Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Nierenberg: And Trevor, I think it all depends on the rate market. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, I thought the way that we positioned the company last year to higher rates was and that included unfortunately, reducing head count pretty dramatically in the business. Going back to Kevin’s question about integration, we’re through that. But we’re going to have to adapt to markets. I think right now, we feel real good where we are head count. We feel real good where we are, the way the company is positioned, but we want to make sure that, obviously, that we manage expenses across our entire operating platform and that will include all of our businesses.

Trevor Cranston: Got it. Okay. You mentioned potentially looking to add mortgages and hedge out the fair value of the MSR at some point. Can you maybe expand on a little bit what you’d be looking for in the market to start trying to implement that strategy? Thanks.

Michael Nierenberg: If we think the Fed is done, and we feel that the rate — like — I mean, here our general view, or my general view is that mortgages will do better over time. You’ll have periods of volatility. When we think the Fed is closer to being done, I think we’ll begin adding some hedges. Across our broader portfolios, all of our portfolios are hedged with either interest rate swaps and/or mortgages. And for now, I think in the MSR business, we’ll stay the course. But at some point, we’ll likely have a more balanced portfolio where the MSR business will hedge. And the other thing to keep in mind there is a 3.5% coupon is not going to refinance right now other than just through housing turnover. So that’s an area where, unless we think the mortgage basis is really cheap, we don’t need to hedge out that coupon right now.

And even if the Fed is done, unless we think 10-year rate is going to go to whatever 1.5% and you have some COVID type event, then we’ll react to that accordingly. But for now, I think it’s — we got to stay the course. The other thing I would tell you about our team, and we have third-party consultants on the economic side that we meet with monthly, we have a very strong presence, I think, in the markets as we think about the macro picture, and that’s something that’s really, really important for us to maintain discipline in the business and make sure we try to catch both the ups and downs of where rates go and mortgages go.

Trevor Cranston: Great. Thanks guys. Thank you.

Michael Nierenberg: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Giuliano Bologna with Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Giuliano Bologna: Good morning and congrats on continued execution in a tough environment here. One thing I was curious about it’s probably the — I think it was kind of addressed earlier on in the Q&A, but I’d like to see a slightly different angle. You obviously mentioned raising private capital on the fund side. And one of the slides is a little about on your MSR funds. I’d be curious if you think there’s any opportunity to leverage the mortgage company, leverage the sub-servicing capabilities to do some sort of acquisition of MSRs from a fund perspective, because there’s obviously a lot of capital chasing the MSR asset class? And, obviously, if the reports are correct and Wells looking at $200 billion to $250 billion MSRs on top of everything else in the market, there could be a lot of supply. I’m curious if that could be an opportunity for the Rithm platform as a whole that’s an external capital and the fees and also leverage the sub-servicing?