Chimera Investment Corp: Form 10-K for the period ended Dec 31, 2023

The Company

We are a publicly traded REIT that is primarily engaged in the business of investing directly or having a beneficial interest in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets, including residential mortgage loans, Agency RMBS, Non-Agency RMBS, Agency CMBS, business purpose and investor loans, and other real estate-related assets. The MBS and other real estate-related securities we purchase may include investment-grade, non-investment grade, and non-rated classes.

We use leverage to increase potential returns from our investments. Subject to maintaining our REIT status and exemption from registration under the 1940 Act, we do not have any limitations on the amounts we may invest in any of our targeted asset classes.

Our principal business objective is to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns through the generation of distributable income and through asset performance linked to mortgage credit fundamentals. We were incorporated in Maryland on June 1, 2007 and commenced operations on November 21, 2007.

Our Investment Strategy

We make investment decisions based on various factors, including expected cash yield, relative value, risk-adjusted returns, credit fundamentals, macroeconomic considerations, supply and demand, credit and market risk concentration limits, liquidity, cost of financing and financing availability, as well as maintaining our REIT qualification and our exemption from registration under the 1940 Act. Our primary source of income is net interest income from our investment portfolio. Net interest income is the interest income we earn on investments less the interest expense we incur on borrowed funds.

Our investment strategy is intended to take advantage of opportunities in the current interest rate and credit environment. We adjust our strategy in response to changing market conditions by shifting our asset allocations across various asset classes as interest rate and credit cycles change over time. We believe that our strategy will provide us an opportunity to pay dividends throughout changing market cycles.

We attempt to increase our potential returns and finance the acquisition of our assets by borrowing funds secured by our assets (leverage). Our income is generated primarily by the difference, or net spread, between the income we earn on our assets and the cost of our borrowings. We expect to finance our investments using a variety of financing sources, including securitizations, secured borrowing through the use of warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements, as well as the issuance of debt and equity capital. We may seek to manage our debt and interest rate risk by utilizing interest rate hedges, such as interest rate swaps, caps, options and futures to reduce the effect of interest rate fluctuations related to our financing sources.

During 2023, we focused our investment activities primarily on acquiring and securitizing pools of residential mortgage loans and, when we believed market or other conditions were favorable, exercising call options on existing securitizations to acquire the underlying mortgage loans and use additional securitization to re-finance those called mortgage loans. During 2024, we expect to continue acquiring and securitizing mortgage loans as well as calling our existing securitizations depending on market conditions. When we securitize mortgage loans, we typically retain the most subordinate classes of securities, which means we are the first-loss security holder. Losses on any residential mortgage loan securing our RMBS will be borne first by the owner of the property (i.e., the owner will first lose any equity invested in the property) and, thereafter, by us as the first-loss security holder, and then by holders of more senior securities. In addition, most of these subordinate securities are subject to the Dodd-Frank Act and related laws and regulations relating to credit risk retention for securitizations, or the Risk Retention Rules, which significantly limits the liquidity of these securities. See “ Risk Factors - Risks Associated with Our Investments - A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules which materially limit our ability to sell or hedge such investments as needed, which may require us to hold investments that we may otherwise desire to sell during times of severe market disruption in the mortgage, housing or related sectors” discussion in Item 1A “Risk Factors” section for more details. We generally finance these subordinate securities with secured financing agreements. The securities we do not retain are typically sold through securities underwriters. Other than the Risk Retention Rules, there is no limit on the amount we may retain of these below-investment-grade subordinate certificates. As discussed below, during 2023 our use of leverage with respect to the retained securities from the securitizations we sponsored remained low and we have entered into several new non-mark-to-market facilities to finance these retained securities.

In addition, we have purchased and expect to continue to purchase business purpose loans. We believe these business purpose loans strengthened our portfolio in 2023 because they are short duration assets and have a high average coupon, providing an attractive risk reward profile in times of rate volatility. Currently, we do not use term securitization to finance business purpose loans because of their short duration. We currently finance these loans using repurchase facilities, but we may look to finance these loans with revolving securitization structures in the future.

In 2024, in addition to our securitization and business purpose loan activities, we will explore opportunities to increase our Agency MBS portfolio. We have also financed and may continue to finance a portion of our loan portfolio with long-term secured financing facilities rather than securitization until the securitization market improves once the Fed begins rate cuts.

Our Securitization Programs

We currently have the following five securitization programs:

• Our “R” program, our most active program, securitizes seasoned reperforming mortgage loans, whether newly acquired from a third party or upon the exercise of a call option, in a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit, or REMIC, transaction;
• Our “NR” program securitizes seasoned residential mortgage loans that are not eligible to be securitized in REMIC, transactions;
• Our “I” program securitizes Non-Agency eligible investor mortgage loans;
• Our “J” program securitizes jumbo prime residential mortgage loans; and
• Our “INV” program securitizes Agency-eligible investor mortgage loans.

We did not sponsor any securitizations under our “J” and “INV” programs during the year ended December 31, 2023.

“R” and “NR” Non-Rated Programs. The securities issued in our “R” and “NR” securitizations are generally not rated and are subject to the Risk Retention Rules. In these programs, we typically sell the senior securities to an unrelated third party and retain the subordinate securities, which include the first-loss securities which are subject to the Risk Retention Rules, and the interest-only securities. During 2023, we sponsored four “R” securitizations and two “NR” securitization. We are generally required under GAAP to consolidate the assets and liabilities of the “NR” and “R” securitization entities for financial reporting purposes. Each of the consolidated entities is independent of us and of each other, and the assets and liabilities of these entities are not owned by us or legal obligations of ours, respectively, although we are exposed to certain financial risks associated with any role we carry out for these entities (e.g., as sponsor or depositor) and, to the extent we hold securities issued by, or other investments in, these entities, we are exposed to the performance of these entities and the assets they hold.

“I” Programs. The securities issued in our “I” securitizations are rated by one or more nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations, or NRSRO, and are subject to the Risk Retention Rules. In these programs, we typically sell the senior securities to an unrelated third party and retain the subordinate securities, which include the first-loss securities which are subject to the Risk Retention Rules, and the interest-only securities. We are generally required under GAAP to consolidate the assets and liabilities of the “I” securitization entities for financial reporting purposes. We sponsored two securitization under our “I” securitization program.

The table below sets forth certain information about our “R”, “NR” and the “I” securitizations we completed during the year ended December 31, 2023.

(dollars in thousands)

(1) For certain of the above securitization deals, we retained certain IO and/or excess servicing classes.

(2) At the time of issuance.

Our Investment Portfolio

At December 31, 2023, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 91% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 8% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 1% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS. At December 31, 2022, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 88% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 9% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 3% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS. As discussed in “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” we reduced some of our Agency MBS positions during 2023.

The following briefly discusses the principal types of investments that we have made and may in the future make:

Residential Mortgage Loans

We invest in residential mortgage loans (mortgage loans secured by residential real property) through secondary market purchases from banks, non-bank financial institutions, and the Agencies. Our residential mortgage loan portfolio is comprised primarily of reperforming residential mortgage loans, which have been outstanding, or seasoned, for more than 120 months, and typically have higher loan-to-value ratios and spottier pay histories.

Our residential mortgage loan portfolio also includes business purpose loans and investor loans. Our business purpose loans are loans to businesses that are secured by real property which will be renovated by the borrower. Upon completion of the renovation the property typically will be either (i) sold by the borrower, or (ii) refinanced by the borrower who may then subsequently sell or rent the property. Most, but not all, of the properties securing our business purpose loans are residential, and a portion of the loan is used to cover renovation costs. Our business purpose loans are included as a part of our Loans held for investment portfolio and are carried at fair value. Our business purpose loans tend to be short duration, often less than one year, and generally the coupon rate is higher than our residential mortgage loans.

Our investor loans are loans to individuals securing non-primary residences as well as to individuals or businesses who rent the residential properties secured by such loans. We acquire pools of such loans which are eligible for sale to one of the Agencies as well as pools of loans which are not eligible for such sales. In both cases, we securitize the investor loans as part of our loan securitization program.

We acquire residential mortgage loans primarily to securitize them, as discussed above, or to retain them in our portfolio as loans held for investment. Until we securitize our residential mortgage loans, we finance our residential mortgage loan portfolio through warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements, as discussed under “Our Financing Strategy” below.

Currently, we acquire mortgage loans in the secondary market that are originated by third parties and are not underwritten to our specifications. Third-party servicers service the mortgage loans in our portfolio. We conduct a due diligence review of each servicer before the servicer is retained and periodically thereafter. Servicing procedures typically follow Fannie Mae guidelines but are specified in each servicing agreement. In addition, we have purchased residential mortgage loans on a servicing-retained basis, which means a third-party servicer (which may or may not be the seller of the mortgage loans) retained the right to service the loans. In the future, however, we may decide to originate mortgage loans or other types of financing, and we may elect to service mortgage loans and other types of assets.

We engage a third party to perform an independent review of the mortgage files to assess the origination and servicing of the mortgage loans, as well as our ability to enforce the lien on the related mortgaged properties. We typically do not review all the loans in a pool, but rather select loans for diligence review utilizing random sampling based criteria such as property location, loan size, effective loan-to-value ratio, borrower’s credit score, delinquency status and other criteria we believe to be important indicators of credit risk. Additionally, we typically obtain representations and warranties with respect to the mortgage loans from each seller, including the origination and servicing of the mortgage loans as well as the enforceability of the lien on the related mortgaged properties. If any of the representations and warranties with respect to a mortgage loan we acquire are breached, the related seller may be obligated to repurchase the loan from us.

Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

We invest in mortgage pass-through certificates issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which are securities representing interests in “pools” of mortgage loans secured by residential real properties where payments of both interest and principal, plus pre-paid principal, on the securities are made monthly to holders of the security, in effect passing through monthly payments made by the individual borrowers on the mortgage loans that underlie the securities, net of fees paid to the issuer/guarantor and servicers of the securities. We may also invest in collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, issued by the Agencies. CMOs consist of multiple classes of securities, with each class bearing different stated maturity dates. Monthly payments of principal, including prepayments, are first returned to investors holding the shortest maturity class; investors holding the longer maturity classes receive principal only after the first class has been retired. We refer to residential mortgage-backed securities issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac as Agency RMBS.

We also invest in investment grade, non-investment grade and non-rated Non-Agency RMBS. We evaluate certain credit characteristics of these types of securities and the underlying mortgage loans, including, but not limited to, loan balance distribution, geographic concentration, property type, occupancy, periodic and lifetime caps, weighted-average loan-to-value and weighted-average Fair Isaac Corporation, or FICO, score. Qualifying securities are then analyzed using base line expectations of expected prepayments and loss severities, the current state of the fixed-income market and the broader economy in general. Losses and prepayments are stressed simultaneously based on a credit risk-based model. Securities in this portfolio are monitored for variance from expected prepayments, severities, losses and cash flow. The due diligence process is particularly important and costly with respect to newly formed originators or issuers because there may be little or no information publicly available about these entities and investments. We may also invest in interest-only, or IO, Agency and Non-Agency RMBS. These IO RMBS represent the right to receive a specified proportion of the contractual interest flows of the collateral.

We have invested in and intend to continue to invest in Non-Agency RMBS which are typically certificates created by the securitization of a pool of mortgage loans that are collateralized by residential real estate properties. The respective bond class sizes are determined based on the review of the underlying collateral. The payments received from the underlying loans are used to make the payments on the RMBS. Based on the sequential payment priority, the risk of nonpayment for the investment grade RMBS is lower than the risk of nonpayment for the non-investment grade bonds. Accordingly, the investment grade class is typically sold at a lower yield compared to the non-investment grade or unrated classes which are sold at higher yields.

Agency CMBS

The Agency CMBS we acquire are Ginnie Mae Construction Loan Certificates, or CLCs, and the resulting project loan certificates, or PLCs, when the construction project is complete. Each CLC is backed by a single multifamily property or health care facility. The investor in the CLC is committed to fund the full amount of the project; however, actual funding occurs as construction progresses on the property. Before each construction advance is funded, it is insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or the FHA, and issued by Ginnie Mae. The principal balance of the CLC increases as payments by the investor fund each construction advance. Each Ginnie Mae approved mortgage originator must provide the Agency with supporting documentation regarding advances and disbursements before each construction advance is issued by Ginnie Mae. We also review this documentation prior to funding each Ginnie Mae guaranteed advance. Upon completion of the construction project, the CLC is replaced with a PLC. Ginnie Mae guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on each CLC and PLC. This obligation is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

As the holder of a CLC, we generally receive monthly payments of interest equal to a pro rata share of the interest payments on the underlying mortgage loan, less applicable servicing and guaranty fees. Ginnie Mae CLCs pay interest only during construction, and so there are no payments of principal. As a holder of a PLC, we generally receive monthly payments of principal and interest equal to the aggregate amount of the scheduled monthly principal and interest payments on the mortgage loans underlying that PLC, less applicable servicing and guaranty fees. In addition, such payments will include any prepayments and other unscheduled recoveries of principal of, and any prepayment penalties on, an underlying mortgage loan to the extent received by the Ginnie Mae Issuer during the month preceding the month of the payment. The mortgage loans underlying the PLCs generally contain a lock-out and prepayment penalty period of 10 years during which the related borrower must pay a prepayment penalty equal to a specified percentage of the principal amount of the mortgage loan in connection with voluntary and certain involuntary prepayments. Ginnie Mae does not guaranty the payment of prepayment penalties.

Other Real Estate-Related Assets

We may invest in commercial mortgage loans consisting of first or second lien loans secured by multifamily properties, which are residential rental properties consisting of five or more dwelling units, or by mixed residential or other commercial properties, retail properties, office properties or industrial properties. These loans may or may not conform to the Agency guidelines.

We may invest in non-Agency CMBS, which are secured by, or evidence ownership interests in, a single commercial mortgage loan or a pool of mortgage loans secured by commercial properties. These securities may be senior, subordinated, investment grade or non-investment grade.

We may invest in securities issued in various collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, offerings to gain exposure to bank loans, corporate bonds, ABS, mortgages, RMBS, CMBS, and other instruments.

We have invested in a limited partnership managed by a registered investment advisor in which we own a minority equity interest. The limited partnership invests in REIT eligible assets, primarily residential assets. We make other similar investments as well as invest in entities which originate or service mortgage loans.

Investment Guidelines

We have adopted a set of investment guidelines that set out the asset classes, risk tolerance levels, diversification requirements and other criteria used to evaluate the merits of specific investments as well as the overall portfolio composition. Our investment committee periodically reviews our compliance with the investment guidelines. Our Board of Directors and its committees also review our investment portfolio and related compliance with our investment policies and procedures and investment guidelines at regularly scheduled risk and audit committee meetings.

Our Board of Directors and its committees have adopted the following guidelines for our investments and borrowings:

• No investment shall be made that would cause us to fail to qualify as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes;
• No investment shall be made that would cause us to be regulated as an investment company under the 1940 Act;
• With the exception of real estate and housing, no single industry shall represent greater than 20% of the securities or aggregate risk exposure in our portfolio; and
• Investments in non-rated or deeply subordinated ABS or other securities that are non-qualifying assets for purposes of the 75% REIT asset test will be limited to an amount not to exceed 50% of our stockholders’ equity.

These investment guidelines may be changed from time to time by a majority of our Board of Directors without the approval of our stockholders.

Our Financing Strategy

We use leverage to increase potential returns to our stockholders. We are not required to maintain any specific debt-to-equity ratio as we believe the appropriate leverage for the particular assets we are financing depends on the credit quality and risk of those assets. At December 31, 2023 and 2022, our ratio of debt-to-equity was 4.0:1 . For purposes of calculating this ratio, our equity is equal to the Total stockholders’ equity on our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition, and our debt consists of securitized debt and secured financing agreements.

Subject to maintaining our qualification as a REIT, we may use a variety of sources to finance our investments, including the following primary sources:

• Securitization. A significant element of our financing strategy is to acquire residential mortgage loans for our portfolio with the intention of securitizing them. In our securitizations, we generally create subordinate certificates, providing a specified amount of credit enhancement, which we intend or are required under the Risk Retention Rules to retain in our portfolio. We have acquired and may in the future acquire Non-Agency RMBS for our portfolio with the intention of exercising the call rights and re-securitizing the underlying mortgage loans and retaining a portion of the re-securitized Non-Agency RMBS in our portfolio, typically the subordinate certificates.
• Secured Financing Agreements. Secured financing agreements include all non-securitization financing arrangements and are generally, but not always, for shorter terms. Our secured financing agreements are primarily comprised of warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements.
• Warehouse Facilities. We have utilized and may in the future utilize credit facilities for capital needed to fund our assets. We seek to maintain formal relationships with multiple counterparties to maintain warehouse lines on favorable terms.
• Repurchase Agreements. We have financed certain of our assets through repurchase agreements. We anticipate that repurchase agreements will be one of the sources we will use to achieve our desired amount of leverage for our real estate assets. We seek to maintain formal relationships with many counterparties with the intent to obtain financing on the most favorable terms available while diversifying counterparty credit risk.

We maintain a portion of our financing in non-mark-to-market facilities and mark-to-market holiday facilities (meaning, the market value of the collateral must drop below a threshold before a lender can issue a margin call) to finance a portion of our non-Agency RMBS, including risk retention securities. The percentage of our financing allocated to such facilities will vary depending on market conditions. We believe that non-mark-to-market facilities will continue to be a material portion of our financing strategy.

Our Interest Rate Hedging and Risk Management Strategy

From time to time, we use derivative financial instruments to hedge all or a portion of the interest rate risk associated with our borrowings. Under the U.S. federal income tax laws applicable to REITs, we generally enter certain transactions to hedge indebtedness that we incur, or plan to incur, to acquire or carry real estate assets.

We may engage in a variety of interest rate management techniques that seek to mitigate changes in interest rates or other potential influences on the values of our assets. Our interest rate management techniques may include:

• interest rate caps, swaps and swaptions;
• puts and calls on securities or indices of securities;
• Eurodollar futures contracts and options on such contracts;
• U.S. Treasury futures, forward contracts, other derivative contracts and options on U.S. Treasury securities; and
• other similar transactions.

We may attempt to reduce interest rate risks and to minimize exposure to interest rate fluctuations through match funded financing structures, when appropriate, whereby we seek (i) to match the maturities of our debt obligations with the maturities of our assets and (ii) to match the interest rates on our investments with similar debt directly or through interest rate swaps, caps or other financial instruments, or through a combination of these strategies. This helps us to minimize the risk that we have to refinance our liabilities before the maturities of our assets and to reduce the impact of changing interest rates on our asset values and net interest margins.

Operational and Regulatory Structure

REIT Qualification

We have elected to be treated as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes. In order to maintain our qualification as a REIT, we must comply with the requirements under federal tax law, including that we must distribute at least 90% of our annual REIT taxable income (subject to certain adjustments) to our stockholders. As a REIT, we generally are not subject to U.S. federal income tax on our taxable income that is distributed to our stockholders. To ensure we qualify as a REIT, no person may own more than 9.8%, in value or number of shares, whichever is more restrictive, of the outstanding shares of any class or series of our capital stock, which includes our common stock and preferred stock, unless our Board of Directors waives this limitation. We have granted waivers to two mutual funds to own certain classes of our preferred stock above the 9.8% limitation. Also, we have elected to treat certain of our subsidiaries as taxable REIT subsidiaries, or TRS. In general, a TRS may hold assets and engage in activities that a REIT or qualified REIT subsidiary, or QRS, cannot hold or engage in directly and generally may engage in any real estate or non-real estate related business. A TRS is subject to U.S. federal income tax.

1940 Act Exclusion

We continue to conduct our operations so that neither we nor any of our subsidiaries are required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act. Section 3(a)(1)(A) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is or holds itself out as being engaged primarily in the business of investing, reinvesting or trading in securities. Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding or trading in securities and owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40% of the value of the issuer’s total assets (exclusive of U.S. Government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis (the “40% test”). Excluded from the term “investment securities,” among other things, are U.S. Government securities and securities issued by majority owned subsidiaries that are not themselves investment companies and are not relying on the exclusion from the definition of investment company for private funds set forth in Section 3(c)(1) or Section 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act.

If the value of securities issued by our subsidiaries that are excluded from the definition of “investment company” by Section 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act, together with any other investment securities we own, exceeds the 40% test under Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the 1940 Act, or if one or more of such subsidiaries fail to maintain an exclusion or exception from the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either (a) to substantially change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company or (b) to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, either of which could have an adverse effect on us and the market price of our securities. If we were required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either to (a) change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company, (b) effect sales of our assets in a manner that, or at a time when, we would not otherwise choose to do so, or (c) register as an investment company, any of which could negatively affect the value of our common stock, the sustainability of our business model, and our ability to make distributions. See “Risk Factors - Risks Related to Regulatory, Accounting and Our 1940 Exemption - Loss of our 1940 Act exemption would adversely affect us and negatively affect the market price of shares of our capital stock and our ability to distribute dividends.”

Licenses

While we are not required to obtain licenses to purchase mortgage-backed securities, the purchase and sale of residential mortgage loans in the secondary market may, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses. Acquiring the right to service residential mortgage loans may also, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses even though we currently do not directly engage in loan servicing ourselves and do not expect to do so. As of December 31, 2023, we hold all required licenses or exempt status through two of our wholly owned subsidiaries in 22 states.. We are required to comply with various information reporting and other regulatory requirements to maintain those licenses and exemption statuses. Our failure to obtain or maintain required licenses or exemption statuses or our failure to comply with regulatory requirements that are applicable to our business of acquiring residential mortgage loans may restrict our business and investment options and could harm our business and expose us to penalties or other claims. In one or more states, in lieu of relying on such licenses, we may contribute our acquired residential mortgage loans to one or more trusts in which we or our subsidiaries hold beneficial interests; title to these residential mortgage loans may be held by one or more federally-charted banks as trustee, which may be exempt from state licensing requirements. There can be no assurance that the use of the trusts will satisfy an exemption from licensing requirements because regulatory agencies may adopt different interpretations of applicable laws.

Human Capital

The human capital objectives we focus on in managing our business include attracting, developing, and retaining key personnel. Our employees are critical to the success of our organization and we are committed to supporting our employees’ professional development. We believe our management team has the experience necessary to effectively implement our growth strategy and continue to drive shareholder value. We provide competitive compensation and benefits to attract and retain key personnel, while also providing a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace. We continue to have a focus on diversity initiatives. We offer internal training programs on financial markets, business ethics, government regulatory rules and other topics. We encourage personnel to attend industry sponsored or other conferences and have a tuition reimbursement program to help personnel to further develop their skills and to stay current on evolving trends impacting our industry.

We focus on attracting and retaining employees by providing compensation and benefits packages that are competitive within the applicable market, taking into account the job position’s location and responsibilities. We provide competitive financial benefits such as a 401(k) retirement plan with a company match and offer a comprehensive healthcare benefit plan and other tools to support our employees’ health and well-being. We also generally grant awards of restricted stock units on an annual basis to a meaningful portion of our employees. We have a matching gift program to encourage personnel to be charitable and to support 501(c)(3) organizations.

At December 31, 2023, we had 39 employees, all of whom were full-time. We believe that diversity and inclusion are conducive to a stronger workplace and better decision making. As of December 31, 2023, 72% of our workforce was either gender or racially diverse. We believe that our relationship with our employees is good. None of our employees are unionized or represented under a collective bargaining agreement.

Competition

Our net income depends, in large part, on our ability to acquire assets at favorable spreads over our borrowing costs. In acquiring real estate-related assets, we compete with other mortgage REITs, specialty finance companies, savings and loan associations, banks, mortgage bankers, insurance companies, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, institutional investors, investment banking firms, financial institutions, hedge funds, governmental bodies (including the U.S. Federal Reserve) and other entities. Many of our competitors are significantly larger than we are, have access to greater capital and other resources and may have other advantages over us. In addition, some of our competitors may have higher risk tolerances or different risk assessments, which could allow them to consider a wider variety of investments and establish more favorable relationships than we can. The existence of these entities, as well as the possibility of additional entities forming in the future, may increase the competition for the acquisition of residential mortgage assets, resulting in higher prices and lower yields on such assets.

Available Information

Our investor relations website is www.chimerareit.com (http://www.chimerareit.com). We make available on the website under “Filings & Reports,” free of charge, our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, our current reports and investor presentations on Form 8-K and any other reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, (including any amendments to such reports) as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file or furnish such materials to the SEC. Information on our website, however, is not part of or incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, all our filed reports can be obtained at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov).

You should carefully consider the following factors, together with all the other information included in this 2023 Form 10-K, in evaluating our company and our business. If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected, and the value of our stock could decline. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial also may impair our business operations. As such, you should not consider this list to be a complete statement of all potential risks or uncertainties.

Summary Risk Factors

Risks Related to Financing

• Our inability to access funding, including through the capital markets, or the terms on which such funding is available could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.
• An increase in our borrowing costs relative to interest income may materially adversely affect our profitability.
• Volatile market conditions may result in a decline in the market value of our assets, which may result in margin calls that may force us to sell assets, which may materially adversely affect our liquidity and profitability.
• Our business strategy involves the use of leverage, and we may not achieve what we believe to be optimal levels of leverage, which may materially adversely affect our liquidity, results of operations or financial condition.
• Failure to effectively manage our liquidity would adversely affect our results and financial condition.

Risks Related to Hedging

• Hedging against interest rate exposure may not be successful and may adversely affect our earnings, which could reduce our cash available for distribution to our stockholders.
• Hedging instruments may present various concerns, including illiquidity, enforceability, and counterparty risks, as well as expose us to contingent liabilities which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
• Clearing facilities or exchanges upon which our hedging instruments are traded may increase margin requirements on our hedging instruments in the event of adverse economic developments.

Risks Associated with Our Investments

• Interest rate fluctuations may lead to reduced earnings and increased volatility in our earnings.
• The current inversion of the yield curve has caused and may continue to cause differences in timing of interest rate adjustments on our interest earning assets and our borrowings, which may continue to adversely affect the net interest spread.
• The impact of inflation may adversely affect our financial performance.
• A significant portion of our investments are in the most subordinated Non-Agency RMBS, making us the first-loss security holder.
• A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules.
• We have a significant amount of investments in Non-Agency MBS collateralized by mortgage loans that do not meet the prime loan underwriting standards and are subject to increased risk of losses.
• The nature of the mortgage loans we acquire and that underlie the MBS we acquire exposes us to credit risk that could negatively affect the value of those assets and investments.
• Changes in prepayment rates could negatively affect the value of our investment portfolio, which could result in reduced earnings or losses and negatively affect the cash available for distribution to our stockholders.
• A significant portion of our Non-Agency MBS and residential loans are secured by properties in a small number of geographic areas and may be disproportionately affected by adverse events in those markets.
• We may change our investment strategy, asset allocation, or financing plans without stockholder consent.
• Changes in the fair values of our assets, liabilities, and derivatives can reduce earnings, increase earnings volatility, and create volatility in our book value.
• Our calculations of the fair value of the assets we own or consolidate are based upon assumptions that are inherently subjective and involve a high degree of management judgment.
• Any deterioration or uncertainty in market conditions for mortgages and mortgage-related assets, as well as in broader U.S. and global economic and geopolitical conditions, could have a material adverse effect on us.

