Greetings. Welcome to the Kimera Investment Corporation's third quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Tyra Welton, head of IR. Thank you, Tyra. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I'm Tyra Welton, Head of Investor Relations. This morning, Chimera released its results for the third quarter of 2026. The earnings release and presentation for the quarter are both available on our website at chimerareach.com. Before we begin, I'd like to review the Safe Harbor Statement. Today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These events are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are outlined in the risk factors section in our most recent annual and quarterly SEC filings. Actual events and results may differ materially from this forward-looking statement. We encourage you to read the forward-looking statement disclaimers in our earnings release and our quarterly and annual filings. During the call, we may also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our SEC filings and earnings supplements for reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures. Additionally, the content of this conference call may contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this earnings call. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise this information. I will now turn the conference over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Phil Kardis.

Thanks, Tyra. Good morning and welcome to Chimera Investment Corporation's third quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me on the call are Subramaniam Viswanathan, our Chief Financial Officer, Jack Macdowell, our Chief Investment Officer, and Kyle Walker, the President and CEO of Home Express Mortgage. After my remarks, Subra will review the financial results, Jack will then review the investment portfolio, and then Kyle will review Home Express's results. The third quarter was a challenging period for the mortgage markets, marked by a sharp increase in interest rates, significant volatility, and a growing uncertainty about the direction of monetary policy. In fact, the 10-year Treasury experienced the third largest quarterly increase in the past decade. But that doesn't fully capture what happened. By September, the sell-off had become a rout, and the 10-year Treasury yield increased by more than 50 basis points in that month alone, its largest monthly increase since 2022. and in our origination business, the speed at which rates move can matter just as much, if not more than the level of rates themselves. Kyle will discuss this in more detail, but the economics are straightforward. The secondary market reprices almost immediately when interest rates rise. Mortgage originators, however, cannot move nearly as quickly. They have a pipeline of loans locked at rates established weeks earlier. When the market yields right sharply, those loans become less valuable. To provide investors with the returns they now require, originators must sell those loans at a lower price. That price adjustment comes directly out of the origination profitability. And that's precisely what happened at Home Express. Nevertheless, Home Express remained slightly profitable for the quarter. And I want to pause for a moment on this. We experienced the third largest rate move in the past 10 years, and at Home Express was able to originate more than a billion of loans, and many more. And they did all of that without sacrificing credit standards. While the origination-based business faced significant pressure, our investment portfolio performed well. Despite one of the most difficult interest rate environments in recent years, the portfolio generated $0.38 of EAD during the quarter. For the first nine months of the year, EAD totaled $1.38 per share compared with $1.35 per share in dividends. That performance reflects the benefits of a diversified investment portfolio and the hedging strategy we put in place. Now, looking ahead, I want to be clear about the challenges we expect in the fourth quarter. While Home Express is currently locking in originating profitable loans, we expect their profitability to be roughly flat in the fourth quarter as they continue to dispose of the third quarter pipeline. We expect them to return to profitability in the first quarter of 2027. In addition, Though our investment portfolio continues to perform well, we acquired or committed to acquire loans for our securitization program. While we held these loans ahead of securitization, they were exposed to higher rate and wider spread environment, which we expect to impact our fourth quarter financials. The extent of this impact will depend on market conditions through the end of the year. And yesterday's market move was a step in the right direction. We had several important accomplishments during the quarter that I don't want to get lost in a discussion of market volatility. First, we refinanced two maturing non-mark-to-market structured repurchase facilities. Jack will review the details, but we were able to reduce the rate and the haircut. These are meaningful improvements. They reduce our financing costs, improve our capital efficiency, and provide greater funding stability. Second, our interest rate hedges worked as expected, covering the margin calls we received. Third, following the quarter end, we completed the first securitization of Home Express loans through our new conduit, PRISM Capital. We priced PRISM 2026 HX1 in a particularly difficult market, but we believe the execution was good given the market conditions. But the significance of this transaction goes beyond the pricing of a single securitization. It represents another step in bringing together three complementary capabilities within our platform, mortgage origination, asset management, and securitization. Home Express originates the loans, Palisade serves as asset manager, and our securitization capabilities provide a means of financing and distributing those assets to the capital market investors. Each of these businesses has value independently, but their real potential comes from how they work together. Over time, we expect this integrated platform to create efficiencies, improve our ability to respond to market opportunities, and provide greater control over the economics of the loans we originate and invest in. This is an important part of our long-term strategy. As we look beyond the fourth quarter, we believe the fundamental outlook for our investment portfolio remains favorable. HomeExpress has restored the economics of new production, our financing position has improved, and our integrated origination and securitization platform continues to develop. Those are the things that will matter long after the volatility of this particular quarter has passed. I want to conclude by noting that we cannot control interest rates, market volatility, or the timing of Federal Reserve decisions. What we can control is the quality of our assets, the discipline of our underwriting, the structure of our financing, adherence to prudent risk management, and how we allocate your capital. That is where our attention remains. And I believe the decisions we're making today will position us to deliver attractive, sustainable returns for shareholders over the long term. I'll now turn the call over to Subra to discuss our financial results.

