Chimera Investment Corporation

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Chimera Investment First Quarter 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. If you should require assistance throughout the conference, please press star zero to reach a live operator. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Victor Falvo, head of capital markets. Welcome, sir. The floor is yours.

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for participating in Chimera's First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor Statements. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These events are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are outlined in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual and quarterly SEC filings. Actual events and results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to read the forward-looking statement disclaimers in our earnings release and our quarterly and annual filings. During the call today, we may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our SEC filings and earnings supplement for reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures. Additionally, the content of this conference call may contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this earnings call. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise this information. I will now turn the conference over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Phil Kartas.

Thanks, Vic, and good morning and welcome to Chimera Investment Corporation's first quarter 2025 earnings call. It's great to have you with us today. Joining me on the call are Jack McDowell, our Chief Investment Officer, Subra Biswanathan, our Chief Financial Officer, and Vic Falvo, our Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. After my remarks, Subra will review the financial results and then Jack will review the portfolio before opening the call for questions. This has been a strong quarter for Chimera. Earnings available for distribution improved by 11 percent, our book value increased by 7.4 percent, and our economic return was 9.2 percent. This quarter also marked something new. It was our first full quarter since acquiring Palisades. The integration was fast, seamless, cultural fit, excellent, strategic alignment, even better. Whether it's third-party advisory, portfolio oversight, or core investment strategy, Palisades is now part of the Chimera platform. Third-party loans under management by Palisades Advisory Services are up 43 percent -over-year, including an increase of 1.5 billion during the first quarter to nearly 24 billion. Today, when you combine our on-balance sheet assets with the assets we manage for others, we're at nearly 37 billion. That's everything in the residential mortgage market from re-performing, jumbo prime, residential transition and non-QM loans, to agency RMBS and residential equity products. It's a deep, diversified residential mortgage platform, and it's backed by over 2.6 billion in equity. Why does this matter? Because we are not just adding businesses. We're building capabilities. We're diversifying our revenue, and it's already having a real impact on our bottom line. We also made impactful balance sheet moves. This quarter, we exercised our call rights on all our non-REMIC securitizations and issued two new securitizations backed by those loans. This was effectively a cash-out refinancing that unlocked $187 million at a reinvestment hurdle below 6 percent. And there's more. In January, we acquired and securitized $288 million in non-QM loans. We're holding the retained bonds unlevered on our balance sheet and expect a low teen return. In March, we picked up $149 million of agency-specified pools. We also settled $100 million in residential transition loans during the quarter. In each case, we expect mid-teen levered returns. And lastly, we refinanced two key -to-Market facilities before market volatility hit, increasing their capacity, improving their terms, and extending their maturities. Importantly, we extracted more than $100 million of additional cash from these refinancings. So what's next? Even in a volatile market, we're holding steady. As of earlier this week, we estimate the current book value to be flat to slightly down from the end of the first quarter. We're continuing to grow our third-party loans under management. We're adding agency RMBS, assets that deliver returns, liquidity, and flexibility. And we're doing it all with a stronger balance sheet and more liquidity than we had at the start of the year. Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, we're staying focused. We expect to diversify the portfolio, grow recurring fee income, add liquidity, and look for opportunities to add accretive platforms. Here's the big takeaway. We're not just playing defense. We're building Chimera into a hybrid mortgage rate that's resilient and diversified. Now I'll hand it off to Subra to walk you through the financials.