Risks Associated with Our Operations

• Through certain of our wholly-owned subsidiaries we may from time to time engage in securitization transactions relating to residential mortgage loans, which may expose us to potentially material risks.
• Our ability to profitably execute future securitization transactions may be negatively impacted by adverse market conditions.
• Competition may affect ability and pricing of our target assets.
• The loss of any executive officer or key employee may materially adversely affect our business.
• Risks related to servicers and other third-parties, including their ability to perform their services at a high level and comply with applicable laws, and the use of third-party analytical models and data.
• The expanding body of regulations and the investigations of servicers may increase their cost of compliance and the risks of noncompliance.
• We are dependent on information systems and their failure, including through cyber-attacks, could significantly disrupt our business.

Risks Related to Regulatory Matters, Accounting, and Our 1940 Act Exemption

• Our business is subject to extensive regulation.
• There is no assurance we will be able to obtain various state licenses to purchase mortgage loans.
• Our GAAP financial results may not be an accurate indicator of taxable income and dividend distributions.
• Changes in accounting rules could impact us negatively.
• Loss of our 1940 Act exemption would negatively affect our share price, our ability to distribute dividends, and us generally.
• We have an indirect ownership interest in a registered investment adviser.

U.S. Federal Income Tax Risks and Risk Related to Our REIT Status

• Your investment has various U.S. federal income tax risks.
• Risks related to compliance with REIT requirements.
• Risks related to our qualification as a REIT and our election to qualify as a REIT.
• Potential characterization of distributions or gain on sale may be treated as unrelated business taxable income to tax-exempt investors.
• Classification of our securitizations or financing arrangements as a taxable mortgage pool could subject us or certain of our stockholders to increased taxation.
• Failure to make required distributions would subject us to tax, which would reduce the cash available for distribution to our stockholders.
• Our ownership of and relationship with our TRSs will be limited, and a failure to comply with the limits would jeopardize our REIT status and may result in the application of a 100% excise tax.
• The tax on prohibited transactions will limit our ability to engage in transactions, including certain methods of securitizing mortgage loans, that would be treated as sales for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
• The interest apportionment rules may affect our ability to comply with the REIT asset and gross income tests.
• We may be subject to adverse tax changes that could reduce the market price of our capital stock.

Risks Related to Our Organization and Structure

• Certain provisions of Maryland Law, of our charter, and of our bylaws may inhibit potential acquisition bids that stockholders may consider favorable, and may affect the market price of our capital stock.
• Our rights and the rights of our stockholders to take action against our directors and officers are limited, which could limit stockholders’ recourse in the event of actions, not in their best interests.

Risks Related to Our Capital Stock

• The market price and trading volume of our shares of capital stock may be volatile.
• We may not be able to pay dividends or other distributions on our capital stock.
• The declaration, amount and payment of future cash dividends on our common stock are subject to uncertainty.
• Capital stock eligible for future sale may have adverse consequences for investors and on our share price.
• Future offerings of debt and equity securities may adversely affect the market price of our capital stock.
• There is a risk that stockholders may not receive dividend distributions, or those dividend distributions may decrease over time.
• Dividends payable by REITs generally do not qualify for the reduced tax rates available for some dividends.
• Shares repurchased under our share repurchase program may not benefit stockholders.
• Holders of our Preferred Stock have limited voting rights.

Risks Related to Financing

Our inability to access funding, our cost of funding or the terms on which such funding is available could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, particularly during times of severe market disruption in the financial, mortgage, housing or related sectors.

Our ability to fund our operations, meet financial obligations and finance target asset acquisitions may be impacted by our ability to secure and maintain our master repurchase agreements, warehouse facilities and repurchase agreement facilities with our counterparties. Because repurchase agreements and warehouse facilities are short-term commitments of capital, lenders may respond to market conditions making it more difficult for us to renew or replace on a continuous basis our maturing short-term borrowings and have and may continue to impose more onerous conditions when rolling such financings. If we are not able to renew our existing facilities or arrange for new financing on terms acceptable to us, or if we default on our covenants or are otherwise unable to access funds under our financing facilities or if we are required to post more collateral or face larger haircuts, we may have to curtail our asset acquisition activities and/or dispose of assets at a loss.

Issues related to financing are exacerbated in times of significant dislocation in the financial markets, such as current conditions. It is possible our lenders will become unwilling or unable to provide us with financing and we could be forced to sell our assets at an inopportune time when prices are depressed. In addition, if the regulatory capital requirements imposed on our lenders change, they may be required to significantly increase the cost of the financing that they provide to us. Our lenders also have and may continue to revise their eligibility requirements for the types of assets they are willing to finance or the terms of such financings, including haircuts and requiring additional collateral in the form of cash, based on, among other factors, the regulatory environment and their management of actual and perceived risk, particularly with respect to assignee liability. Moreover, the amount of financing we receive under our repurchase agreements will be directly related to our lenders’ valuation of our target assets that cover the outstanding borrowings. Typically, repurchase agreements grant the lender the absolute right to reevaluate the fair market value of the assets that cover outstanding borrowings at any time. If a lender determines in its sole discretion that the value of the assets has decreased, it has the right to initiate a margin call. These valuations may be different than the values that we ascribe to these assets and may be influenced by recent asset sales and distressed levels by forced sellers. A margin call requires us to transfer additional assets or cash to a lender without any advance of funds from the lender for such transfer or to repay a portion of the outstanding borrowings.

An increase in our borrowing costs relative to the interest we receive on our assets may materially adversely affect our profitability.

Our earnings are primarily generated from the difference between the interest income we earn on our investment portfolio, less net amortization of purchase premiums and discounts, and the interest expense we pay on our borrowings. Historically, we relied primarily on borrowings under repurchase agreements to finance our investments, which have short-term contractual maturities. In an effort to be less impacted by market dislocations, we have moved some of our financing to longer-term mark-to-market financing and longer-term non-market-to-market and limited mark-to-market financing which is more expensive than traditional short-term mark-to-market financing. In general, if the interest expense on our borrowings increases relative to the interest income we earn on our investments, our profitability may be materially adversely affected. Interest rates are highly sensitive to many factors, including fiscal and monetary policies and domestic and international economic and political conditions, as well as other factors beyond our control. Starting in 2022, the Federal Reserve adopted monetary policies designed to address a rapid acceleration of inflation, raising the federal funds rates multiple times starting in 2022 and through a portion of 2023, and may do so again in the future, which could impact our borrowing costs and our ability to invest generally. During a period of rising interest rates and flattening or inverted yield curves such as the current market, our borrowing costs generally will increase at a faster pace than our interest earnings on the leveraged portion of our investment portfolio, which could result in a decline in our net interest spread and net interest margin. The severity of any such decline would depend on our asset/liability composition, including the impact of hedging transactions, at the time as well as the magnitude and period over which interest rates increase. Further, an increase in short-term interest rates could also have a negative impact on the market value of our investments. As these events occurred in 2023 and 2022, and are continuing, we have and may continue to experience an increase in our interest expense.

Volatile market conditions may result in a decline in the market value of our assets, which may result in margin calls that may force us to sell assets, which may materially adversely affect our liquidity and profitability.

In general, the market value of our residential mortgage and MBS investments is impacted by changes in interest rates, prevailing market yields and other market conditions, including general economic conditions, home prices, and the real estate market generally. A decline in the market value of our residential mortgage or MBS investments may limit our ability to borrow against such assets or result in lenders initiating margin calls, which require a pledge of additional collateral or cash to re-establish the required ratio of borrowing to collateral value, under our repurchase agreements. Posting additional collateral or cash to support our credit will reduce our liquidity and limit our ability to leverage our assets, which could materially adversely affect our business. Thus, we could be forced to sell a portion of our assets, including MBS in an unrealized loss position, to maintain liquidity.

Our business strategy involves the use of leverage. We may not achieve what we believe to be optimal levels of leverage or we may become overleveraged, which may materially adversely affect our liquidity, results of operations or financial condition.

Our business strategy involves the use of borrowing, or leverage. Pursuant to our leverage strategy, we borrow against a substantial portion of the market value of our assets and use the borrowed funds to finance our investment portfolio and the acquisition of additional investment assets. Future increases in the amount by which the collateral value is required to contractually exceed the amount borrowed in such leverage financing transactions, decreases in the market value of our residential mortgage investments, increases in interest rate volatility and changes in the availability of acceptable financing could cause us to be unable to achieve the amount of leverage we believe to be optimal. The return on our assets and cash available for distribution to our stockholders may be reduced to the extent that changes in market conditions prevent us from achieving the desired amount of leverage on our investments or cause the cost of our financing to increase relative to the income earned on our leveraged assets. For example, in response to the changes in rates and margins calls we received during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, we entered into several non-mark-to-market and mark-to-market holiday financing facilities. Similarly, in 2023 and 2022, as the Federal Reserve increased interest rates we added more non-MTM facilities. These facilities typically have higher interest rates and cash trapping provisions which reduce the net cash we receive from these levered assets. If the interest income on the investments that we have purchased with borrowed funds fails to cover the interest expense of the related borrowings, we will experience net interest losses and may experience net losses from operations. Such losses could be significant because of our leveraged structure. The risks associated with leverage are more acute during periods of economic slowdown or recession. The use of leverage to finance our investments involves many other risks, including, among other things, the following:

• Our profitability may be materially adversely affected by a reduction in our leverage. As long as we earn a positive spread between interest and other income we earn on our leveraged assets and our borrowing costs, we believe that we can generally increase our profitability by using greater amounts of leverage. There can be no assurance, however, that repurchase financing will remain an efficient source of financing for our assets. The amount of leverage that we use may be limited because our lenders might not make funding available to us at acceptable rates or they may require that we provide additional collateral to secure our borrowings. If our financing strategy is not viable, we will have to find alternative forms of financing for our assets which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. In addition, in response to certain interest rate and investment environments or to changes in market liquidity, we could adopt a

strategy of reducing our leverage by selling assets or not reinvesting principal payments as MBS amortize or prepay, thereby decreasing the outstanding amount of our related borrowings. Such an action could reduce interest income, interest expense and net income, the extent of which would depend on the level of reduction in assets and liabilities as well as the sale prices for which the assets were sold.

• If a counterparty to our repurchase transactions defaults on its obligation to resell the underlying security back to us at the end of the transaction term or if we default on our obligations under the repurchase agreement, we could incur losses. When we engage in repurchase transactions, we generally sell assets to the counterparty to the agreement for cash. Because the cash we receive from the counterparty is less than the value of those securities (this difference is referred to as the “haircut”), if the lender defaults on its obligation to transfer the same securities back to us, we would incur a loss on the transaction equal to the amount of the haircut (assuming there was no change in the value of the securities). (See Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of this 2023 Form 10-K, for further discussion regarding risks related to exposure to financial institution counterparties in light of recent market conditions.) Our exposure to defaults by counterparties may be more pronounced during periods of significant volatility in the market conditions for mortgages and mortgage-related assets as well as the broader financial markets. At December 31, 2023, we had amounts at risk with Nomura Securities International, Inc., or Nomura, of 17% of our equity related to the collateral posted on secured financing agreements. In addition, generally, if we default on a repurchase transaction the counterparty could liquidate the assets and use the proceeds to repay the amounts it is owed. If the amount received from the sale is equal to or less than the amount owed, we will incur a loss equal to the haircut and the counterparty has recourse to us to repay any remaining deficiency. In addition, if we default on a transaction under any one agreement and fail to honor the related guarantee, the counterparties on our other repurchase agreements could also declare a default under their respective repurchase agreements. Any losses we incur on our repurchase transactions could materially adversely affect our earnings and thus our cash available for distribution to our stockholders.
• Our financing facilities may contain covenants that restrict our operations. Certain financing facilities we may enter into contain restrictions, covenants, and representations and warranties that, among other things, require us to satisfy specified financial, asset quality, loan eligibility, and loan performance tests. If we fail to meet or satisfy any of these covenants or representations and warranties, we would be in default under these agreements and our lenders could elect to declare all amounts outstanding under the agreements to be immediately due and payable, enforce their respective rights against collateral pledged under such agreements, and restrict our ability to make additional borrowings. Certain financing agreements may contain cross-default provisions by a guarantor so that if a default occurs under any guaranty agreement, the lenders under our other financing agreements could also declare a default under their respective agreements. Further, under our mark-to-market agreements, we are typically required to pledge additional assets to our lenders in the event the estimated fair value of the existing pledged collateral under such agreements declines and such lenders demand additional collateral, which may take the form of additional securities, loans or cash. These restrictions may interfere with our ability to obtain financing or to engage in other business activities, which may have a significant negative impact on our business, financial condition, liquidity and results of operations. A default and resulting repayment acceleration could significantly reduce our liquidity, which could require us to sell our assets to repay amounts due and outstanding whether or not the prices and terms of such sales are favorable to us. This could also significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, and our ability to make distributions, which could cause the value of our stock to decline. A default will also significantly limit our financing alternatives such that we will be unable to pursue our leverage strategy, which could lower our investment returns.
• Adverse developments involving major financial institutions or involving one of our lenders could result in a rapid reduction in our ability to borrow and materially adversely affect our business, profitability, and liquidity. As of December 31, 2023, we had amounts outstanding under repurchase agreements with 12 separate lenders. A material adverse development involving one or more major financial institutions or the financial markets, in general, could result in us reducing exposure to certain lenders to mitigate credit risk or our lenders reducing our access to funds available under our repurchase agreements or terminating such repurchase agreements altogether. Because substantially all our repurchase agreements are uncommitted and renewable at our lenders’ discretion, our lenders could determine to reduce or terminate our access to future borrowings at virtually any time, which could materially adversely affect our business and profitability. Furthermore, if a few of our lenders became unwilling or unable to continue to provide us with financing, we could be forced to sell assets, including assets in unrealized loss positions, to maintain liquidity. Forced sales, particularly under adverse market conditions, may result in lower sale prices than ordinary market sales made in normal market conditions. If our investments were liquidated at prices below our amortized cost of such assets, we would incur losses, which would adversely affect our earnings.
• Our use of repurchase agreements to borrow money may give our lenders greater rights in the event of bankruptcy. In the event of our insolvency or bankruptcy, certain repurchase agreements may qualify for special treatment under the Bankruptcy Code, the effect of which, among other things, would be to allow the creditor under the agreement to avoid the automatic stay provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and take possession of, and liquidate, the collateral under such repurchase agreements without delay.
• A re-characterization of the repurchase agreements as sales for tax purposes rather than as secured lending transactions would adversely affect our ability to maintain our qualification as a REIT and to maintain our 1940 Act exemption. When we enter a repurchase agreement, we generally sell assets to our counterparty to the agreement for cash. The counterparty is obligated to resell the assets back to us at the end of the transaction term. We believe that for U.S. federal income tax purposes we will be treated as the owner of the assets that are the subject of repurchase agreements and that the repurchase agreements will be treated as secured lending transactions notwithstanding that such agreement may transfer record ownership of the assets to the counterparty during the term of the agreement. It is possible, however, that the IRS or the SEC could successfully assert that we did not own these assets during the term of the repurchase agreements, in which case we could fail to qualify as a REIT or fail to maintain our 1940 Act exemption, respectively.

Failure to effectively manage our liquidity would adversely affect our results and financial condition.

Our ability to meet cash needs depends on many factors, several of which are beyond our control. Ineffective management of liquidity levels could cause us to be unable to meet certain financial obligations. Potential conditions that could impair our liquidity include: unwillingness or inability of any of our potential lenders to provide us with or renew financing, margin calls, additional capital requirements applicable to our lenders, a disruption in the financial markets or declining confidence in our creditworthiness or in financial markets in general. These conditions could force us to sell our assets at inopportune times or otherwise cause us to potentially revise our strategic business initiatives.

We may have difficulty accessing or be unable to access capital markets.

We may not be able to readily raise capital from external sources in a timely manner or on favorable terms. Many of the same factors that could make the pricing for investments in real estate loans and securities attractive, such as the availability of assets from distressed owners who need to liquidate them at reduced prices, and uncertainty about credit risk, housing, and the economy, may limit investors’ and lenders’ willingness to provide us with additional capital on terms that are favorable to us, if at all. There may also be other reasons we are not able to readily raise capital in a timely manner or on favorable terms, and, as a result, may not be able to finance growth in our business and in our portfolio of assets and we could experience other adverse impacts. To the extent we need to raise capital on unfavorable terms, we may experience greater dilution of existing shareholders, higher interest costs, or higher transaction costs.

Risks Related to Hedging

Hedging against interest rate exposure may not be successful in mitigating the risks associated with interest rates and may adversely affect our earnings, which could reduce our cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

Subject to maintaining our qualification as a REIT, we use various hedging strategies to reduce our exposure to losses from rising interest rates in the current market. Hedging activity varies in scope based on the level and volatility of interest rates, the type of assets held, financing used, and other changing market conditions. There are no perfect hedging strategies, and interest rate hedging may fail to protect us from loss. Alternatively, we may fail to properly assess a risk to our investment portfolio or may fail to recognize a risk entirely, leaving us exposed to losses without the benefit of any offsetting hedging activities. The derivative financial instruments we could select may not have the effect of reducing our interest rate risk. The nature and timing of hedging transactions may influence the effectiveness of these strategies. Poorly designed strategies or improperly executed transactions could increase our risk and losses. In addition, hedging activities could result in losses if the event against which we hedge does not occur. For example, interest rate hedging could fail to protect us or adversely affect us because among other things:

• interest rate hedging can be expensive, particularly during periods of rising and volatile interest rates;
• available interest rate hedges may not correlate directly with the interest rate risk for which protection is sought;
• the duration of the hedge may not match the duration of the related liability;
• the amount of income that a REIT may earn from hedging transactions to offset interest rate losses may be limited by U.S. federal tax provisions governing REITs;
• the credit quality of the party owing money on the hedge may be downgraded to such an extent that it impairs our ability to sell or assign our side of the hedging transaction;
• the party owing money in the hedging transaction may default on its obligation to pay; and
• the value of derivatives used for hedging may be adjusted from time to time in accordance with accounting rules to reflect changes in fair value with downward adjustments, or “mark-to-market losses,” reducing our stockholders’ equity;
• during periods of high volatility we may need to post significant cash collateral, which may limit our ability to invest and deteriorate liquidity.

The hedging transactions we undertake, which are intended to limit losses, may limit gains and increase our exposure to losses. Thus, our hedging activity may adversely affect our earnings, which could reduce our cash available for distribution to our stockholders. In addition, some hedging instruments involve risk since they are not currently traded on regulated exchanges, guaranteed by an exchange or its clearing house, or regulated by any U.S. or foreign governmental authorities.

We may enter into hedging instruments that could expose us to contingent liabilities in the future, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations.

Subject to maintaining our qualification as a REIT, part of our financing strategy involves entering into hedging instruments that could require us to fund cash payments in certain circumstances (e.g., the early termination of a hedging instrument caused by an event of default or other voluntary or involuntary termination event or the decision by a hedging counterparty to request the posting of collateral that it is contractually owed under the terms of a hedging instrument). With respect to the termination of an existing swap, the amount due would generally be equal to the unrealized loss of the open swap position with the hedging counterparty and could also include other fees and charges. These economic losses will be reflected in our financial results of operations and our ability to fund these obligations will depend on the liquidity of our assets and access to capital at the time. Any losses we incur on our hedging instruments could materially adversely affect our earnings and thus our cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

The characteristics of hedging instruments present various concerns, including illiquidity, enforceability, and counterparty risks, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

As indicated above, from time to time we enter into swaps. Entities entering into swaps are exposed to credit losses in the event of non-performance by counterparties to these transactions. Rules issued by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission or, CFTC, that became effective in October 2012 require the clearing of all swap transactions through registered derivatives clearing organizations, or swap execution facilities, through standardized documents under which each swap counterparty transfers its position to another entity whereby the centralized clearinghouse effectively becomes the counterparty to each side of the swap. It is the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act that the clearing of swaps in this manner is designed to avoid concentration of swap risk in any single entity by spreading and centralizing the risk in the clearinghouse and its members. In addition to greater initial and periodic margin (collateral) requirements and additional transaction fees both by the swap execution facility and the clearinghouse, the swap transactions are now subjected to greater regulation by both the CFTC and the SEC. These additional fees, costs, margin requirements, documentation requirements, and regulations could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Clearing facilities or exchanges upon which our hedging instruments are traded may increase margin requirements on our hedging instruments in the event of adverse economic developments.

In response to events having or expected to have adverse economic consequences or which create market uncertainty, clearing facilities or exchanges upon which some of our hedging instruments (i.e., interest rate swaps) are traded may require us to post additional collateral against our hedging instruments. In the event that future adverse economic developments or market uncertainty (including those due to governmental, regulatory, or legislative action or inaction) result in increased margin requirements for our hedging instruments, it could materially adversely affect our liquidity position, business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Associated with Our Investments

Interest rate fluctuations, including as a result of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy may have various negative effects on us and may lead to reduced earnings and increased volatility in our earnings.

Changes in interest rates, the interrelationships between various interest rates, and interest rate volatility, such as the changes that have occurred during 2023 and may continue to occur as the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies in response to inflation continue to affect the financial markets, have had, and may continue to have, negative effects on our earnings, the fair value of our assets and liabilities, loan prepayment rates, and our access to liquidity. Changes in interest rates may harm the credit performance of our assets. We may seek to hedge a majority of, but not all interest rate risks. Our hedging may not work effectively, and we may change our hedging strategies or the degree or type of interest rate risk we assume.

Some of the loans and securities we own or may acquire have adjustable-rate coupons (i.e., they may earn interest at a rate that adjusts periodically based on an interest rate index) and some of the subordinate securities we own are entitled to cash flow only after the more senior securities have been paid and those senior securities have adjustable-rate coupons. As such, the cash flows, and earnings, we receive from these assets may vary as a function of interest rates. For example, if interest rates increase, the cash flow we receive from securities with adjustable-rate coupons is expected to increase while the cash flow we receive on securities that are subordinate to adjustable-rate securities may decrease. We also acquire loans and securities for future sale, as assets we are accumulating for securitization, or as a longer-term investment. We expect to fund assets, loans, and securities with a combination of equity and debt. If we use adjustable rate debt to fund assets that have a fixed interest rate (or use fixed rate debt to fund assets that have an adjustable interest rate), an interest rate mismatch could exist and we could earn less (and fair values could decline) if interest rates rise, at least for a time. We may seek to mitigate interest rate mismatches for these assets with hedges such as swaps and other derivatives, which may not be successful.

Higher interest rates generally reduce the fair value of many of our assets and increase the cost of our financing. This may affect our earnings results, reduce our ability to securitize, re-securitize, or sell our assets, or reduce our liquidity. Higher interest rates could reduce borrowers’ ability to make interest payments or to refinance their loans. Higher interest rates could reduce property values and increased credit losses could result. Higher interest rates could reduce mortgage originations, thus reducing our opportunities to acquire new assets. In addition, when short-term interest rates are high relative to long-term interest rates, an increase in adjustable-rate residential loan prepayments may occur, which would likely reduce our returns from owning interest-only securities backed by adjustable-rate residential loans.

The current inversion of the yield curve has caused and may continue to cause differences in timing of interest rate adjustments on our interest earning assets and our borrowings, which has and may continue to adversely affect the net interest spread we earn on our assets.

Our investment portfolio contains a significant allocation to MBS, as well as Residential Loans. The relationship between short-term and longer-term interest rates is often referred to as the “yield curve.” In a normal yield curve environment, short-term interest rates are lower than longer-term interest rates, and an investment in such assets will generally decline in value if long-term interest rates increase. Declines in market value may ultimately reduce earnings or result in losses to us, which may negatively affect cash available for distribution to our stockholders. If short-term interest rates continue to, as has occurred in 2023, exceed longer-term interest rates (a yield curve inversion), our borrowing costs may exceed our interest income and we could incur operating losses. Additionally, to the extent cash flows from investments that return scheduled and unscheduled principal are reinvested, the spread between the yields on the new investments and available borrowing rates may decline, which would likely decrease our net income. A significant risk associated with our target assets is the risk that both long-term and short-term interest rates will increase significantly, as occurred during 2023. To the extent long-term rates increase significantly, the market value of these investments will decline, and the duration and weighted average life of the investments will increase. At the same time, an increase in short-term interest rates will increase the amount of interest owed on the repurchase agreements we enter into to finance the purchase of our investments. Additionally, a yield curve inversion may significantly influence the pace and volume of activity in securitization market, which may impact the profitability of any securitization transaction we perform.

The impact of inflation may adversely affect our financial performance.

Inflation by some measures remained elevated since 1982, and inflationary pressures have broadened from goods earlier in the pandemic to include shelter costs and a number of labor-intensive services. The rapid acceleration of inflation led to an abrupt shift in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy stance. Persistent high inflation during the first half of 2023 and throughout 2022 continued to put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rates at a faster pace than previously estimated. The Federal Reserve responded by undertaking a series of rate hikes throughout 2023 and 2022, which brought the Federal Funds Rate to a range of 5.25% to 5.50%, the highest level since 2008. As a result, mortgage rates continued to surge reaching the highest level in more than 15 years causing more home buyers to pull back from the market. This has negatively impacted both the primary and secondary markets for residential mortgages. As the Federal Reserve lifts the Federal Funds Rate, the margin between short and long-term rates could further compress. Given our reliance on short-term borrowings to generate interest income, if the curve continues to flatten or even invert, or if Federal Reserve finds itself falling behind on inflation and more aggressively tightens their current projections, our results of operations, financial condition and business could be materially adversely impacted.

A significant portion of our investments are in Non-Agency RMBS that are the most subordinate securities in securitizations, making us the first-loss security holder, which means these securities are subject to significant credit risk, are illiquid, and are difficult to value.

A significant portion of our Non-Agency RMBS are subordinate classes we have acquired through securitization of mortgage loans. The mortgage loans we have securitized are generally recorded on our balance sheet as “securitized mortgage loans” for

GAAP purposes, but in effect we own these assets in the form of securities. A substantial portion of the mortgage loans that we securitize and the subordinate securities that we retain are not newly originated “prime mortgage loans” but rather seasoned reperforming mortgage loans and Non-QM loans that have less strict underwriting standards and are therefore subject to greater risk of loss, as discussed below.

When we securitize mortgage loans, we sell the most senior securities backed by those loans and retain the most subordinate classes of securities, which means we are the first-loss security holder and the securities we own represent a portion of the “securitized mortgage loans” on our balance sheet. Losses on any residential mortgage loan securing our RMBS will be borne first by the owner of the property (i.e., the owner will first lose any equity invested in the property) and, thereafter, by us as the first-loss security holder, and then by holders of more senior securities. If the losses incurred upon loan default exceed any reserve fund, letter of credit, and classes of securities junior to those we own (if any), we may not be able to recover our investment in such securities. Also, if the underlying properties have been overvalued by the originating appraiser or if the values subsequently decline resulting in less collateral available to satisfy interest and principal payments due on the related security, as the first-loss security holder, we may suffer a total loss of principal, followed by losses on the more senior securities (or other RMBS that we may own). Losses with respect to these investments, which are subject to significant credit risk, could increase or otherwise be higher than anticipated. For a description of the credit risk we are exposed to, see the Risk Factor below captioned “The nature of the mortgage loans we acquire and that underlie the MBS we acquire, exposes us to credit risk that could negatively affect the value of those assets and investments.”

