CHMI - NYSE

Good day, and welcome to Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. [indiscernible] I would now like to turn the call over to Garrett Edson of ICR. Please go ahead.

We'd like to thank you for joining us today for Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. In advance of this call, we issued a press release that was distributed earlier this afternoon. That press release and our third quarter 2025 investor presentation have been posted to the Investor Relations section of our website at www.chmireit.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include those related to interest income, financial guidance, IRRs, future expected cash flows as well as prepayment and recapture rates, delinquencies and non-GAAP financial measures such as earnings available for distribution or EAD and comprehensive income. Forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates, and Cherry Hill assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC and the definitions contained in the financial presentations available on the company's website. Today's conference call is hosted by Jay Lown, President and CEO; Julian Evans, the Chief Investment Officer; and Apeksha Patel, the Chief Financial Officer. Now I will turn the call over to Jay.

Thanks, Garrett, and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. The third quarter saw a continued reduction in overall macro volatility as we moved into the fall with tariff concerns mostly fading into the background and investors accepting the new normal. As the quarter progressed, it became clear that the Fed would proceed with rate cuts given economic indicators, and they did exactly that in both September and last week. Rates were mostly contained quarter-over-quarter with the 10-year yield ending marginally lower at 4.15%. Specific to Cherry Hill, portfolio components such as mortgages, swaps, futures and MSRs performed well in the quarter, though lower coupon mortgages outperformed higher coupons due to lower rates and investors' growing demand for duration. With the Fed in easing mode, leading to higher prepayment speed expectations for high coupon mortgages, we shifted our RMBS portfolio in the quarter to benefit from the lower interest rate environment and stand positioned to benefit from lower funding costs and improved portfolio performance. Our MSR portfolio has a weighted average note rate of 3.5%, well below current mortgage rates and continues to perform well. For the third quarter, we generated GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders of $0.05 per diluted share. Book value per common share finished the quarter at $3.36 compared to $3.34 on June 30. On an NAV basis, which includes preferred stock and prior to any ATM capital raised in the quarter, NAV was up approximately $1.1 million or 0.5% relative to June 30. Financial leverage at the end of the quarter remained consistent at 5.3x as we continue to stay prudently levered. We ended the quarter with $55 million of unrestricted cash, maintaining a solid liquidity profile. In September, our Board of Directors made the strategic decision to adjust our dividend to $0.10 per share. We believe the realignment is more sustainable and in line with the company's earnings power. As we mentioned on our last call, we entered into a strategic partnership and investment with Real Genius LLC, a Florida-based digital mortgage technology company earlier this year. As a reminder, Real Genius has developed a proprietary direct-to-consumer platform, offering an efficient fully online mortgage experience, including instant prequalification, automated document process and real-time loan tracking, all of which is supported by their custom-built point-of-sale system. We are seeing positive momentum from that partnership as Real Genius' growth trajectory and stabilization progresses in line with our expectations. With 30-year mortgage rates hovering around 6%, we are optimistic that the reduction in mortgage rates may facilitate an acceleration in Real Genius' growth as more homebuyers and homeowners look to purchase homes or refinance. Looking ahead, we will continue to seek out investment opportunities we believe would be accretive to our business. We are monitoring the economic environment closely and are focused on thoughtfully growing the company while maintaining strong liquidity and prudent leverage. With that, I'll turn the call over to Julian, who will cover more details regarding our investment portfolio and its performance over the third quarter.

Thank you, Jay. Mortgage spread tightening drove performance in the third quarter. Reduced tariff rhetoric, a few announced preliminary tariff deals as well as declining rate volatility and the assumption that the Fed would initiate and continue easing monetary policy based upon weaker employment data helped to define mortgage performance over the quarter. As the market grew more comfortable with the potential Fed easing, mortgage spreads ground tighter. And as dollar prices rose, the expectations for faster prepayment speeds grew for higher coupon mortgages, limiting their performance. Higher coupon dollar prices became capped as interest rates moved lower and spreads tightened. As a result, investors' desire for lower coupon mortgages and duration needs became apparent. Investors were chasing the par coupon mortgage as interest rates moved lower. Throughout the quarter, we adjusted our portfolio positioning to benefit from ongoing spread tightening and declining interest rates. At quarter end, our MSR portfolio had a UPB of $16.2 billion and a market value of approximately $219 million. The MSR and related net assets represented approximately 41% of our equity capital and approximately 22% of our investable assets, excluding cash at quarter end. Meanwhile, our RMBS portfolio accounted for approximately 39% of our equity capital. As a percentage of investable assets, the RMBS portfolio represented approximately 78%, excluding cash at quarter end. Our MSR portfolio's net CPR averaged approximately 5.9% for the third quarter, pretty much comparable with the previous quarter. The portfolio's recapture rate remained de minimis as the incentive to refinance continues to be minimal for this portfolio given the portfolio's loan rate. We continue to expect a low recapture rate and a relatively low net CPR in the near term given our MSR portfolio's characteristics. Like the MSR, the RMBS portfolio prepayment speeds held steady at 6.1% CPR for the 3-month period ended September. We do expect agency prepayment speeds to increase with current mortgage rates ranging between 5.75% and 6.25%, especially for higher coupon mortgages. Our portfolio is not comprised of a large portion of higher coupon specified pools. Most of the higher coupon positioning is represented by TBA positioning. The larger spec pool positioning starts at the 5.5% coupon where the underlying collateral typically has a 650 loan rate, which will be impacted by the recent lower mortgage rates. The initial impact should be limited as the mortgage universe is only approximately 19% refinanceable at the current mortgage rate levels. But as the Fed continues to ease monetary policy, we are monitoring a mortgage rate of 5.5%. At 5.5% mortgage rate, the refinanceable universe increases to approximately 30%. As of September 30, the RMBS portfolio inclusive of TBAs stood at approximately $782 million compared to $756 million at the previous quarter end as we modestly shifted our RMBS positioning towards lower middle of the coupon stack mortgages versus higher coupon mortgages. For the third quarter, our RMBS net interest spread was approximately 2.87%, higher than the previous quarter as increased asset purchases more than offset higher interest expenses. Overall, our hedge strategy remains largely intact. We will continue to use a combination of swaps, TBA securities and treasury futures to hedge the portfolio. During the quarter, the hedge portfolio changed marginally because more positioning changes were made to the RMBS portfolio. As we close out the year, we will continue to proactively manage our portfolio and adjust our overall capital structure to add value for shareholders through improved performance and earnings. I will now turn the call over to Apeksha for a third quarter financial discussion.

