Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM) today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023.

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Financial Highlights:

• 4TH QUARTER GAAP NET INCOME OF $0.05 PER DILUTED COMMON SHARE
• 4TH QUARTER EARNINGS AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION⁽¹⁾ OF $0.13 PER DILUTED COMMON SHARE
• FULL YEAR GAAP NET INCOME OF $52 MILLION, OR $0.23 PER DILUTED COMMON SHARE
• FULL YEAR EARNINGS AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION⁽¹⁾ OF $119 MILLION, OR $0.51 PER DILUTED COMMON SHARE
• GAAP BOOK VALUE OF $6.75 PER COMMON SHARE

“During 2023, we lowered our recourse debt by $1.0 billion and took advantage of our ability to re-lever our existing securitizations and to access the capital markets to acquire new assets,” said Phillip J. Kardis, CEO. “We believe that lowering our recourse debt and acquiring high-yielding assets will benefit our shareholders over the long run.”

^{(1) Earnings available for distribution per adjusted diluted common share is a non-GAAP measure. See additional discussion on page 6.}

Other Information

Chimera Investment Corporation is a publicly traded real estate investment trust, or REIT, that is primarily engaged in the business of investing directly or indirectly through its subsidiaries, on a leveraged basis, in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets, including residential mortgage loans, Non-Agency RMBS, Agency CMBS, Agency RMBS, and other real estate related securities.

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.

The following tables provide a summary of the Company’s MBS portfolio at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022.

At December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the secured financing agreements collateralized by MBS and Loans held for investment had the following remaining maturities and borrowing rates.

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

The table below 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.

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.

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.

Disclaimer

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, readers should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as “expect,” “target,” “assume,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “believe,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue,” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results, including, among other things, those described in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, under the caption “Risk Factors.” Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to: our business and investment strategy; our ability to accurately forecast the payment of future dividends on our common and preferred stock, and the amount of such dividends; our ability to determine accurately the fair market value of our assets; availability of investment opportunities in real estate-related and other securities, including our valuation of potential opportunities that may arise as a result of current and future market dislocations; effect of a pandemic or other national or international crisis on real estate market, financial markets and our Company, including the impact on the value, availability, financing and liquidity of mortgage assets; changes in the value of our investments, including negative changes resulting in margin calls related to the financing of our assets; changes in interest rates and mortgage prepayment rates; prepayments of the mortgage and other loans underlying our mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS, or other asset-backed securities, or ABS; rates of default, delinquencies or decreased recovery rates on our investments; general volatility of the securities markets in which we invest; our ability to maintain existing financing arrangements and our ability to obtain future financing arrangements; our ability to effect our strategy to securitize residential mortgage loans; our ability to consummate proposed transactions; interest rate mismatches between our investments and our borrowings used to finance such purchases; effects of interest rate caps on our adjustable-rate investments; the degree to which our hedging strategies may or may not protect us from interest rate volatility; the impact of and changes to various government programs; impact of and changes in governmental regulations, tax law and rates, accounting guidance, and similar matters; market trends in our industry, interest rates, the debt securities markets or the general economy; estimates relating to our ability to make distributions to our stockholders in the future; our understanding of our competition; availability of qualified personnel; our ability to maintain our classification as a real estate investment trust, or, REIT, for U.S. federal income tax purposes; our ability to maintain our exemption from registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, or 1940 Act; our expectations regarding materiality or significance; and the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Chimera does not undertake or accept any obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in Chimera’s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements concerning Chimera or matters attributable to Chimera or any person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements above.

Readers are advised that the financial information in this press release is based on Company data available at the time of this presentation and, in certain circumstances, may not have been audited by the Company’s independent auditors.

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