truly amazing.
While many of our competitor firms were refinancing their own loan portfolios as interest rates dropped at the onset of the pandemic, 66% of our 2020 refinancing volume was new loans to Walker & Dunlop, 66%.
And while technology and talented bankers and brokers generated that growth with existing clients, it was the combination of great bankers and brokers, technology and our expanding brand that allowed us to have 23% of our total transaction volume in 2020, be with new clients to Walker & Dunlop who had never worked with us before.
Those are pretty astounding numbers during the year when face-to-face meetings and the traditional sales channel and processes did not exist.
That is the power of our people, brand and technology, and it sets us up exceedingly well for continued growth for many years to come.
And then I'll come back to discuss our Drive to 2025 and what investors should expect to see over the coming years.
We ended 2020 with fantastic fourth quarter financial results, including record total transaction volume of $14.2 billion, up 45% year-over-year and record earnings of $2.59 per share, up an astounding 93% over Q4 of 2019.
Our full year transaction volume of $41.1 billion is 29% higher than 2019, while record full year earnings per share of $7.69, increased 41% over the prior year.
The fact that these incredible results came in the midst of a pandemic, are a true testament to the resiliency of our business model and the hard work and dedication of our team.
Our strong performance in the quarter and year shined through in our key metrics.
Operating margin in Q4 was 34%, well above our target range of 27% to 30%, leading to full year operating margin of 30% for 2020.
Return on equity was 29% for the quarter and 23% for the full year, well above our annual goal of 18% to 20%.
Personnel expense for the quarter was 45% of revenue in line with Q4 of last year and was 43% for the full year, just slightly higher than 2019's 42% due to growth in commission and bonus expense resulting from our phenomenal performance in 2020.
Total transaction volume for the quarter included $2.8 billion of property sales volume, a 44% increase over last year and a quarterly record.
This pickup is notable given the challenging market dynamics that this part of our business faced in 2020 when the impacts of the pandemic caused buyers and sellers to exit the market for several months.
A record volume in the quarter is indicative of a return to a robust multifamily acquisitions market that has moved past the market disruption that began in mid-March.
The attractiveness of multifamily assets will continue to drive investment into the space, and we expect to see a very healthy market and strong growth in multifamily property sales volume in 2021.
Our fourth quarter debt financing volume was led by agency financing including a record quarter of $844 million of lending with HUD.
Debt brokerage volume totaled $3.8 billion, down 3% from Q4 '19, but up significantly from the second and third quarters of 2020.
This is another notable pickup in an area of our business, which is very challenged for the better part of the year.
We expect that our debt brokerage business will continue to gain momentum as we move into 2021 and are excited for what our team can accomplish.
Based on the strength of our debt financing volume in 2020, we grew our servicing portfolio by nearly $14 billion or 15% to $107 billion as of December 31, 2020.
As the portfolios continue to grow, the contractual cash servicing fees have grown along with it to $236 million in 2020, up 10% from 2019.
That growth rate accelerated as the year went on, with Q4 servicing fees increasing by 15% over last year to $63 million for the quarter.
This acceleration was due in part to the strong volumes in the second half of the year, but is primarily the result of a sizable increase in the average servicing fee for the portfolio to 24 basis points from 23.2 basis points at the beginning of the year.
This increase is significant when you consider the overall size of our portfolio, and is worth more than $8.5 million of additional annual cash revenue on a portfolio of $107 billion.
The combination of strong growth in both the portfolio and the weighted average servicing fee sets the stage for accelerated cash servicing fee growth in 2021.
In addition, the mortgage servicing rights related to the portfolio now have a fair value of over $1 billion, reflective of the significant future cash flow streams we will receive from the portfolio beyond just the next year.
I also want to mention one other item related to our servicing operation.
During the fourth quarter, we made the decision to remain with our existing servicing technology vendor.