In addition, many of our Non-Agency RMBS securities are first loss and subject to the Risk Retention Rules (see the Risk Factor below captioned “A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules which materially limit our ability to sell or hedge such investments as needed, which may require us to hold investments that we may otherwise desire to sell during times of severe market disruption in the financial, mortgage, housing or related sectors.”) and are therefore illiquid for a period of time. The fair value of securities, especially our first loss credit risk retention securities, reperforming mortgage loans (loans that typically were significantly delinquent and subsequently modified), and other investments we make that are not frequently traded may not be readily determinable and it may be difficult to obtain third party pricing on such investments. Also, validating third party pricing for illiquid investments may be more subjective than more liquid investments and may not be reliable. Illiquid investments may also experience greater price volatility because an active market does not exist. We value our investments quarterly based on our judgment and valuation models and in accordance with our valuation policy. Because such valuations are inherently uncertain, our fair value determination may differ materially from the values obtained from third parties or the values that would have been used, if an active trading market existed for these investments. Our results of operations, financial condition and business could be materially adversely affected if our fair value determinations of the investments were materially different than the values that would exist if a ready market existed for these assets.

The illiquidity of our investments may make it difficult, or impossible for certain assets subject to the Risk Retention Rules, for us to sell and these assets may be more difficult to finance. Also, if we quickly liquidate all or a portion of our portfolio (for example, to meet a margin call), we may realize significantly less than the value at which we have previously recorded our investments. Thus, our ability to adjust our portfolio in response to changes in economic and other conditions may be relatively limited, which could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and the value of our capital stock.

A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules which materially limit our ability to sell or hedge such investments as needed, which may require us to hold investments that we may otherwise desire to sell during times of severe market disruption in the financial, mortgage, housing or related sectors.

A significant part of our business and growth strategy is to engage in securitization transactions to finance the acquisition of residential mortgage loans. Pursuant to the Risk Retention Rules, when we sponsor a residential mortgage loan securitization, we are required to retain at least 5% of the fair value of the mortgage-backed securities issued in the securitization. We can retain either an “eligible vertical interest” (which consists of at least 5% of each class of securities issued in the securitization), an “eligible horizontal residual interest” (which is the most subordinate class of securities with a fair market value of at least 5% of the aggregate credit risk) or a combination of both totaling 5%, or the Required Credit Risk. We typically own the eligible horizontal residual interest. We are required to hold the Required Credit Risk until the later of (i) the fifth anniversary of the securitization closing date and (ii) the date on which the aggregate unpaid principal balance of the mortgage loans in such securitization has been reduced to 25% of the aggregate unpaid principal balance of the mortgage loans as of the securitization closing date, but no longer than the seventh anniversary of the closing date (such date, the Sunset Date). In addition, before the Sunset Date, we may not engage in any hedging transactions if payments on the hedge instrument are materially related to the Required Credit Risk and the hedge position would limit our financial exposure to the Required Credit Risk. Also, we may not pledge our interest in any Required Credit Risk as collateral for any financing unless such financing is full recourse to us. We have financed our Required Credit Risk in full recourse transactions. Our Required Credit Risk subjects us to the first losses on our securitizations and is illiquid, which may make it more difficult to meet our liquidity needs, each of which may materially and adversely affect our business and financing condition. Thus, the Risk Retention Rules materially limit our ability to sell and hedge a portion of our RMBS that we acquire through our securitizations and subjects us to the credit risk related to the retained RMBS that we otherwise may have sold.

We have a significant amount of investments in Non-Agency MBS collateralized by mortgage loans that do not meet the prime loan underwriting standards and are subject to increased risk of losses.

A majority of the Non-Agency MBS we have acquired on the secondary market or retained in our securitizations are backed by collateral pools containing mortgage loans that were originated using underwriting standards that were less strict than those used in underwriting “prime mortgage loans.” These lower standards permitted mortgage loans, often with LTV ratios exceeding 80%, to be made to borrowers having impaired credit histories, lower credit scores, higher debt-to-income ratios or unverified income. Such mortgage loans are likely to experience delinquency, foreclosure, bankruptcy, and other losses at rates that are higher, may be substantially higher, than those experienced by prime mortgage loans. Thus, the performance of our Non-Agency MBS that are backed by these types of loans could be correspondingly lower than those backed by prime mortgage loans especially during times of economic stress, which could materially adversely impact our results of operations, financial condition, and business.

The nature of the mortgage loans we acquire and that underlie the MBS we acquire, exposes us to credit risk that could negatively affect the value of those assets and investments.

We assume credit risk primarily through the ownership of securities backed by residential, multi-family, and commercial real estate loans and through direct investments in residential real estate loans. The substantial majority of our investment assets are subject to various credit risks, as discussed below.

No U.S. Government Guarantee. We acquire residential loans including reperforming loans, nonperforming loans (the borrower is severely delinquent), and Non-QMs, which are subject to increased risk of loss. Unlike Agency RMBS, residential mortgage loans generally are not guaranteed by the U.S. Government or any government-sponsored enterprise such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additionally, by directly acquiring residential loans, we do not receive the structural credit enhancements that benefit senior tranches of RMBS. A residential loan is directly exposed to losses resulting from the default. Therefore, the value of the underlying property, the creditworthiness and financial position of the borrower, and the priority and enforceability of the lien will significantly impact the value of such mortgage loan. In the event of a foreclosure, we may assume direct ownership of the underlying real estate. The liquidation proceeds upon sale of such real estate may not be sufficient to recover our cost basis in the loan, and any costs or delays involved in the foreclosure or liquidation process may increase losses. The value of residential loans is also subject to property damage caused by hazards, such as earthquakes or environmental hazards, not covered by standard property insurance policies and to a reduction in a borrower's mortgage debt by a bankruptcy court. In addition, claims may be assessed against us because of our position as a mortgage holder or property owner, including assignee liability, environmental hazards, and other liabilities. We could also be responsible for property taxes. In some cases, these claims may lead to losses exceeding the purchase price of the related mortgage or property. The occurrence of any of these risks could materially adversely impact our results of operations, financial condition, and business.

Enhanced Non-QM Loan Risks. In addition, we acquire Non-QMs that will not have the benefit of enhanced legal protections otherwise available to residential mortgage loans originated to a more restrictive credit standard than just determining a borrower’s ability to repay. The ownership of Non-QMs subjects us to legal, regulatory and other risks, including those arising under federal consumer protection laws and regulations designed to regulate residential mortgage loan underwriting and originators’ lending processes, standards, and disclosures to borrowers. Failure of residential mortgage loan originators or servicers to comply with the ability-to-repay laws and regulations could subject us, as an assignee or purchaser of these loans (or as an investor in securities backed by these loans), to monetary penalties assessed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, through its administrative enforcement authority and by mortgagors through a private right of action against lenders or as a defense to foreclosure, including by recoupment or setoff of finance charges and fees collected, and could result in rescission of the affected residential mortgage loans, which could adversely impact our business and financial results.

Greater General Credit Risks. In addition, credit losses on residential real estate loans can occur for many reasons (many of which are beyond our control), including: fraud; poor underwriting; poor servicing practices; weak economic conditions; increases in payments required to be made by borrowers; declines in the value of homes; earthquakes, the effects of climate change (including flooding, drought, wildfire and severe weather), and other natural disaster events; uninsured property loss; borrower over-leveraging; costs of remediation of environmental conditions, such as indoor mold; changes in zoning or building codes and the related costs of compliance; acts of war or terrorism; pandemics; changes in legal protections for borrowers and other changes in law or regulation; and personal events affecting borrowers, such as reduction in income and job loss. Additionally, the amount and timing of credit losses could be affected by loan modifications, delays in the liquidation process, documentation errors, and other actions by servicers. Weakness in the U.S. economy or the housing market could cause our credit losses to increase beyond levels that we currently anticipate.

Changes in prepayment rates could negatively affect the value of our investment portfolio, which could result in reduced earnings or losses and negatively affect the cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

There are seldom any restrictions on borrowers’ abilities to prepay their residential mortgage loans. Homeowners tend to prepay mortgage loans faster when interest rates decline. Consequently, owners of the loans have to reinvest the money received from the prepayments at the lower prevailing interest rates. Conversely, homeowners tend not to prepay mortgage loans when interest rates increase. Consequently, owners of the loans are unable to reinvest money that would have otherwise been received from prepayments at the higher prevailing interest rates.

Volatility in prepayment rates may affect our ability to maintain targeted amounts of leverage and return on our portfolio of residential mortgage loans and RMBS and may result in reduced earnings or losses for us and negatively affect the cash available for distribution to our stockholders. In addition, if we purchased an investment at a premium, faster than expected prepayments will result in a faster than expected amortization of the premium paid, which would adversely affect our earnings. Conversely, if these investments were purchased at a discount, faster than expected prepayments accelerate our recognition of income.

A significant portion of our Non-Agency MBS and residential loans are secured by properties in a small number of geographic areas and may be disproportionately affected by economic or housing downturns, natural disasters including natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, terrorist events, regulatory changes, or other adverse events specific to those markets.

A significant number of the mortgages underlying our Non-Agency MBS and Loans held for investments are concentrated in certain geographic areas. For example, we have significant exposure in California, New York and Florida. For further information on the geographic concentration of our investments see Note 3 and Note 4 to the consolidated financial statements within this 2023 Form 10-K. Certain markets within these states (particularly in California and Florida) have experienced significant decreases in residential home values from time to time. Any event that adversely affects the economy or real estate market in any of these states could have a disproportionately adverse effect on our Non-Agency MBS and Loans held for investments. In general, any material decline in the economy or significant problems in a particular real estate market would likely cause a decline in the value of residential properties securing the mortgages in that market, thereby increasing the risk of delinquency, default, and foreclosure of mortgage loans underlying our Non-Agency MBS and residential loan investments and the risk of loss upon liquidation of these assets. This could have a material adverse effect on our Non-Agency MBS credit loss experience and residential loan investments in the affected market if higher-than-expected rates of default or higher-than-expected loss severities on such loans were to occur.

In addition, the occurrence of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack may cause a sudden decrease in the value of real estate in the area or areas affected and would likely reduce the value of the properties securing the mortgages collateralizing our Non-Agency MBS or Loans held for investments. Recent years have seen frequent and severe natural disasters in the U.S., including wildfires, hurricanes, high winds, severe flooding and mudslides, the frequency and intensity of which may be indicative of the impact of climate change. The impacts of climate change, which are expected to persist and worsen in the future, could have a more significant localized effect in the areas where our borrowers are concentrated, resulting in a disproportionate impact on us. Because certain natural disasters such as hurricanes or certain flooding are not typically covered by the standard hazard insurance policies maintained by borrowers, or the proceeds payable under any such policy are not sufficient to cover the related repairs, the affected borrowers may have to pay for any repairs themselves. Under these circumstances, borrowers may decide not to repair their property or may stop paying their mortgages. This would cause defaults and credit loss severities to increase.

Changes in local laws and regulations, fiscal policies, property taxes and zoning ordinances in such states can also have a negative impact on property values, which could result in borrowers’ deciding to stop paying their mortgages. This circumstance could cause defaults and loss severities to increase, thereby adversely impacting our results of operations.

We may change our investment strategy, asset allocation, or financing plans without stockholder consent, which may result in riskier investments.

We may change our investment strategy, asset allocation, or financing plans at any time without the consent of our stockholders, which could result in our making investments that are different from, and possibly riskier than, the investments described in this 2023 Form 10-K.

A change in our investment strategy or financing plans may increase our exposure to interest rate and default risk and real estate market fluctuations. Furthermore, a change in our asset allocation could result in our making investments in asset categories different from those described in this 2023 Form 10-K. Additionally, we may enter other operating businesses that may or may not be closely related to our current business. These new assets or business operations may have new, different or increased risks than what we are currently exposed to in our business and we may not be able to manage these risks successfully. Additionally, when investing in new assets or businesses we will be exposed to the risk that those assets, or income generated by those assets or businesses, will affect our ability to meet the requirements to maintain our qualification as a REIT or our exemption from registration under the 1940 Act. If we are not able to successfully manage the risks associated with new asset types or businesses, it could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Changes in the fair values of our assets, liabilities, and derivatives can have various negative effects on us, including reduced earnings, increased earnings volatility, and volatility in our book value.

Fair values for our assets and liabilities, including derivatives, can be volatile and our revenue and income can be impacted by changes in fair values. The fair values can change rapidly and significantly, and changes can result from changes in interest rates, perceived risk, supply, demand, and actual and projected cash flows, prepayments, and credit performance. A decrease in fair value may not necessarily be the result of deterioration in future cash flows. Fair values for illiquid assets can be difficult to estimate, which may lead to volatility and uncertainty of earnings and book value.

For GAAP purposes, we may mark-to-market most, but not all, of the assets and liabilities on our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition. In addition, valuation adjustments on certain consolidated assets and our derivatives are reflected in our Consolidated Statements of Operations. Assets that are funded with certain liabilities and hedges may have different mark-to-market treatment than the liability or hedge. If we sell an asset that has not been marked to market through our Consolidated Statements of Operations at a reduced market price relative to its cost basis, our reported earnings will be reduced.

Our loan sale profit margins are generally reflective of gains (or losses) over the period from when we identify a loan for purchase until we subsequently sell or securitize the loan. These profit margins may encompass elements of positive or negative market valuation adjustments on loans, hedging gains or losses associated with related risk management activities, and any other related transaction expenses; however, under GAAP, the different elements may be realized unevenly over the course of one or more quarters for financial reporting purposes, with the result that our financial results may be more volatile and less reflective of the underlying economics of our business activity.

Our calculations of the fair value of the assets we own or consolidate are based upon assumptions that are inherently subjective and involve a high degree of management judgment, and such assumptions may be more difficult to calculate during times of severe market disruption in the mortgage, housing or related sectors.

We report the fair values of securities, loans, derivatives, and certain other assets on our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition. In computing the fair values for these assets, we may make several market-based assumptions, including assumptions regarding future interest rates, prepayment rates, discount rates, credit loss rates, and the timing of credit losses. These assumptions are inherently subjective and involve a high degree of management judgment, particularly for illiquid securities and other assets for which market prices are not readily determinable. These assumptions may be more difficult to calculate during times of severe market disruption in the mortgage, housing or related sectors. For further information regarding our assets recorded at fair value see Note 5 to the consolidated financial statements within this 2023 Form 10-K. Use of different assumptions could materially affect our fair value calculations and our financial results and our actual experience may cause us to substantially revise our assumptions. Further discussion of the risk of our ownership and valuation of illiquid securities is set forth in the Risk Factors above and in this 2023 Form 10-K.

Any deterioration or uncertainty in market conditions for mortgages and mortgage-related assets, as well as in broader U.S. and global economic conditions, which may be impacted by domestic and global geopolitical instability, could materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Our results of operations are materially affected by conditions in the markets for mortgages and mortgage-related assets, as well as the broader financial markets and the economy generally. In addition, concerns over actual or anticipated low economic growth rates, higher levels of unemployment, a reduction in housing market activity or uncertainty regarding future U.S. monetary policy may contribute to increased interest rate volatility and a decline in business volume. A reduction in our business volume can reduce our net interest income and adversely affect our financial results.

Global economic conditions can also adversely affect our business and financial results. Changes or volatility in market conditions resulting from deterioration in or uncertainty regarding global economic conditions can adversely affect the value of our assets, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, net worth and financial condition. To the extent global economic conditions negatively affect the U.S. economy, they also could negatively affect the credit performance of the loans in our investment portfolio. Volatility or uncertainty in global or domestic political conditions also can significantly affect economic conditions and financial markets. Global or domestic political unrest also could affect growth and financial markets, further increasing inflationary pressure and interest rates, as well as negatively affecting economic growth and result in disruptions in the financial markets.

In addition, in January 2023, the outstanding debt of the United States reached the statutory debt limit and the U.S. Treasury Department had to take extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations. Although the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 brought the 2023 debt ceiling crisis to an end, there is no assurance that the United States will not face another debt ceiling crisis in the future, which if unaddressed, could cause significant harm to the U.S. economy and global financial stability.

Risks Associated with Our Operations

Through certain of our wholly-owned subsidiaries we have engaged in the past, and expect to continue to engage in, securitization transactions relating to residential mortgage loans. These types of transactions and investments expose us to potentially material risks.

A significant part of our business and growth strategy is to engage in various securitization transactions related to mortgage assets, and such transactions expose us to potentially material risks, including without limitation:

• Financing Risk: Engaging in securitization transactions and other similar transactions generally require us to incur short-term debt on a recourse basis to finance the accumulation of residential mortgage loans. If investor demand for securitization transactions weakens sufficiently, we may be unable to complete the securitization of loans accumulated for that purpose on favorable terms, or at all, which may hurt our business or financial results. We have a limited capacity to hold loans on our balance sheet as investments, and our business is not structured to buy-and-hold the full volume of loans that we routinely acquire with the intent to sell. If demand for buying loans weakens, we may be forced to incur additional debt on unfavorable terms or may be unable to borrow to finance these assets, which may in turn impact our ability to continue acquiring loans over the short or long term
• Diligence Risk: We engage in due diligence with respect to the loans or other assets we are securitizing and make representations and warranties relating to those loans and assets. When conducting due diligence, we rely on resources and data available to us and on a review of the collateral by third parties, each of which may be limited. We may also only conduct due diligence on a sample of a pool of loans or assets we are acquiring and assume that the sample is representative of the entire pool. Our due diligence efforts may not reveal matters which could lead to losses. If our due diligence process is not robust enough, or the scope of our due diligence is limited, we may incur losses. Losses could occur because a counterparty that sold us a loan or other asset refuses or is unable (e.g., due to its financial condition) to repurchase that loan or asset or pay damages to us if we determine after purchase that one or more of the representations or warranties made to us was inaccurate or because we don’t get a representation or warranty that covers a discovered defect or violation. In addition, losses with respect to such loans will generally be borne by us as the holder of the “first-loss” securities in our securitizations.
• Disclosure and Indemnity Risk: When engaging in securitization transactions, we also prepare marketing and disclosure documentation, including term sheets and prospectuses, that include disclosures regarding the securitization transactions, the securitization transaction agreements and the assets being securitized. If our marketing and disclosure documentation are alleged or found to contain inaccuracies or omissions, we may be liable under federal and state securities laws (or under other laws) for damages to third parties that invest in these securitization transactions, including in circumstances where we relied on a third party in preparing accurate disclosures, or we may incur other expenses and costs disputing these allegations or settling claims. Additionally, we typically retain various third party service providers when we engage in securitization transactions, including underwriters, trustees, administrative and paying agents, servicers and custodians, among others. We frequently contractually agree to indemnify these service providers against various claims and losses they may suffer from providing these services to us or the securitization trust. If any of these service providers are liable for damages to third parties that have invested in these securitization transactions, we may incur costs and expenses because of these indemnities.
• Documentation Defects: In recent years, there has also been debate as to whether there are defects in the legal process and legal documents governing transactions in which securitization trusts and other secondary purchasers take legal ownership of residential mortgage loans and establish their rights as priority lien holders on underlying mortgaged property. If there are problems with the establishment of title and lien priority rights are transferred, securitization transactions that we sponsored and third party sponsored securitizations that we hold investments in may experience losses, which could expose us to losses and could damage our ability to engage in future securitization transactions.

Our ability to profitably execute or participate in future securitization transactions depends, in part, on our ability to compete with other purchasers of residential mortgage loans and the cost and availability of short-term debt, which may be negatively impacted by adverse market conditions beyond our control.

A significant part of our business and growth strategy is to engage in various securitization transactions related to residential mortgage loans. There are many factors that can have a significant impact on whether a securitization transaction is profitable to us or result in a loss. One of these factors is the price we pay for the mortgage loans that we securitize, which, in the case of residential mortgage loans, is impacted by the level of competition in the marketplace for acquiring residential mortgage loans and the relative desirability to originators or other financial institutions of retaining residential mortgage loans as investments or selling them to third parties such as us. The cost and availability of the short-term debt we use to finance our mortgage loan before securitization impacts the profitability of our securitization transactions. This short-term debt cost is affected by several factors including its availability to us, its interest rate, its duration, and the percentage of our mortgage loans for which third parties are willing to provide short-term financing.

After we acquire mortgage loans that we intend to securitize, we can also suffer losses if the value of those loans declines before securitization. Declines in the value of a residential mortgage loan, for example, can be due to, among other things, changes in interest rates, changes in the credit quality of the loan, changes in the projected yields required by investors to invest in securitization transactions, and increased delinquencies. Hedging against a decline in loan value due to changes in interest rates may impact the profitability of a securitization.

The price that investors in mortgage-backed securities will pay for securities issued in our securitization transactions also has a significant impact on the profitability of the transactions to us, and these prices are impacted by numerous market forces and factors including the uncertainty, potential delinquencies, and lack of liquidity. In addition, the underwriter(s) or placement agent(s) we select for securitization transactions, the terms of their engagement and the transaction costs incurred in such securitizations can also impact the profitability of our securitizations. Also, any liability that we may incur, or may be required to reserve for when executing a transaction can cause a loss to us. To the extent that we are not able to profitably execute future securitizations of residential mortgage loans or other assets, including for the reasons described above or for other reasons, it could have a material adverse impact on our business and financial results.

Competition may affect ability and pricing of our target assets.

We operate in a highly competitive market for investment opportunities. Our profitability depends, in large part, on our ability to acquire our target assets at attractive prices. In acquiring our target assets, we compete with a variety of institutional investors, including other REITs, specialty finance companies, public and private funds, government entities, commercial and investment banks, commercial finance and insurance companies and other financial institutions. Many of our competitors are substantially larger and have considerably greater financial, technical, technological, marketing and other resources than we do. Other REITs with investment objectives that overlap with ours may elect to raise significant amounts of capital, which may create additional competition for investment opportunities. Some competitors may have a lower cost of funds and access to funding sources that may not be available to us. Many of our competitors are not subject to the operating constraints associated with REIT compliance or maintenance of an exemption from the 1940 Act. In addition, some of our competitors may have higher risk tolerances or different risk assessments, which could allow them to consider a wider variety of investments and establish more relationships than us. Furthermore, competition for investments in our target assets may lead to the price of such assets increasing, which may further limit our ability to generate desired returns. We cannot provide assurance that the competitive pressures we face will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Also, as a result of this competition, desirable investments in our target assets may be limited in the future and we may not be able to take advantage of attractive investment opportunities from time to time, as we can provide no assurance that we will be able to identify and make investments that are consistent with our investment objectives.

Our executive officers and other key personnel are critical to our success and the loss of any executive officer or key employee may materially adversely affect our business.

Our success and our ability to manage anticipated future growth depend, in large part, upon the efforts of our highly-skilled employees, and particularly on our key personnel, including our executive officers. Our executive officers have extensive experience and strong reputations in our industry and have been instrumental in setting our strategic direction, operating our business, identifying, recruiting, and training our other key personnel, and arranging necessary financing. The departure of any of our executive officers or other key personnel, or our inability to attract, motivate and retain highly qualified employees at all levels of the firm in light of the intense competition for talent, could adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition; diminish our investment opportunities; or weaken our relationships with lenders, counter-parties and other parties important to our business and strategy.

We rely on third parties to perform certain services particularly as it relates to servicing, comply with applicable laws and regulations, and carry out contractual covenants and terms, the failure of which by any of these third parties may adversely impact our business and financial results.

To conduct our business of acquiring loans, engaging in securitization transactions, and investing in third party issued securities and other assets, we rely on third party service providers to perform certain services, comply with applicable laws and regulations, and carry out contractual covenants and terms. Thus, we are subject to the risks associated with a third party’s failure to perform, including failure to perform due to reasons such as fraud, negligence, errors, miscalculations, or insolvency. The negative impact on the business and operations of such servicers or other parties responsible for funding such advances could be significant. Sources of liquidity typically available to servicers and other relevant parties for the purpose of funding advances of monthly mortgage payments, especially entities that are not depository institutions, may not be sufficient to meet the increased need that could result from significantly higher delinquency and/or forbearance rates. The extent of such liquidity pressures in the future is not known at this time and is subject to continual change.

We rely on third party servicers to service and manage the mortgage loans we beneficially own and that underlie our MBS. The ultimate returns generated by these investments may depend on the quality of the servicer. If a servicer is not vigilant in seeing that borrowers make their required monthly payments, borrowers may be less likely to make these payments, resulting in higher default rates. If a servicer takes longer than expected to liquidate non-performing loans, our losses related to those loans may be higher than originally anticipated. Any failure by servicers to service these mortgages or to competently manage and dispose of the related real properties could negatively impact the value of these investments and our financial performance. In addition, while we have contracted with third party servicers to carry out the actual servicing of the loans we beneficially own, other than our securitized loans (including all direct interface with the borrowers) we are nevertheless ultimately responsible, vis-à-vis the borrowers and state and federal regulators, for ensuring that the loans are serviced in accordance with the terms of the related notes and mortgages and applicable law and regulation (See “Risks Related to Regulatory Matters, Accounting, and Our 1940 Act Exemption” for further discussion). Considering the current regulatory environment, such exposure could be significant even though we might have contractual claims against our servicers for any failure to service the loans to the required standard.

For a majority of the loans that we beneficially own (other than securitized loans), we also beneficially own the right to service those loans and we retain a sub-servicer to service those loans. In these circumstances, we are exposed to certain risks, including, without limitation, that we may not be able to enter into sub-servicing agreements on favorable terms to us or at all, or that the sub-servicer may not properly service the loan in compliance with applicable laws and regulations or the contractual provisions governing their sub-servicing role, and that we would be held liable for the sub-servicer’s improper acts or omissions. Additionally, in its capacity as a servicer of residential mortgage loans, a sub-servicer will have access to borrowers’ non-public personal information, and we could incur liability for a data breach relating to a sub-servicer or misuse or mismanagement of data by a sub-servicer. We also rely on technology infrastructure and systems of third parties who provide services to us and with whom we transact business. To the extent any one sub-servicer counterparty services a significant percentage of the loans with respect to which we own the servicing rights, the risks associated with our use of that sub-servicer are concentrated around this single sub-servicer counterparty. To the extent that there are significant amounts of advances that need to be funded in respect of loans where we own the servicing right, it could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial results.

We also rely on corporate trustees to act on behalf of us in enforcing our rights as security holders. Under the terms of most RMBS we hold, we do not have the right to directly enforce remedies against the issuer of the security but instead must rely on a trustee to act on behalf of us and other security holders. Should a trustee not be required to act under the terms of the securities, or fail to act, we could experience losses.

We utilize third party analytical models and data to value our investments, and any incorrect, misleading or incomplete information used in connection therewith would subject us to potential risks.

Given the complexity of our investments and strategies, we rely heavily on analytical models and information and data supplied by third parties, or Third Party Data. Third Party Data is used to value investments or potential investments and to hedge our investments. When we rely on Third Party Data that proves to be incorrect, misleading or incomplete, our decisions expose us to potential risks. For example, by relying on Third Party Data, especially valuation models, we may be induced to buy certain investments at prices that are too high, to sell certain other investments at prices that are too low, or to miss favorable opportunities altogether. Similarly, any hedging based on faulty Third Party Data may prove to be unsuccessful. Furthermore, any valuations of our investments that are based on valuation models may prove to be incorrect.

