NRZ - New Residential Investment Corp. Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results

New Residential Investment Corp. (NYSE: NRZ; “New Residential” or the “Company”) today reported the following information for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2021:

Fourth Quarter 2021 Financial Highlights :

• GAAP net income of $160.4 million, or $0.33 per diluted common share ⁽¹⁾
• Core earnings of $191.9 million, or $0.40 per diluted common share ⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Common dividend of $116.7 million, or $0.25 per common share
• Book value per common share of $11.44 ⁽¹⁾

Full Year 2021 Financial Highlights :

• GAAP net income of $705.5 million, or $1.51 per diluted common share ⁽¹⁾
• Core earnings of $693.2 million, or $1.48 per diluted common share ⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Common dividend of $409.6 million, or $0.90 per common share

“New Residential delivered another quarter and full year of strong results, rounding out 2021 on a high note,” said Michael Nierenberg, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of New Residential.

“As we look ahead in 2022, we are extremely well-positioned to benefit from the current rate environment given our large portfolio of MSRs and our complementary operating businesses, which should help drive earnings and book value higher,” he added. “We will continue to prioritize reducing expenses and achieving synergies across all of our operating businesses and look forward to executing on our strategy of combining these businesses with our investment management expertise and unique portfolio of investments to drive attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders.”

Fourth Quarter 2021 Company Highlights:

• Corporate Highlights
  • Closed acquisition of Genesis Capital LLC (“Genesis”)
    • New Residential completed its previously announced acquisition of Genesis, a finance company specializing in providing loans to developers of new construction, fix and flip and rental hold projects. New Residential’s results for the fourth quarter and full year include the financial results of Genesis beginning on December 20, 2021

• Origination
  • Segment pre-tax income of $101.5 million (down from $177.5 million in Q3) ⁽³⁾
  • Quarterly origination funded production of $38.1 billion in unpaid principal balance (“UPB”) (up 10% QoQ)
  • Total gain on sale margin of 1.65% for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 1.61% for the third quarter of 2021

• Servicing
  • Segment pre-tax income of $127.5 million (up from $15.0 million in Q3)
  • Servicing portfolio grew to $483 billion in UPB (up 1.5% QoQ)
  • Acquired approximately $908 million of early buyout (“EBO”) loans and redelivered $868 million of EBO loans for gains of approximately $31 million

• MSRs and Servicer Advances
  • MSR portfolio totaled approximately $629 billion UPB at December 31, 2021 compared to $635 billion UPB at September 30, 2021 ⁽⁴⁾
  • Servicer advance balances of $3.3 billion as of December 31, 2021, effectively unchanged from September 30, 2021
  • Priced one MSR debt securitization for $567 million

• Residential Securities and Call Rights
  • Called non-agency collateral of $474 million UPB ⁽⁵⁾

• Residential Loans and Properties
  • Priced one securitization representing approximately $500 million UPB of collateral
  • Acquired $196 million of Non-QM and Investor Loans
  • Grew single-family rental portfolio by approximately 675 units

• First Quarter 2022 Commentary ⁽⁶⁾
  • Estimated Q1’22 Funded Origination Volume of approximately $25 billion to $30 billion UPB ⁽⁷⁾
  • Estimated Q1’22 Servicing Portfolio UPB of approximately $490 billion to $500 billion UPB ⁽⁷⁾

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For additional information that management believes to be useful for investors, please refer to the latest presentation posted on the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website, www.newresi.com. For consolidated investment portfolio information, please refer to the Company’s most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or Annual Report on Form 10-K, which are available on the Company’s website, www.newresi.com.

EARNINGS CONFERENCE CALL

New Residential’s management will host a conference call on Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 8:00 A.M. Eastern Time. A copy of the earnings release will be posted to the Investor Relations section of New Residential’s website, www.newresi.com.

All interested parties are welcome to participate on the live call. The conference call may be accessed by dialing 1-833-974-2382 (from within the U.S.) or 1-412-317-5787 (from outside of the U.S.) ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call; please reference “New Residential Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call.” In addition, participants are encouraged to pre-register for the conference call at https://dpregister.com/sreg/10163201/f0d676f592.

A simultaneous webcast of the conference call will be available to the public on a listen-only basis at www.newresi.com. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the website and download any necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast.

A telephonic replay of the conference call will also be available two hours following the call’s completion through 11:59 P.M. Eastern Time on Tuesday, February 15, 2022 by dialing 1-877-344-7529 (from within the U.S.) or 1-412-317-0088 (from outside of the U.S.); please reference access code “5397345.”

NON-GAAP MEASURES AND RECONCILIATION TO GAAP NET INCOME

New Residential has five primary variables that impact its operating performance: (i) the current yield earned on the Company’s investments, (ii) the interest expense under the debt incurred to finance the Company’s investments, (iii) the Company’s operating expenses and taxes, (iv) the Company’s realized and unrealized gains or losses on investments, including any impairment or reserve for expected credit losses and (v) income from the Company’s origination and servicing businesses. “Core earnings” is a non-GAAP measure of the Company’s operating performance, excluding the fourth variable above and adjusts the earnings from the consumer loan investment to a level yield basis. Core earnings is used by management to evaluate the Company’s performance without taking into account: (i) realized and unrealized gains and losses, which although they represent a part of the Company’s recurring operations, are subject to significant variability and are generally limited to a potential indicator of future economic performance; (ii) incentive compensation paid to the Company’s manager; (iii) non-capitalized transaction-related expenses; and (iv) deferred taxes, which are not representative of current operations.