Thanks Phil. GAAP net loss for the third quarter was 193.6 million with net loss of 191.2 million from our investment portfolio segment and 2.4 million from residential organization. We generated approximately 32 million of earnings available for distribution or 38 cents per share. GAAP book value per share declined 16.5% to $14.82 primarily reflecting the impact of higher rates and wider spreads during the quarter. Economic return on GAAP book value defined as the change in book value plus dividends of $1.45 for the quarter was negative 13.98% for the third quarter, while annualized EAD return on average common equity was 9.48%. Segment performance for the quarter was as follows. For the investment portfolio, economic net interest income was 69.4 million, while annualized economic net interest income return on average equity was 13.91%. The yield on average interest earning assets was 5.9%, our average cost of funds was 4.3%, and the resulting net interest spread was 1.6%. For the residential origination segment, HomeExpress funded $1.12 billion in loans. EBITDA defined as earnings before taxes, depreciation, and amortization was 0.4 million, and annualized EBITDA ROE was 0.6%. With respect to leverage and liquidity, our total leverage was 6.5 to 1, while RICO's leverage was 4.1 to 1. Gap leverage and RICO's leverage both increased during the quarter, reflecting higher loans held for sale in the investment portfolio as we accumulated assets for our prism securitizations. We ended the quarter with $561 million in total cash and unencumbered assets compared to $656 million last quarter. Total consolidated secured financing outstanding was $8.6 billion. It was comprised of $801 million related to our residential origination warehouse loans and the remaining approximately $7.8 billion was for our investment portfolio. Within the investment portfolio, 5.5 billion of secured financing supported agency positions against which we maintained 3.4 billion in swaps, interest rate caps, and other hedges with varying maturities, in addition to a short position of 2.4 billion in TVAs during the quarter. Excluding loans held for sale, 1.7 billion was secured by residential credit assets of which 1.2 billion or 73% carried non or limited mark to market features and 716 million or 43% were fixed rate facilities. Finally, on expenses, relative to the prior quarter, compensation and servicing expenses as well as general and administrative expenses were relatively flat. Unlike the second quarter, we did not incur any transaction related expense. As our business has expanded, we have begun identifying ways to improve efficiency and better align our cost structure with the scale and mix of our operations. In summary, the third quarter was challenging with significant market volatility impacting our asset valuations. Despite this, our investment portfolio continued to generate EAD contribution greater than the second quarter while our residential origination segment was slightly profitable. As we approach year end, we are focused on maintaining stronger liquidity, managing risk, and driving total shareholder returns over the long term. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jack.

Thanks, Subra, and good morning, everyone. The third quarter was defined by a sharp repricing of interest rates as persistent inflation, resilient economic activity, and geopolitical developments shifted expectations for Federal Reserve policy. The Fed raised rates by 25 basis points in September, while concerns about fiscal sustainability and treasury supply added further pressure to longer-term yields. In this environment, agency MBS underperformed as higher rates and volatility contributed to wider mortgage spreads. Residential credit markets proved more resilient, supported by investor demand and continued securitization activity, although rising financing costs and extension risk impacted whole loan prices and securitization economics, with those pressures carrying into the fourth quarter. Market dynamics drove a 16.5% decline in our book value during the quarter. Consolidated loans and securitizations accounted for roughly half of that adjustment, the agency portfolio approximately 40%, and non-agencies representing the balance, partially offset by gains on our modest MSR investment. Importantly, these valuation adjustments were largely unrealized and primarily reflected the impact of higher interest rates, wider mortgage spreads, and increased volatility rather than a deterioration in underlying credit fundamentals. Credit performance across our residential portfolio remained within expectations. We enter the quarter with a strong liquidity position and most of our non-agency portfolio benefits from conservative non-market to market financing structures. In addition, cash received on our hedges during the quarter helped offset margin requirements on our repo financing. As a result, we did not need to sell assets to meet margin calls and our financing was uninterrupted. Toward the end of September, we tactically established a $2.4 billion short TBA position to reduce risk in response to heightened market volatility. We also increased liquidity to support the settlement of PRISM-related hold-on purchases. Turning to our investment portfolio, We actively managed our agency MBS positions and advanced our PRISM mortgage banking and securitization initiatives during the quarter. In agencies, we sold $226 million of CMOs and $1 billion of mostly lower coupon pass-throughs. We purchased approximately $1.9 billion of higher coupon securities offering more attractive carry in shorter durations. As a result, our average bond coupon increased from approximately 5.28% to 5.67% at quarter end, shortening portfolio duration by approximately nine months. Despite the challenges during the quarter, September's repricing has created a more attractive investment environment for agency MBS. Higher yields and wider spreads have improved prospective returns, while mortgage duration extension has reduced negative convexity as borrowers have moved further out of the money from a refinancing perspective. Taking together, we believe these dynamics have improved