These risks include the following: (i) collateral cash flows and/or liability structures may be incorrectly modeled in all or only certain scenarios, or may be modeled based on simplifying assumptions that lead to errors; (ii) information about collateral may be incorrect, incomplete, or misleading; (iii) collateral or bond historical performance (such as historical prepayments, defaults, cash flows, etc.) may be incorrectly reported, or subject to interpretation (e.g., different issuers may report delinquency statistics based on different definitions of what constitutes a delinquent loan); or (iv) collateral or bond information may be outdated, in which case the models may contain incorrect assumptions as to what has occurred since the date information was last updated.

Some of the Third Party Data we use, such as mortgage prepayment models or mortgage default models, are predictive in nature. The use of predictive models has inherent risks. For example, such models may incorrectly forecast future behavior, leading to potential losses on a cash flow and/or a mark-to-market basis. In addition, the predictive models we use may differ substantially from those models used by other market participants, with the result that valuations based on these predictive models may be substantially higher or lower for certain investments than actual market prices. Furthermore, since predictive models are usually constructed based on historical data supplied by third parties, the success of relying on such models may depend heavily on the accuracy and reliability of the supplied historical data and the ability of these historical models to accurately reflect future periods.

All valuation models rely on correct market data inputs. Certain assumptions used as inputs to the models may be based on historical trends and these trends may not be indicative of future results. If incorrect market data is used, even a well-designed valuation model may result in incorrect valuations. Even if market data is appropriately captured in the model, the resulting “model prices” will often differ substantially from market prices, especially for securities with complex characteristics, such as derivative securities. Volatility in any asset class, including real estate and mortgage-related assets, increases the likelihood of Third-Party Data being inaccurate as market participants attempt to value assets that have frequent, significant swings in pricing.

The expanding body of federal, state and local regulations and the investigations of servicers may increase their cost of compliance and the risks of noncompliance and may adversely affect their ability to perform their servicing obligations.

We rely on third party servicers to service the residential mortgage loans that we acquire through consolidated trusts and that underlie the MBS that we acquire. The mortgage servicing business is subject to extensive regulation by federal, state and local governmental authorities and is subject to various laws and judicial and administrative decisions imposing requirements and restrictions and increased compliance costs on a substantial portion of their operations. The volume of new or modified laws and regulations has increased in recent years. Some jurisdictions and municipalities have enacted laws that restrict loan servicing activities, including delaying, preventing foreclosures, forcing the modification of certain mortgages, or preventing the collection of interest or other charges from borrowers under certain circumstances.

Federal laws and regulations have also been proposed or adopted which, among other things, could hinder the ability of a servicer to foreclose promptly on defaulted residential loans, and which could result in assignees being held responsible for violations in the residential loan origination process, such as those adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain mortgage lenders and third party servicers may also voluntarily, or as part of settlements with law enforcement authorities, establish loan modification programs relating to loans they hold or service. These federal, state and local legislative or regulatory actions that result in modifications of our outstanding mortgages, or interests in mortgages acquired by us either directly through consolidated trusts or through our investments in residential MBS, may adversely affect the value of, and returns on, such investments. Mortgage servicers may be incented by the federal government to pursue such loan modifications, as well as forbearance plans and other actions intended to prevent foreclosure, even if such loan modifications and other actions are not in the best interests of the beneficial owners of the mortgages. The foregoing matters may cause our business, financial condition, results of operations and ability to pay dividends to be adversely affected.

We are dependent on information systems, including those of third parties, and their failure, including through a cyber-attack, could significantly disrupt our business or result in the disclosure or misuse of confidential or other information, including personal information, which could damage our reputation, result in regulatory sanctions, subject us to litigation and/or increase our costs and cause losses that have a material adverse impact on our business, financial results and financial condition.

Our business is highly dependent on our information and communications systems. These information and communications systems include hardware, software and cloud-based solutions. Our business is also highly dependent on the information and communications systems of third parties with whom we do business or that facilitate our business activities, including clearing agents, mortgage servicers, trustees, business counterparties, technology service providers and financial intermediaries. Our relationships with certain of these third-parties allow for the external storage and processing of our information, including personal information, and counterparty and borrower information, including on cloud-based systems. In addition, third parties may also share their confidential information, including personal information, with us, which information may be processed and stored in, and transmitted through, our computer systems and networks.

We may not be able to anticipate, detect or recognize threats to our systems and assets, or to implement effective preventive measures against all cyber threats, especially because the techniques used in cyber attacks are increasingly sophisticated, change frequently, are complex, and are often not recognized until launched. Cyber-attacks can occur and persist for an extended period of time without detection. Investigations of cyber-attacks are inherently unpredictable, and it takes time to complete an investigation and have full and reliable information. These and other challenges could further increase the costs and consequences of a cyber-attack and may inhibit our ability to provide rapid, complete and reliable information about a cyber-attack to our business partners, counterparties and regulators, as well as the public.

Any failure or interruption of our systems or those of key third parties or cyber-attacks or security breaches of our networks or systems could cause delays or other problems in our business or result in the disclosure or misuse of confidential or other information, including personal information, which could damage our reputation, result in regulatory sanctions and/or increase our costs and cause losses that have a material adverse impact on our business, financial results and financial condition. Cyber criminals are now deploying sophisticated techniques to conduct more advanced and persistent attacks. We have been and continue to be the target of such attacks. From time to time, third parties with whom we do business have experienced data breaches or other cybersecurity incidents. Such attacks, as well as an actual or perceived failure by us or third parties to comply with privacy, data protection and information security laws, regulations, standards, policies and contractual obligations could result in legal liabilities, fines, regulatory action and reputational harm that have a material adverse impact on our business, financial results and financial condition. We cannot assure you that our cybersecurity control and response plans will be sufficient to prevent or mitigate all potential risks of cybersecurity threats and incidents. Especially due to the current hybrid working environments, where more of our personnel are spending more time working from home, than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an elevated risk of such events occurring.

Risks Related to Regulatory Matters, Accounting, and Our 1940 Act Exemption

Our business is subject to extensive regulation.

Our business is subject to extensive regulation by federal and state governmental authorities, self-regulatory organizations, and securities exchanges. We are required to comply with numerous federal and state laws. The laws, rules and regulations comprising this regulatory framework change frequently, as can the interpretation and enforcement of existing laws, rules, and regulations. Some of the laws, rules and regulations to which we are subject are intended primarily to safeguard and protect consumers, rather than stockholders or creditors. From time to time, we may receive requests from federal and state agencies for records, documents, and information regarding our policies, procedures, and practices regarding our business activities. We incur significant ongoing costs to comply with these government regulations.

Our portfolio includes or may include investments in mortgage pass-through certificates issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA, and both houses of Congress have discussed and considered various measures intended to restructure the U.S. housing finance system and the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress may continue to consider legislation that would significantly reform the country’s mortgage finance system, including, among other things, eliminating Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and replacing them with a single new MBS insurance agency. Details remain unsettled, including the scope and costs of the agencies’ guarantee and their affordable housing mission, some of which could be addressed even in the absence of large-scale reform.

While the likelihood that major mortgage finance system reform will be enacted in the short term remains uncertain, it is possible that the adoption of any such reforms could adversely affect the types of assets we can buy, the costs of these assets and our business operations. A reduction in the ability of mortgage loan originators to access Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to sell their mortgage loans may adversely affect the mortgage markets generally and adversely affect the ability of mortgagors to refinance their mortgage loans. In addition, any decline in the value of securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may affect the value of MBS in general.

Although we do not originate or directly service residential mortgage loans, we must comply with various federal and state laws, rules, and regulations because we purchase residential mortgage loans. These rules generally focus on consumer protection and include, among others, rules promulgated under the Dodd-Frank Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Modernization Act of 1999. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has broad authority over a wide range of consumer financial products and services, including mortgage lending and servicing. One portion of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, or Mortgage Reform Act, contains underwriting and servicing standards for the mortgage industry and various other requirements related to mortgage origination and servicing. In addition, the Dodd-Frank Act grants enforcement authority and broad discretionary regulatory authority to the CFPB to prohibit or condition terms, acts or practices relating to residential mortgage loans that the CFPB finds abusive, unfair, deceptive or predatory, as well as to take other actions that the CFPB finds are necessary or proper to ensure responsible affordable mortgage credit remains available to consumers. The Dodd-Frank Act also affects the securitization of mortgages (and other assets) with requirements for risk retention by securitizers and requirements for regulating rating agencies.

Numerous regulations have been issued pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, including regulations regarding mortgage loan servicing, underwriting and loan originator compensation and others could be issued in the future. These requirements can and do change as statutes and regulations are enacted, promulgated, amended, and interpreted, and the recent trends among federal and state lawmakers and regulators have been toward increasing laws, regulations, and investigative proceedings concerning the mortgage industry generally. As a result, we are unable to fully predict at this time how the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as other laws or regulations that may be adopted in the future, will affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, or the environment for repurchase financing and other forms of borrowing, the investing environment for Agency MBS, Non-Agency MBS and/or residential mortgage loans, the securitization industry, swaps and other derivatives. We believe that the Dodd-Frank Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder are likely to continue to increase the economic and compliance costs for participants in the mortgage and securitization industries, including us.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, wide-ranging legal protections for homeowners, including foreclosure moratoria and forbearance provisions, were enacted including through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (or CARES Act), which was signed into law on March 27, 2020, and rules and letters issued by the FHA and the CFPB. Availability for foreclosure and forbearance protections for borrowers with federally backed mortgage loans, regardless of delinquency status, were extended multiple times. If the COVID-19 pandemic resurges or another public health crisis breaks out in the future, similar measures may be reenacted, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

In addition, certain court rulings may call into question the CFPB’s authority and other rules promulgated during CFPB’s self-funding structure; for example, in October 2022, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Community Financial Services Association of America, et al. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, et al., concluding that the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutionally violates the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Community Financial case is still pending before the Supreme Court. It is unclear yet what impact these rulings may have on the mortgage lending markets but they may give rise to uncertainty, particularly in those markets in the Fifth Circuit. Any such uncertainty could adversely impact the cash flow on mortgage loans.

Although we believe that we have structured our operations and investments to comply with existing legal and regulatory requirements and interpretations, changes in regulatory and legal requirements, including changes in their interpretation and enforcement by lawmakers and regulators, could materially and adversely affect our business and our financial condition, liquidity, and results of operations.

We are required to obtain various state licenses to purchase mortgage loans in the secondary market and there is no assurance we will be able to obtain or maintain those licenses.

While we are not required to obtain licenses to purchase mortgage-backed securities, the purchase of residential mortgage loans in the secondary market may, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses. Acquiring the right to service residential mortgage loans may also, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses even though we currently do not expect to directly engage in loan servicing ourselves. Thus, we could be delayed in conducting certain business if we were first required to obtain a state license. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain all the licenses we need or that we would not experience significant delays in obtaining these licenses. Furthermore, once licenses are issued, we are required to comply with various information reporting and other regulatory requirements to maintain those licenses, and there is no assurance that we will be able to satisfy those requirements or other regulatory requirements applicable to our business of acquiring residential mortgage loans on an ongoing basis. Our failure to obtain or maintain required licenses or our failure to comply with regulatory requirements that are applicable to our business of acquiring residential mortgage loans may restrict our business and investment options and could harm our business and expose us to penalties or other claims.

Our GAAP financial results may not be an accurate indicator of taxable income and dividend distributions.

Generally, the cumulative net income we report over the life of an asset will be the same for GAAP and tax purposes, although the timing of this income recognition over the life of the asset could be materially different. Differences exist in the accounting for GAAP net income and REIT taxable income, which can lead to significant variances in the amount and timing of when income and losses are recognized under these two measures. Due to these differences, our reported GAAP financial results could materially differ from our determination of taxable income, which impacts our dividend distribution requirements, and, therefore, our GAAP results may not be an accurate indicator of future taxable income and dividend distributions.

Changes in accounting rules could occur at any time and could impact us in significantly negative ways that we are unable to predict or protect against.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board, or the FASB, and other regulatory bodies that establish the accounting rules applicable to us have recently proposed or enacted a wide array of changes to accounting rules. Moreover, in the future, these regulators may propose additional changes that we do not currently anticipate. Changes to accounting rules that apply to us could significantly impact our business or our reported financial performance in ways that we cannot predict or protect against. We cannot predict whether any changes to current accounting rules will occur or what impact any codified changes will have on our business, results of operations, liquidity or financial condition, directly or through their impact on our business partners or counterparties.

Loss of our 1940 Act exemption would adversely affect us and negatively affect the market price of shares of our capital stock and our ability to distribute dividends.

We conduct our operations so that neither we nor any of our subsidiaries are required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act. Section 3(a)(1)(A) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is or holds itself out as being engaged primarily in the business of investing, reinvesting, or trading in securities. Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding, or trading in securities and owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40% of the value of the issuer’s total assets (exclusive of U.S. Government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis, which we refer to as the 40% test. Excluded from the term “investment securities,” among other things, are U.S. Government securities and securities issued by majority-owned subsidiaries that are not themselves investment companies and are not relying on the exclusion from the definition of investment company set forth in Section 3(c)(1) or Section 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act.

Because we are a holding company that conducts its businesses primarily through wholly-owned subsidiaries and majority-owned subsidiaries, the securities issued by these subsidiaries that are excepted from the definition of “investment company” under Section 3(c)(1) or Section 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act, together with any other investment securities we may own, may not have a combined value in excess of 40% of the value of our adjusted total assets on an unconsolidated basis. This requirement limits the types of businesses in which we may engage through our subsidiaries. In addition, the assets we and our subsidiaries may acquire are limited by the provisions of the 1940 Act, the rules and regulations promulgated under the 1940 Act and SEC staff interpretative guidance, which may adversely affect our performance.

If the value of securities issued by our subsidiaries that are excepted from the definition of “investment company” by Section 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act, together with any other investment securities we own, exceeds 40% of our adjusted total assets on an unconsolidated basis, or if one or more of such subsidiaries fail to maintain an exception or exemption from the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either (a) to substantially change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company or (b) to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, either of which could have an adverse effect on us and the market price of our securities. If we were required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, we would become subject to substantial regulation with respect to our capital structure (including our ability to use leverage), management, operations, transactions with affiliated persons (as defined in the 1940 Act), portfolio composition, including restrictions with respect to diversification and industry concentration, and other matters.

Certain of our subsidiaries rely on the exemption from registration provided by Section 3(c)(5)(C) of the 1940 Act. Section 3(c)(5)(C) as interpreted by the staff of the SEC, requires us to invest at least 55% of our assets in “mortgages and other liens on and interest in real estate”, or Qualifying Real Estate Assets, and at least 80% of our assets in Qualifying Real Estate Assets plus real estate-related assets. The assets that we acquire, therefore, are limited by the provisions of the 1940 Act and the rules and regulations promulgated under the 1940 Act. If the SEC determines that any of our subsidiaries’ securities are not Qualifying Real Estate Assets or real estate-related assets or otherwise believes such subsidiary does not satisfy the exemption under Section 3(c)(5)(C) of the 1940 Act, we could be required to restructure our activities or sell certain of our assets. The net effect of these factors will be to lower our net interest income. If we fail to qualify for exemption from registration as an investment company, our ability to use leverage would be substantially reduced, and we would not be able to conduct our business as described.

Certain of our subsidiaries may rely on the exemption provided by Section 3(c)(6) of the 1940 Act which excludes from the definition of “investment company” any company primarily engaged, directly or through majority-owned subsidiaries, in a business, among others, described in Section 3(c)(5)(C) of the 1940 Act (from which not less than 25% of such company’s gross income during its last fiscal year was derived) together with an additional business or additional businesses other than investing, reinvesting, owning, holding or trading in securities. The SEC staff has issued little interpretive guidance with respect to Section 3(c)(6) and any guidance published by the staff could require us to adjust our strategy accordingly.

Certain of our subsidiaries may rely on Section 3(c)(7) for their 1940 Act exemption and, therefore, our interest in each of these subsidiaries would constitute an “investment security” for purposes of determining whether we pass the 40% test.

Certain of our subsidiaries may rely on Rule 3a-7, which exempts certain securitization vehicles. There are numerous requirements that must be met to exclude such subsidiaries from the definition of an investment company. Our ability to manage assets held in a special purpose subsidiary that complies with Rule 3a-7 will be limited and we may not be able to purchase or sell assets owned by that subsidiary when we would otherwise desire to do so, which could lead to losses.

The determination of whether an entity is a majority-owned subsidiary of our company is made by us. The 1940 Act defines a majority-owned subsidiary of a person as a company of which 50% or more of the outstanding voting securities are owned by such person, or by another company which is a majority-owned subsidiary of such person. The 1940 Act further defines voting securities as any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote for the election of directors of a company. We treat companies in which we own at least a majority of the outstanding voting securities as majority-owned subsidiaries for purposes of the 40% test. We have not requested the SEC to approve our treatment of any company as a majority-owned subsidiary and the SEC has not done so. If the SEC were to disagree with our treatment of one or more companies as majority-owned subsidiaries, we may need to adjust our strategy and our assets to continue to pass the 40% test. Any such adjustment in our strategy could have a material adverse effect on us.

There can be no assurance that the laws and regulations governing the 1940 Act status of REITs, including guidance from the Division of Investment Management of the SEC regarding these exemptions, will not change in a manner that adversely affects our operations. If we or our subsidiaries fail to maintain an exception or exemption from the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either to (a) change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company, (b) effect sales of our assets in a manner that, or at a time when, we would not otherwise choose to do so, or (c) register as an investment company, any of which could negatively affect the value of our capital stock, the sustainability of our business model, and our ability to make distributions, which could have an adverse effect on our business and the market price for our shares of capital stock.

We have an indirect ownership interest in a registered investment adviser

We own 20.0% of a holding company that wholly owns a registered investment adviser and we are an investor in a fund managed by that adviser. While we believe we have structured our investment so that we are not deemed a “control person” with respect to that adviser; such that we do not have significant control rights and none of our employees is an officer of the adviser, we cannot assure you that the SEC or a court will not determine that we are a “control person”. Control Persons may be held liable for violations committed by persons under their control. Sanctions the SEC may impose on control persons include industry bars and suspensions, financial penalties, disgorgement of financial proceeds obtained through the violation, and cease and desist orders. Civil litigants may recover financial compensation from control persons for damages suffered because of misconduct by controlled persons. Control persons are not automatically liable for violations committed by the persons under their control. It is a defense to regulatory and private civil liability if the control person acted in good faith and did not induce the act or acts constituting the violation or cause of action. This defense can be established by showing that the control person exercised due care in his supervision of the violator’s activities by maintaining and enforcing a reasonable and proper system of supervision and internal control.

U.S. Federal Income Tax Risks and Risks Related to Our REIT Status

Your investment has various U.S. federal income tax risks.

This summary of certain tax risks is limited to the U.S. federal tax risks addressed below. Additional risks or issues may exist that are not addressed in this Form 10-K and that could affect the U.S. federal tax treatment of us or our stockholders. This is not intended to be used and cannot be used by any stockholder to avoid penalties that may be imposed on stockholders under Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and regulations promulgated thereunder, or the Code. We strongly urge you to seek advice based on your particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor concerning the effects of U.S. federal, state and local income tax law on an investment in common stock or preferred stock and on your individual tax situation.

Complying with REIT requirements may cause us to forego otherwise attractive opportunities.

To maintain our qualification as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we must continually satisfy various tests regarding the sources of our income, the nature and diversification of our assets, the amounts we distribute to our stockholders and the ownership of our stock. To meet these tests, we may be required to forego investments we might otherwise make. We may be required to make distributions to stockholders at disadvantageous times or when we do not have funds readily available for distribution. Thus, compliance with the REIT requirements may hinder our investment performance.

Complying with REIT requirements may force us to liquidate otherwise attractive investments.

To maintain our qualification as a REIT, we generally must ensure that at the end of each calendar quarter at least 75% of the value of our total assets consists of cash, cash items, government securities and qualifying real estate assets, including certain mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities. The remainder of our investments in securities (other than government securities and qualifying real estate assets) generally cannot include more than 10% of the outstanding voting securities of any one issuer or more than 10% of the total value of the outstanding securities of any one issuer. In addition, in general, no more than 5% of the value of our assets (other than government securities, qualifying real estate assets, and stock in one or more TRSs) can consist of the securities of any one issuer, and no more than 20% of the value of our total assets can be represented by securities of one or more TRSs. If we fail to comply with these requirements at the end of any quarter, we must correct the failure within 30 days after the end of such calendar quarter or qualify for certain statutory relief provisions to avoid losing our REIT status and suffering adverse tax consequences. Thus, we may be required to liquidate from our portfolio otherwise attractive investments. These actions could have the effect of reducing our income and amounts available for distribution to our stockholders.

Complying with REIT requirements may limit our ability to hedge effectively.

The REIT provisions of the Code substantially limit our ability to hedge our assets and related borrowings. Under these provisions, any income that we generate from transactions intended to hedge our interest rate, inflation and/or currency risks will be excluded from gross income for purposes of the REIT 75% and 95% gross income tests if the instrument hedges (1) interest rate risk on liabilities incurred to carry or acquire real estate or (2) risk of currency fluctuations with respect to any item of income or gain that would be qualifying income under the REIT 75% or 95% gross income tests, and such instrument is properly identified under applicable Treasury Department regulations. Our annual gross income from non-qualifying hedges, together with any other income not generated from qualifying real estate assets, cannot exceed 25% of our annual gross income. In addition, our aggregate gross income from non-qualifying hedges, fees, and certain other non-qualifying sources cannot exceed 5% of our annual gross income. As a result, we might have to limit our use of advantageous hedging techniques or implement certain hedges through a TRS. This could increase the cost of our hedging activities or expose us to greater risks associated with changes in interest rates than we would otherwise want to bear.

Failure to qualify as a REIT would subject us to U.S. federal income tax, which would reduce the cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

We have elected to be treated as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes and intend to operate so that we will qualify as a REIT. However, the U.S. federal income tax laws governing REITs are extremely complex, and interpretations of the U.S. federal income tax laws governing qualification as a REIT are limited. Qualifying as a REIT requires us to meet various tests regarding the nature of our assets and our income, the ownership of our outstanding stock, and the amount of our distributions on an ongoing basis. While we intend to operate so as to maintain our qualification as a REIT, given the highly complex nature of the rules governing REITs, the ongoing importance of factual determinations, including the tax treatment of certain investments we may make, and the possibility of future changes in our circumstances, no assurance can be given that we will so qualify for any particular year.

We also indirectly own an entity that has elected to be taxed as a REIT under the U.S. federal income tax laws, or a "Subsidiary REIT." Our Subsidiary REIT is subject to the same REIT qualification requirements that are applicable to us. If our Subsidiary REIT were to fail to qualify as a REIT, then (i) that Subsidiary REIT would become subject to regular U.S. federal, state and local corporate income tax, (ii) our interest in such Subsidiary REIT would cease to be a qualifying asset for purposes of the REIT asset tests, and (iii) it is possible that we would fail certain of the REIT asset tests, in which event we also would fail to qualify as a REIT unless we could avail ourselves of certain relief provisions. While we believe that the Subsidiary REIT has qualified as a REIT under the Code, we have joined the Subsidiary REIT in filing a "protective" TRS election under Section 856(l) of the Code for each taxable year in which we have owned an interest in the Subsidiary REIT. We cannot assure you that such "protective" TRS election would be effective to avoid adverse consequences to us. Moreover, even if the "protective" election were to be effective, the Subsidiary REIT would be subject to regular corporate income tax, and we cannot assure you that we would not fail to satisfy the requirement that not more than 20% of the value of our total assets may be represented by the securities of one or more TRSs. See "Our ownership of and relationship with our TRSs will be limited, and a failure to comply with the limits would jeopardize our REIT status and may result in the application of a 100% excise tax." below.

If we fail to qualify as a REIT in any calendar year and we do not qualify for certain statutory relief provisions, we would be required to pay U.S. federal income tax on our taxable income at regular corporate income tax rates. We might need to borrow money or sell assets to pay any such tax. Our payment of income tax would decrease the amount of our income available for distribution to our stockholders. Furthermore, if we fail to maintain our qualification as a REIT and we do not qualify for certain statutory relief provisions, we no longer would be required to distribute substantially all our REIT taxable income to our stockholders. Unless our failure to qualify as a REIT was excused under U.S. federal tax laws, we would be disqualified from taxation as a REIT for the four taxable years following the year during which qualification was lost.

The ability of our Board of Directors to revoke our REIT election without stockholder approval may cause adverse consequences to our stockholders.

Our charter provides that our Board of Directors may revoke or otherwise terminate our REIT election, without the approval of our stockholders, if our Board of Directors determines that it is no longer in our best interest to attempt to, or continue to, qualify as a REIT. If we cease to qualify as a REIT, we would become subject to U.S. federal income tax on our net taxable income and we generally would no longer be required to distribute any of our net taxable income to our stockholders, which may have adverse consequences on the total return to our stockholders.

Potential characterization of distributions or gain on sale may be treated as unrelated business taxable income to tax-exempt investors.

If (1) all or a portion of our assets are subject to the rules relating to taxable mortgage pools, (2) we are a ‘‘pension-held REIT,’’ (3) a tax-exempt stockholder has incurred debt to purchase or hold our capital stock, or (4) the residual REMIC interests, we buy (if any) generate “excess inclusion income,” then a portion of the distributions to and, in the case of a stockholder described in clause (3), gains realized on the sale of capital stock by such tax-exempt stockholder may be subject to U.S. federal income tax as unrelated business taxable income under the Code.

Classification of our securitizations or financing arrangements as a taxable mortgage pool could subject us or certain of our stockholders to increased taxation.

We intend to structure our securitization and financing arrangements so as to not allocate “excess inclusion income” to our stockholders. However, if we have borrowings with two or more maturities and, (1) those borrowings are secured by mortgages or mortgage-backed securities and (2) the payments made on the borrowings are related to the payments received on the underlying assets, then the borrowings and the pool of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities to which such borrowings relate may be classified as a taxable mortgage pool under the Code. If any part of our investments were to be treated as a taxable mortgage pool, then our REIT status would not be impaired, but a portion of the taxable income we recognize may, under regulations to be issued by the Treasury Department, be characterized as excess inclusion income and allocated among our stockholders to the extent of and generally in proportion to the distributions we make to each stockholder. Any excess inclusion income would:

• not be allowed to be offset by a stockholder’s net operating losses;
• be subject to a tax as unrelated business income if a stockholder were a tax-exempt stockholder;
• be subject to the application of U.S. federal withholding tax at the maximum rate (without reduction for any otherwise applicable income tax treaty) with respect to amounts allocable to foreign stockholders; and
• be taxable (at the highest corporate tax rate) to us, rather than to our stockholders, to the extent the excess inclusion income relates to stock held by disqualified organizations (generally, tax-exempt organizations not subject to tax on unrelated business income, including governmental organizations).

Failure to make required distributions would subject us to tax, which would reduce the cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

To maintain our qualification as a REIT, we must distribute to our stockholders each calendar year at least 90% of our REIT taxable income (excluding certain items of non-cash income in excess of a specified threshold), determined without regard to the deduction for dividends paid and excluding net capital gain. To the extent that we satisfy the 90% distribution requirement, but distribute less than 100% of our taxable income, we will be subject to federal corporate income tax on our undistributed income. In addition, we will incur a 4% nondeductible excise tax on the amount, if any, by which our distributions in any calendar year are less than the sum of:

• 85% of our REIT ordinary income for that year;
• 95% of our REIT capital gain net income for that year; and
• any undistributed taxable income from prior years.