The Company’s definition of core earnings includes accretion on held-for-sale loans as if they continued to be held-for-investment. Although the Company intends to sell such loans, there is no guarantee that such loans will be sold or that they will be sold within any expected timeframe. During the period prior to sale, the Company continues to receive cash flows from such loans and believes that it is appropriate to record a yield thereon. In addition, the Company’s definition of core earnings excludes all deferred taxes, rather than just deferred taxes related to unrealized gains or losses, because the Company believes deferred taxes are not representative of current operations. The Company’s definition of core earnings also limits accreted interest income on RMBS where the Company receives par upon the exercise of associated call rights based on the estimated value of the underlying collateral, net of related costs including advances. The Company created this limit in order to be able to accrete to the lower of par or the net value of the underlying collateral, in instances where the net value of the underlying collateral is lower than par. The Company believes this amount represents the amount of accretion the Company would have expected to earn on such bonds had the call rights not been exercised.

Beginning January 1, 2020, the Company’s investments in consumer loans are accounted for under the fair value option. Core earnings adjusts earnings on consumer loans to a level yield to present income recognition across the consumer loan portfolio in the manner in which it is economically earned, to avoid potential delays in loss recognition, and align it with the Company’s overall portfolio of mortgage-related assets which generally record income on a level yield basis. With respect to consumer loans classified as held-for-sale, the level yield is computed through the expected sale date. With respect to the gains recorded under GAAP in 2014 and 2016 as a result of a refinancing of, and the consolidation of, the debt related to the Company’s investments in consumer loans, and the consolidation of entities that own the Company’s investments in consumer loans, respectively, the Company continues to record a level yield on those assets based on their original purchase price.

While incentive compensation paid to the Company’s manager may be a material operating expense, the Company excludes it from core earnings because (i) from time to time, a component of the computation of this expense will relate to items (such as gains or losses) that are excluded from core earnings, and (ii) it is impractical to determine the portion of the expense related to core earnings and non-core earnings, and the type of earnings (loss) that created an excess (deficit) above or below, as applicable, the incentive compensation threshold. To illustrate why it is impractical to determine the portion of incentive compensation expense that should be allocated to core earnings, the Company notes that, as an example, in a given period, it may have core earnings in excess of the incentive compensation threshold but incur losses (which are excluded from core earnings) that reduce total earnings below the incentive compensation threshold. In such case, the Company would either need to (a) allocate zero incentive compensation expense to core earnings, even though core earnings exceeded the incentive compensation threshold, or (b) assign a “pro forma” amount of incentive compensation expense to core earnings, even though no incentive compensation was actually incurred. The Company believes that neither of these allocation methodologies achieves a logical result. Accordingly, the exclusion of incentive compensation facilitates comparability between periods and avoids the distortion to the Company’s non-GAAP operating measure that would result from the inclusion of incentive compensation that relates to non-core earnings.

With regard to non-capitalized transaction-related expenses, management does not view these costs as part of the Company’s core operations, as they are considered by management to be similar to realized losses incurred at acquisition. Non-capitalized transaction-related expenses are generally legal and valuation service costs, as well as other professional service fees, incurred when the Company acquires certain investments, as well as costs associated with the acquisition and integration of acquired businesses.

Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the Company originates conventional, government-insured and nonconforming residential mortgage loans for sale and securitization. In connection with the transfer of loans to the GSEs or mortgage investors, the Company reports realized gains or losses on the sale of originated residential mortgage loans and retention of mortgage servicing rights, which the Company believes is an indicator of performance for the Origination and Servicing segments and therefore included in core earnings. Realized gains or losses on the sale of originated residential mortgage loans had no impact on core earnings in any prior period, but may impact core earnings in future periods.

Core earnings includes results from operating companies with the exception of the unrealized gains or losses due to changes in valuation inputs and assumptions on MSRs, net of unrealized gains and losses on hedged MSRs, and non-capitalized transaction-related expenses.

Management believes that the adjustments to compute “core earnings” specified above allow investors and analysts to readily identify and track the operating performance of the assets that form the core of the Company’s activity, assist in comparing the core operating results between periods, and enable investors to evaluate the Company’s current core performance using the same measure that management uses to operate the business. Management also utilizes core earnings as a measure in its decision-making process relating to improvements to the underlying fundamental operations of the Company’s investments, as well as the allocation of resources between those investments, and management also relies on core earnings as an indicator of the results of such decisions. Core earnings excludes certain recurring items, such as gains and losses (including impairment and reserves as well as derivative activities) and non-capitalized transaction-related expenses, because they are not considered by management to be part of the Company’s core operations for the reasons described herein. As such, core earnings is not intended to reflect all of the Company’s activity and should be considered as only one of the factors used by management in assessing the Company’s performance, along with GAAP net income which is inclusive of all of the Company’s activities.

The primary differences between core earnings and the measure the Company uses to calculate incentive compensation relate to (i) realized gains and losses (including impairments and reserves for expected credit losses), (ii) non-capitalized transaction-related expenses and (iii) deferred taxes (other than those related to unrealized gains and losses). Each are excluded from core earnings and included in the Company’s incentive compensation measure (either immediately or through amortization). In addition, the Company’s incentive compensation measure does not include accretion on held-for-sale loans and the timing of recognition of income from consumer loans is different. Unlike core earnings, the Company’s incentive compensation measure is intended to reflect all realized results of operations.

Core earnings does not represent and should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, net income or as a substitute for, or superior to, cash flows from operating activities, each as determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and the Company’s calculation of this measure may not be comparable to similarly entitled measures reported by other companies. Set forth below is a reconciliation of core earnings to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure (dollars in thousands, except share and per share data):

SEGMENT INFORMATION

During the fourth quarter of 2021, the Mortgage Loans Receivable segment was added to reflect Genesis and consists of a platform that originates construction, renovation and bridge loans.