Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation (NYSE:CHMI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation (NYSE:CHMI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript March 7, 2023

Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the conference call, the Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation’s Fourth Quarter ’22 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Garrett Edson of ICR. Please go ahead.

Garrett Edson: We’d like to thank you for joining us today for Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation’s fourth quarter 2022 conference call. In addition to this call, we have filed a press release that was distributed earlier this afternoon and 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 Michael Hutchby, the Chief Financial Officer. Now, I will turn the call over to Jay.

Jay Lown: Thanks, Garrett. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. Our efforts were effective in the fourth quarter to protect book value as investment markets remained in a challenging economic environment. High inflation and a well-supported U.S. employment market led the Fed to hike rates 125 basis points during the fourth quarter, and it appeared that the Fed was making headway with its efforts to lower inflation back to its target level. Volatility subsided during the quarter and spread sector assets recovered some of the losses experienced in the third quarter. As many of our peers have noted, the mortgage basis improved throughout the quarter as well. The U.S. Treasury yield curve, however, remained inverted and has shown no signs of steepening thus far this year, which has significantly impacted the earnings power of many companies in our sector.

Given the most recent economic data, markets are bracing for a higher, for longer scenario and the potential for a recession later this year. The combination of our efforts to refine our investment and hedging strategies has enabled us to be successful in stabilizing and protecting book value in recent quarters. Given the expectation of continued interest rate hikes and the evolving macro environment, we remain positioned for additional rate hikes. To that point, we continue to utilize TBAs to partially offset spread widening risk as we await the Fed to convey when it expects to end its tightening cycle, at which point, we could look to increase our risk profile. For the fourth quarter, while we generated a GAAP net loss applicable to common stockholders of $1.59 per diluted share, we generated earnings available for distribution, or EAD, a non-GAAP financial measure, of $5.3 million or $0.24 per share.

It bears repeating that EAD is only one of several factors considered in setting our dividend policy. Thus, while not aligned this quarter, our Board continues to monitor our earnings capabilities to ensure our dividend is at an appropriate level. Book value per common share finished at $6.06 as of December 31, up $0.01 from the prior quarter. We believe creating a more stable book value profile is in our shareholders’ best interest and remains a top priority for us. When you consider that our preferred stock makes up a significant portion of our overall equity profile, we were pleased that on an NAV basis and before taking into account any issuances of equity through our common stock ATM program, we posted a stable NAV relative to the third quarter.

As such, during the second half of 2022, NAV was off approximately 5.1%, which we believe compares favorably to the performance of many others in our industry, and speaks well to our ability to navigate a very challenging macro environment and the unprecedented speed of Fed rate hikes. During the fourth quarter, we acquired approximately $780 million in UPB, Fannie and Freddie MSRs via flow and bulk purchases. Prepayment speeds on our MSR portfolio remained low. And thus, the pace of reinvestment to maintain the allocation of capital to the asset class has decelerated. Recapture rates on MSRs also slowed to the low single digits as expected given the higher interest rate levels. Our strategy of pairing MSRs with agency RMBS along with proactive portfolio management and hedging has continued to benefit shareholders.

At the end of the year, financial leverage improved modestly to 3.8 times as we took a more targeted and disciplined approach in the fourth quarter with respect to deploying capital. Given the ongoing market volatility, we believe we remain prudently levered and expect to be opportunistic in deploying capital and increasing our leverage in 2023. We ended the year with $57 million in unrestricted cash on the balance sheet, maintaining a solid liquidity profile. As we look forward in 2023, we expect to maintain our conservative and proactive approach to portfolio management. Where there are risk adjusted opportunities to selectively deploy capital, we will take advantage. Additionally, we anticipate our hedge ratio will likely remain elevated given our expectations of ongoing Fed rate hikes to further combat stubborn inflation.

Our priority remains to protect book value and we will remain mindful of our liquidity and leverage profile given the environment. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Julian, who will cover more details regarding our investment portfolio and its performance over the fourth quarter.

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Julian Evans: Thank you, Jay. Investment themes that were prominent in the third quarter rolled over into the fourth quarter. Heightened volatility, thinly liquid investment markets, widening spread sectors and a weakening equity markets were all influenced by a Fed determined to reduce inflation. All changed after the October and November CPI reports, as the reported inflationary numbers suggested that inflation was moderating faster than expected. Post the inflationary numbers, spread sector and equity markets tightened and interest rate markets firmed as investor sentiment changed. The sentiment change was driven by our perception that the Fed might end up doing fewer Fed fund rate increases than were initially expected. With that said, most inflationary measures have moderated but remained elevated above the Fed’s 2% target for the first two months of 2023.