We intend to distribute our REIT taxable income to our stockholders in a manner intended to satisfy the 90% distribution requirement and to avoid both corporate income tax and the 4% nondeductible excise tax. REIT taxable income only includes after-tax TRS net income to the extent such TRS distributes a dividend to the REIT. Therefore, our REIT dividend distributions may or may not include after-tax net income from our TRSs.

Our taxable income may substantially exceed our net income as determined by GAAP. As an example, realized capital losses may be included in our GAAP net income, but may not be deductible in computing our taxable income. In addition, we may invest in assets that generate taxable income in excess of economic income or in advance of the corresponding cash flow from the assets. Also, our ability, or the ability of our subsidiaries, to deduct interest may be limited under Section 163(j) of the Code. To the extent that we generate such non-cash taxable income or have limitations on our deductions in a taxable year, we may incur corporate income tax and the 4% nondeductible excise tax on that income if we do not distribute such income to stockholders in that year. In that event, we may be required to use cash reserves, incur debt, or liquidate non-cash assets at rates or at times that we regard as unfavorable to satisfy the distribution requirement and to avoid corporate income tax and the 4% nondeductible excise tax in that year. Moreover, our ability to distribute cash may be limited by available financing facilities. Therefore, our dividend payment level may fluctuate significantly, and, under some circumstances, we may not pay dividends at all.

Our ownership of and relationship with our TRSs will be limited, and a failure to comply with the limits would jeopardize our REIT status and may result in the application of a 100% excise tax.

A REIT may own up to 100% of the equity of one or more TRSs. A TRS may earn income that would not be qualifying income if earned directly by the parent REIT. Both the subsidiary and the REIT must jointly elect to treat the subsidiary as a TRS. Overall, no more than 20% of the value of a REIT’s assets may consist of stock or securities of one or more TRSs. A TRS will pay U.S. federal, state and local income tax at regular corporate rates on any taxable income that it earns and could be subject to the 15% corporate alternative minimum tax on its adjusted financial statement income if certain income thresholds are met. In addition, the TRS rules impose a 100% excise tax on certain transactions between a TRS and its parent REIT that are not conducted on an arm’s-length basis. Our TRS after-tax net income would be available for distribution to us but would not be required to be distributed to us. We anticipate that the aggregate value of the TRS stock and securities owned by us will be less than 20% of the value of our total assets (including the TRS stock and securities). Furthermore, we will monitor the value of our investments in our TRSs to ensure compliance with the rule that no more than 20% of the value of our assets may consist of TRS stock and securities (which is applied at the end of each calendar quarter). In addition, we will scrutinize all our transactions with TRSs to ensure that they are entered on arm’s-length terms to avoid incurring the 100% excise tax described above. There can be no assurance, however, that we will be able to comply with the 20% limitation discussed above or to avoid application of the 100% excise tax discussed above.

The tax on prohibited transactions will limit our ability to engage in transactions, including certain methods of securitizing mortgage loans, that would be treated as sales for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

A REIT’s net income from prohibited transactions is subject to a 100% tax. In general, prohibited transactions are sales or other dispositions of property, other than foreclosure property, but including mortgage loans, held primarily for sale to customers in the ordinary course of business. We might be subject to this tax if we sold or securitized our assets in a manner that was treated as a sale for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Therefore, to avoid the prohibited transactions tax, we may choose not to engage in certain sales of assets at the REIT level and may securitize assets in transactions that are treated as financing transactions and not as sales for tax purposes even though such transactions may not be the optimal execution on a pre-tax basis. We could avoid any prohibited transactions tax concerns by engaging in securitization transactions through a TRS, subject to certain limitations described above. To the extent that we engage in such activities through domestic TRSs, the income associated with such activities will be subject to U.S. federal (and applicable state and local) corporate income tax. There can be no assurance, however, that we will avoid the application of the 100% tax on net income from prohibited transactions described above.

The interest apportionment rules may affect our ability to comply with the REIT asset and gross income tests.

The mortgage loans we acquire may be subject to the interest apportionment rules under Treasury Regulations Section 1.856-5(c), or the Interest Apportionment Regulation, which generally provides that if a mortgage is secured by both real property and other property, a REIT is required to apportion its annual interest income for purposes of the REIT 75% gross income test. If a mortgage is secured by both real property and personal property and the value of the personal property does not exceed 15% of the aggregate value of the property securing the mortgage, the mortgage is treated as secured solely by real property for this purpose.

For purposes of the asset tests applicable to REITs, Revenue Procedure 2014-51 provides a safe harbor under which the IRS will generally not challenge a REIT’s treatment of a loan as being in part a real estate asset in an amount equal to the lesser of the fair market value of the loan or the fair market value of the real property securing the loan at certain relevant testing dates. We believe that all of the mortgage loans that we acquire are secured only by real property. Therefore, we believe that the Interest Apportionment Regulation does not apply to our portfolio.

Nevertheless, if the IRS were to assert successfully that our mortgage loans were secured by property other than real estate, that the Interest Apportionment Regulation applied for purposes of our REIT testing, and that the position taken in Revenue Procedure 2014-51 should be applied to our portfolio, then we might not be able to meet the REIT 75% gross income test, and possibly the asset tests applicable to REITs. If we did not meet these tests, we could lose our REIT status or be required to pay a tax penalty to the IRS.

Even if we remain qualified as a REIT, we may face other tax liabilities that reduce our cash flow.

Even if we remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, we may be subject to certain U.S. federal, state and local taxes on our income and assets, including taxes on any undistributed income, tax on income from some activities conducted because of a foreclosure, excise taxes, state or local income, property and transfer taxes, such as mortgage recording taxes, and other taxes. In addition, to meet the REIT qualification requirements, prevent the recognition of certain types of non-cash income, or to avert the imposition of a 100% tax that applies to certain gains derived by a REIT from dealer property or inventory, we may hold some of our assets through our TRSs or other subsidiary corporations that will be subject to corporate-level income tax at regular corporate rates. In certain circumstances, the ability of our TRSs to deduct net interest expense may be limited. Any of these taxes would decrease cash available for distribution to our stockholders.

We may be subject to adverse legislative or regulatory tax changes that could reduce the market price of our capital stock.

At any time, the U.S. federal income tax laws or regulations governing REITs or the administrative interpretations of those laws or regulations may be amended. We cannot predict when or if any new U.S. federal income tax law, regulation or administrative interpretation, or any amendment to any existing U.S. federal income tax law, regulation or administrative interpretation, will be adopted, promulgated or become effective and any such law, regulation or interpretation may take effect retroactively. We and our stockholders could be adversely affected by any such change in, or any new, U.S. federal income tax law, regulation or administrative interpretation.

Risks Related to Our Organization and Structure

Certain provisions of Maryland Law, of our charter, and of our bylaws contain provisions that may inhibit potential acquisition bids that stockholders may consider favorable, and the market price of our capital stock may be lower as a result.

• There are ownership limits and restrictions on transferability and ownership in our charter. To qualify as a REIT, not more than 50% of the value of our outstanding stock may be owned, directly or constructively, by five or fewer individuals during the second half of any calendar year. To assist us in satisfying this test, among other things, our charter generally prohibits any person or entity from beneficially or constructively owning more than 9.8% in value or number of shares, whichever is more restrictive, of any class or series of our outstanding capital stock. This restriction may discourage a tender offer or other transactions or a change in the composition of our Board of Directors or control that might involve a premium price for our shares or otherwise be in the best interests of our stockholders and any shares issued or transferred in violation of such restrictions being automatically transferred to a trust for a charitable beneficiary, thereby resulting in a forfeiture of the additional shares.
• Our charter permits our Board of Directors to issue stock with terms that may discourage a third party from acquiring us. Our charter permits our Board of Directors to amend the charter without stockholder approval to increase the total number of authorized shares of stock or the number of shares of any class or series and to issue common or preferred stock, having preferences, conversion or other rights, voting powers, restrictions, limitations as to dividends or other distributions, qualifications, and terms or conditions of redemption as determined by our Board of Directors. Thus, our Board of Directors could authorize the issuance of stock with terms and conditions that could have the effect of discouraging a takeover or other transaction in which holders of some or a majority of our shares might receive a premium for their shares over the then-prevailing market price of our shares.
• Maryland Control Share Acquisition Act. Maryland law provides that holders of ‘‘control shares’’ of our company (defined as voting shares of stock which, when aggregated with all other shares controlled by the acquiring stockholder, entitle the stockholder to exercise one of three increasing ranges of voting power in electing directors) acquired in a “control share acquisition” (defined as the direct or indirect acquisition of ownership or control of “control shares”) have no voting rights except to the extent approved by our stockholders by the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of all the votes entitled to be cast on the matter, excluding all interested shares. Our bylaws provide that we are not subject to the “control share” provisions of Maryland law. Our Board of Directors, however, may elect to make the “control share” statute applicable to us at any time and may do so without stockholder approval.
• Business Combinations. We are subject to the “business combination” provisions of Maryland law that, subject to limitations, prohibit certain business combinations (including a merger, consolidation, share exchange, or, in circumstances specified in the statute, an asset transfer or issuance or reclassification of equity securities) between us and an “interested stockholder” (defined generally as any person who beneficially owns 10% or more of our then outstanding voting capital stock or an affiliate or associate of ours who, at any time within the two‑year period before the date in question, was the beneficial owner of 10% or more of our then outstanding voting capital stock) or an affiliate thereof for five years after the most recent date on which the stockholder becomes an interested stockholder. After the five‑year prohibition, any business combination between us and an interested stockholder generally must be recommended by our Board of Directors and approved by the affirmative vote of at least (i) 80% of the votes entitled to be cast by holders of outstanding shares of our voting capital stock and (ii) two‑thirds of the votes entitled to be cast by holders of voting capital stock of the corporation other than shares held by the interested stockholder with whom or with whose affiliate the business combination is to be effected or held by an affiliate or associate of the interested stockholder. These super‑majority voting requirements do not apply if our common stockholders receive a minimum price, as defined under Maryland law, for their shares in the form of cash or other consideration in the same form as previously paid by the interested stockholder for its shares. These provisions of Maryland law also do not apply to business combinations that are approved or exempted by a Board of Directors before the time that the interested stockholder becomes an interested stockholder. Pursuant to the statute, our Board of Directors has by resolution exempted business combinations between us and any other person, provided, that such business combination is first approved by our Board of Directors (including a majority of our directors who are not affiliates or associates of such person).
• Unsolicited Takeovers: The “unsolicited takeover” provisions of Maryland law, permit our Board of Directors, without stockholder approval and regardless of what is currently provided in our charter or bylaws, to elect to be subject to any or all of five provisions, including a classified board, a two-thirds vote requirement for removing a director, a requirement that the number of directors be fixed only by vote of the directors, a requirement that a vacancy on the board be filled only by the remaining directors and for the remainder of the full term of the class of directors in which the vacancy occurred, and majority requirement for the calling of a special meeting of stockholders. In addition, through provisions in our charter and Bylaws unrelated to this statute, we (i) require, unless called by the chairman of our Board of Directors, our chief executive officer, our president or our Board of Directors, the request of stockholders entitled to cast not less than a majority of all the votes entitled to be cast at the meeting to call a special meeting of stockholders, (ii) require that the number of directors be fixed only by our Board of Directors, (iii) have a classified board and (iv) have a two-thirds vote requirement for the removal of a director. We have elected in our charter to be subject to the provision whereby any vacancy on the board is filled only by a vote of the remaining directors (whether or not they constitute a quorum) for the remainder of the full term of the directorship in which the vacancy occurred and until a successor is duly elected and qualifies. These provisions may have the effect of inhibiting a third party from making an acquisition proposal for us or of delaying, deferring, or preventing a change in control of us under the circumstances that otherwise could provide the holders of shares of common stock with the opportunity to realize a premium over the then current market price.
• Classified Board. Our Board of Directors is divided into three classes of directors. Directors of each class are chosen for terms expiring at the annual meeting of stockholders held in the third year following the year of their election, and each year one class of directors is elected by the stockholders. The staggered terms of our directors may reduce the possibility of a tender offer or an attempt at a change in control, even though a tender offer or change in control might be in the best interests of our stockholders.

Our rights and the rights of our stockholders to take action against our directors and officers are limited, which could limit stockholders’ recourse in the event of actions, not in their best interests.

Our charter limits the liability of our directors and officers to us and our stockholders for money damages, except for liability resulting from:

• actual receipt of an improper benefit or profit in money, property or services; or
• a final judgment based upon a finding of active and deliberate dishonesty by the director or officer that was material to the cause of action adjudicated for which Maryland law prohibits such exemption from liability.

In addition, our charter authorizes us to obligate our company to indemnify our present and former directors and officers for actions taken by them in those capacities to the maximum extent permitted by Maryland law. Our bylaws require us to indemnify each present or former director or officer, to the maximum extent permitted by Maryland law, in the defense of any proceeding to which he or she is made or threatened to be made, a party because of his or her service to us.

Risks Related to Our Capital Stock

The market price and trading volume of shares of our capital stock may be volatile.

The market price of shares of our capital stock, including our common and preferred stock, may be highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations. A variety of factors may influence the price of our common and preferred stock in the public trading markets. For example, some investors may perceive REITs as yield-driven investments and compare the annual yield from dividends by REITs with yields on various other types of financial instruments. An increase in market interest rates may lead purchasers of stock to seek a higher annual dividend rate from other investments, which could adversely affect the market price of the stock. Also, the trading volume in shares of our capital stock may fluctuate and cause significant price variations to occur. We cannot assure you that the market price of shares of our capital stock will not fluctuate or decline significantly in the future. Some of the factors that could negatively affect our share price or result in fluctuations in the price or trading volume of our shares of common and preferred stock include those set forth in this Item 1A. “Risk Factors” section.

We may not be able to pay dividends or other distributions on our capital stock.

Under Maryland law, no distributions on stock may be made if, after giving effect to the distribution, (i) the corporation would not be able to pay the indebtedness of the corporation as such indebtedness becomes due in the usual course of business or (ii) except in certain limited circumstances when distributions are made from net earnings, the corporation’s total assets would be less than the sum of the corporation’s total liabilities plus, unless the charter provides otherwise (which our charter does, with respect to any outstanding series of preferred stock), the amount that would be needed, if the corporation were to be dissolved at the time of the distribution, to satisfy the preferential rights upon dissolution of stockholders whose preferential rights on dissolution are superior to those receiving the distribution. There can be no guarantee that we will have sufficient cash to pay dividends on any series of our capital stock. Our ability to pay dividends may be impaired if any of the risks described in this Item 1A “Risk Factors” section were to occur. In addition, payment of our dividends depends upon our earnings, our financial condition, maintenance of our REIT qualification and other factors as our Board of Directors may deem relevant from time to time. We cannot assure you that our business will generate sufficient cash flow from operations or that future borrowings will be available to us in an amount sufficient to enable us to make distributions on our common stock or any series of our preferred stock.

The declaration, amount and payment of future cash dividends on our common stock are subject to uncertainty due to (among other things) disruptions in the mortgage, housing or related sectors.

The declaration, amount and payment of any future dividends on shares of common stock will be at the sole discretion of our Board of Directors, and may depend upon our earnings, our financial condition, maintenance of our REIT qualification and other factors as our Board of Directors may deem relevant from time to time. In light of these factors, our Board of Directors may adjust our quarterly cash dividend on our shares of common stock from prior quarters. The payment of dividends may be more uncertain during disruptions in the mortgage, housing or related sectors, such as the current rising interest rate environment.

Capital stock eligible for future sale may have adverse consequences for investors and adverse effects on our share price.

We cannot predict the effect, if any, of future sales of capital stock, or the availability of shares for future sales, on the market price of the capital stock. Sales of substantial amounts of capital stock, or the perception that such sales could occur, may adversely affect prevailing market prices for the common stock. In addition, with certain limited exceptions related to some financing facilities, we are not required to offer any such shares to existing shareholders on a pre-emptive basis. Therefore, it may not be possible for existing shareholders to participate in such future share issues, which may dilute the existing shareholders’ interests in us.

Future offerings of debt securities, which would rank senior to our capital stock upon liquidation, and future offerings of equity or equity-linked securities, which would dilute our existing stockholders and may be senior to our capital stock for the purposes of dividend and liquidating distributions, may adversely affect the market price of our capital stock.

In the future, we may attempt to increase our capital resources by making offerings of debt or additional offerings of equity or equity-linked securities, including commercial paper, warrants, senior or subordinated notes and series or classes of preferred stock or common stock. Upon liquidation, holders of our debt securities and shares of preferred stock, if any, and lenders with respect to other borrowings will receive a distribution of our available assets before the holders of our common stock. Additional offerings of equity securities, including securities that may be converted into or exchanged for equity securities, may dilute the holdings of our existing stockholders or reduce the market price of our capital stock, or both. Preferred stock, including our Series A, Series B, Series C, and Series D Preferred Stock, will have a preference on liquidating distributions or a preference on dividend payments or both that could limit our ability to make a dividend distribution to the holders of our capital stock, including our common stock. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. Thus, holders of our capital stock bear the risk of our future offerings reducing the market price of our capital stock and diluting their stock holdings in us.

There is a risk that you may not receive dividend distributions, or those dividend distributions may decrease over time. Changes in the amount of dividend distributions we pay or in the tax characterization of dividend distributions we pay may adversely affect the market price of our common stock or may result in holders of our common stock being taxed on dividend distributions at a higher rate than initially expected.

Our dividend distributions are driven by a variety of factors, including our minimum dividend distribution requirements under the REIT tax laws and our REIT taxable income as calculated for tax purposes pursuant to the Code. We generally intend to distribute to our common shareholders at least 90% of our REIT taxable income, although our reported financial results for GAAP purposes may differ materially from our REIT taxable income.

Our ability to pay a dividend per common share per quarter and the dividend on each series of our preferred stock at the stated dividend rate may be adversely affected by many factors, including the risk factors described herein. These same factors may affect our ability to pay other future dividends. In addition, to the extent we determine that future dividends would represent a return of capital to investors, rather than the distribution of income, we may determine to discontinue dividend payments until such time that dividends would again represent a distribution of income. Any reduction or elimination of our payment of dividend distributions would not only reduce the number of dividends you would receive as a holder of our common stock but could also have the effect of reducing the market price of our common stock.

Dividends payable by REITs generally do not qualify for the reduced tax rates available for some dividends.

Qualified dividend income payable to U.S. investors that are individuals, trusts, and estates is subject to the reduced maximum tax rate applicable to long-term capital gains. Dividends payable by REITs, however, generally are not eligible for the reduced qualified dividend rates. For taxable years beginning before January 1, 2026, non-corporate taxpayers may deduct up to 20% of certain pass-through business income, including “qualified REIT dividends” (generally, dividends received by a REIT shareholder that are not designated as capital gain dividends or qualified dividend income), subject to certain limitations. Although the reduced U.S. federal income tax rate applicable to qualified dividend income does not adversely affect the taxation of REITs or dividends payable by REITs, the more favorable rates applicable to regular corporate qualified dividends and the reduced corporate tax rate could cause certain non-corporate investors to perceive investments in REITs to be relatively less attractive than investments in the stocks of non-REIT corporations that pay dividends, which could adversely affect the value of the shares of REITs, including our stock.

We cannot guarantee that any share repurchase program will be fully consummated or will enhance long-term stockholder value, and share repurchases could increase the volatility of our stock prices and could diminish our cash reserves.

We may engage in share repurchases of our common stock and preferred stock from time to time in accordance with authorizations from the Board of Directors. Our repurchase program does not have an expiration date and does not obligate us to repurchase any specific dollar amount or to acquire any specific number of shares. Further, our share repurchases could affect our share trading prices, increase their volatility, reduce our cash reserves and may be suspended or terminated at any time, which may result in a decrease in the trading prices of our stock.

Holders of our preferred stock have limited voting rights.

The voting rights of holders of any series of our outstanding preferred stock are limited. Our common stock is the only class of our securities that currently carries full voting rights. Holders of any series of our preferred stock may vote only (i) to elect, voting together as a single class, with holders of parity stock having similar voting rights two additional directors to our Board of Directors if six full quarterly dividends (whether or not consecutive) payable on any series of our preferred stock are in arrears, (ii) on amendments to our charter, including the articles supplementary designating any series of our outstanding preferred stock, that materially and adversely affect the rights of the holders of such series or (iii) to authorize or create, or increase the authorized or issued amount of, additional classes or series of stock ranking senior to our outstanding preferred stock.

Risk Management and Strategy

We have a risk management process and strategy in place for assessing, identifying, and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats. Our cybersecurity risk management framework is closely aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”)’s Cybersecurity Framework (“CSF”) and is incorporated into our enterprise risk management process, information systems, vendor engagement process and employee training programs. We focus on people, processes and technology to build a defensive posture against cybersecurity threats that minimizes disruption to our business while maximizing the security and resiliency of the organization.

We focus on people because we believe that one of the first lines of defense is our employees. All new employees are required to complete cybersecurity training. In addition, we provide quarterly cybersecurity training to existing employees, conduct simulated phishing tests, and perform security awareness proficiency assessments to create more effective and targeted training campaigns to strengthen the human firewall. Our employees are required to annually re-affirm adherence to company-wide IT and related policies designed to secure a safe information and communications systems environment. As part of our cybersecurity risk management process, we also conduct third-party led tabletop exercises to practice and prepare to respond to a confirmed or suspected security incident and to highlight any areas for potential improvement.

We focus on process, which includes policies, procedures and governance structures designed to help us identify, assess and response to cybersecurity risks. We have a written cybersecurity framework that closely aligns with NIST’s CSF. In addition, we maintain a cyber incident response plan to facilitate our response to cybersecurity incidents and formed an Incident Response Team composed of the Chief Information Security Officer, the Chief Legal Officer, the Chief Operating Officer, the Chief Risk Officer, the Head of Investor Relations, and the Associate General Counsel. The foregoing officers also include within their working teams, non-management employees who are best positioned to identify, assess, respond to and galvanize both internal and third-party resources necessary in the event of a cybersecurity incident. We test the resiliency of our systems through penetration and disaster recovery tests to continually improve our business continuity plan against an ever-changing threat landscape, create redundancies where appropriate for the protection of the Company’s assets, have engaged a security operations center to provide 24/7 monitoring of our environment to detect and respond to suspicious activities in the network, and have cybersecurity insurance. We periodically perform an independent third-party cybersecurity maturity assessment of our systems, policies and procedures focused on the NIST’s CSF and the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations cybersecurity guidance.

We have also implemented controls designed to identify and mitigate cybersecurity threats associated with our use of third-party service providers, including requiring key service providers to provide evidence that their systems meet appropriate cybersecurity requirements (collaborating with service providers to help assess the sufficiency of their cybersecurity measures, and requiring service providers to notify us promptly of cyber incidents that may affect our systems or data) .

Lastly, we use technology to minimize our exposure to cybersecurity vulnerabilities, implementing software patches in a timely manner and using other technology to promote a safe information and communications systems environment. We avail ourselves of third-party technologies and tools, including tools provided by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), other government agencies and third-party cybersecurity experts.

To date, no risks from cybersecurity threats, including those resulting from any previous cybersecurity incidents, have materially affected us, or, to our knowledge are reasonably likely to materially affect us including our business strategy, results of operations or financial condition.

Governance

Our Board, in coordination with the Audit Committee and the Risk Committee, oversees management of cybersecurity risk. They receive regular reports from senior management and our Chief Information Security Office (“CISO”) on, among other things, the threat landscape, the Company’s cybersecurity program, infrastructure improvements, cybersecurity incident investigations and information security vulnerabilities. The Audit Committee focuses on cybersecurity risk, particularly as it relates to enterprise risk management within the audit and financial reporting process, while the Risk Committee focuses on cybersecurity risk within the Company’s overall business risk profile. Refer to Item 7A, "Quantitative or Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk - Risk Management" included in this 2023 Form 10-K for additional information on our enterprise risk management.

The Company’s CISO has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in information technology and more than 25 years of experience in the information technology space, including extensive experience leading our internal IT infrastructure and cybersecurity team. The CISO receives regular updates on cybersecurity matters from his internal IT infrastructure and cybersecurity team as well as outside vendors and advisors that we have engaged. Employees outside of the IT infrastructure and cybersecurity team have also been instructed to elevate any potential cybersecurity issues, whether internal or at a third-party with whom we do business, to the CISO.

The Incident Response Team and the non-management employees who support the Incident Response Team are best positioned to identify, assess, respond to and galvanize both internal and third-party resources in the event of a cybersecurity incident. In the event of a potentially material cybersecurity event, all members of the Incident Response Team are notified and a preliminary assessment of the situation is made. Designated individuals within the Incident Response Team will notify the Chief Executive Officer, and if the situation so warrants, the Board of Directors, cybersecurity experts, outside counsel and other advisors to help further assess and formulate an appropriate response to the situation. A strong working relationship exists between the legal, accounting/finance, IT and business departments so that identified issues are addressed in a timely manner and incidents are reported to the appropriate regulatory bodies as required.

As of December 31, 2023, we do not own any property. Our corporate headquarters is located in leased space at 630 Fifth Avenue, Ste 2400, New York, New York 10111, telephone (212) 626-2300. Our office lease expires in January 2027. We believe that this space is suitable and adequate for our current needs. In addition, we have leases through November 2026, for our off-site back-up facilities and data centers located in Wappingers Falls, New York and Norwalk, Connecticut.

The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes to those statements included in Item 15 of this 2023 Form 10-K. The discussion may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are those that are not historical in nature. As a result of many factors, such as those set forth under “Risk Factors” in this 2023 Form 10-K, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements.

This section of the 2023 Form 10-K generally discusses 2023 and 2022 items and year-to-year comparisons between 2023 and 2022. Discussions of 2021 items and year-to-year comparisons between 2022 and 2021 that are not included in this 2023 Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.

Executive Summary

We are a publicly traded REIT that is primarily engaged in the business of investing directly or having a beneficial interest in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets, including residential mortgage loans, Non-Agency RMBS, Agency RMBS, Agency CMBS, business purpose and investor loans, and other real estate-related assets. The MBS and other real estate-related securities we purchase may include investment-grade, non-investment grade, and non-rated classes. We use leverage to increase potential returns from our investments. Our principal business objective is to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns through the generation of distributable income and through asset performance linked to mortgage credit fundamentals. We selectively invest in residential mortgage assets with a focus on credit analysis, projected prepayment rates, interest rate sensitivity and expected return.

We currently focus our investment activities primarily on acquiring residential mortgage loans. In addition, we acquire and own Non-Agency RMBS and Agency mortgage-backed securities, or MBS. At December 31, 2023, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 91% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 8% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 1% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS. At December 31, 2022, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 88% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 9% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 3% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS.

We use leverage to seek to increase our potential returns and to finance the acquisition of our assets. We expect to finance our investments using a variety of financing sources, including securitizations, warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements. We may seek to manage our debt and interest rate risk by utilizing interest rate hedges, such as interest rate swaps, caps, options and futures to reduce the effect of interest rate fluctuations related to our financing sources.

Our investment strategy is intended to take advantage of opportunities in the current interest rate and credit environment. We adjust our strategy in response to changing market conditions by shifting our asset allocations across various asset classes as interest rate and credit cycles change over time. We believe that our strategy will provide us an opportunity to pay dividends throughout changing market cycles. We expect to take a long-term view of assets and liabilities.