Consequently, we ended our planned conversion to a new servicing system, resulting in a $5.8 million charge to expense either we took during the quarter related to the write-off of previously capitalized software costs and a termination payment on the contract.
We do not expect to incur any additional costs associated with that contract going forward.
During the fourth quarter, we recorded additional provision for credit losses of $5.5 million.
Just more than half of that expense was driven by the strong growth in the at-risk portfolio during the quarter, while the other half relates to an increase in the specific reserves associated with the two student housing loans that defaulted in 2019 and our one interim loan that also defaulted in 2019.
We delivered record earnings in a year in which we have taken provision expense of $37 million, $30 million more than in all of 2019.
We have always prided ourselves in our exceptional and relatively conservative credit culture and the overall performance of our portfolio in 2020 with limited forbearance requests and no new defaults in our at-risk interim portfolios has been fantastic.
However, COVID remains a significant uncertainty with respect to its impact on future employment levels and overall economic performance.
As a result, we don't believe any downward adjustment to our overall reserve balance is appropriate at this time.
2020 adjusted EBITDA of $215.8 million was down 13% from 2019, primarily due to a significant year over decrease in escrow earnings, resulting from historically low interest rates during the year.
2020's low interest rate environment reduced our annual escrow earnings to $18 million compared to $57 million in 2019.
As a reminder, we currently hold escrow deposits on loans that we service with an average balance of $2.8 billion, and we earn interest income tied to short-term rates on those deposits.
Every 25 basis point increase in the deposit rate translates into approximately $7 million of additional pre-tax earnings per year.
We ended the year with $321 million of cash on the balance sheet.
As shareholders in Walker & Dunlop know, we will continue to prioritize reinvesting our capital into the business to drive future growth opportunities.
As you will hear shortly when Willy lays out our Drive to 2025 objectives, maintaining our growth trajectory and achieving these ambitious goals will require investments in bankers and brokers, new business areas and technology.
We feel that we are in a very strong financial position that will allow us to continue deploying capital into our growth initiatives while also returning capital to shareholders.
To that end, our Board of Directors voted yesterday to increase our quarterly dividend payment to $0.50 per share, a 39% increase.
This is our third annual increase since we initiated the dividend in February of 2018 at $0.25 per share.
This results in a cumulative increase of 100% since we started the dividend.
This is a strong growth rate that reflects our fantastic financial performance during that period.
The current annualized dividend of $2 represents a payout ratio of 26% on 2020 net income and 29% on 2020 adjusted EBITDA, a level that we feel is appropriate given our expectations for continued growth in earnings and strong cash flow going forward.
Finally, our Board authorized a share repurchase plan in the amount of $75 million to be executed over the next 12 months, giving us the ability to continue opportunistically buying back our stock.
We feel very well positioned to keep growing our business in 2021 by continuing to hire great people, leveraging our unique brand and making additional investments in technology, and we have established ambitious financial targets for the year.
We are again targeting double-digit growth in both earnings per share and adjusted EBITDA in 2021.
Though we did not grow adjusted EBITDA at this rate in 2020, the increase in our servicing portfolio and average servicing fee during 2020 and our expectations for stronger debt brokerage and property sales volumes in 2021 should positively impact EBITDA.
And while we believe the Fed is likely to keep short-term interest rates low for the foreseeable future, if there is any increase in short-term rates, our adjusted EBITDA will benefit from the increased interest we would earn from our escrow deposits.
We're raising our operating margin target range to 29% to 32% for 2021 and our return on equity range to 19% to 22% for the year.
During 2020, we saw operating margin and ROE expansion in our business as we realized economies of scale and continue to closely manage our people and expenses, even while some parts of our business were not operating at full efficiency.
As a result, we raised the range for both metrics due to our expectations for continued growth in transaction volumes and particularly a return to normalcy in both debt brokerage and investment sales in 2021.
With respect to the first quarter of 2021, remember that last year included $2.1 billion of the Southern Management transaction.