Stubbornly high inflation has led to renewed predictions of the Fed having to increase the Fed’s funds rate greater than what the market had initially perceived. The market is currently expecting a terminal Fed’s fund rate level between 5.25% and 5.75%. As a result, we continue to employ a thoughtful hedging strategy in the fourth quarter to protect our book value and we believe those efforts have largely been working as intended. This investment strategy has carried over into the first quarter of 2023. At year-end, our MSR portfolio had a UPB of $21.7 billion and a market value of approximately $280 million. During the quarter, we purchased approximately $780 million UPB of new MSRs through our bulk and flow programs. At year-end, the MSRs and related assets represented approximately 38% of our equity capital and approximately 30% of our investable assets, excluding cash.

Meanwhile, our RMBS portfolio accounted for approximately 45% of our equity capital. As a percentage of investable assets, the RMBS portfolio represented approximately 70%, excluding cash, at year-end. During the quarter, we continued to experience CPR improvements in both our MSR and RMBS portfolios. Our MSR portfolio’s net CPR averaged approximately 5% for the fourth quarter, down from approximately 7% net CPR in the previous quarter. The decline was mainly driven by seasonality and the change in mortgage production coupons, which drove slower prepayment speeds in the quarter. The portfolio’s recapture rate was lower at approximately 2% versus approximately 7% in the third quarter. As expected with mortgage rates rising as the incentive to refinance has lessened.

Moving forward, we continue to expect low recapture rates and stable or (ph) net CPRs for the foreseeable future, given the current levels of interest in mortgage rates. The RMBS prepayment speeds remain low. The lower CPR was driven by a combination of new asset purchases as well as the fact that the current higher mortgage rate environment is compressing CPRs for the existing portfolio. As of today, the majority of the mortgage universe remains out of the money in terms of refinancing. We would expect prepayments to remain at low levels as long as interest rates stay at these levels or move higher. For the quarter, the RMBS portfolio’s weighted average three-month CPR reduced to approximately 3.8% compared to approximately 4.7% in the third quarter.

As of December 31, the RMBS portfolio, inclusive of TBAs, stood at approximately $646 million compared to $759 million at the previous quarter end. Quarter-over-quarter, the spec pool portion of the portfolio continue to grow as we opportunistically took advantage of higher interest rate levels and lower price premiums by putting new cash to work, as well as converting a few dollar rolls into pools as dollar rolls weaken further. The RMBS portfolio number is lower as we further utilized TBA securities to hedge a portion of the portfolio. We also continue to proactively change the portfolio’s composition, moving into higher coupons and reducing spread duration for the portfolio. At the end of the fourth quarter, the 30-year securities position represented the entire RMBS portfolio, up from 96% at the end of third quarter.

For the fourth quarter, we saw an increase in RMBS net interest spread to 3.77% as compared to 3.49% net interest spread reported for the third quarter. The improved NIM was driven by previously mentioned factors. One, we took advantage of wider mortgage spreads and higher yield levels by putting new money to work throughout the quarter. Two, we rotated our portfolio swapping out of low yielding assets and purchasing higher coupon mortgages with better yields. Overall, expenses were greater, but were more than offset by increased income, which was driven by the previously mentioned reasons. At year-end, the portfolio’s financial leverage stood at approximately 3.8 times at the aggregate portfolio and the portfolio was managed with a negative duration gap.

Looking forward, we remain mindful of the current environment as we expect the investment markets to remain choppy until there is a clear sense that the Fed is reaching its terminal rate. I will now turn the call over to Mike for fourth quarter financial discussion.

Michael Hutchby: Thank you, Julian. Our GAAP net loss applicable to common stockholders for the fourth quarter was $34.5 million or $1.59 per weighted average diluted share outstanding during the quarter. While comprehensive income attributable to common stockholders, which includes the mark-to-market of our held for sale RMBS, was $6.2 million or $0.29 per weighted average diluted share. Our earnings available for distribution attributable to common stockholders were $5.3 million or $0.24 per share. Our book value per common share as of December 31, 2022 was $6.06 compared to a book value of $6.05 as of September 30, 2022. We use 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 fourth quarter, we held interest rate swaps, TBAs, treasury futures and options on treasury futures, all of which had a combined notional amount of $930 million. You can see more details with respect to our hedging strategy in our 10-K as well as in our fourth quarter presentation. For GAAP purposes, we’ve 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 $3.2 million for the quarter. On December 15, 2022, the Board of Directors declared a dividend of $0.27 per common share for the fourth quarter of 2022, which was paid in cash on January 31, 2023.

We also declared a dividend of $0.5125 per share on our 8.2% Series A cumulative redeemable preferred stock and a dividend of $0.515625 on our 8.25% Series B fixed to floating rate cumulative redeemable preferred stock, both of which were paid on January 17, 2023. At this time, we will open up the call for questions. Operator?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Mikhail Goberman of JMP Securities. Your line is open.

Mikhail Goberman: Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking the question. Could you perhaps expand a little bit further on comment about the viability of the dividend versus what sort of a sustainable level of core earnings you might see going forward given the — especially given Powell’s comments today about where rates are headed? And also, I don’t know if I heard you guys correctly, but did you say that book value was down 5% thus far this quarter?