Business Update

2023 was a dramatic year for the fixed income markets highlighted by geo-political events, tight monetary conditions, high interest rate volatility, and several regional bank failures. The year began with market optimism for an economic soft-landing, which gave way in March as bank failures induced an investor’s flight-to-quality driving interest rates lower and credit spreads wider. By summer, concerns about high inflation and a potential recession intensified. Interest rates subsequently reversed course and moved higher. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note reached a low yield of 3.3% in early April and then rose to a yearly high of 5% by the middle of October, a 50% increase in yield from the low. Market sentiment began to shift more favorably in November, as positive economic data suggested the Federal Reserve was beginning to win its battle with inflation. Products across the fixed income and equity markets rallied for the remainder of 2023 with investor expectations of the Federal Reserve easing interest rates in 2024.

The fourth quarter of 2023 was a pivotal quarter for the fixed income market. The 10-year Treasury yield dropped nearly 115 basis points within a month, resulting in a sweeping and powerful bond rally. Lower yields boosted equity valuations substantially, contributing to a broad-based rally, with the S&P 500 generating a 12% gain for the fourth quarter. Housing markets continued to show resiliency, with home price indices showing nationwide increases, although the overall volume of existing home sales remained low due to high mortgage rates and low housing inventory available for sale. The rate for 30-year mortgages reached a peak in 2023 of nearly 8%. The mortgage rate fell as a result of the late-year market rally and settled back to the high-6% range by the end of the year, creating some relief to the housing affordability crisis.

Investment activity during 2023

Higher interest rate volatility, along with a continued yield curve inversion in 2023, presented many challenges throughout the year impacting our business activity and performance. During 2023, we acquired $1.4 billion of residential mortgage loans, down from $1.7 billion in 2022 and $3.2 billion in 2021. We were diligent in diversifying our loan purchases in 2023. Of the settled loans, approximately 50% were seasoned re-performing loans ("RPL"), 33% were non-QM, and the remainder were Business Purpose Loans (BPL). Apart from BPLs, all loans purchased were financed for the long-term through securitization. The loan characteristics of the seasoned RPLs and BPLs were consistent with the characteristics which currently exist in our portfolio. During the fourth quarter we committed to purchasing $152 million residential BPLs which we expect to settle in the first quarter of 2024. Due to the short duration of these loans, we plan to finance them with our existing loan warehouse facilities.

Secured Financing Activity during 2023

Our financing costs continued to increase and remained high throughout 2023. The Federal Reserve increased its target rate four times for a total of 100 basis points and Fed officials provided additional commentary during the early part of 2023 for market participants to expect higher rates for a longer period. Managing our floating rate liabilities through this period of high volatility and increasing rates, remained amongst the top priorities of management. Management was keenly focused, throughout the year, on strengthening our liability structure through proactive portfolio management (selling non-core assets) and securitization, which provides long-term, fixed rate, non-recourse financing.

In January, we exited a maturing $141 million non-mark-to-market secured financing facility and separately entered a new non-mark-to-market secured facility with a different counterparty for principal amount borrowed of $125 million. The new facility has a maturity date in January 2025. While we were able to successfully obtain new financing on our maturing facility, the financing cost on the new facility was considerably higher due to market volatility and the overall interest rate environment at that time.

In the fourth quarter, we refinanced $250 million of an existing high cost, fixed-rate financing facility into a new two-year limited mark-to-market variable-rate facility. Although the new facility is variable-rate, it carries an interest rate cap that is significantly below the previous facility and will represent considerable interest expense savings through the term of the new facility.

On a year-over-year basis, our secured financing agreements (recourse liabilities) decreased by $1.0 billion while increasing our securitized debt (non-recourse liabilities) by $498 million. At year-end, we had no outstanding warehouse financing exposure (recourse liabilities) backed by residential re-performing loans ("RPL"). Our repo funding costs increased by 90 basis-points during the year, consistent with increases in the federal funds rates over the period.

Securitization Activity during 2023

The total market issuance of residential re-performing loans ("RPL") was substantially reduced on a year-over-year basis. We estimate a total gross issuance amongst all issuers of $9 billion RPL for all of 2023 relative to $17 billion RPL for 2022. RPL securitization represents 94% of our total loan securitizations. Despite lower issuance, Chimera maintained a top issuer status of RPL deals during 2023. Our ability to securitize is not limited to RPL and we will continue to seek to optimize our liability structure through securitization which provides long-term non-recourse financing for our residential mortgage loan portfolio.

During the year, we remained active in the securitization market and sold $841 million of re-performing loans into three securitizations in challenging market conditions. We issued $662 billion of new debt at an average advance rate of 80%, locking in long-term financing while giving the company the option to call the debt, and refinance when rates become more favorable in the future. We believe we were one of the top issuers of RPL deals during the year.

In addition, we sponsored two rated securitizations of Non-Agency Investor residential mortgage loans, having a principal balance of $475 million. Securities issued by these securitizations with an aggregate balance of approximately $408 million, were sold in a private placement to institutional investors. These securities represented approximately 86% of the capital structure. We retained an option to call the securitized mortgage loans at any time beginning in the second quarter 2026.

Re-Securitization Activity during 2023

As part of our ongoing liquidity and liability initiative, during the year we were able to extract cash from some of our existing securitizations (due to deleveraging over the years) through re-securitization activity.

In January, we exercised our call rights and terminated four existing securitization trusts, CIM 2020-R4, CIM 2020-NR1, CIM 2018-R5 and CIM 2018-R6, and issued CIM Trust 2023-R1 and CIM Trust 2023-NR1 (commonly referred to as re-securitization). Though the interest rate was higher on the newly issued 2023 trusts, the re-securitizations enabled us to improve our balance sheet structure (as discussed above) and pay off maturing repo with Credit Suisse. We successfully converted $139 million of recourse financing into long-term, non-mark-to-market securitized debt while re-capturing approximately $90 million in cash from the terminated trusts. We estimate the re-securitization activity increased our cost of senior debt financing by approximately 250 basis points compared to the terminated trusts. Both securitizations are callable within two-years which gives us the ability to refinance the securitized debt should interest rates improve in the future.

In April, we exercised our call rights and terminated two existing securitization trusts: CIM 2017-7, and CMLTI 2019-E. In addition to the collateral received by calling these two securitizations, we added an additional $104 million in collateral and issued CIM Trust 2023-R3 and CIM Trust 2023-NR2 (commonly referred to as re-securitization). Though the interest rate was higher on the newly issued 2023 trusts, the interest rate on the senior debt from these deals called were due to an embedded step-up feature to a higher rate. We successfully converted $86 million of recourse financing into long-term, non-mark-to-market securitized debt while re-capturing approximately $43 million cash from the terminated trusts. We estimate the re-securitization activity increased our cost of senior debt financing by approximately 128 basis points compared to the terminated trusts. We were able to negotiate a two-year call on CIM 2023-R3 and a one-year call on CIM 2023-NR2. We are in a position to refinance these structures if rates are lower.

Over the full year 2023, we sponsored $2.6 billion in securitizations (including re-securitizations). These securitizations helped us further strengthen our balance sheet as we prepared for a higher-for-longer interest rate environment.

Asset sales and portfolio composition

Given the challenging operating environment, ongoing liquidity needs, and opportunities to purchase new assets with higher yields, we rebalanced a portion of our investment portfolio that included the sale of some non-core assets. Overall, we sold $344 million Agency CMBS Securities. These sales resulted in a recognized loss of $31.2 million.

Considering the overall investment purchases, sales, and securitization activities, at year end our portfolio consisted of 91% residential mortgage loans, 8% Non-Agency RMBS, and 1% Agency MBS on a fair value basis. Our Agency portfolio was reduced by $328 million year-over-year through a combination of paydowns and sales activities.

Hedging transactions during 2023

We engaged in a series of interest rate hedges to help mitigate the impact of higher interest rates on our future financing and soften the impact of higher interest rates on the overall portfolio value. Our hedging strategies are dynamic. In 2023 we were focused on limiting the impact of higher interest rates, while maintaining optionality for our portfolio to benefit from lower interest rates in the future. The execution of this strategy was challenging due to heightened volatility from the events previously discussed, the magnitude of the overall rate movement and the shape of the yield curve. Over the year, we initiated and terminated a series of pay-fixed interest rate swaps and pay-fixed swaptions which created a realized loss of $45 million for the year. As of December 31, 2023, we maintained open positions in a $1.0 billion 3.26% pay-fixed interest rate swap maturing May 2024 and a $1.5 billion one-year option on a one-year pay-fixed interest rate swap "1 X 1" with maturities in early 2025. If the swaptions are executed, the 1-year interest swaps will carry a blended fixed rate of 3.56%. We believe these hedge positions will help us to achieve our goals.

Considering the velocity and magnitude of interest rate movements, in 2023 we also initiated a hedging program to manage the interest rate risk for the time differential between loan purchase commitment and the closing of loans into securitization. In addition, we used a combination of various U.S. Treasury futures contracts to hedge our exposure to future financing costs. Chimera’s hedging techniques attempt to mitigate the interest rate risk but do not capture the impact of credit spread risk. As of December 31, 2023, we did not have any loan and/or securitization commitments or related hedge positions.

Market Conditions and our Strategy

2023 was an interesting year with many challenges and opportunities. To combat inflation, the Fed ramped up interest rates to levels we have not seen in decades. The stock market was expected to decline under this new interest rate environment but returns for all major indices were much stronger than expected. The last two years have been volatile, with stocks falling hard from their January 2022 peak and then whipsawing back throughout 2023. And we’re starting to see similar whipsaw action when it comes to mortgage rates. However mortgage rates haven’t returned to January 2022 levels, and the expectation is they will not return to those levels in 2024. Home prices are also holding up extremely well with prices a few percentage points higher than they were at this time last year. Overall, the housing market has been incredibly resilient in the face of economic uncertainty. The potential for Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2024 got most of the investor attention over the last few weeks of the fourth quarter, but several additional factors drove earning results this quarter including data on cooling inflation and the refinancing of our high-cost debt in October.

For the full year 2023, spreads on most fixed income sectors were volatile. Spreads then tightened in the later part of the year as investors received positive economic data regarding inflation. Securitized products spreads tightened substantially over the year, retracing much of the widening that occurred in 2022. Specific to the mortgage sectors, commercial real estate started to see some silver linings with lower cap rates, while Residential MBS and other ABS sectors saw tighter spreads and more issuance (tempered in RMBS by low mortgage origination). The CLO market continued to see strong returns and Agency mortgage spreads tightened substantially as prepayment rates stabilized and interest rate volatility began to decrease.

The outlook for 2024 shows signs of a more stable interest rate landscape and more normalized returns. We are positioned for a higher-for-longer rate cycle, and we continue to believe the market can experience some headwinds due to large government deficit spending (and financing needs), geopolitical events and the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

Book value impact

Given the interest rate volatility during the year, the portfolio valuations remained volatile and ended the year with valuations ranging from flat to slightly down. However, realized losses on derivatives, net dilution from capital markets activity, asset sales as noted previously along with dividend distribution in excess of net income during the year lead to a decline in book value. Our book value per common share was $6.75, as of December 31, 2023, as compared to $7.49 as of December 31, 2022. We declared $0.70 common stock dividends per share in 2023. Our economic return on book value, which includes overall change in book value for the period plus dividends was -0.53% for the full year of 2023. The total rate of return on our common stock, including dividend reinvestment, was 3.0% for 2023.

Operating expenses

Operating expenses for the year were lower by 17%, driven mainly by lower compensation of 38% during the year. G&A and servicing expenses remained consistent year over year. Transaction expenses were significantly lower during the second half of the year on account of limited securitization activity. As noted above, we have purchased additional hedges to protect our earnings against rising interest rates.

Capital Markets activity during 2023

Persistently high and volatile interest rates through much of 2023 caused a significant decline in our earnings and a reduction in the common stock dividend brought it more in line with our earnings capability. During the fourth quarter, a less hawkish tone began to set in and while asset yields remained high, it provided us with an opportunity to raise equity and be able to invest in higher yielding assets.

Share repurchase: In June, our Board of Directors announced an increase in common stock buyback authorization by $73 million to $250 million. After this announcement the company repurchased 5.8 million of common stock at an average price of $5.66 for a total of $33 million during the year ended December 31, 2023. In January 2024, the Company's Board of Directors updated the authorization to include the Company's preferred stock into the Repurchase Program and increased the authorization by $33 million back up to $250 million. The quarterly dividend was reduced from $0.23 in the first quarter to $0.11 in the fourth quarter of 2023 as the company looked to align its dividend payout with our earnings outlook.

ATM Program: We issued approximately 14.5 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $5.09 for a total of $74 million during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Strategy going forward.

We continue to manage our portfolio consistent with our belief that interest rates will be higher on a relative basis for longer, despite the change in market sentiment at the end of the year. For the full year we reduced our total recourse financing exposure by $1 billion. We continue to seek opportunities to finance our retained notes from securitizations with long-term, limited, or non-mark-to market finance facilities. We currently have 60% of our recourse financings with these facilities. To further manage our interest rate risk, we intend to use financial derivatives such as futures, interest rate swaps and swaptions to hedge against securitization executions, net interest margin compression and the protection of our book value.

Cash management is critical to our business. We monitor our ongoing needs for margin, repurchase financing maturities, liquidity, and new investments. Over time, we expect to continue to acquire and securitize mortgage loans as well as further implement the company’s call optimization strategy on our securitizations. With available funds, we plan to evaluate the merits of any new investments and compare them to the merits of repurchasing outstanding common and preferred stock, or reducing higher cost liabilities as they mature. The timing of these re-securitizations is impacted by many factors, including credit performance, prepayment speeds and interest rates.

As we navigate current market conditions, we are focused on maintaining low recourse leverage and managing our liquidity with a proper balance of both cash and unencumbered securities. Our credit portfolio continued to perform well in the fourth quarter. Our current credit performance on our portfolio continues to be within, or better than, our original investment expectations on mortgage delinquencies, default rates, and recoveries. We monitor our portfolio regularly and seek opportunities to improve upon our liquidity, capital structure and investment returns. We have historically achieved success through re-securitization and have a substantial amount of capital that can be re-captured in the future. We believe there will be ample opportunity to extract additional portfolio value when interest rates moderate and the capital markets improve.

Over the course of the low-rate environment that persisted for many years (prior to the last two years of higher rates), our investment portfolio was able to generate an above market risk premium for our shareholders compared to the risk premium available on assets in the broad market. Over the last two years we have seen a decline in risk premium and a steep increase in financing costs due to Fed tightening and an inverted yield curve. We believe this will begin to reverse as the Fed eventually moves back to lower rates. Looking forward, we are committed to resetting, managing, executing, and aligning the risk premium to be in line with or above the market risk premium available for the investments available in the broad market.

Business Operations

Net Income (Loss) Summary

The table below presents our net income (loss) on a GAAP basis for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

Net Income (Loss)

(dollars in thousands, except share and per share data)

(unaudited)

(1) Includes interest income of consolidated VIEs of $593,384, $551,253, and $586,580 for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively.

(2) Includes interest expense of consolidated VIEs of $282,542, $197,823, and $203,135 for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively.

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.

Results of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

Our primary source of income is interest income earned on our assets, net of interest expense paid on our financing liabilities.

The volatility in the interest rate and MBS markets during 2023 as discussed above resulted in an increase in our interest expense and muted market pricing improvements on our portfolio as compared to 2022. For the year ended December 31, 2023, our net income available to common shareholders was $52 million, or $0.23 per average basic common share, compared to a net loss of $587 million, or $2.51 per average basic common share for the year ended December 31, 2022. During the year ended December 31, 2023, we had net interest income of $263 million and unrealized gains on financial instruments at fair value of $34 million, offset in part by operating expenses of $104 million, preferred stock dividend of $74 million, realized losses on sales of investment of $31 million, and net losses derivative of $30 million. The increase in net income available to common shareholders for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, was primarily driven by an increase in unrealized gains on financial instruments at fair value of $771 million which was partially offset by an increase in interest expense of $176 million.

The net loss available for the year ended December 31, 2022 was primarily driven by mark-to-market losses on our portfolio's asset prices due to continued increases in interest rates and credit spread widening. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we had net unrealized losses on financial instruments at fair value of $737 million, other expenses of $124 million and net realized losses on sale of investment of $76 million, partially offset by net interest income of $440 million.

Interest Income

Interest income remained relatively unchanged at $773 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. During the year ended December 31, 2023, the yields on our average interest earning assets increased by 10 basis points at 5.7%, as compared to 5.6% for the year ended December 31, 2022. Our average interest earning assets decreased by $268 million to $13.4 billion as compared to $13.6 billion from the same period of 2022.

We reduced our Agency MBS and Non-Agency RMBS positions by $381 million and $160 million, respectively, and increased our Loans held for investments by $273 million during 2023 as compared to 2022. Due to these changes in our portfolio our Agency MBS and Non-Agency RMBS interest income decreased by $30 million and $30 million, respectively, during the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to 2022. This decrease was offset by an increase in interest income of $53 million on our Loans held for investment portfolio during the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to 2022.

Interest Expense

Interest expense increased by $177 million, or 53%, to $510 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to $333 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. This increase in our interest expense during the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the same period of 2022, was primarily driven by the increases in borrowing rates on our secured financing agreements and securitized debt, due to increases in the Federal Funds Rate.

The interest expense on our securitized debt increased by $83 million during the year ended December 31, 2023, as the average borrowing rates on our securitizations increased by 90 basis points as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. During the year ended December 31, 2023, our interest expense on secured financing agreements collateralized by Loans held for investments and Non-Agency RMBS increased by $42 million and $33 million, respectively, due to the higher Federal Funds Rate as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Economic Net Interest Income

Our Economic net interest income is a non-GAAP financial measure that equals GAAP net interest income adjusted for net periodic interest cost of interest rate swaps and excludes interest earned on cash. For the purpose of computing economic net interest income and ratios relating to cost of funds measures throughout this section, interest expense includes net payments on our interest rate swaps, which is presented as a part of Net gains (losses) on derivatives in our Consolidated Statements of Operations. Interest rate swaps are used to manage the increase in interest paid on secured financing agreements in a rising rate environment. Presenting the net contractual interest payments on interest rate swaps with the interest paid on interest-bearing liabilities reflects our total contractual interest payments. We believe this presentation is useful to investors because it depicts the economic value of our investment strategy by showing all components of interest expense and net interest income of our investment portfolio. However, Economic net interest income should not be viewed in isolation and is not a substitute for net interest income computed in accordance with GAAP. Where indicated, interest expense, adjusting for any interest earned on cash, is referred to as Economic interest expense. Where indicated, net interest income reflecting net periodic interest cost of interest rate swaps and any interest earned on cash, is referred to as Economic net interest income.

The following table reconciles the Economic net interest income to GAAP net interest income and Economic interest expense to GAAP interest expense for the periods presented.

(1) Primarily interest income on cash and cash equivalents and interest expense on Long-term debt.

Net Interest Rate Spread

The following table shows our average earning assets held, interest earned on assets, yield on average interest earning assets, average debt balance, economic interest expense, economic average cost of funds, economic net interest income and net interest rate spread for the periods presented.

(dollars in thousands)

(dollars in thousands)

(dollars in thousands)

48

(dollars in thousands)

(dollars in thousands)

Economic Net Interest Income and the Average Earning Assets

Our Economic net interest income (which is a non-GAAP measure, see “Economic net interest income” discussion earlier for details) decreased by $165 million to $271 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 from $436 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. Our net interest rate spread, which equals the yield on our average interest-earning assets less the economic average cost of funds, decreased by 130 basis points for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the same period of 2022. The net interest margin, which equals the Economic net interest income as a percentage of the net average balance of our interest-earning assets less our interest-bearing liabilities, decreased by 120 basis points for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the same period of 2022. Our Average net interest-earning assets decreased by $240 million to $2.1 billion for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $2.4 billion for the same period of 2022. The decrease in our net interest rate spread for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022 is primarily due to higher interest expense on our securitized debt collateralized by loans and secured financing agreements driven by higher Federal Funds Rate.

Economic Interest Expense and the Cost of Funds

The borrowing rate at which we are able to finance our assets using secured financing agreements is typically correlated to SOFR and the term of the financing. The borrowing rate on the majority of our securitized debt is fixed and correlated to the term of the financing. The table below shows our average borrowed funds, Economic interest expense, average cost of funds (inclusive of periodic interest costs on swaps), average one-month SOFR, average three-month SOFR and average one-month SOFR relative to average three-month SOFR.

(Ratios have been annualized, dollars in thousands)

Average interest-bearing liabilities decreased by $28 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. Economic interest expense increased by $157 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022 due to the increases in our secured financing agreements and securitized debt borrowing rates driven by higher Federal Funds Rates. While we may use interest rate hedges to mitigate risks related to changes in interest rate, the hedges may not fully offset interest expense movements.

Provision for Credit Losses

For the year ended December 31, 2023, we recorded an increase in provision for credit losses of $4 million, to $11 million, as compared to the provision of credit losses of $7 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The increase in provision for credit losses for the year ended December 31, 2023 is primarily due to an increase in expected losses and delinquencies. In addition, certain Non-Agency RMBS positions, now have higher unrealized losses and resulted in the recognition of an allowance for credit losses which was previously limited by unrealized gains on these investments.

Net Gains (Losses) on Derivatives

We use derivatives to economically hedge the effects of changes in interest rates on our portfolio, specifically our secured financing agreements. Unrealized gains and losses include the change in market value, period over period, on our derivatives portfolio. Changes in market value are generally a result of changes in interest rates. We may or may not ultimately realize these unrealized derivative gains and losses depending on trade activity, changes in interest rates and the values of the underlying securities. The net gains and losses on our derivatives include both unrealized and realized gains and losses. Realized gains and losses include the net cash paid and received on our interest rate swaps during the period as well as sales, terminations and settlements of our swaps, swaptions and U.S. Treasury futures.

The table below shows a summary of our net gains (losses) on derivative instruments, for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively.

(dollars in thousands)

During the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, we recognized total net losses on derivatives of $30 million and $4 million, respectively. Unrealized gains and losses include the change in market value, period over period, on our derivatives portfolio. Changes in market value are generally a result of changes in interest rates. We may or may not ultimately realize these unrealized derivative gains and losses depending on trade activity, changes in interest rates and the values of the underlying securities.

The weighted average pay rate on our interest rate swaps at December 31, 2023 was 3.26% and the weighted average receive rate was 5.40%. At December 31, 2023, the weighted average maturity on our interest rate swaps was less than one year. The weighted average pay rate on our interest rate swaps at December 31, 2022 was 4.07% and the weighted average receive rate was 4.30%. At December 31, 2022, the weighted average maturity on our interest rate swaps was 4 years.

We paid $45 million to terminate interest rate swaps with a notional value of $2.5 billion during the year ended December 31, 2023. The terminated swaps had original maturities ranging from 2025 to 2028. We paid $561 thousand to terminate interest rate swaps with a notional value of $1.0 billion during the year ended December 31, 2022. The terminated swaps had original maturity of 2024.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we entered into three swaption contracts for a one-year forward starting swaps with a total notional of $1.5 billion with a 3.56% strike rate. The underlying swap terms will allow us to pay a fix rate of 3.56% and receive floating overnight SOFR rate. Additionally, during the year ended December 31, 2023, we terminated our existing $1.0 billion notional swaption contract in exchange for a one-year swap. We also entered into and terminated three new swaptions contracts with $2.3 billion notional during the year ended December 31, 2023. We had net realized gains of $11 million on these swaption terminations. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we purchased a swaption contract for a one-year forward starting swap of $1.0 billion in notional amount with a weighted average strike rate of 3.26%. We paid a $6 million premium for the purchase of this swaption contract.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we entered into 6,000 short 5-year and 1,875 short 2-year U.S. Treasury futures contract with a notional of $600 million and $375 million, respectively, which we subsequently covered and had no outstanding U.S. Treasury futures contract at December 31, 2023. We had a net realized loss of $6 million on covering these short U.S. Treasury futures contract. We also entered into 400 call options on 2-year and 5-year U.S. Treasury futures and subsequently covered them during the year ended December 31, 2023 for a realized loss of $187 thousand.

Changes in our derivative positions were primarily a result of changes in our secured financing composition and changes in interest rates.

Net Unrealized Gains (Losses) on Financial Instruments at Fair Value

During the year ended December 31, 2023, changes in market value on our portfolio were modestly positive compared to the market value losses during the year ended December 31, 2022. During 2022, the Fed Funds Rate increases, headline inflation, the inversion of the yield curve, and widening of credit spreads resulted in significant increases in market volatility and unrealized losses on our investment portfolio. 2023, while still experiencing market volatility, has been relatively stable and market prices have remained slightly positive as compared to 2022. We recorded Net unrealized gains on financial instruments at fair value of $34 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to Net unrealized losses on financial instruments at fair value of $737 million for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Gains and Losses on Sales of Assets

We do not forecast sales of investments as we generally expect to invest for long term gains. However, from time to time, we may sell assets to create liquidity necessary to pursue new opportunities, to achieve targeted leverage ratios as well as for gains when prices indicate a sale is most beneficial to us, or is the most prudent course of action to maintain a targeted risk adjusted yield for our investors.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we sold some of our Agency MBS investments as part of our portfolio optimization efforts and realized a loss of $31 million. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we sold some of our Agency IO and Non-Agency RMBS investments and realized a loss of $76 million.

Gain and Loss on Extinguishment of Debt

We recognized losses on extinguishment of debt of $2 million and $3 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, related to early termination of certain of our secured financing agreements.

When we acquire our outstanding securitized debt, we extinguish the outstanding debt and recognize a gain or loss based on the difference between the carrying value of the debt and the cost to acquire the debt which is reflected in the Consolidated Statements of Operations as a gain or loss on extinguishment of debt.

Securitized Debt Collateralized by Non-Agency RMBS

We did not acquire any securitized debt collateralized by Non-Agency RMBS during the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022.

Securitized Debt Collateralized by Loans Held for Investment

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we acquired securitized debt collateralized by Loans held for investment with an amortized cost balance of $551 million for $545 million. These transactions resulted in net gain on extinguishment of debt of $6 million. We did not acquire any securitized debt collateralized by loans held for investment during the year ended December 31, 2022.

Compensation, General and Administrative Expenses and Transaction Expenses

The table below shows our total compensation and benefit expense, general and administrative, or G&A expenses, and transaction expenses as compared to average total assets and average equity for the periods presented.

(Ratios have been annualized, dollars in thousands)

The Compensation and benefit costs were approximately $31 million and $49 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. The decrease in Compensation and benefit costs were primarily driven by lower performance based compensation costs.

The general and administrative expenses were approximately $25 million and $23 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. The G&A expenses are primarily comprised of legal, market data and research, auditing, consulting, information technology, and independent investment consulting expenses.

We incurred transaction expenses in relation to securitizations of $15 million and $16 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively.

Servicing and Asset Manager Fees

The servicing fees and asset manager expenses were $33 million and $36 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. These servicing fees are primarily related to the servicing costs of the whole loans held in consolidated securitization vehicles and are paid from interest income earned by the VIEs. The servicing fees generally range from 2 to 50 basis points of unpaid principal balances of our consolidated VIEs.

