INVESCO MORTGAGE CAPITAL INC

Welcome to Invesco's Mortgage Capital IMC Second Quarter 2020 Investors Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. At that time, please press star followed by the one on your telephone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Now, I would like to turn over the call to Jack Bateman in Investor Relations. Mr. Bateman, you may begin the call. Thank you.

Thank you, and welcome to the Investor Mortgage Capital second quarter 2020 earnings call. The management team and I are delighted you joined us, and we look forward to sharing with you our prepared remarks and conducting a question and answer session. Before turning the call over to our CEO, John Anzalone, I wanted to provide a reminder that statements made in this conference call and the related presentation may include forward-looking statements which reflect management's expectations about future events and our overall plans and performance. These forward-looking statements are made as of today and are not guaranteed. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from our expectations. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see the risks described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings of the SEC. Invesco makes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. We may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures may be found at the end of our earnings presentation. To view the slide presentation today, you may access our website at InvescoMortgageCapital.com and click on the Q2 2020 Earnings Presentation link under Investor Relations. Again, welcome and thank you for joining us today. I'll now turn over the call to John Anzalone. John?

Okay, thank you. Good morning and welcome to Invesco Mortgage Capital second quarter earnings call. I will give some brief comments before turning the call over to our Chief Investment Officer Brian Norris to discuss the current portfolio in more detail. The second quarter was an eventful one. In the beginning of the quarter, the financial markets were still in the midst of an unprecedented liquidity event as economic activity shut down to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As we noted in our last update, This triggered dislocations across the structured security space that impacted our ability to meet margin calls. In response to the crisis, we took a number of steps to increase our liquidity position while reducing leverage. Over the course of the quarter, we sold 6.9 billion of investments and repaid 6.3 billion of repurchase agreements. We also reduced our secured loans by 610 million. We elected to hold $1.6 billion of mostly non-agency CMBS and GSC credit risk transfer paper that would benefit as market conditions improved. On slide three of the deck, you can see a breakdown of the composition and credit quality of these holdings as of 6-30. Slide four provides more details about our response to the dislocations in the financial markets that we saw at the end of March. Our immediate goals were to reduce our exposure to mark-to-market financing and credit assets, to increase liquidity and to retain credit assets that we felt were poised to benefit as markets recovered. To that end, we were successful in eliminating our credit repo entirely. At quarter end, we only had 740 million of secured financing left, and we've continued to reduce that number in July. This led to a decrease in leverage to 0.6 times at 630. We improved our liquidity position, increasing our cash and unencumbered assets by $585 million to $825 million. Finally, the credit assets that we retained have benefited from the market recovery, and we have used proceeds from further sales to begin to invest back into agency assets. I'll wrap on slide five. As we move forward into the second half of the year, our goal is to restore meaningful court earnings for our shareholders. This would involve redeploying capital away from our credit positions as we make opportunistic sales into agency mortgages, which will provide income generation and liquidity. On the credit side, we'll continue to look for opportunities and not rely on short-term mark-to-market financing to generate an attractive return. I'll stop here and let Brian discuss the current portfolio and our growth-forward strategy in more detail.