Thank you, Phil. I will review Chimera's financial highlights for the first quarter of 2025. Gap net income for the first quarter was $145.9 million, or $1.77 per share. Gap book value at the end of the first quarter was $21.17 per share. For the first quarter, our economic return on gap book value was .2% based on the quarterly change in book value and the $0.37 first quarter dividend per common share. On earnings available for distribution basis, net income for the first quarter was $33.5 million, or $0.41 per share. Our economic net interest income for the first quarter was $72.3 million. For the first quarter, the yield on average interest earning assets was 5.9%. Our average cost of funds was 4.4%. And our net interest spread was 1.5%. Total leverage for the first quarter was 3.9 to 1, while RICO's leverage ended the quarter at 1.2 to 1. For liquidity and securitized financing, the company ended the quarter with $697 million in total cash and unencumbered assets. In January, we closed on our SIEM 2025 I-1 securitization as part of a strategy to mitigate securitization execution risk on certain securitizations. We were short two-year treasury future contracts to protect the net interest spread of SIEM 2025 I-1. This short position was closed out in January. In March, we exercised our call rights and terminated seven outstanding SIEM securitizations and refinanced the loans with two new SIEM securitizations enabling the company to extract $187 million in cash. Jack will review in more detail the economics of this activity during his prepared remarks. For repo and hedging, we had $2 billion floating rate sensitivity on our outstanding repo liabilities. And we had $3.2 billion in notional value of various interest rate hedges. Of this total, we have $1.5 billion hedge positions rolling off during the second quarter, which will result in a more balanced liability hedge position. We had $1.4 billion in either non- or limited -to-market features on our outstanding repo agreements representing 47% of our secure recourse funding. During the quarter, we converted a long position in $500 million swapshins into a one-year pay-fixed interest rate swaps with a rate of 3.45%. This quarter, we also entered into a $1 billion two-year SOFR interest rate cap with a .95% strike to protect against future interest rate movements as existing interest rate swaps mature. We executed on a total of $155 million pay-fixed e-reswap futures at a weighted average par rate equivalent pay-fixed rate of 3.84%. For the first quarter of 2025, our economic net interest income return on average equity was 11.2%. Our gap return on average equity was 25.9%. And our EAD return on average equity was 8.1%. And lastly, compensation, general, administrative, and servicing expenses were marginally higher than $1.4 billion in the first quarter over quarter when excluding imputed compensation expenses related to the Palisades acquisition. Our transaction expenses were $5.7 million this quarter, reflecting the costs associated with increased securitization activity. I will now turn the call over to Jack to review our portfolio and securitization activity.