Earnings available for distribution

Earnings available for distribution is a non-GAAP measure and is defined as GAAP net income excluding unrealized gains or losses on financial instruments carried at fair value with changes in fair value recorded in earnings, realized gains or losses on the sales of investments, gains or losses on the extinguishment of debt, changes in the provision for credit losses, other gains or losses on equity investments, and transaction expenses incurred. Transaction expenses are primarily comprised of costs only incurred at the time of execution of our securitizations and certain structured secured financing agreements and include costs such as underwriting fees, legal fees, diligence fees, bank fees and other similar transaction related expenses. These costs are all incurred prior to or at the execution of the transaction and do not recur. Recurring expenses, such as servicing fees, custodial fees, trustee fees and other similar ongoing fees are not excluded from earnings available for distribution. We believe that excluding these costs is useful to investors as it is generally consistent with our peer groups treatment of these costs in their non-GAAP measures presentation, mitigates period to period comparability issues tied to the timing of securitization and structured finance transactions, and is consistent with the accounting for the deferral of debt issue costs prior to the fair value election option made by us. In addition, we believe it is important for investors to review this metric which is consistent with how management internally evaluates the performance of the Company. Stock compensation expense charges incurred on awards to retirement eligible employees is reflected as an expense over a vesting period (generally 36 months) rather than reported as an immediate expense.

Earnings available for distribution is the Economic net interest income, as defined previously, reduced by compensation and benefits expenses (adjusted for awards to retirement eligible employees), general and administrative expenses, servicing and asset manager fees, income tax benefits or expenses incurred during the period, as well as the preferred dividend charges.

We view Earnings available for distribution as one measure of our investment portfolio's ability to generate income for distribution to common stockholders. Earnings available for distribution is one of the metrics, but not the exclusive metric, that our Board of Directors uses to determine the amount, if any, of dividends on our common stock. Other metrics that our Board of Directors may consider when determining the amount, if any, of dividends on our common stock include (among others) REIT taxable income, dividend yield, book value, cash generated from the portfolio, reinvestment opportunities and other cash needs. In addition, Earnings available for distribution is different than REIT taxable income and the determination of whether we have met the requirement to distribute at least 90% of our annual REIT taxable income (subject to certain adjustments) to our stockholders in order to maintain qualification as a REIT is not based on Earnings available for distribution. Therefore, Earnings available for distribution should not be considered as an indication of our REIT taxable income, a guaranty of our ability to pay dividends, or as a proxy for the amount of dividends we may pay. We believe Earnings available for distribution as described above helps us and investors evaluate our financial performance period over period without the impact of certain transactions. Therefore, Earnings available for distribution should not be viewed in isolation and is not a substitute for net income or net income per basic share computed in accordance with GAAP. In addition, our methodology for calculating Earnings available for distribution may differ from the methodologies employed by other REITs to calculate the same or similar supplemental performance measures, and accordingly, our Earnings available for distribution may not be comparable to the Earnings available for distribution reported by other REITs.

The following table provides GAAP measures of net income and net income per diluted share available to common stockholders for the periods presented and details with respect to reconciling the line items to Earnings available for distribution and related per average diluted common share amounts. Earnings available for distribution is presented on an adjusted dilutive shares basis.

(dollars in thousands, except per share data)

(1) Included in net realized gains (losses) on derivatives in the Consolidated Statement of Operations

The table below summarizes the reconciliation from weighted-average diluted shares under GAAP to the weighted average adjusted diluted shares used for Earnings available for distribution for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021.

(1) Potentially dilutive shares related to restricted stock units and performance stock units excluded from the computation of weighted average GAAP diluted shares

because their effect would have been anti-dilutive given the GAAP net loss available to common shareholders for the year ended December 31, 2022.

(dollars in thousands, except per share data)

54

The table below summarizes the reconciliation from weighted-average diluted shares under GAAP to the weighted-average adjusted diluted shares used for Earnings available for distribution for the periods reported below.

(1) Potentially dilutive shares related to restricted stock units and performance stock units excluded from the computation of weighted average GAAP diluted shares because their effect would have been anti-dilutive given the GAAP net loss available to common shareholders for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

Our Earnings available for distribution for the year ended December 31, 2023 were $119 million, or $0.51 per average diluted common share, and decreased by $137 million, or $0.57 per average diluted common share, as compared to $256 million, or $1.08 per average diluted common share for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease in Earnings available for distribution was driven by an increase in interest expense on our secured financing agreements and securitized debt collateralized by loans due to higher Federal Funds rate during the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Net Income (Loss) and Return on Total Stockholders' Equity

The table below shows our Net Income and Economic net interest income as a percentage of average stockholders' equity and Earnings available for distribution as a percentage of average common stockholders' equity. Return on average equity is defined as our GAAP net income (loss) as a percentage of average equity. Average equity is defined as the average of our beginning and ending stockholders' equity balance for the period reported. Economic net interest income and Earnings available for distribution are non-GAAP measures as defined in previous sections.

Return on average equity increased by 2,156 basis points for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. This increase is driven primarily by unrealized asset pricing gains during 2023, compared to unrealized losses during 2022. Economic net interest income as a percentage of average equity decreased by 372 basis points for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. Earnings available for distribution as a percentage of average common equity decreased by 477 basis points for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, primarily driven by increase in interest expense driven by higher Fed Funds Rate.

Financial Condition

Portfolio Review

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we focused our efforts on taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire higher yielding assets while maintaining low leverage and ample liquidity. During the year ended December 31, 2023, on an aggregate basis, we purchased $1.3 billion of investments, sold $316 million of investments, and received $1.5 billion in principal payments related to our Agency MBS, Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment portfolio.

The following table summarizes certain characteristics of our portfolio at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022.

(1) Excludes cash and cash equivalents.

GAAP leverage at period-end is calculated as a ratio of our secured financing agreements and securitized debt liabilities over GAAP book value. GAAP recourse leverage is calculated as a ratio of our secured financing agreements over stockholders equity.

The following table presents details of each asset class in our portfolio at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022. The principal or notional value represents the interest income earning balance of each class. The weighted average figures are weighted by each investment’s respective principal/notional value in the asset class.

(1) Bond Equivalent Yield at period-end. Weighted Average Yield is calculated using each investment's respective amortized cost.

(2) Calculated based on reported losses to date, utilizing widest data set available (i.e., life-time losses, 12-month loss, etc.)

(1) Bond Equivalent Yield at period-end. Weighted Average Yield is calculated using each investment's respective amortized cost.

(2) Calculated based on reported losses to date, utilizing widest data set available (i.e., life-time losses, 12-month loss, etc.)

Based on the projected cash flows for our Non-Agency RMBS that are not of high credit quality, a portion of the original purchase discount is designated as Accretable Discount, which reflects the purchase discount expected to be accreted into interest income, and a portion is designated as Non-Accretable Difference, which represents the contractual principal on the security that is not expected to be collected. The amount designated as Non-Accretable Difference may be adjusted over time, based on the actual performance of the security, its underlying collateral, actual and projected cash flow from such collateral, economic conditions and other factors. If the performance of a security is more favorable than previously estimated, a portion of the amount designated as Non-Accretable Difference may be transferred to Accretable Discount and accreted into interest income over time. Conversely, if the performance of a security is less favorable than previously estimated, a provision for credit loss may be recognized resulting in an increase in the amounts designated as Non-Accretable Difference.

The following table presents changes to Accretable Discount (net of premiums) as it pertains to our Non-Agency RMBS portfolio, excluding premiums on interest-only investments, during the previous five quarters.

(dollars in thousands)

Liquidity and Capital Resources

General

Liquidity measures our ability to meet cash requirements, including ongoing borrowing commitments, purchase RMBS, residential mortgage loans and other assets for our portfolio, pay dividends and other general business needs. Our principal sources of capital and funds for additional investments primarily include earnings, principal paydowns and sales from our investments, borrowings under securitizations and re-securitizations, secured financing agreements and other financing facilities including warehouse facilities, and proceeds from equity or other securities offerings.

As discussed earlier, during 2023 we experienced higher interest rates, increased volatility, and elevated costs of financing. If these uncertainties become more pronounced, we may experience an adverse impact on our liquidity. We have sought and expect to continue to seek longer-term, more durable financing to reduce our risk exposure to margin calls related to shorter-term repurchase financing.

Our ability to fund our operations, meet financial obligations and finance target asset acquisitions may be impacted by our ability to secure and maintain our master secured financing agreements, warehouse facilities and secured financing agreements facilities with our counterparties. Because secured financing agreements and warehouse facilities are short-term commitments of capital, lenders may respond to market conditions making it more difficult for us to renew or replace on a continuous basis our maturing short-term borrowings and have and may continue to impose more onerous conditions when rolling forward such financings. If we are not able to renew our existing facilities or arrange for new financing on terms acceptable to us, or if we default on our covenants or are otherwise unable to access funds under our financing facilities or if we are required to post more collateral or face larger haircuts, we may have to curtail our asset acquisition activities and dispose of assets.

To meet our short term (one year or less) liquidity needs, we expect to continue to borrow funds in the form of secured financing agreements and, subject to market conditions, other types of financing. The terms of the secured financing transaction borrowings under our master secured financing agreement generally conform to the terms in the standard master secured financing agreement as published by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or SIFMA, or similar market accepted agreements, as to repayment and margin requirements. In addition, each lender typically requires that we include supplemental terms and conditions to the standard master secured financing agreement. Typical supplemental terms and conditions include changes to the margin maintenance requirements, net asset value, required 'haircuts' (which are the difference expressed in percentage terms between the fair value of the collateral and the amount the counterpart will lend to us) purchase price maintenance requirements, and requirements that all disputes related to the secured financing agreement be litigated or arbitrated in a particular jurisdiction. These provisions may differ for each of our lenders.

To meet our longer-term liquidity needs (greater than one year), we expect our principal sources of capital and funds to continue to be provided by earnings, principal paydowns and sales from our investments, borrowings under securitizations and re-securitizations, secured financing agreements and other financing facilities, as well as proceeds from equity or other securities offerings.

In addition to the principal sources of capital described above, we may enter into warehouse facilities and use longer dated structured secured financing agreements. The use of any particular source of capital and funds will depend on market conditions, availability of these facilities, and the investment opportunities available to us.

Current Period

We held cash and cash equivalents of approximately $222 million and $265 million at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. As a result of our operating, investing and financing activities described below, our cash position decreased

by $43 million from December 31, 2022 to December 31, 2023.

Our operating activities provided net cash of approximately $213 million and $326 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The cash flows from operations were primarily driven by interest received in excess of interest paid of $304 million and $519 million during the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Our investing activities provided cash of $552 million and $510 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. During the year ended December 31, 2023, we received cash for principal repayments on Agency MBS, Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment of $1.5 billion and from sale of our Agency MBS of $313 million. This cash received was offset in part by cash used on investment purchases of $1.3 billion, primarily consisting of Loans held for investment. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we received cash for principal repayments on Agency MBS, Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment of $2.6 billion. This cash received was offset in part by cash used on investment purchases of $2.1 billion, primarily consisting of Loans held for investment of $2.1 billion, Agency MBS of $58 million and Non-Agency RMBS of $23 million.

Our financing activities used cash of $808 million and $957 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. During the year ended December 31, 2023, we primarily used cash for repayment of principal on our securitized debt of $1.8 billion, net payments on our secured financing agreements of $1.0 billion, payment of common and preferred dividends of $251 million and payment for repurchase of our common stock of $33 million. This cash used was offset in part by cash received for issuance of securitized debt collateralized by loans of $2.2 billion and issuance of our common stock of $74 million. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we primarily used cash for repayment of principal on our securitized debt of $1.8 billion, payment of common and preferred dividends of $362 million, and repurchase of our common stock of $49 million. This cash used was offset in part by cash received for securitized debt collateralized by loans issuance of $1.1 billion and net proceeds received from our secured financing agreements of $178 million.

Our recourse leverage was 1.0:1 and 1.3:1 at December 31, 2023 and at December 31, 2022, respectively, and remained relatively low. Our recourse leverage excludes the securitized debt which can only be repaid from the proceeds on the assets securing this debt in their respective VIEs. Our recourse leverage is presented as a ratio of our secured financing agreements, which are recourse to our assets and our equity.

Based on our current portfolio, leverage ratio and available borrowing arrangements, we believe our assets will be sufficient to enable us to meet anticipated short-term liquidity requirements. However, if our cash resources are insufficient to satisfy our liquidity requirements, we may sell additional investments, reduce our dividends, issue debt or additional common or preferred equity securities to meet our liquidity needs. As of December 31, 2023, we have $377 million of unencumbered assets available to us which can be pledged to access additional short-term financing or sold to raise additional cash, if necessary.

At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the remaining maturities and borrowing rates on our RMBS and loan secured financing agreements were as follows.

(dollars in thousands)

(1) The outstanding balance for secured financing agreements in the table above is net of $1 million of deferred financing cost as of December 31, 2022. There was no outstanding deferred financing cost for secured financing agreements in 2023.

We collateralize the secured financing agreements we use to finance our operations with our MBS investments and mortgage loans held in trusts controlled by us. Our counterparties negotiate a ‘haircut’, which is the difference expressed in percentage terms between the fair value of the collateral and the amount the counterparty will lend to us, when we enter into a financing transaction. The size of the haircut reflects the perceived risk and market volatility associated with holding the MBS by the lender. The haircut provides lenders with a cushion for daily market value movements that reduce the need for a margin call to be issued or margin to be returned as normal daily increases or decreases in MBS market values occur. Haircuts have decreased on secured financing agreements collateralized by Agency CMBS and increased slightly on secured financing agreements collateralized by Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investments during 2023 as compared to 2022. At December 31, 2023, the weighted average haircut on our remaining secured financing agreements collateralized by Agency CMBS was 5.2% and Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment was 26.1%. At December 31, 2022, the weighted average haircut on our remaining secured financing agreements collateralized by Agency RMBS IOs was 20.0%, Agency CMBS was 7.8% and Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment was 25.7%.

The fair value of the Non-Agency MBS is more difficult to determine in current financial conditions, as well as more volatile period to period than Agency MBS, the Non-Agency MBS typically requires a larger haircut. In addition, when financing assets using the standard form of SIFMA Master Repurchase Agreements, the counterparty to the agreement typically nets its exposure to us on all outstanding repurchase agreements and issues margin calls if movement of the fair values of the assets in the aggregate exceeds their allowable exposure to us. A decline in asset fair values could create a margin call or may create no margin call depending on the counterparty’s specific policy. In addition, counterparties consider a number of factors, including their aggregate exposure to us as a whole and the number of days remaining before the repurchase transaction closes prior to issuing a margin call. To minimize the risk of margin calls, as of December 31, 2023, we have entered into $924 million of financing arrangements for which the collateral cannot be adjusted as a result of changes in market value, minimizing the risk of a margin call as a result in price volatility. We refer to these agreements as non-mark-to-market (non-MTM) facilities. These non-MTM facilities generally have higher costs of financing, but lower the risk of a margin call which could result in sales of our assets at distressed prices. All non-MTM facilities are collateralized by Non-Agency RMBS collateral, which tends to have increased volatile price changes during periods of market stress. In addition we have entered into certain secured financing agreements which are not subject to additional margin requirement until the drop in fair value of collateral is greater than a threshold. We refer to these agreements as limited mark-to-market (limited MTM) facilities. As of December 31, 2023 we have $546 million, of limited MTM facilities. We believe these non-MTM and limited MTM facilities significantly reduce our financing risks. See Note 5 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion on how we determine the fair values of the RMBS collateralizing our secured financing agreements.

At December 31, 2023, the weighted average borrowing rates for our secured financing agreements collateralized by Agency CMBS was 5.6% and Non-Agency MBS and Loans held for investment was 7.6%. At December 31, 2022, the weighted average borrowing rates for our secured financing agreements collateralized by Agency RMBS IOs was 4.7%, Agency CMBS was 4.5%, and Non-Agency MBS and Loans held for investment was 6.9%.

We entered into a secured financing agreement during fourth quarter of 2022 for which we have elected fair value option. we believe electing fair value for this financial instrument better reflects the transactional economics. The total principal balance outstanding on this secured financing at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022 was $362 million and $383 million, respectively. The fair value of collateral pledged was $401 million and $418 million as of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. We carry this secured financing instrument at fair value of $350 million and $374 million as of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the weighted average borrowing rate on secured financing agreements at fair value was 5.1%. At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the haircut for the secured financing agreements at fair value was 7.5%. At December 31, 2023, the maturity on the secured financing agreements at fair value was four years.

The table below presents our average daily secured financing agreements balance and the secured financing agreements balance at each period end for the periods presented. Our balance at period-end tends to fluctuate from the average daily balances due to the adjusting of the size of our portfolio by using leverage.

(dollars in thousands)

Our secured financing agreements do not require us to maintain any specific leverage ratio. We believe the appropriate leverage for the particular assets we are financing depends on the credit quality and risk of those assets. At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the carrying value of our total interest-bearing debt was approximately $10.1 billion and $10.6 billion, respectively, which represented a leverage ratio of approximately 4.0:1 and 4.0:1, respectively. We include our secured financing agreements and securitized debt in the numerator of our leverage ratio and stockholders’ equity as the denominator.

At December 31, 2023, we had secured financing agreements with 12 counterparties. All of our secured financing agreements are secured by Agency MBS, Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment and cash. Under these secured financing agreements, we may not be able to reclaim our collateral but will still be obligated to pay our repurchase obligations. We mitigate this risk by ensuring our counterparties are rated financial institutions. As of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we had $3.6 billion and $4.7 billion, respectively, of securities or cash pledged against our secured financing agreements obligations.

We expect to enter into new secured financing agreements at maturity; however, there is a risk that we will not be able to renew our secured financing agreements when we desire to renew them or obtain favorable interest rates and haircuts as a result of uncertainty in the market including, but not limited to, uncertainty as a result of inflation and increases in the Federal Funds Rate. We offset the interest rate risk of our repurchase agreements primarily through the use of derivatives, which primarily consist of interest rate swaps, swaptions and U.S. Treasury futures. The average remaining maturities on our interest rate swaps at December 31, 2023 was less than one year. All of our swaps are cleared by a central clearing house. When our interest rate swaps are in a net loss position (expected cash payments are in excess of expected cash receipts on the swaps), we post collateral as required by the terms of our swap agreements.

Exposure to Financial Counterparties

We actively manage the number of secured financing agreements counterparties to reduce counterparty risk and manage our liquidity needs. The following table summarizes our exposure to our secured financing agreements counterparties at December 31, 2023:

December 31, 2023

(dollars in thousands)

(1) Represents the amount of securities and/or cash pledged as collateral to each counterparty less the aggregate of secured financing

agreement.

We regularly monitor our exposure to financing counterparties for credit risk and allocate assets to these counterparties based, in part, on the credit quality and internally developed metrics measuring counterparty risk. Our exposure to a particular counterparty is calculated as the excess collateral which is pledged relative to the secured financing agreement balance. If our exposure to our financing counterparties exceeds internally developed thresholds, we develop a plan to reduce the exposure to an acceptable level. At December 31, 2023, we had amounts at risk with Nomura Securities International, Inc., or Nomura, of 17% of our equity related to the collateral posted on secured financing agreements. The weighted average maturities of the secured financing agreements with Nomura were 412 days. The amount at risk with Nomura was $433 million. At December 31, 2022, we had amounts at risk with Nomura of 12% of our equity related to the collateral posted on secured financing agreements. The weighted average maturities of the secured financing agreements with Nomura were 582 days. The amount at risk with Nomura was $308 million.

At December 31, 2023, we did not use credit default swaps or other forms of credit protection to hedge the exposures summarized in the table above.

Stockholders’ Equity

In June 2023, our Board of Directors increased the authorization of the Company's share repurchase program, or the Repurchase Program, by $73 million to $250 million. Such authorization does not have an expiration date, and at present, there is no intention to modify or otherwise rescind such authorization. Shares of our common stock and preferred stock may be purchased in the open market, including through block purchases, through privately negotiated transactions, or pursuant to any trading plan that may be adopted in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Exchange Act. The timing, manner, price and amount of any repurchases will be determined at our discretion and the program may be suspended, terminated or modified at any time for any reason. Among other factors, we intend to only consider repurchasing shares of our common stock and preferred stock when the purchase price is less than the last publicly reported book value per common share. In addition, we do not intend to repurchase any shares from directors, officers or other affiliates. The program does not obligate us to acquire any specific number of shares, and all repurchases will be made in accordance with Rule 10b-18, which sets certain restrictions on the method, timing, price and volume of stock repurchases.

We repurchased 5.8 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $5.66 for a total of $33 million during the year ended December 31, 2023. We repurchased approximately 5.4 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $9.10 for a total of $49 million during the year ended December 31, 2022. The approximate dollar value of shares that may yet be purchased under the Repurchase Program is $217 million as of December 31, 2023.

In 2022, we entered into separate Distribution Agency Agreements (the “Existing Sales Agreements”) with each of JMP Securities LLC, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and RBC Capital Markets, LLC (the “Existing Sales Agents”). In February 2023, we amended the Existing Sales Agreements and entered into separate Distribution Agency Agreements (together with the Existing Sales Agreements, as amended, the “Sales Agreements”) with J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and UBS Securities LLC to include J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and UBS Securities LLC as additional sales agents (together with the Existing Sales Agents, the “Sales Agents”). Pursuant to the terms of the Sales Agreements, we may offer and sell shares of our common stock, having an aggregate offering price of up to $500,000,000, from time to time in “at the market offerings” through any of the Sales Agents under the Securities Act of 1933. We issued approximately 14.5 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $5.09 for a total of $74 million during the year ended December 31, 2023. We did not issue any shares under the at-the-market sales program during the year ended December 31, 2022. The approximate dollar value of shares that may yet be issued under "at the market" offerings program is $426 million as of December 31, 2023.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we declared dividends to common shareholders of $167 million or $0.70 per share, respectively. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we declared dividends to common shareholders of $266 million, or $1.12 per share, respectively.

We declared dividends to Series A preferred stockholders of $12 million, or $2.00 per preferred share, during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

We declared dividends to Series B preferred stockholders of $26 million, or $2.00 per preferred share, during the years ended December 31, 2023, and 2022, respectively.

We declared dividends to Series C preferred stockholders of $20 million, or $1.937500 per preferred share, during the years ended December 31, 2023, and 2022, respectively.

We declared dividends to Series D preferred stockholders of $16 million, or $2.00 per preferred share, during the years ended December 31, 2023, and 2022, respectively.

On October 30, 2021, all 5,800,000 issued and outstanding shares of Series A Preferred Stock with an outstanding liquidation preference of $145 million became callable at a redemption price equal to the liquidation preference plus accrued and unpaid dividends through, but not including, the redemption date. The dividend rate on shares of Series A Preferred Stock is 8.00% per annum.

After June 30, 2023, all LIBOR tenors relevant to us ceased to be published or became no longer representative. We believe that the federal Adjustable Interest Rate (LIBOR) Act (the “Act”) and the related regulations promulgated thereunder are applicable to each of our Series B Preferred Stock, Series C Preferred Stock and Series D Preferred Stock. In light of the applicability of the Act to the aforementioned preferred stock, we believe, given all of the information available to us to date, that three-month CME Term SOFR plus the applicable tenor spread adjustment of 0.26161% per annum will automatically replace three-month LIBOR as the reference rate for calculations of the dividend rate payable on the relevant preferred stock for dividend periods from and after (i) March 30, 2024, in the case of the Series B Preferred Stock, (ii) September 30, 2025, in the case of the Series C Preferred Stock, or (iii) March 30, 2024, in the case of the Series D Preferred Stock.

Stock Based Compensation

On June 14, 2023, the Board of Directors recommended and shareholders approved, the Chimera Investment Corporation 2023 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Plan”). It authorized the issuance of up to 20,000,000 shares of our common stock for the grant of awards under the Plan. The Plan will replace our 2007 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended and restated effective December 10, 2015 (the “Prior Plan”), and no new awards will be granted under the Prior Plan. Any awards outstanding under the Prior Plan will remain subject to and be paid under the Prior Plan. Any shares subject to outstanding awards under the Prior Plan that, expire, terminate, or are surrendered or forfeited for any reason without issuance of shares will automatically become available for issuance under the Plan. Also, shares withheld for tax withholding requirements after stockholder approval of the Plan for full value awards originally granted under the Prior Plan (such as the RSUs and PSUs awarded to our named executive officers) will automatically become available for issuance under the Plan.

As of December 31, 2023, approximately 18 million shares were available for future grant under the Plan.

Grants of Restricted Stock Units, or RSUs

During the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, we granted RSU awards to employees. These RSU awards are designed to reward our employees for services provided to us. Generally, the RSU awards vest equally over a three-year period beginning from the grant date and will fully vest after three years. For employees who are retirement eligible, defined as years of service to us plus age that is equal to or greater than 65, the service period is considered to be fulfilled and all grants are expensed immediately. The RSU awards are valued at the market price of our common stock on the grant date and generally the employees must be employed by us on the vesting dates to receive the RSU awards. We granted 1 million RSU awards during the year ended December 31, 2023 with a grant date fair value of $6 million for the 2023 performance year. We granted 396 thousand RSU awards during the year ended December 31, 2022 with a grant date fair value of $4 million for the 2022 performance year.

Grants of Performance Share Units, or PSUs

PSU awards are designed to align compensation with our future performance. The PSU awards granted during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, include a three-year performance period ending on December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2024, respectively. For the PSU awards granted during the year ended December 31, 2023, the final number of shares awarded will be between 0% and 200% of the PSUs granted based on our Economic Return and share price performance compared to a peer group. Our three-year Economic Return is equal to our change in book value per common share plus common stock dividends. Share price performance equals change in share prices plus common stock dividends. Compensation expense will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the three-year vesting period based on an estimate of our Economic Return and share price performance in relation to the entities in the peer group and will be adjusted each period based on our best estimate of the actual number of shares awarded. For the PSU awards granted during the year ended December 31, 2022, the final number of shares awarded will be between 0% and 200% of the PSUs granted based on the our Economic Return compared to a peer group. During the year ended December 31, 2023, we granted 605 thousand PSU awards to senior management with a grant date fair value of $3 million. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we granted 128 thousand PSU awards to senior management with a grant date fair value of $2 million.

At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, there were approximately 3.6 million and 3.0 million, respectively, unvested shares of RSUs and PSUs issued to our employees and directors.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

The following tables summarize our contractual obligations at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022. The estimated principal repayment schedule of the securitized debt is based on expected cash flows of the residential mortgage loans or RMBS, as adjusted for expected principal write-downs on the underlying collateral of the debt.

December 31, 2023

(dollars in thousands)

(1) Interest is based on variable rates in effect as of December 31, 2023.

December 31, 2022

(dollars in thousands)

(1) Interest is based on variable rates in effect as of December 31, 2022.

Not included in the table above are the unfunded construction loan commitments of $5 million and $9 million as of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. We expect the majority of these commitments will be paid within one year and are reported under Payable for investments purchased in our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition.

We have made a $75 million capital commitment to a fund managed by Kah Capital Management, LLC. As of December 31, 2023, we have funded $46 million towards that commitment, leaving an unfunded commitment of $29 million.

Capital Expenditure Requirements

At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we had no material commitments for capital expenditures.

Dividends

To maintain our qualification as a REIT, we must pay annual dividends to our stockholders of at least 90% of our taxable income (subject to certain adjustments). Before we pay any dividend, we must first meet any operating requirements and scheduled debt service on our financing facilities and other debt payable.