Absent that, our pipeline compares favorably to Q1 of 2020 and the expected size of the market this year has us poised for another year of growth and financial success in 2021.
I'm extremely pleased with our financial performance this year and our team's ability to come together during a difficult year to generate incredible results.
We are moving into 2021 with a renewed sense of energy and purpose as we drive toward our five-year financial targets.
We entered 2021 with strong momentum and confidence in our ability to deliver the ambitious financial targets that Steve just ran through.
Multifamily has continued to outperform other commercial real estate asset classes in the pandemic and during this economic cycle.
Americans feel more tied to their homes today than ever before, and renters have gone to great lengths to continue making their rent payments and preserving their homes.
And while Walker & Dunlop's market position in multifamily financing and sales is extremely strong, we also finance places where people work, shop and play.
And that while work from home will impact work schedules, it will not do away with the need for office space.
And that while the annual projection for 2021 is in line with 2020 around 50%, leisure travel could snap back quickly once herd immunity is thought to be achieved.
I would add that we believe work travel will snap back much quicker than currently anticipated.
And while Walmart is working hard to compete with Amazon and online retail, John underscored the fact that in Q2 of 2020, at the height of the pandemic shutdown, only 16% of total U.S. retail sales were online, and that 84% of sales still ran through bricks-and-mortar stores.
Online is growing fast, but the future of retail is clearly multichannel, not simply online.
As all of these commercial asset classes evolve and recover from the pandemic, Walker & Dunlop bankers and brokers will be there to assist owners in implementing the proper financing strategy.
We established the mission to become the premier commercial real estate finance company in the United States when we went public in 2010 with less than $100 million in revenues and a market capitalization of $220 million.
10 years later, we have revenues of over $1 billion, a market cap close to $3 billion, and yet the mission remains the same.
We are just a heck of a lot closer to achieving it.
We rolled out to W&D employees and investors in early December, our next five-year strategic plan titled the Drive to 2025.
The components of the Drive to 2025 are to grow revenues to $2 billion, by expanding our annual debt financing volumes to $65 billion, grow our servicing portfolio to over $160 billion, grow annual property sales volume to $25 billion, grow our fund management business to over $10 billion in assets under management and the continued development of three new growth businesses: small balance lending, our appraisal business surprise and investment banking.
And while accomplishing these highly ambitious business goals, we will continue to be a leader with our environmental; social, which includes a heavy emphasis on gender and racial diversity and inclusion; and governance efforts.
In order to achieve these goals, we will continue to bring on the very best people to our platform, further expand our brand and invest in innovative technology that will make us more insightful and more efficient for our customers.
To achieve $65 billion in annual debt financing, we will first become the largest multifamily lender in the country.
Our $35 billion of debt financing in 2020 included $24 billion of direct multifamily lending.
As shown on this slide, in 2019, we held the number five spot in the multifamily lender rankings with $16.7 billion.
As you can see, our 2020 volume of $24 billion would advance us to the number one spot, if the other lenders stood still or moved back in their lending volumes during the year.
The Mortgage Bankers Association rankings will be released in the next few weeks, but we do know from the release of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac league tables last week that we have jumped ahead of Berkadia and Wells Fargo, and we'll wait to see what CBRE and JPMorgan did outside of the GSEs to see if we are number one, number two or number three.
Wherever we end up in the multifamily rankings for 2020, like all goals we establish at W&D, we remain focused on advancing to the number one position in the market.
We will also continue to grow our debt brokerage platform that provides financing on all commercial property types using capital from banks, life insurance companies, CMBS conduits and debt funds.
As you just heard from Steve, we expect strong contributions from this area of our business in 2021 as the market recovers.
Our 2025 property sales goal of $25 billion is very ambitious.
But given the best-in-class platform we have established over the past five years, we are very excited about the growth potential in this line of business.
There are geographies such as Phoenix, Denver and Seattle, where we need to add the very best multifamily property brokers available as well as specialty products, such as student housing, affordable housing and built-for-rent properties that will complete our national footprint and add significant volume.