Thanks, Zubra. And good morning, everyone. I'll provide a brief overview of our investment activity during the first quarter, as well as provide insight as to how we were positioned heading into April's volatility. During the quarter, markets continued adjusting to the new administration's policy priorities, namely immigration reform, efforts to improve government efficiency, and an emphasis on redefining global trade partnerships. Interest rate volatility remained contained through mid-February, but spiked on February 19th after the January FOMC minutes reinforced a more hawkish -for-longer stance. Volatility peaked in early March and then eased, following the release of a -than-expected February PPI and a well-received 10-year Treasury auction on March 12th. Over the course of the quarter, Treasury yields rallied 36 basis points across 2s and 10s, maintaining the year-end curve steepness of 33 basis points. Credit spreads whined during the period, with investment grade and high-yield corporate spreads gapping out by 14 and 60 basis points respectively. Instructured products, non-QM AAA spreads, whined by 25 basis points, while BBBs backed up by 10. In the agency space, current coupon OAS traded within an 18 basis point range versus swaps and 13 basis points versus Treasuries, ending the quarter roughly unchanged. Housing conditions continue to moderate. National home price growth in February was .9% -over-year, with markets in Texas and Florida flat to down, while Northeast cities, along with Chicago and Cleveland, posting stronger gains in the -8% range. Resale inventory rose 20% -over-year, but remains roughly 46% below pre-pandemic levels. Affordability remains challenged, with 30-year mortgage rates averaging around 7% throughout the quarter based on bank rate statistics. Existing home sales declined to a 4 million unit annualized pace, marking the slowest first quarter print since 2009. Single-family housing starts were down 14% from the prior quarter, as builders remained cautious in the face of rate pressures, price uncertainty, and input-caused volatility. That said, mortgage credit fundamentals remain healthy, borrower equity is at record levels, and both delinquency and foreclosure activity remain near historic lows. Early April brought renewed volatility tied to the announcement of U.S. tariffs. The move index surged more than 50% in just over a week, and unusually, Treasury yields sold off amid the volatility on speculation of foreign selling and purported unwinds of levered basis rates. Credit spreads wind across both corporate and structured product markets. While volatility has since moderated, forecasts have generally shifted to reflect lower growth expectations and increased inflation risk for the balance of the year. Amid this backdrop, our seasoned re-performing loan portfolio, which comprises the majority of our GAAP assets, continued to perform in line with expectations. Serious delinquencies were stable at .9% and prepayments ticked down to 5.5%. Our Palisades Advisory Services Asset Management Team remained focused on integrating the portfolio into our systems with an emphasis on driving positive outcomes in the loan book. Our book value increased .4% during the quarter, largely driven by yield compression in performing loans, which was partially offset by wider yields in the non-performing loan cohort. Yields on securitized debt were largely unchanged, as spreads wind rapidly in the last week of March, neutralizing much of the rate rally during the quarter. We continued to deploy capital in a deliberate and disciplined manner. In light of the macro backdrop, we have built additional liquidity and positioned our portfolio to withstand volatility, spread widening, and funding shocks if they were to emerge. Importantly, this should allow us to be opportunistic during periods of market dislocation. During the quarter, we settled a $288 million DSCR securitization and purchased $149 million of specified pools. We also closed $100 million of short-duration residential transition loans and committed to another $32 million for settlement in the second quarter. Our team continues to actively evaluate opportunities with potential for us to execute in that sector later in 2025 as a way to generate attractive returns while simultaneously helping to balance the duration risk in other parts of the portfolio. As mentioned by Phil and Subra, some of the quarter's most impactful activity was on the liability side. We refinanced two structured repo lines with combined capacity of more than $610 million, extending the maturities by 18 and 24 months while lowering costs and securing mostly fixed rate, non-mark to market terms. This unlocked more than $100 million of investable cash at attractive rates. I'm going to pause briefly and ask that you turn your attention to page 16 of our investor presentation. Here, we added a supplemental slide that walks through series of transactions we completed in March. As part of these transactions, we exercised our redemption rights on all 312 million of its outstanding securities tied to our seven non-REMIC securitizations. These deals collateralized by $646 million of seasoned loans had built significant embedded equity over the years as senior bonds had paid down and loan performance improved. We refinanced those loans into two new securitizations, totaling $517 million in senior bonds, one RIMIC and one non-REMIC transaction, further enhancing the cash flow profile of our retained interest and releasing $187 million of cash for reinvestment. As you can see from the middle box on the slide, while our overall cost funds went down, the additional debt will increase our annual run rate interest expense by approximately $11 million. That implies our break-even return on capital is approximately 5.8%, meaning any incremental return generated in excess of .8% should be accretive to earnings. Overall, we view these transactions as foundational. They reflect our ability to generate capital organically, enhance liquidity, and continue positioning the portfolio for resilience and optionality. These actions left us well positioned entering April. We ended the quarter with $253 million in cash and $444 million of unencumbered assets. This allowed us to comfortably hold cash during the initial period of volatility. Importantly, the resilience of our during the volatility, despite the market dislocation. By mid to late April, we began selectively adding agency MBS exposure at attractive entry points. However, we remain cautious and expect a relatively high bar for capital deployment given the ongoing uncertainty in current macro environment. As we mentioned last quarter, our focus remains on constructing a durable portfolio that supports attractive risk-adjusted returns through cycles. Agency MBS and MSRs remain areas of emphasis, complementing our core credit-related loan investments. We continue to evaluate non-QM and DSCR loans. However, we anticipate any near-term investments being opportunistic in nature given our stated portfolio objectives. We continue to recycle capital in our short-duration residential transition loan book and intend to maintain that allocation as a component of our strategy moving forward. This was a strong quarter. We deployed capital tactically into accretive investments, raised cash organically, and significantly improved the flexibility of our funding stack, all of which helped us navigate April's volatility and positions as well going forward. As always, we remain focused on disciplined risk management and thoughtful portfolio construction. That concludes our remarks. We'll now open the line for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you do have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. Again, that's star 1 if you do have a question or comment. Please hold as we poll for questions. And we'll take our first question from Doug Harder from UBS. Please go ahead, Doug.

Thanks. Just first for clarification, when you said book value was flat to slightly down, so far in the second quarter,

just

put some numbers around what slightly down might mean.

I think as of Tuesday, Doug, it was down about 40 basis points. Great. That's super helpful.

