Two Harbors Investment Corp. Reports First Quarter 2018 Financial Results

Strong Quarter for Core Earnings

Announced Proposed Acquisition of CYS Investments, Inc. Post Quarter End

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Two Harbors Investment Corp. (NYSE: TWO), a leading hybrid mortgage real estate investment trust (REIT) that invests in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), mortgage servicing rights (MSR) and other financial assets, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2018.

Summary

• Reported book value of $15.63 per common share, representing a (1.3%) total quarterly return on book value.⁽¹⁾
• Incurred a Comprehensive Loss of ($23.7) million, or ($0.14) per weighted average basic common share.
• Reported Core Earnings including dollar roll income of $83.8 million, or $0.48 per weighted average basic common share, representing a return on average common equity of 11.8%.⁽²⁾
  • Dollar roll income of $3.4 million, or $0.02 per weighted average basic common share.
• Added $13.6 billion unpaid principal balance (UPB) of MSR through both a bulk purchase and monthly flow-sale arrangements, bringing total holdings to $111.7 billion UPB.
• Increased the capacity of an MSR financing facility by $100 million, to a total of $400 million, and continued to advance discussions with other potential MSR financing counterparties.
• Post quarter end, announced proposed acquisition of CYS Investments, Inc. (NYSE: CYS).

“We delivered strong Core Earnings in the first quarter, driven primarily by growth in our MSR portfolio and additional servicing income,” stated Thomas Siering, Two Harbors’ President and Chief Executive Officer. “Additionally, post quarter end, we were excited to announce our proposed acquisition of CYS Investments, Inc., which we believe represents a unique opportunity to create value for our stockholders.”

(1) Return on book value for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 is defined as the decrease in book value per common share from December 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018 of $0.68, plus the dividend declared of $0.47 per common share, divided by December 31, 2017 book value of $16.31 per common share.
(2) Core Earnings and Core Earnings including dollar roll income are non-GAAP measures. Please see page 13 for a definition of Core Earnings and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial information.

Beginning with this reporting period, certain of the company’s non-GAAP earnings metrics will include to-be-announced (TBA) dollar roll income. TBA dollar roll income is the economic equivalent to holding and financing Agency RMBS using short-term repurchase agreements. For various liquidity, hedging and leverage benefits, the company’s investment team may choose to invest in TBAs versus Agency pools. The ability to invest in more meaningful TBA exposure benefitted from the recent receipt of a tax opinion that will allow the company to hold these investments in the REIT. The company believes that the presentation of Core Earnings including dollar roll income is a meaningful indicator of its earnings power and provides investors with greater transparency into the company’s period-over-period financial performance.

Operating Performance
The following table summarizes the company’s GAAP and non-GAAP earnings measurements and key metrics for the first quarter of 2018:

Earnings Summary
Two Harbors incurred a Comprehensive Loss of ($23.7) million, or ($0.14) per weighted average basic common share, for the quarter ended March 31, 2018, as compared to Comprehensive Income of $65.7 million, or $0.38 per weighted average basic common share, for the quarter ended December 31, 2017. The company records unrealized fair value gains and losses on the majority of RMBS, classified as available-for-sale, in Other Comprehensive Income. On a Comprehensive Income basis, the company recognized an annualized return on average common equity of (3.3%) and 8.5% for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.

The company reported GAAP Net Income of $321.1 million, or $1.83 per weighted average basic common share, for the quarter ended March 31, 2018, as compared to GAAP Net Income of $154.0 million, or $0.88 per weighted average basic common share, for the quarter ended December 31, 2017. On a GAAP Net Income basis, the company recognized an annualized return on average common equity of 45.2% and 20.0% for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.

