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 Curtis.

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%, our book value increased by 7.4%, and our economic return was 9.2%. 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% year-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%. 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 non-mark-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 REIT that's resilient and diversified. Now I'll hand it off to Subra to walk you through the financials.