Bimini Capital Mgmt Inc A

Good morning and welcome to the first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. For Bimini Capital Management, this call is being recorded today, May 2nd, 2025. At this time, the company would like to remind the listeners that statements made during today's conference call relating to matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Listeners are cautioned that such forward-looking statements are based on information currently available on the management's good faith, belief with respect to future events, and are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause such differences are described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K. The company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements. Now, I would like to turn the conference over to the company's chairman and chief executive officer, Mr. Robert Colley. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Unlike the first month of the second quarter, the first quarter of 2025 was relatively uneventful. Interest rates were generally range-bound and volatility was low for most of the quarter. These are ideal conditions for a levered investment strategy in agency RMBS. Accordingly, the company and Orchid Island Capital, a REIT we externally manage, generated attractive returns for the period. Orchid stock also traded well during the quarter, at least until the last week of the quarter. Orchid was able to take advantage of these conditions and the performance of its common stock price and raise additional capital, enhancing the company's advisory services revenues going forward. ORCID raised $205.4 million during the quarter, and its shareholder's equity increased from $668.5 million at 12-31-24 to $855.9 million at the end of March. As a result, BIMI's advisory service revenues of approximately $3.6 million represented a 22% increase over the first quarter of 2024 and a 6% increase over the fourth quarter of 2024. Finally, ORCID reported net income for the first quarter of 2025 of $17.1 million and generated a 2.6% return on its book value for the quarter, not annualized. As you know, owing to our net operating losses, we have the ability to retain earnings and deploy them into our investment portfolio. Our Royal Palms subsidiary did not add to its RMBS portfolio during the first quarter of 2025, but did so several times during 2024, and interest revenue increased 25% over the first quarter of 2024 and 4% over the fourth quarter of 2024. With funding costs down as a result of Fed rate cuts late in 2024, net interest income, inclusive of dividends from our holdings of ORCID common shares, increased approximately 64% over the first quarter of 2024 and approximately 35% over the fourth quarter of 2024. Note that these figures represent just the net interest income from the investment portfolio and do not include interest charges on a trust preferred or other long-term debt. To it, interest charges on our floating rate trust preferred and other long-term debt of 0.54 million were down 8% from the fourth quarter of 24 and 12% from the first quarter of 2024. Expenses of 2.92 million increased 4% from the fourth quarter of 24 and decreased by 3% from the first quarter of 2024. The company, inclusive of both the advisory service segment and the investment portfolio segment, recorded net income before taxes for the first quarter of 2025 of $0.73 million versus $0.56 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and $0.61 million for the first quarter of 2024. We recorded a tax provision of $0.18 million in net income for the first quarter of 2025, of 0.56 million. While market conditions in the first quarter were very supportive of our two operating segments, conditions so far in the second quarter have been challenging. At the moment, there remains considerable uncertainty about how the tariffs introduced by the new administration will ultimately impact the economy and markets, especially those announced on Liberation Day, April 2nd. However, to the extent the economy slows, leading to potential additional rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, and or longer-term interest rates rise as a result of inflationary impacts of the tariffs, both the company's investment portfolio as well as ORCID's could benefit from enhanced net interest margins resulting from the steeper interest rate curve. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks, and we will open the call up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. One moment for questions. And I would now like to turn the call back over to Robert Cawley for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for listening in. To the extent a question does come to mind later or you listen to the replay and have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at the office. The number is 772-231-1400. Otherwise, thank you. We look forward to talking to you at the end of the second quarter.