Critical Accounting Estimates

Accounting policies are integral to understanding our Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. The preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires management to make certain judgments and assumptions, on the basis of information available at the time of the financial statements, in determining accounting estimates used in the preparation of these statements. Our significant accounting policies and accounting estimates are described in Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. Critical accounting policies are described in this section. An accounting policy is considered critical if it requires management to make assumptions or judgments about matters that are highly uncertain at the time the accounting estimate was made or require significant management judgment in interpreting the accounting literature. If actual results differ from our judgments and assumptions, or other accounting judgments were made, this could have a significant and potentially adverse impact on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

The accounting policies and estimates which we consider most critical relate to the recognition of revenue on our investments, including recognition of any losses, and the determination of fair value of our financial instruments. The consolidated financial statements include, on a consolidated basis, our accounts, the accounts of our wholly-owned subsidiaries, and variable interest entities, or VIEs, for which we are the primary beneficiary. All significant intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Although our estimates contemplate current conditions and how we expect them to change in the future, it is reasonably possible that actual conditions could be different than anticipated in those estimates, which could materially adversely impact our results of operations and our financial condition. Management has made significant estimates in several areas, including current expected credit losses of Non-Agency

RMBS, valuation of Loans held for investments, Agency and Non-Agency MBS, forward interest rates for interest rate swaps, and income recognition on Loans held for investments and Non-Agency RMBS. Actual results could differ materially from those estimates.

Recognition of Revenue

We primarily invest in pools of mortgage loans. All mortgage loans are carried at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in earnings. Our investments in mortgage loans pay principal and interest which is accrued when due. We also invest in MBS representing interests in obligations backed by pools of mortgage loans. Our investments in MBS includes investments in both Agency MBS and Non-Agency MBS. We delineate between (1) Agency MBS and (2) Non-Agency RMBS as follows: The Agency MBS are mortgage pass-through certificates, collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, and other RMBS representing interests in or obligations backed by pools of residential mortgage loans issued or guaranteed as to principal and/or interest repayment by agencies of the U.S. Government or federally chartered corporations such as Ginnie Mae, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. The Non-Agency RMBS are not issued or guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae and are therefore subject to credit risk. We also invests in Interest Only Agency MBS strips and Interest Only Non-Agency RMBS strips, or IO MBS strips. IO MBS strips represent our right to receive a specified proportion of the contractual interest flows of the collateral.

Income on our investments is recognized based on an effective interest rate we expect to earn over the life of the investment. The effective interest rate is determined based on the cost of the investment and the expectation of future cash flows. To determine the future cash flows, we estimate the amount and timing of principal and interest, referred to as the repayment rate, and our expectations of defaults on payments of principal and interest. These estimates require significant judgment which change over time as our expectations change due to changes in market conditions and changes in our investments as principal and interest, other cash flows or losses are experienced. These estimates are compared to actual results of the investment and other similar investments on a regular basis and updated as necessary. These comparisons may result in a favorable or unfavorable change in the effective interest rate expected to be collected. Any favorable or unfavorable changes are reflected as a change in income. Our estimates of the timing and amount of principal and interest, including our expectation of defaults on payments of principal and interest are critical to accurately reporting interest income.

Our accounting policies for recognition of interest income and current expected credit losses related to MBS investments are described in further detail in Note 2 of the consolidated financial statements.

Determination of Fair Value

Substantially all of our investments are carried at fair value. In accordance with current accounting guidance, fair value of our financial instruments represents the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the financial statement reporting date. We use internally developed models to determine fair value of our investments.

We determine the fair value of all of our Non-Agency RMBS investment securities, including Non-Agency represented as securitized debt, based on discounted cash flows utilizing an internal pricing model that incorporates factors such as coupon, repayment speeds, expected losses, expected loss severity, discount rates and other factors. Estimates of repayment speeds, expected losses and expected loss severity, require significant judgment and are based on what we believe a market participant would use to determine the cash flows. To corroborate that the estimates of fair values generated by these internal models are reflective of current market prices, we compare the fair values generated by the model to non-binding independent prices provided by an independent third party pricing services.

We estimate the fair value of our Loans held for investment consisting of seasoned subprime residential mortgage loans on a loan by loan basis using an internally developed model which compares the loan held by us with a loan currently offered in the market. The loan price is adjusted in the model by considering the loan factors which would impact the value of a loan. These loan factors include loan coupon as compared to coupon currently available in the market, FICO, loan-to-value ratios, delinquency history, owner occupancy, and property type, among other factors. A baseline is developed for each significant loan factor and adjusts the price up or down depending on how that factor for each specific loan compares to the baseline rate. Generally, the most significant impact on loan value is the loan interest rate as compared to interest rates currently available in the market and delinquency history. The determination of the baseline, the market expectation, requires significant judgment. To corroborate that the estimates of fair values generated by these internal models are reflective of current market prices, we compare the fair values generated by the model to non-binding independent prices provided by an independent third party pricing service.

To the extent the inputs used to estimate fair value are observable, the values would be categorized in Level 2 of the fair value hierarchy; otherwise they would be categorized as Level 3. Our fair value estimation process utilizes inputs other than quoted prices that are observed in the market. Our estimates are deemed to be significant to the fair value measurement process, which renders the resulting Non-Agency fair value estimates Level 3 inputs in the fair value hierarchy. Level 3 assets represent approximately 97% and 95% of total assets measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Level 3 liabilities represent approximately 96% and 95% of total liabilities measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Our accounting policies for the determination of fair value of our investments are described in further detail in Note 2 and Note 5 of the consolidated financial statements.

Variable Interest Entities

VIEs are defined as entities in which equity investors (i) do not have the characteristics of a controlling financial interest, and/or (ii) do not have sufficient equity at risk for the entity to finance its activities without additional subordinated financial support from other parties. The entity that consolidates a VIE is known as its primary beneficiary and is generally the entity with (i) the power to direct the activities that most significantly impact the VIE’s economic performance, and (ii) the right to receive benefits from the VIE or the obligation to absorb losses of the VIE that could be significant to the VIE. For VIEs’ that do not have substantial on-going activities, the power to direct the activities that most significantly impact the VIEs’ economic performance may be determined by an entity’s involvement with the design of the VIE.

Our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition contain the assets and liabilities related to 40 consolidated variable interest entities or VIEs. Due to the non-recourse nature of these VIEs our net exposure to loss from investments in these entities is limited to our retained beneficial interests.

At December 31, 2023, we consolidated 38 residential mortgage loan securitizations and 2 RMBS re-securitization transactions which are VIEs. The residential mortgage loan securitizations contain jumbo prime and Non-QM residential mortgage loans. The RMBS re-securitization transactions contain Non-Agency RMBS comprised of primarily first lien mortgages of 2005-2007 vintages.

Our determination to consolidate these 40 VIEs was significantly influenced by management’s judgment related to the activities that most significantly impact the economic performance of these entities and the identification of the party with the power over such activities. For the residential mortgage loan securitizations, we determined that our ability to remove the servicer without cause resulted in us having the power that most significantly impacts the economic performance of the VIE. For the three consolidated RMBS re-securitization transactions, we determined that no party has power over any ongoing activities of the entities and therefore the determination of the primary beneficiary should be based on involvement with the initial design of the entity. Since we transferred the RMBS to the securitization entities, we determined we had the power over the design of the entity, which resulted in us being considered the primary beneficiary. This determination was influenced by the amount of economic exposure to the financial performance of the entity and required a significant management judgment in determining that we should consolidate these three entities.

Due to the consolidation of these VIEs, our actual ownership interests in the securitization and re-securitizations have been eliminated in consolidation and the Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition reflect both the assets held and non-recourse debt issued to third parties by these VIEs. In addition, our operating results and cash flows include the gross amounts related to the assets and liabilities of the VIEs as opposed to the actual economic interests we own in these VIEs. Our interest in these VIEs is restricted to the beneficial interests we retained in these transactions. We are not obligated to provide any financial support to these VIEs.

Our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition separately present: (i) our direct assets and liabilities, and (ii) the assets and liabilities of our consolidated securitization vehicles net of intercompany eliminations representing securities from the securitization trusts retained by us. Assets of all consolidated VIEs can only be used to satisfy the obligations of those VIEs, and the liabilities of consolidated VIEs are non-recourse to us.

We have aggregated all the assets and liabilities of the consolidated securitization vehicles due to our determination that these entities are substantively similar and therefore a further disaggregated presentation would not be more meaningful. The notes to our consolidated financial statements describe our direct assets and liabilities and the assets and liabilities of our consolidated securitization vehicles. See Note 9 to our consolidated financial statements for additional information related to our investments in VIEs.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

Refer to Note 2 in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of accounting guidance we have recently adopted or expect to be adopted in the future.

The primary components of our market risk are related to credit risk, interest rate risk, prepayment risk, extension risk, basis risk and market risk. While we do not seek to avoid risk completely, we believe the risk can be quantified from historical experience and we seek to actively manage that risk and to maintain capital levels consistent with the risks we undertake.

Additionally, refer to Item 1A, "Risk Factors" included in this 2023 Form 10-K for additional information on risks we face.

Credit Risk

We are subject to credit risk in connection with our investments in Non-Agency RMBS and residential mortgage loans and face more credit risk on assets we own that are rated below ‘‘AAA’’ or not rated. The credit risk related to these investments pertains to the ability and willingness of the borrowers to pay, which is assessed before credit is granted or renewed and periodically reviewed throughout the loan or security term. We believe that residual loan credit quality, and thus the quality of our assets, is primarily determined by the borrowers’ credit profiles and loan characteristics.

In connection with loan acquisitions, we or a third-party perform an independent review of the mortgage file to assess the origination and servicing of the mortgage loan as well as our ability to enforce the contractual rights in the mortgage. Depending on the size of the loans, we may not review all of the loans in a pool, but rather a sample of loans for diligence review based upon specific risk-based criteria such as property location, loan size, effective loan-to-value ratio, borrower’s characteristics and other criteria we believe to be important indicators of credit risk. Additionally, we obtain representations and warranties from each seller with respect to the residential mortgage loans, including the origination and servicing of the mortgage loan as well as the enforceability of the lien on the mortgaged property. A seller who breaches these representations and warranties in making a loan that we purchase may be obligated to repurchase the loan from us. Our resources include a portfolio management system, as well as third-party software systems. We utilize third-party due diligence firms to perform an independent mortgage loan file review to ensure compliance with existing guidelines. In addition to statistical sampling techniques, we create adverse credit and valuation samples, which we individually review.

Additionally, we closely monitor credit losses incurred, as well as how expectations of credit losses are expected to change on our Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment portfolios. We estimate future credit losses based on historical experience, market trends, current delinquencies as well as expected recoveries. The net present value of these expected credit losses can change, sometimes significantly from period to period as new information becomes available. When credit loss experience and expectations improve, we will collect more principal on our investments. If credit loss experience deteriorates, we will collect less principal on our investments. The favorable or unfavorable changes in credit losses are reflected in the yield on our investments in mortgage loans and recognized in earnings over the remaining life of our investments. The following table presents changes to net present value of expected credit losses for our Non-Agency RMBS and Loans held for investment portfolios during the previous five quarters. Gross losses are discounted at the rate used to amortize any discounts or premiums on our investments into income. A decrease (negative balance) in the "Increase/(decrease)" line item in the tables below represents a favorable change in expected credit losses. An increase (positive balance) in the "Increase/(decrease)" line item in the tables below represents an unfavorable change in expected credit losses.

(dollars in thousands)

67

(dollars in thousands)

Additionally, the Non-Agency RMBS which we acquire for our portfolio are reviewed by us to ensure that they satisfy our risk-based criteria. Our review of Non-Agency RMBS includes utilizing a portfolio management system. Our review of Non-Agency RMBS and other ABS is based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the risk-adjusted returns on Non-Agency RMBS and other ABS. This analysis includes an evaluation of the collateral characteristics supporting the RMBS such as borrower payment history, credit profiles, geographic concentrations, credit enhancement, seasoning, and other pertinent factors.

Interest Rate Risk

Our net interest income, borrowing activities and profitability could be negatively affected by volatility in interest rates caused by uncertainties stemming from the effect of inflation and updated Federal Rate increase projections in 2023. As the Federal Reserve increases its Federal Funds Rate, the margin between short and long-term rates could further compress. A prolonged period of extremely volatile and unstable market conditions would likely increase our funding costs and negatively affect market risk mitigation strategies. Higher income volatility from changes in interest rates and spreads to benchmark indices could cause a loss of future net interest income and a decrease in the current fair market values of our assets. Fluctuations in interest rates will impact both the level of income and expense recorded on most of our assets and liabilities and the market value of all interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our net income, operating results, or financial condition.

Interest rate risk is highly sensitive to many factors, including governmental, monetary and tax policies, domestic and international economic and political considerations and other factors beyond our control. We are subject to interest rate risk in connection with our investments and our related debt obligations, which are generally secured financing agreements and securitization trusts. Our secured financing agreements and warehouse facilities may be of limited duration that is periodically refinanced at current market rates. We typically mitigate this risk through utilization of derivative contracts, primarily interest rate swap agreements, swaptions, futures and mortgage options. While we may use interest rate hedges to mitigate risks related

to changes in interest rate, the hedges may not fully offset interest expense movements.

Interest Rate Effects on Net Interest Income

Our operating results depend, in large part, on differences between the income from our investments and our borrowing costs. Most of our warehouse facilities and secured financing agreements provide financing based on a floating rate of interest calculated on a fixed spread over SOFR. The fixed spread varies depending on the type of underlying asset which collateralizes the financing. During periods of rising interest rates, the borrowing costs associated with our investments tend to increase while the income earned on our investments may remain substantially unchanged or decrease. This will result in a narrowing of the net interest spread between the related assets and borrowings and may even result in losses. Further, defaults could increase and result in credit losses to us, which could adversely affect our liquidity and operating results. Such delinquencies or defaults could also have an adverse effect on the spread between interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities. We generally do not hedge against credit losses. Hedging techniques are partly based on assumed levels of prepayments of our fixed-rate and hybrid adjustable-rate residential mortgage loans and RMBS. If prepayments are slower or faster than assumed, the life of the residential mortgage loans and RMBS will be longer or shorter, which would reduce the effectiveness of any hedging strategies we may use and may cause losses on such transactions.

Interest Rate Effects on Fair Value

Another component of interest rate risk is the effect changes in interest rates will have on the fair value of the assets we acquire. We face the risk that the fair value of our assets will increase or decrease at different rates than that of our liabilities, including our hedging instruments, if any. We primarily assess our interest rate risk by estimating the duration of our assets compared to the duration of our liabilities and hedges. Duration essentially measures the market price volatility of financial instruments as interest rates change. We generally calculate duration using various financial models and empirical data. Different models and methodologies can produce different duration numbers for the same securities.

It is important to note that the impact of changing interest rates on fair value can change significantly when interest rates change beyond 100 basis points from current levels. Therefore, the volatility in the fair value of our assets could increase significantly when interest rates change beyond 100 basis points. In addition, other factors impact the fair value of our interest rate-sensitive investments and hedging instruments, such as the shape of the yield curve, market expectations as to future interest rate changes and other market conditions. Accordingly, in the event of changes in actual interest rates, the change in the fair value of our assets would likely differ from that shown below and such difference might be material and adverse to our stockholders.

Effect of U.S. Dollar London Inter Bank Offered Rate or, LIBOR transition

The interest rates on our certain adjustable-rate mortgage loans in our securitizations were based on LIBOR, as were some classes of our preferred stock. After June 30, 2023, all LIBOR tenors relevant to us ceased to be published or became no longer representative. This means that all of our LIBOR-based adjustable-rate mortgage loans have been converted to an equivalent SOFR-based rates plus the appropriate spread adjustment as of July 1, 2023.

We have evaluated the impact of the Act on our adjustable-rate mortgage loan investments covered by the legislation including the impact on certain classes of our outstanding fixed-to-floating preferred stock and determined that LIBOR transition to SOFR-based rates had no material impact on our financial statements.

Interest Rate Cap Risk

We may also invest in adjustable-rate residential mortgage loans and RMBS. These are mortgages or RMBS in which the underlying mortgages are typically subject to periodic and lifetime interest rate caps and floors, which limit the amount by which the security’s interest yield may change during any given period. However, our borrowing costs pursuant to our financing agreements will not be subject to similar restrictions. Therefore, in a period of increasing interest rates, interest rate costs on our borrowings could increase without limitation by caps, while the interest-rate yields on our adjustable-rate residential mortgage loans and RMBS would effectively be limited. This problem will be magnified to the extent we acquire adjustable-rate RMBS that are not based on mortgages which are fully indexed. In addition, the mortgages or the underlying mortgages in an RMBS may be subject to periodic payment caps that result in some portion of the interest being deferred and added to the principal outstanding. This could result in our receipt of less cash income on our adjustable-rate mortgages or RMBS than we need in order to pay the interest cost on our related borrowings. These factors could lower our net interest income or cause a net loss during periods of rising interest rates, which would harm our financial condition, cash flows and results of operations.

Interest Rate Mismatch Risk

We fund a substantial portion of the acquisitions of our investments with borrowings that have interest rates based on indices and re-pricing terms similar to, but of somewhat shorter maturities than, the interest rate indices and re-pricing terms of the mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. In most cases the interest rate indices and re-pricing terms of our mortgage assets and our funding sources will not be identical, thereby creating an interest rate mismatch between assets and liabilities. Our cost of funds would likely rise or fall more quickly than would our earnings rate on assets. During periods of changing interest rates, such interest rate mismatches could negatively impact our financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. To mitigate interest rate mismatches, we may utilize the hedging strategies discussed above. Our analysis of risks is based on our experience, estimates, models and assumptions. These analyses rely on models which utilize estimates of fair value and interest rate sensitivity. Actual economic conditions or implementation of investment decisions by our management may produce results that differ significantly from the estimates and assumptions used in our models and the projected results.

To mitigate potential interest rate mismatches, we have entered into agreements for longer term, non-mark-to-market financing facilities at rates that are higher than short term secured financing agreements. These longer term agreements are primarily on our less liquid Non-Agency RMBS assets. Having non-mark-to-market financing facilities may be useful in this market to prevent significant margin calls or collateral liquidation in a volatile market. If the market normalizes and repurchase rates fall, we may be locked into long term and higher interest expenses than are otherwise available in the market to finance our portfolio.

Our profitability and the value of our investment portfolio including derivatives may be adversely affected during any period as a result of changing interest rates. The following table quantifies the potential changes in net interest income and market value on the assets we retain and derivatives, if interest rates go up or down 50 and 100 basis points, assuming parallel movements in the yield curves. All changes in income and value are measured as percentage changes from the projected net interest income and the value of the assets we retain at the base interest rate scenario. The base interest rate scenario assumes interest rates at December 31, 2023 and various estimates regarding prepayment and all activities are made at each level of rate change. Actual results could differ significantly from these estimates.

(1) Projected Percentage Change in Market Value is based on instantaneous moves in interest rates.

Prepayment Risk

As we receive prepayments of principal on these investments, premiums and discounts on such investments will be amortized or accreted into interest income. In general, an increase in actual or expected prepayment rates will accelerate the amortization of purchase premiums, thereby reducing the interest income earned on the investments. Conversely, discounts on such investments are accelerated and accreted into interest income, increasing interest income when prepayments increase. Actual prepayment results may be materially different than the assumptions we use for our portfolio.

Extension Risk

Management computes the projected weighted-average life of our investments based on assumptions regarding the rate at which the borrowers will prepay the underlying mortgages. In general, when fixed-rate or hybrid adjustable-rate residential mortgage loans or RMBS are acquired via borrowings, we may, but are not required to, enter into an interest rate swap agreement or other hedging instrument that attempts to fix our borrowing costs for a period close to the anticipated average life of the fixed-rate portion of the related assets. This strategy is designed to protect us from rising interest rates as the borrowing costs are managed to maintain a net interest spread for the duration of the fixed-rate portion of the related assets. However, if prepayment rates decrease in a rising interest rate environment, the life of the fixed-rate portion of the related assets could extend beyond the term of the swap agreement or other hedging instrument. This could have a negative impact on our results from operations, as borrowing costs would no longer be fixed after the end of the hedging instrument while the income earned on the fixed and hybrid adjustable-rate assets would remain fixed. In extreme situations, we may be forced to sell assets to maintain adequate liquidity, which could cause us to incur losses.

Basis Risk

We may seek to limit our interest rate risk by hedging portions of our portfolio through interest rate swaps or other types of hedging instruments. Basis risk relates to the risk of the spread between our MBS and hedges widening. Such a widening may cause a decline in the fair value of our MBS that is greater than the increase in fair value of our hedges resulting in a net decline in book value.

Market Risk

Market Value Risk

Certain of our securities classified as available-for-sale are reflected at their estimated fair value with unrealized gains and losses excluded from earnings and reported in other comprehensive income. The estimated fair value of these securities fluctuates primarily due to changes in interest rates, prepayment speeds, market liquidity, credit quality, and other factors. Generally, in a rising interest rate environment, the estimated fair value of these securities would be expected to decrease; conversely, in a decreasing interest rate environment, the estimated fair value of these securities would be expected to increase. As market volatility increases or liquidity decreases, the fair value of our investments may be adversely impacted.

Real Estate Market Risk

We own assets secured by real property and may own real property directly. Residential property values are subject to volatility and may be affected adversely by a number of factors, including, but not limited to, national, regional and local economic conditions and unemployment (which may be adversely affected by industry slowdowns and other factors); local real estate conditions (such as an oversupply of housing); changes or continued weakness in specific industry segments; construction quality, age and design; demographic factors; natural disasters and other acts of God; and retroactive changes to building or similar codes. In addition, decreases in property values reduce the value of the collateral and the potential proceeds available to a borrower to repay our loans, which could also cause us to incur losses.

Risk Management

Subject to maintaining our REIT status, we seek to manage risk exposure to protect our portfolio of residential mortgage loans, RMBS, and other assets and related debt against the effects of major interest rate changes. We generally seek to manage risk by:

• monitoring and adjusting, if necessary, the reset index and interest rate related to our RMBS and our financings;
• attempting to structure our financing agreements to have a range of different maturities, terms, amortizations and interest rate adjustment periods, rights to post both cash and collateral for margin calls and provisions for non-mark-to-market financing facilities;
• using derivatives, financial futures, swaps, options, caps, floors and forward sales to adjust the interest rate sensitivity of our investments and our borrowings;
• using securitization financing to receive the benefit of attractive financing terms for an extended period of time in contrast to short term financing and maturity dates of the investments not included in the securitization; and
• actively managing, through assets selection, on an aggregate basis, the interest rate indices, interest rate adjustment periods, and gross reset margins of our investments and the interest rate indices and adjustment periods of our financings.

Our efforts to manage our assets and liabilities are focused on the timing and magnitude of the re-pricing of assets and liabilities. We attempt to control risks associated with interest rate movements. Methods for evaluating interest rate risk include an analysis of our interest rate sensitivity “gap,” which is the difference between interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities maturing or re-pricing within a given time period. A gap is considered positive when the amount of interest-rate sensitive assets exceeds the amount of interest-rate sensitive liabilities. A gap is considered negative when the amount of interest-rate sensitive liabilities exceeds interest-rate sensitive assets. During a period of rising interest rates, a negative gap would tend to adversely affect net interest income, while a positive gap would tend to result in an increase in net interest income. During a period of falling interest rates, a negative gap would tend to result in an increase in net interest income, while a positive gap would tend to affect net interest income adversely. Because different types of assets and liabilities with the same or similar maturities may react differently to changes in overall market rates or conditions, changes in interest rates may affect net interest income positively or negatively even if an institution were perfectly matched in each maturity category.

The following table sets forth the estimated maturity or re-pricing of our interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities at December 31, 2023. The amounts of assets and liabilities shown within a particular period were determined in accordance with the contractual terms of the assets and liabilities, and securities are included in the period in which their interest rates are first scheduled to adjust and not in the period in which they mature and includes the effect of the interest rate swaps, if any. The interest rate sensitivity of our assets and liabilities in the table could vary substantially based on actual prepayments.

December 31, 2023

(dollars in thousands)

Our analysis of risks is based on our management’s experience, estimates, models and assumptions. These analyses rely on models which utilize estimates of fair value and interest rate sensitivity. Actual economic conditions or implementation of investment decisions by our management may produce results that differ significantly from the estimates and assumptions used in our models and the projected results shown in the above tables. These analyses contain certain forward-looking statements and are subject to the safe harbor statement set forth under the heading, “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

Enterprise Risk Management

We employ a “Three Layers of Defense Approach” to Enterprise Risk Management (“ERM”) designed to assess and manage risk to achieve our strategic goals. The “First Layer of Defense” consists of assessing key risks indicators (“KRIs”) facing each respective business unit within the Company. Our risk management unit is an independent group that acts as the “Second Layer of Defense”. The risk management unit partners with various business units to understand, monitor, manage and escalate risks as appropriate. The financial reporting unit operates under the requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley (“SOX”). The “Third Layer of Defense” consists of many of our internal controls which are subject to an independent evaluation by our third-party internal auditors. As an independent third-party, the mandate of the internal auditor is to objectively assess the adequacy and effectiveness of our internal control environment to improve risk management, control and governance processes. Periodic reporting from the risk management unit is provided to executive management and to our audit committee.

Business Continuity Plan (“BCP”)

Our BCP is prepared with the intent of providing guidelines to facilitate (i) employee safety and relocation; (ii) preparedness for carrying out activities and receiving communication; (iii) resumption and restoration of systems and business processes and (iv) the protection and integrity of the Company’s assets.

Our BCP is designed to facilitate business process resilience in a broad range of scenarios with a dedicated Disaster Recovery Team (“DRT”) which is comprised of executive management, head of technology, and professionals across our various business units. Our BCP identifies the critical systems and processes necessary for business operations as well as the resources, employees, and planning needed to support these systems and processes. Critical systems and processes are defined as those which have a material impact on core operations, financial performance, or regulatory requirements. This includes applications which facilitate financial transactions, transaction settlements, financial reporting, and business communication and the personnel who perform such actions. Our BCP provides guidelines to aid in the timely resumption of business operations and for communication with employees, service providers and other key stakeholders needed to support these operations. Our BCP is a "living process" that will evolve with the input and guidance of the key stakeholders, subject matter experts and industry best practices and is reviewed and updated at least annually.

(a) Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) of the Exchange Act) are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and that such information is accumulated and communicated to management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.

Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, reviewed and evaluated the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures covering the preparation and review of this 2023 Form 10-K. Based on such evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that, as of the end of such period, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective.

(b) Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Our Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Internal control over financial reporting is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act, as a process designed by, or under the supervision of, our principal executive and principal financial officers and effected by our Board of Directors, management and other personnel to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and includes those policies and procedures that:

• pertain to the maintenance of records that in reasonable detail accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of our assets;
• provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States, and that our receipts and expenditures are being made only in accordance with authorizations of our management and directors; and
• provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of our assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect all misstatements. Projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risks that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate. Management assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023. In making this assessment, management used the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) in the 2013 Internal Control-Integrated Framework. Based on this assessment, management concluded that, as of December 31, 2023, our internal control over financial reporting was effective.

Ernst & Young LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, has issued an attestation report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023, included in their report under Item 8. "Financial statements and Supplementary Data"

(c) Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

During the fourth quarter of 2023, we implemented control enhancements related to validating the key assumption inputs that we use in the valuation of our portfolio. Other than as discussed in the preceding sentence, there was no change in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the quarter ended December 31, 2023 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.