And then, I guess, how should we think about the timing to deploy that extra $187 million of investment capital that you freed up with the re-securitization? And then, with that and the earnings power you delivered this quarter, how are you thinking about the dividend?

Yeah, so I can talk quickly about the deployment of the capital. So I would say up to this point, we probably deployed about a 40% of it. Like we said in the prepared remarks, the bar for capital deployment in this environment, certainly on the credit side, is somewhat high. Our focus is right now building up that liquidity bucket. We think that's an important component of our both near-term and long-term strategy. So we have been deploying that into agency MBS. We see the relative value there being attracted. We also see, based on how we're hedging out the duration risk, that helping with our book value volatility. So in the near term, that is our focus. If we were trying to predict how long it would take to deploy, like I said, we're probably a third to 40% of it allocated up to this point. And we would tactically look to deploy the remainder subject to cash reserves and that stuff over the next four

to eight weeks. And Doug, this is Philip about the dividend. That's something that we'll probably start thinking about in the next month or so. And as you know, there's a variety of factors that go into that in terms of what we look at for a board determination. But I think it's just premature at this point for us to think about that given the market volatility. We'll see how things play out over the next month or so. Great. Thank you,

guys. Thank you. And we'll take our next question from Trevor Cranston from Citizens. Please go ahead, Trevor.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Looking at the third party business, the growth seems like it's been pretty consistent over the last several quarters. Can you talk about the outlook for that business in terms of the growth potential over the next year or two?

Thanks. Look, I mean, we believe that there's a fair amount of growth potential there. So we're bullish on this. But it depends on a variety of factors as third parties continue to purchase loans. We provide a valuable service to them in terms of what I would call the blocking and tackling aspect of it. And so we think there's still upside as we continue to bring in new clients. But that is something that's just going to depend on kind of where we see the mortgage market go. But it's both growing within existing clients and we're adding some new clients.

Got it. OK, that's helpful. And then on the flat book value performance in the start of the second quarter, have you guys basically seen credit spreads fully recover from the widening in the early part of April or can you just take us through kind of the moving parts of the flat book value? Thanks.

Yeah, so we've seen, yeah, it's a good question. I mean, from a credit spread perspective, we have seen just April through today generally some widening in spreads. We've seen it retrace from the wides, but about halfway, I would say. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So is the remainder of how you get to a flat book value, is that coming from like the interest rate component of things?

Yeah, no. So you have to remember when we, our book value is impacted by both our assets and liabilities. So the change in book value is going also be affected by how rates move across the curve. So some of our securitized debt is shorter duration and our loans are longer duration. The way that we get back to a flat book value quarter in the second quarter, quarter to date, basically the deterioration of loan value from wider credit spreads has also been offset by the change in the securitized debt as well. So they're basically offsetting each other. Yeah, gotcha.

Okay. That makes sense.

Thank you. And just one thing I would point out too, we've tried to add additional disclosure in the investor presentation. So we put a couple of new slides in there that provide additional detail with respect to our loan and securitized debt portfolio. So hopefully having that information will help the market get a sense of how the book value is moving and the different components, because it is a nuanced portfolio. Yeah, got it. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, that's star one. If you do have a question or comment, then we'll take our next question from Boz George from KBW. Please go ahead, Boz.

Hey guys. Good morning. In terms of the book value going forward, after the hedges roll off the second quarter, what is your portfolio duration going to look like?

Yeah, Boz, keep in mind, notwithstanding what we're doing on the agency side, and in the first quarter that was relatively minute, but we hedge the floating rate interest rate risk on our short duration repo. So even the hedges that we have on with our swaps and our cap and everything we have on now, that really isn't there to protect book value. The way that we sort of look at things is when we buy loans, we securitize them, that is in effect locking in our net interest margin and providing the hedge for our assets. Now that we consolidate the loans and securitizations on our balance sheet, that does create some book value volatility. But the way that we're looking at our hedge strategy is when those hedges roll off, that will increase our exposure to our floating rate liabilities. It really won't have much impact at all on the volatility in our book value. And the way that we're looking, just to expand on that a little bit, because the book value element is something that we are focused on from a portfolio construction standpoint. We're not paying attention to the cost of our portfolio, but we do believe that through adding an agency component, adding MSRs, that is a natural way where we can add yield generating assets that will balance the duration volatility in our credit book.