For the first quarter of 2018, the company recognized non-Core Earnings of:

• net realized losses on RMBS and mortgage loans held-for-sale of $19.7 million;
• net unrealized losses on certain RMBS, equity securities and mortgage loans held-for-sale of $1.3 million;
• other-than-temporary impairment loss of $0.1 million;
• net gains of $92.5 million related to swap and swaption terminations and expirations;
• net unrealized gains of $54.3 million associated with interest rate swaps and swaptions economically hedging interest rate exposure (or duration);
• net realized and unrealized gains on other derivative instruments of $5.6 million;
• net realized and unrealized gains on MSR of $114.7 million⁽¹⁾;
• servicing reserve expense of $0.3 million;
• non-cash equity compensation expense of $2.3 million;
• net provision for income taxes on non-Core Earnings of 2.7 million; and
• dollar roll income of $3.4 million.

The company reported Core Earnings for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 of $80.4 million, or $0.46 per weighted average basic common share outstanding. The company reported Core Earnings for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 of $81.3 million, or $0.47 per weighted average basic common share outstanding. On a Core Earnings basis, the company recognized an annualized return on average common equity of 11.3% for both of the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017. The company reported Core Earnings including dollar roll income for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 of $83.8 million, or $0.48 per weighted average basic common share outstanding. On a Core Earnings including dollar roll income basis, the company recognized an annualized return on average common equity of 11.8% for the quarter ended March 31, 2018.

Other Key Metrics
Two Harbors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.47 per common share for the quarter ended March 31, 2018. The annualized dividend yield on the company’s common stock for the quarter, based on the March 31, 2018 closing price of $15.37, was 12.2%.

Two Harbors declared quarterly dividends of $0.50781 per share on its 8.125% Series A fixed-to-floating rate cumulative redeemable preferred stock, $0.47656 per share on its 7.625% Series B fixed-to-floating rate cumulative redeemable preferred stock and a dividend of $0.45313 per share of the 7.25% Series C fixed-to-floating rate cumulative redeemable preferred stock. Each of the foregoing preferred dividends were paid on April 27, 2018 to the applicable preferred stockholders of record at the close of business on April 12, 2018.

The company’s book value per common share, after taking into account the first quarter 2018 common and preferred stock dividends, was $15.63 as of March 31, 2018, compared to $16.31 as of December 31, 2017, which represented a total return on book value for the quarter of (1.3%).⁽²⁾

Other operating expenses for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 were approximately $14.5 million. The company’s annualized expense ratio was 1.6% of average equity, compared to expenses from continuing operations of approximately $9.8 million, or 1.1% of average equity, for the quarter ended December 31, 2017. These include non-cash equity compensation expense of $2.3 million and non-cash equity compensation income (negative amortization) of $0.4 million, respectively.

(1) Excludes estimated amortization of $42.9 million included in Core Earnings.
(2) Return on book value for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 is defined as the decrease in book value per common share from December 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018 of $0.68, plus the dividend declared of $0.47 per common share, divided by December 31, 2017 book value of $16.31 per common share.

Portfolio Summary
The company’s aggregate portfolio is principally comprised of RMBS available-for-sale securities, inverse interest-only securities (Agency Derivatives) and MSR. As of March 31, 2018, the total value of the company’s portfolio was $22.4 billion.

The company’s portfolio includes rates and credit strategies. The rates strategy consisted of $19.4 billion of Agency RMBS, Agency Derivatives and MSR as well as their associated notional hedges as of March 31, 2018. The credit strategy consisted of $3.0 billion of non-Agency securities, as well as their associated notional hedges as of March 31, 2018.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2018, the annualized yield on the company’s average aggregate portfolio was 3.77% and the annualized cost of funds on the associated average borrowings, which includes net interest rate spread on interest rate swaps, was 1.84%. This resulted in a net interest rate spread of 1.93%.

RMBS and Agency Derivatives
For the quarter ended March 31, 2018, the annualized yield on average RMBS and Agency Derivatives was 3.7%, consisting of an annualized yield of 3.1% in Agency RMBS and Agency Derivatives and 8.0% in non-Agency securities.

The company experienced a three-month average constant prepayment rate (CPR) of 7.0% for Agency RMBS and Agency Derivatives held as of March 31, 2018, compared to 7.6% as of December 31, 2017. The weighted average cost basis of the principal and interest Agency portfolio was 106.4% of par and 106.6% of par as of March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively. The net premium amortization was $44.2 million and $43.0 million for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.