We have seen our property sales and financing teams collaborate in spectacular fashion over the past several years to deliver value to our customers and revenues to Walker & Dunlop.
And we expect to see this collaboration continue to grow over the coming years as volumes on both platforms expand dramatically.
Finally, our brand has expanded and our customer relationships have deepened, our clients have begun seeking new services that are complementary to our established commercial real estate finance and property sales capabilities.
To meet this demand, we plan to build out investment banking capabilities that will allow us to help our clients value their platforms, raise more complex equity capital solutions, provide detailed market research or raise equity that can be invested in their developments.
Part of our investment banking strategy will involve continuing to grow our asset management business, Walker & Dunlop investment partners to $10 billion in AUM by 2025.
Our investment banking services and growth in our fund management business will provide us with both the expertise and access to capital to meet virtually any request that comes our way making us a more valuable partner to our existing customer base and attracting new clients along the way.
If we achieve the component parts of the Drive to 2025 over the next five years, we will grow revenues to $2 billion and diluted earnings per share from $13 to $15.
It is incredibly exciting for me, having worked with our team over 15 years to establish three incredibly ambitious five-year growth plans that we all achieved to reset our sights on a new set of objectives that our team is already pursuing.
As I have said before, history will not repeat itself, but with regard to Walker & Dunlop achieving long-term business and financial goals, it usually rhymes.
As we pursue these financial targets, we will continue to focus on environmental, social and governance or ESG issues.
We take ESG extremely seriously at Walker & Dunlop, and have invested for many years to be a leader in this space.
On environmental issues, we have been carbon neutral for the past four years and have established concrete corporate goals to materially reduce our carbon emissions by 2025.
And finally, our governance has been exemplary.
We have a very diverse board that has provided consistent and exceptional governance over Walker & Dunlop since the company went public in 2010 and have received the National Association of Corporate Directors highest ranking with regard to Board performance.
We remain extremely focused on our ESG initiatives over the next five years and have incorporated quantitative metrics surrounding ESG objectives that we plan to achieve as part of the Drive to 2025.
As we move into 2021, we feel very well positioned to continue growing and building out our platform to deliver double-digit growth in earnings per share once again.
We remain focused on hiring top bankers and brokers to the platform, and expanding our client base as we were so successful in doing in 2020.
We have every intention of maintaining our leadership position with the GSEs and are confident that given the current low interest rate environment and attractiveness of multifamily, we will have another successful year of multifamily lending.
As the multifamily acquisitions market continues to recover and more and more capital enters the space, we expect that previous investments in our property sales platform will drive significant volume growth in that business in the coming year.
And as other asset classes begin to rebound, there will be a need for capital to office, retail and hospitality properties, and our debt brokerage platform will step up and meet the needs of our clients in these markets.
Finally, we will be investing heavily in our emerging businesses like our appraisal platform and small business lending that will be powered by technology and should become larger contributors to our top and bottom line over time.
All of this should make investors in Walker & Dunlop very excited for the next year and our path to 2025.
Before we conclude the call, I'd like to offer my sincerest gratitude to my 1,000 colleagues at Walker & Dunlop, for making 2020 the incredibly successful year that it was.
We are still in the midst of a pandemic, family and friends still run the risk of suffering from this deadly virus and many people have been isolated for months, yearning for life to return to something close to normal.
And yet we forge ahead, always focused on our customer and providing the best -- very best service possible.
I hope many of you will join us for what should be a very insightful discussion.

user
compname reports q4 earnings per share of $2.59.
walker & dunlop q4 revenues up 61% to $350 million and net income up 94% to $83 million.
q4 earnings per share $2.59.
q4 revenue rose 61 percent to $349.7 million.
increases quarterly dividend by 39 percent to $0.50per share.
compname says on february 3, co's board authorized repurchase of up to $75 million of common stock.

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