Okay, great. Thanks. And then just in terms of deployable capital, there was $187 million. Was there another number you mentioned earlier in the call? I thought it was $100 million, but I just wanted to clarify if it was just at $187, or was there another number as well?

Yeah, so there were multiple activities or a series of transactions that occurred in the first quarter. In addition to re-securitization of our non-REMIT transactions, that's the $187 million. We also refinanced two structured repo facilities, and we lowered our cost of funds in those facilities. We extended the term to 18 and 24 months, and collectively we were able to extract an additional $100 million in investable cash.

Okay. And so should we see that $100 million as fully deployable so it's really $287 that you can kind of invest?

That's right.

Okay. Okay, great.

Thanks. Thank you. And we'll take our next question from Eric Hagen from BTIG. Please go ahead, Eric.

Okay, thanks. Good morning, guys. What's the right way to maybe think about the sensitivity to higher delinquency rates from here? You know, between the RPL portfolio and things like the non-QM and some newer issue loans and other opportunities you talked about, I mean, on the one hand, the RPL portfolio is conditioned on being delinquent, right? And the DQ rate is already relatively high, and the non-QM is starting from a lower point. So what are your expectations for how each of those asset classes could respond to higher delinquency rates from here?

Yeah, that's a great question. And we, I mean, obviously being a credit-oriented shop, we think about that all the time. And I actually wouldn't characterize the delinquencies in the RPL portfolio as being high for that type of product. I think, you know, if you look across the RPL universe, you know, right around that 10% level is pretty average. And I would say just looking at the trends in our portfolio, that level has been, you know, very stable over time. Keep in mind, these are very unique borrower cohorts. They've got a lot of equity. They've been in the house for over 17 years. Oftentimes, you have, you know, life events that cause delinquencies for a month or two at a time. It does require some degree of engagement by the servicers. And that's sort of where our Palisades asset management capability comes into play, just making sure that, you know, when there is some sort of a hardship, oftentimes temporary, that they're making right-party contact with these borrowers, understanding what their situational profile is, and then, you know, working collaboratively to try to remedy that. And then on the non-QM side, you know, the nice thing about those portfolios these days, just given the amount of equity, the credit quality in those portfolios, we have seen just in general non-QM delinquencies starting to trend upwards. So it's definitely something that we're monitoring, not just in our portfolio, but just across the market in general, as we think about deployment of capital. And just from a sensitivity standpoint, you know, credit risk is the risk that we take. And that's why we have an asset management team. That's why we have systems and infrastructure in place to ensure that we are, you know, managing that risk appropriately. But right now, just given the equity in the market, given the credit fundamentals that we're seeing across mortgage finance, we don't have a high degree of concern that we're going to have significant risk in our portfolio with respect to an increase in defaults and delinquencies.

That's really good color. I appreciate that. You mentioned the two new loan facilities. I think I heard you say, what's the advance rate on those facilities? And are those specifically for the boardnet securities that you guys retain? And the counterparty on those facilities, are those banks or non-banks?

Yeah, so they're structure repo facilities. We're really not going to give out the advance rate on these. The assets are a lot of our derivatives and retained positions. So really, the advance rate is sort of doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you understand the underlying collateral. And those were done through banking relationships.

Got it. And are there margin call holidays or such on those structured repo facilities?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So we extended the terms and those are non-mark to market or limited mark to market facilities, which that actually in the prepared remarks, you know, is a big push that we have. And even during the April fall, we had a very high level of volatility. Our margin calls were limited to less than 20 million during that entire timeframe, which is really a testament to the efforts that have gone into structuring our different financing lines.

Great. Good stuff. Thank you guys so much.

Once again, that's star one. If you do have a question or comment. There appear to be no further questions at this time. I'll turn the floor to Phil Cardas for closing remarks.

Hi, this is Phil Cardas. And I want to thank everyone for participating in our first quarter 2025 earnings call. And we look forward to speaking to you in a couple of months for our second quarter earnings call. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a great day.