The company experienced a three-month average CPR of 5.7% for legacy non-Agency securities held as of March 31, 2018, compared to 6.4% as of December 31, 2017. The weighted average cost basis of the legacy non-Agency securities was 59.5% of par as of March 31, 2018, compared to 59.9% of par as of December 31, 2017. The discount accretion was $22.2 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2018, compared to $20.8 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2017. The total net discount remaining was $1.3 billion as of both March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, with $712.0 million designated as credit reserve as of March 31, 2018.

As of March 31, 2018, fixed-rate investments composed 86.8% and adjustable-rate investments composed 13.2% of the company’s RMBS and Agency Derivatives portfolio.

Mortgage Servicing Rights
As of March 31, 2018, the company held MSR on mortgage loans with UPB totaling $111.7 billion.⁽¹⁾ The MSR had a fair market value of $1.3 billion, as of March 31, 2018, and the company recognized fair value gains of $71.8 million during the quarter ended March 31, 2018.

The company does not directly service mortgage loans, but instead contracts with fully licensed subservicers to handle substantially all servicing functions in the name of the subservicer for the loans underlying the company’s MSR. The company recognized $71.2 million of servicing income, $14.3 million⁽¹⁾ of servicing expenses and $0.3 million in servicing reserve expense during the quarter ended March 31, 2018.

(1) Excludes residential mortgage loans in securitization trusts for which the company is the named servicing administrator.

Other Investments and Risk Management Derivatives
The company held $0.4 billion notional of net long TBAs as of March 31, 2018, which are accounted for as derivative instruments in accordance with GAAP.

As of March 31, 2018, the company was a party to interest rate swaps and swaptions with a notional amount of $29.8 billion. Of this amount, $23.6 billion notional in swaps were utilized to economically hedge interest rate exposure (or duration), and $6.2 billion net notional in swaptions were utilized as macroeconomic hedges.

The following tables summarize the company’s investment portfolio as of March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017:

“We are excited about the opportunity to redeploy capital from the proposed acquisition of CYS into our target assets,” stated Bill Roth, Two Harbors’ Chief Investment Officer. “We continue to see abundant opportunity to add MSR and believe that pairing MSR with our Agency RMBS better hedges our interest rate exposure and spread risk. Over time, we expect that approximately 50% of our capital will be allocated to MSR and credit.”

Financing Summary
The company reported a debt-to-equity ratio, defined as total borrowings under repurchase agreements, FHLB advances, revolving credit facilities and convertible senior notes to fund RMBS, Agency Derivatives and MSR divided by total equity, of 5.9:1.0 as of March 31, 2018.

As of March 31, 2018, the company had outstanding $18.9 billion of repurchase agreements funding RMBS and Agency Derivatives with 28 different counterparties. Excluding the effect of the company’s interest rate swaps, the repurchase agreements funding RMBS and Agency Derivatives had a weighted average borrowing rate of 1.94% as of March 31, 2018.

The company’s wholly owned subsidiary, TH Insurance Holdings Company LLC (TH Insurance), is a member of the FHLB. As a member of the FHLB, TH Insurance has access to a variety of products and services offered by the FHLB, including secured advances. As of March 31, 2018, TH Insurance had $0.9 billion in outstanding secured advances funding RMBS, with a weighted average borrowing rate of 2.13%.

As of March 31, 2018, the company had outstanding $20.0 million of short-term borrowings secured by MSR collateral under revolving credit facilities with a weighted average borrowing rate of 5.67% and remaining maturities of 261 days. Additionally, the company had outstanding $250.0 million of long-term repurchase agreements for MSR, with a weighted average borrowing rate of 3.94%, with additional available capacity of $150.0 million.

As of March 31, 2018, the company’s aggregate repurchase agreements, FHLB advances, revolving credit facilities and convertible senior notes funding RMBS, Agency Derivatives and MSR had a weighted average of 4.7 months to maturity.