Jay Lown: Hey, Mikhail, how are you? So, the answer to your second question is, no, we didn’t say that at all. Book value till the end of February prior to the dividend is flat.

Michael Hutchby: That’s right.

Mikhail Goberman: Okay. Thank you. Apologies for that.

Jay Lown: No worries. With respect to the dividend, look, I think you’ve heard from us before and you’ll continue to hear that we consider EAD as a measure. And I think we alluded to that in the script, but we look at total return. We obviously, think about where rates may go and how sustainable the dividend is over time. And broadly speaking, the Board meets every quarter and we’ll continue to evaluate strength of the dividend relative to earnings power and the requirements of the market relative to our space. And we expect to provide more information on that later this week.

Mikhail Goberman: All right. Thank you. And just going forward, how do you guys think about the trade-off between building the portfolio towards agency RMBS and MSRs? If interest rates do keep sort of breaking through the 5.25% to 5.75% expected rate, if we start going into a 6% (ph), how do you start thinking about your portfolio then? Thanks.

Julian Evans: Hi, Mikhail. Look, I think the early read is that we have preferred our agency RMBS at these particular levels, which we would say is kind of in the mid-teens that we kind of see the returns. We have also aiding, I think, some of the performance. We have a large — rather large swap portfolio, which has kind of moved — kind of coincided with repo rates rising almost on a one-to-one basis for us. So that has offset some of the rising repo costs that we’ve seen. So, if the Fed is moving higher, that portfolio has kind of benefited us. In terms of MSR and the kind of the returns that we’re seeing right now in terms of the portfolio, I would say kind of low to mid-teens is kind of what we’re seeing for those type of returns. But in general, we’re evaluating that constantly over time. But I would say just from a spread widening perspective, agency RMBS looks rather attractive.

Mikhail Goberman: All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Good luck going forward.

Jay Lown: Thanks, Mikhail.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Mr. Howlett of B. Riley. Your line is open. Matthew Howlett?

Matthew Howlett: Hello. Hey, guys. Hey, Jay. Thanks for taking my question.

Jay Lown: Hi, Matt.

Matthew Howlett: I would love to hear from the team. How do you characterize the risk profile of the company, I mean, today? I mean, clearly leverage is low from historical basis. It went down in the fourth quarter. I look at your sensitivities and in terms of interest rates, it’s nothing one way or the other, the book doesn’t change all that much. You’re off the over hedged. How do you characterize it? And without asking an obvious question, what’s it going to take to begin taking — increasing leverage, taking advantage of these under-priced market — these cheap MBS values and so forth? I’d just love to hear you put that in the context in terms of where the company is versus historically where it’s operated.

Julian Evans: It’s Julian again. Look, I think we sit here and say, “Look, the market looks very attractive, but I think you need better clarity from the Fed.” Clearly, Powell had statements today. And in the statements, he has kind of alluded to interest rates and Fed funds rates moving kind of higher. The market is kind of projecting it at this point in time to be 5.25%, somewhere between 5.25%-5.75%. I would say, if we just take a month ago outside of the more improved data that we got from January, the market was probably expecting the Fed to stop somewhere between 5% and 5.25% at that point in time. I think if we get greater clarity from the Fed in terms of the directionality or how high they want to take rates, I think that becomes your opportunity time to kind of take — probably increase leverage and take more advantage of the market.

Matthew Howlett: And then, in terms of the Fed, what they do with the balance sheet, I mean, how much — any sort of thoughts regarding their MBS holdings? And what are your thoughts there?

Julian Evans: I think the initial reception is that basically that the Fed would not sell MBS. They’ve had multiple opportunities to kind of sell MBS throughout this time period that they’ve been actually raising the Fed funds rate. I think that’s their most effective tool at least from their perception is that they’d like to continue to raise the Fed funds rate to levels they perceive that will kind of slow down the economy and retain the balance sheet. Can allude to that at some point if continuing to raise, the Fed’s funds rate proves to be ineffective that they might try to do something on the balance sheet. It’s a possibility, but it wouldn’t be, in my mind, a high percentage of that’s what they would like to do.

Matthew Howlett: Got you. Makes a lot of sense. And then, look, moving to servicing, I mean, it’s been a great asset and a great strategy for you. How do you — I mean, if you look at it where MSR values are today, and obviously rates, you have a low coupon and underlying coupon in servicing, would you look — I mean, if there’s a scenario where — some are forecasting the Fed to cut at some point maybe later this year, early next year, would you look to reallocate more MBS, the servicing sort of run its course, should you feel like that profile with your recapture is still going to be a core asset going forward if the interest rate cycle does change? I’m just curious how you look at servicing this year?

Jay Lown: Yes, sure, Matt. So, the portfolio has a note rate of, let’s just call, 3.5%.