All right. Thanks, John, and good morning to everyone on the call. I'll begin on slide seven, which details the progress we've made in July towards a strategic transition John discussed in his prepared remarks. Given our success in building liquidity and reducing our reliance on short-term mark-to-market financing on our credit investments during the second quarter, we began the month of July with ample liquidity and repo capacity to begin implementing the transition towards an agency RMBS-focused strategy. Our agency RMBS purchases in July totaled $2.2 billion, and 30-year low-coupon specified pools, as detailed on slide 7. We were able to source attractively priced new-issue collateral stories, including loan balance, low FICO, high LTV, and geo pools, which consist exclusively of borrowers in slower-paying states such as New York, Florida, and Texas. We also focused a significant portion of our purchases on lower pay-up stories, such as those originated and serviced exclusively by banks, in order to mitigate our exposure to pay-up premiums. To hedge our funding costs and interest rate exposure associated with these purchases, we executed 1.8 billion of interest rate swaps with maturities between four to seven years. In addition to our purchases, we sold 547 million of credit assets in July, as the recovery in prices continued with strong demand during the month. In particular, higher quality CMBS was the beneficiary of the June launch of the TALP program. as spreads tighten dramatically in the AAA and AA-rated assets we finance at the SHLB through our captive insurance subsidiary. We sold $470 million of these assets and were able to pay down $435 million of advances from the SHLB during the month, resulting in a secured loan balance at the SHLB of $305 million as of July 31st. The remaining $77 million of sales consisted of a mixture of lower-rated CMBS and CRT, which we held on an unlevered basis. Prices improved on these assets as well, and these dispositions allowed us to deploy capital into agency RMBS. Price appreciation in our credit and agency RMBS investments during the month of July contributed to the improvement in our book value, which is up approximately 5% since June 30th. Slide 8. details the seasoning and senior capital structure positioning of our remaining credit investments as of July 31st. As shown in the chart on the left, our credit assets consist of predominantly seasoned investments with over 80% of our holdings issued prior to 2015. In addition to the benefits of seasoning given the improvement in property valuations over the past five years, our holdings also benefit from substantial credit enhancement as detailed in the chart on the right. 88% of our CMBS holdings have subordination levels in excess of 2007 vintage cumulative collateral losses. Not surprisingly, loans originated in 2007 have experienced notable losses given they've had to endure the global financial crisis and don't benefit from recently improved underwriting. In addition, 94% of our remaining credit investments are rated investment grade, with 81% rated single A or higher. We believe material price appreciation potential exists in our credit investments and will continue to selectively reduce our credit exposure as opportunities arise to dispose of assets at attractive levels. I'll finish my prepared remarks on slide nine, which summarizes the value we bring to our investors as we all continue to navigate the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our economy and the financial markets. As previously mentioned, we believe a strategy focused on agency RMBS can deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns primarily through dividend income and secondarily through capital appreciation. Given the consistent message from the Federal Reserve on the medium-term outlook for monetary policy and their ongoing support for the asset class, its exceptional liquidity and readily available and attractively priced financing, We believe a strategy focused on agency RMBS will deliver on our objectives of restoring attractive dividend income while prudently managing risk. Our external manager, Invesco, is a significant and experienced investment manager in the asset class, producing top-core top performance through multiple market cycles, most recently for the one, three, and five-year periods ending June 30th. Invesco remains committed to IVR, and its breadth and depth of resources allows the company to share expenses, and explore opportunities without incurring significant costs, resulting in an expense ratio among the most attractive in the mortgage-read space. Invesco's large footprint in fixed income, with over $350 billion in assets, allows us to remain an important counterparty for the dealer community, with readily available access to traders and the focus a large global investment manager requires. Agency RMBS team at Invesco has been engaged in the management of IVR's portfolio since its IPO in 2009 and has a combined 80 plus years of the management and trading experience in the asset class. Also, with just over $1 billion in stockholder equity, our company size in relation to the depth of the agency RMBS market allows us to capitalize on relative value opportunities that are more difficult to implement with a much larger portfolio. In conclusion, we believe The agency-focused strategy, supported by the resources of a global investment manager, will provide the attractive risk-adjusted returns investors are looking for when they select a mortgage REIT, and we look forward to continuing the transition to this strategy in the coming months. That ends our prepared remarks, and now we will open the line for Q&A.

If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1. Again, to ask a question, SAR1. Our first question will come from Doug Harder with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Can you help us think about what your spread income would be, you know, on the agency portfolio rotated into in July and, you know, how that would compare to the credit assets that you're rotating down to?

Yeah, Doug, this is Brian. I can start answering that, and if the credit guys want to jump in. You know, on agencies, our NIM is approximately 100 to 125 basis points. So, you know, on specified pools, that equates to, you know, roughly 10 to maybe 12% edged RLE. You know, and the credit investments, you know, the ones that we're holding unlevered have, you know, book yields that are, you know, well below that. But we, like we said, we expect continued price appreciation there. And so that's, you know, that's certainly supporting our book value and adding value in that way.

Great. And then I guess just, you know, help us think about, you know, within the agency side, you know, given the appreciation in, you know, in spec pools and the specialness of TBAs kind of, What part you're finding most attractive today and where that incremental capital might go?

Yeah, we've been finding most value in lower coupons. So, you know, 30-year, twos, two-and-a-halves, and a little bit in threes as well. You know, significant size in whole pools is more difficult in higher coupons. Like I said, spec pools – and those lower coupons are still providing kind of very low double-digit ROEs. On the TVA front, you know, that's not something that we've invested in at this point, but it's certainly on the radar, and we're looking to do that here, you know, in the near term. And ROEs on TVAs are a little bit more attractive just given the kind of the negative implied financing that you get off there. So those are more like mid-teens. Great. Thank you.

Our next question will come from Eric Hagan with Q3A in Flint. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks, and I hope you guys are doing well. I'm curious what led to the decision not to raise capital back in June and early July since the market was more or less giving you that opportunity. Secondarily, have

there been any options you've explored to rebalance the capital structure including things like tendering for your preferred stuff yeah hi eric it's sean um you know we we've yeah yeah we've looked at you know we're always looking at the capital structure and we're continuing to uh kind of evaluate um you know our options for um kind of getting the uh preferred common ratio kind of more to our historical levels. So we are continuing to look at that. You know, in terms of raising capital in the quarter, doing a capital raise, I mean, it was just, I mean, I think it was still a little bit difficult to kind of get that done given the cost of, you know, of raising capital in with the markets still kind of in a bit of turmoil. But we absolutely are, you know, always looking at different ways to do that.

Okay. Got it. Thanks. Thanks for that. And then what's the plan surrounding the funding for the CMBS portfolio once your line with the FHOB gets wound down by year end? Do you have any securities that are currently being funded through TALS? And finally, what's the funding rate on your agency repo right now?