The following table summarizes the company’s borrowings by collateral type under repurchase agreements, FHLB advances, revolving credit facilities and convertible senior notes outstanding as of March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, and the related cost of funds for the three months ended March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017:

Conference Call
Two Harbors Investment Corp. will host a conference call on May 9, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. EDT to discuss first quarter 2018 financial results and related information. To participate in the teleconference, please call toll-free (877) 868-1835 (or (914) 495-8581 for international callers), conference code 3599717, approximately 10 minutes prior to the above start time. You may also listen to the teleconference live via the Internet on the company’s website at www.twoharborsinvestment.com in the Investor Relations section under the Events and Presentations link. For those unable to attend, a telephone playback will be available beginning at 12:00 p.m. EDT on May 9, 2018, through 12:00 a.m. EDT on May 16, 2018. The playback can be accessed by calling (855) 859-2056 (or (404) 537-3406 for international callers), conference code 3599717. The call will also be archived on the company’s website in the Investor Relations section under the Events and Presentations link.

Two Harbors Investment Corp.
Two Harbors Investment Corp., a Maryland corporation, is a real estate investment trust that invests in residential mortgage-backed securities, mortgage servicing rights and other financial assets. Two Harbors is headquartered in New York, New York, and is externally managed and advised by PRCM Advisers LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pine River Capital Management L.P. Additional information is available at www.twoharborsinvestment.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This presentation 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 Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, under the caption “Risk Factors.” Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to: the state of credit markets and general economic conditions; changes in interest rates and the market value of our assets; changes in prepayment rates of mortgages underlying our target assets; the rates of default or decreased recovery on the mortgages underlying our target assets; the occurrence, extent and timing of credit losses within our portfolio; the concentration of credit risks we are exposed to; declines in home prices; our ability to establish, adjust and maintain appropriate hedges for the risks in our portfolio; the availability and cost of our target assets; the availability and cost of financing; changes in the competitive landscape within our industry; our ability to effectively execute and to realize the benefits of strategic transactions and initiatives we have pursued or may in the future pursue; our proposed acquisition of CYS and our ability to realize the benefits related thereto; our ability to manage various operational risks and costs associated with our business; interruptions in or impairments to our communications and information technology systems; our ability to acquire MSR and successfully operate our seller-servicer subsidiary and oversee our subservicers; the impact of any deficiencies in the servicing or foreclosure practices of third parties and related delays in the foreclosure process; our exposure to legal and regulatory claims; legislative and regulatory actions affecting our business; the impact of new or modified government mortgage refinance or principal reduction programs; our ability to maintain our REIT qualification; and limitations imposed on our business due to our REIT status and our exempt status under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Two Harbors 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 Two Harbors’ most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements concerning Two Harbors or matters attributable to Two Harbors or any person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements above.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures
In addition to disclosing financial results calculated in accordance with United States generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), this press release and the accompanying investor presentation present non-GAAP financial measures, such as Core Earnings, Core Earnings including dollar roll income, Core Earnings per basic common share and Core Earnings per basic common share including dollar roll income, that exclude certain items. Two Harbors’ management believes that these non-GAAP measures enable it to perform meaningful comparisons of past, present and future results of the company’s core business operations, and uses these measures to gain a comparative understanding of the company’s operating performance and business trends. The non-GAAP financial measures presented by the company represent supplemental information to assist investors in analyzing the results of its operations. However, because these measures are not calculated in accordance with GAAP, they should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, the financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. The company’s GAAP financial results and the reconciliations from these results should be carefully evaluated. See the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation table on page 13 of this release.

Additional Information
Stockholders of Two Harbors and other interested persons may find additional information regarding the company at the SEC’s Internet site at www.sec.gov or by directing requests to: Two Harbors Investment Corp., Attn: Investor Relations, 575 Lexington Avenue, Suite 2930, New York, NY 10022, telephone (612) 629-2500.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180508006675/en/

Two Harbors Investment Corp.
Margaret Field, 212-364-3663
Investor Relations
margaret.field@twoharborsinvestment.com

Source: Two Harbors Investment Corp.

Released May 8, 2018