Thank you, Julian. GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders for the third quarter was $2 million or $0.05 per weighted average diluted share outstanding during the quarter, while comprehensive income attributable to common stockholders, which includes the mark-to-market of our available-for-sale RMBS, was $4.5 million or $0.12 per weighted average diluted share. Our earnings available for distribution or EAD attributable to common stockholders were $3.3 million or $0.09 per share. Our book value per common share as of September 30, 2025, was $3.36 compared to book value of $3.34 as of June 30, 2025. We used a variety of derivative instruments to mitigate the effects of increases in interest rates on a portion of our future repurchase borrowings. At the end of the third quarter, we held interest rate swaps, TBAs and treasury futures, all of which had a combined notional amount of approximately $435 million. You can see more details regarding our hedging strategy in our 10-Q as well as our third quarter presentation. For GAAP purposes, we have not elected to apply hedge accounting for our interest rate derivatives. And as a result, we record the change in estimated fair value as a component of the net gain or loss on interest rate derivatives. Operating expenses were $3.8 million for the quarter. On September 15, 2025, our Board of Directors declared a dividend of $0.10 per common share for the third quarter of 2025, which was paid in cash on October 31, 2025. We also declared a dividend of $0.5125 per share on our 8.2% Series A cumulative redeemable preferred stock and a dividend of $0.6523 on our 8.25% Series B fixed to floating rate cumulative redeemable preferred stock, both of which were paid on October 15, 2025. At this time, we will open up the call for questions. Operator?

And our first question comes from Timothy D'Agostino with B. Riley Securities.

Just one quick question for me. Regarding the Real Genius acquisition -- or partnership, sorry, was that more opportunistic? Or could we see more partnerships like that in the future?

So I'm not really prepared to forecast, but to the extent that we see things that are interesting that are accretive, sure, we'll look at them. This was a long time in the making for this investment. And broadly speaking, we're really happy with how it's progressing. But to the extent that we find opportunities that fit within the skill set of people here, we'll absolutely look at them.

Our next question comes from Mikhail Goberman with Citizens.

If I could pick your brain about just your thoughts on expenses going forward. I'm looking at G&A plus comp. It looks like it was about a 12.5% sequential rise. Is there a sort of run rate that you guys are targeting going forward? Is there a seasonality to that combined number?

Mikhail, it's Apeksha Yes, their G&A and comp and benefits were both up this quarter, and that is mostly due to changes in personnel that we had during the second quarter and the third quarter of the year as well as professional fees that related to those changes. Going forward, we do anticipate those costs going down, especially with having a new in-house GC now. As of this point, though, it's difficult for us to quantify exactly what that would be, but we are anticipating them going down.

Great. And the sequential rise in servicing costs, what was driving that there?

That was essentially part of the deboarding fee that got reimbursed in Q2. So it's not a typical ongoing expense. And that was something that in Q2 lowered the expense. Q3, we didn't have it, of course, because we didn't have the deboarding again. And so you saw that quarter-over-quarter change, but Q3 is more similar to our ongoing run rate.

Great. And if I can get one more in there. I think you know what it's going to be. Any update on the current book value?

The usual. I turn it over to Apeksha.

We're seeing our October 31 book value per share up about 1.2% from September 30. And obviously, that's before any fourth quarter dividend accrual as the Board has not yet met to approve it.

I'm showing no further questions. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Jay Lown for closing remarks.

Thank you. Thanks for attending our third quarter 2025 earnings call, and we look forward to updating you on our year-end results in the first quarter of 2026. Have a good evening.