Thanks. Yeah. Hey, Eric. This is Brian. Yeah, I hope you're doing well as well. Yeah, so I guess I'll answer last to first here. Financing on agencies are pretty attractive. You know, they're LIBOR plus, you know, eight or nine basis points. So we're talking maybe 24 basis points all in. for one month repo. And then, you know, we did not finance anything through TALF because that required new purchases. I believe they had to be purchased within a month of kind of putting them into the TALF program. So, you know, obviously all of our holdings have been purchased much earlier than that. And then lastly, you know, we don't, we don't anticipate going back into short-term mark-to-market financing for our credit assets. So the intention is to continue to look for attractive dispositions in that space.

Okay. Yep, makes sense. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

And our next question will come from Trevor Cranston from JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks. You know, when you guys talk about continuing to hold on to the CMBS book in order to, you know, capture continuing expected price appreciation, can you can you talk about kind of, you know, how much you think is left? And if you serve is your view that, you know, spreads could get all the way back to pre COVID levels, and maybe just provide some color on how long you're willing to hold on to the portfolio to, to capture that potential upside.

Yes, Trevor, this is, uh, this is Kevin makes your question. Um, you know, I, I guess I would say that we do think the potential for additional tightening, uh, certainly exists. Um, you know, we've been encouraged by the fact that, um, investor demand has continued to increase for credit risk. Um, the U S economy is obviously slowly reopened and we've seen, um, some improving trends, although certainly, you know, challenges as well. We were encouraged to see that the top program has been extended throughout the rest of the year, which we think gives us, you know, certainly, you know, at least a couple more, a few more months of, you know, we think, you know, potential upside that exists. You know, I think the potential for additional appreciation is arguably best addressed by looking at, where spreads are today relative to where they were pre-COVID. And if you think about that, the majority of our positions are AA rated. So again, AA rated CMBS that are probably trading at, or at least it was at 731 when they were marked, around 350 basis points over swaps. And so these same positions traded around 100 to 115 basis points pre-COVID. So it's not you know, to say that we think that we would see, you know, full recovery, certainly not in the near term, but we think, you know, the momentum is there. In terms of single A rated positions, Those would probably mark anywhere, and they're very wide-ranging, I would say, 350 to 780 basis points at 731, maybe at 550 basis points over swap level on average. But those two positions, again, traded around 160 basis points pre-COVID, and their BBB assets look something more like 900 basis points at 731. And those bonds traded as tight as 250 pre-COVID. So, you know, we definitely think that there is room. But we have experienced a fair amount of credit spread tightening, you know, over the last couple of months already. And one of the, you know, I guess favorable backdrops here for us is just a notable lack of supply as new issuance has slowed as loan originations have declined notably.

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks for that color. And then as you guys are, you know, redeploying into the agency market, can you talk about the leverage levels that you're sort of comfortable using on that trade right now?

Yeah. Hey Trevor, it's Brian. You know, so leverage is ranging in the seven to eight times. Overall leverage right now is around two. But obviously, as we continue to transition, that will continue to climb up to that kind of seven times debt-to-equity range.

Okay. Got it. And then just one more question on the capital structure. I'm wondering if you could comment on specifically if something like a swap of, you know, common shared for preferred is – sort of one of the angles you guys have looked at and if that is something that is feasible or if you think it isn't for some reason.

Thanks. Yeah. Hi, Trevor. It's John. Yeah. I mean, that is one of the things we're evaluating about whether it makes sense to do a swap like that. So that's one of Several things we've been looking at. You know, we're trying to figure out what makes sense for shareholders, you know, in terms of, you know, depending on where we're trading in terms of common to book value and things like that. So, you know, as I think once we get past the financials release from last night, you know, we're going to reevaluate where we are and what makes sense for that.

Okay, fair enough. Thank you, guys.

Yeah. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question will come from Jason Stewart with Jones Trading. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Just curious if you could give us some thought on why you avoided the TBA trade and agency, just your thought process there.

Yeah, hey, Jason. It's Brian. You know, I wouldn't say that we're avoiding the TDA trade. It's certainly something that we're interested in putting on here in the near term. But, you know, we had some, you know, we had some things that we wanted to get on the books first in July. And that included, you know, whole pool specified pools. So we had to, you know, first thing was we had to get back in line with the whole pool test. So specified pools were the first way to do that. And then As we move forward, we anticipate the TBA trade to remain pretty attractive over the near to medium term, just given the Fed's support and their medium-term outlook. So that's certainly something that we're going to be looking at here shortly.

Okay, understood. And then on the additional credit assets that don't rely on short-term mark-to-market financing where you could put capital to work, can you give us some color on what you're thinking there?

We own roughly $500 million on an unlevered basis away from the FHLB. Those are the bonds that we believe have the most significant upside potential. We're likely to hold on to those as we realize that potential. Away from that, we're continuing to explore our options in the credit space. It's you know, certainly more extensive to finance, you know, on a non-recourse basis. So, you know, opportunities will be fewer there, but it's certainly something that we're going to continue to explore.

Okay. Thanks for the question.

And I'm currently showing no additional questions at this time.

Okay, well, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us, and we look forward to talking to you again in November.

This concludes today's conference. Thank you for attending today's call. All participants may disconnect at this time.