Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Cohen & Company's first quarter 2023 earnings call. My name is Alicia. I'll 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 security 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. 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.
I would like to now to turn the call over to Mr. Lester Brafman, Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Company.
Thank you, Alicia, and thank you everyone for joining us for our first quarter 2023 earnings call. With me on the call is Joe Pooler, our CFO. Our investment portfolio continues to impact our results as our combined negative principal transaction revenue and loss from equity method affiliates amounted to $3 million for the quarter. The prolonged slump in investment banking and origination resulted in less than expected new issue and advisory revenues during the quarter. We strongly believe in our team of bankers and originators as we continue to build our pipeline and look forward to more favorable capital markets. As we move forward, we remain focused on enhancing stockholder value, and the first quarter we continue to pay our quarterly dividend. Now I will turn the call over to Joe to walk through the quarter's financial highlights in more detail.
Thank you, Lester. We'll start with our statement of operations. Our net loss attributable to Cohen & Company Inc. was $2.6 million for the quarter, or $1.77 per fully diluted share, compared to net loss of $3 million for the prior quarter, or $2.10 per fully diluted share, and net loss of $7.6 million for the prior year quarter, or $5.46 per fully diluted share. Our adjusted pre-tax loss was $9.6 million for the quarter, compared to adjusted pre-tax loss of $6.1 million for the prior quarter and adjusted pre-tax loss of $18.6 million for the prior year quarter. Note that adjusted pre-tax loss is not a measure recognized under U.S. GAAP. See our disclosures, calculations and reconciliations surrounding adjusted pre-tax loss in our earnings release.
First quarter 2023 principal transactions and other revenue was -$2.3 million. The negative principal transactions and other revenue was primarily due to mark-to-market adjustments on our principal investments related to our involvement in the SPAC market as a sponsor, asset manager and investor, which has resulted in increased holdings of public equity positions in post-business combination companies. Principal transactions revenue includes all gains and losses and income earned on our $22.4 million investment portfolio, classified as other investments at fair value on our balance sheet. Net trading revenue came in at $8.2 million in the first quarter, down $1.4 million from the fourth quarter and $3.8 million from the first quarter of 2022. The decrease from both of the prior quarters was due primarily to lower trading revenue from our mortgage group.
New issue and advisory revenue was $0.9 million in the first quarter, a decrease of $3.3 million from the fourth quarter and $2.9 million from the year-ago quarter. Our asset management revenue totaled $2 million in the quarter, which was up $0.3 million from the prior quarter and $0.1 million from the prior year quarter. Compensation and benefits expense for the quarter was $10.5 million, which was up from the prior quarter and down from the prior year quarter, primarily due to fluctuations in revenue and variable incentive compensation. The number of company employees was 121 at the end of March 2023, compared to 121 as of December 2022 and 115 as of the year-ago March.
Net interest expense for the first quarter of 2023 was $1.6 million, including $1.2 million on our two trust preferred debt instruments, $111,000 on our senior notes, $65,000 on our credit line, and $207,000 on our redeemable financial instrument. Loss from equity method affiliates during the quarter totaled $400,000. During the first quarter, income tax expense was $600,000, compared to $1.3 million in the prior quarter and $1.8 million in the prior year quarter. We will continue to evaluate our operations on a quarterly basis and may make adjustments to our valuation allowances applied against our net operating loss and net capital loss tax assets going forward.
In terms of our balance sheet, at the end of the quarter, total equity was $82.4 million, compared to $94 million as of the end of 2022. The non-convertible non-controlling interest component of total equity was $153 thousand at the end of the quarter and $17 thousand at the end of December of 2022. The total equity excluding the non-convertible non-controlling interest component was $82.2 million at the end of the quarter, an $11.8 million dollar decrease from $94 million at the end of 2022. At quarter end, consolidated corporate indebtedness was carried at $29.2 million, and our redeemable financial instruments were carried at $7.9 million.
As Lester mentioned, we've declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share payable on June 2, 2023 to stockholders of record as of May 18, 2023. The board of directors will continue to evaluate the dividend policy each quarter, and future decisions regarding dividends may be impacted by quarterly operating results and the company's capital needs. With that, I'll turn it back over to Lester. To Alicia to open up the call lines for questions.
Thanks, Joe. Please direct any offline investor questions to Joe Pooler at 215-701-8952 or via email to investorrelations@cohenandcompany.com. The contact information can also be found at the bottom of our earnings release. Operator, you may now open the call line for questions and thank you all for joining us today.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Lester Brafman for closing comments.
Thank you all. Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to speaking to you for our next quarter. Operator, you can now close the line.
This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.