our risk-adjusted return opportunity. As volatility moderated in October, we unwound the short TBA position and returned the agency portfolio toward a more normalized risk profile. This reflects our tactical approach to portfolio management, adjusting risk exposure as market conditions evolve while maintaining the flexibility to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities. As part of our PRISM conduit and mortgage banking activities, we committed to purchase approximately 330 million of loans from Home Express and 467 million from third parties in the third quarter. As of the related trade dates, these pools carried interest rates of approximately 7.2%, loan-to-value ratios of 71%, and average borrower credit scores of 745, consistent with the credit quality objectives of our PRISM program. We hedged the pipeline's duration exposure and ended the quarter with $1.2 billion of swaps against $1.2 billion of settled and unsettled loans. With respect to the non-agency portfolio, we refinanced approximately $280 million across two maturing non-mark-to-market structure repo facilities, extending maturities by two years and reducing our cost of funds. We also expanded the facilities to approximately $355 million providing approximately $75 million of additional reinvestment capacity. Our capital allocation shifted during the quarter alongside the growth of our PRISM conduit and mortgage banking activities. As a result, agency MBS accounted for 21% of invested capital at quarter end, a decrease of 5 percentage points. Residential credit and MSRs were broadly unchanged at 60% and 2% respectively. and the combined Home Express and PRISM mortgage banking activities increased by 5% to 17%. Turning to credit performance, underlying fundamentals across our residential loan portfolio remain stable and generally in line with expectations. Delinquencies in our legacy re-performing loan portfolio remained within the narrow range seen over the past several years and prepayments were broadly consistent with historical levels. Our investor DSCR portfolio experienced a modest increase in September delinquencies. That has since largely reversed as early stage delinquent borrowers brought their loans current. Importantly, this portfolio continues to outperform a comparable composite of 2022 and 2023 vintage non-QM loans from a credit perspective. Pre-payments declined materially from the second quarter as higher mortgage rates reduced refinancing incentives in line with broader trends across the non-QM market. As Phil mentioned, following quarter end, we priced and closed PRISM 2026 HX1, our inaugural transaction under the PRISM shelf, backed by approximately 291 million of non-QM loans originated by HomeExpress. This was an important milestone, particularly given the challenging securitization market where higher interest rates, increased volatility, and investor concerns around extension risk have placed pressure on new issue spreads and transaction structures. Despite our first issuance under the PRISM shelf and Chimera's first securitization backed by Home Express originated loans, we achieved competitive execution, pricing our AAA bonds at a spread of 160 basis points in line with comparable non-QM transactions pricing in the 155 to 165 range during the same period. We believe this reflects the strength of Chimera's established presence and reputation in the residential securitization market. The transaction also demonstrates the value of our integrated platform, with Home Express originating the loans, Palisades providing asset level diligence and ongoing asset management and servicing oversight, and Chimera leading the structuring and capital markets execution. While we are pleased to have successfully launched PRISM, we recognize that the third quarter was a particularly challenging period to aggregate and finance loans. Nevertheless, we remain confident in the long-term potential of our integrated platform. HomeExpress's leading non-QM origination franchise, combined with the broader capabilities of Chimera and Palisades, provides a differentiated platform and a strong foundation for sustainable earnings. As interest rates and market volatility stabilize, We expect its earnings potential to become increasingly evident. Subject to market conditions, we intend to establish PRISM as a regular issuer in the non-QM securitization market. The third quarter also reinforced the importance of maintaining a strong balance sheet and the flexibility to navigate rapidly changing market conditions. With geopolitical events, monetary policy, and other external developments creating uncertainty, liquidity, disciplined risk management and capital preservation will remain central to our approach for the foreseeable future. Looking ahead, we want to acknowledge the work that our team has done over the past two years to reposition the portfolio, build new capabilities and bring these various components of our platform together. While the current market presents challenges, We believe that work has meaningfully strengthened Chimera and positioned us to generate value in ways that were previously unavailable to us. Our priority now is to translate that progress into consistent financial performance and sustainable long-term earnings for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Kyle to discuss residential origination.

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Home Express originated $1.12 billion in the third quarter. An increase of 27% from the third quarter of 2025 and 2% over the record second quarter. We achieved this result despite an increasingly challenging market, particularly in September with heightened interest rate volatility and wider bond spreads, pressured industry volumes and economics. The over-year growth was broad-based, including continued expansion in our correspondent channel, which accounted for 16.8% of quarterly production. I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing quarterly profitability and the factors that shaped it. We generated 430,000 in EBITDA, while our net origination margin was negative seven basis points. We began the quarter strong, producing 3.1 million in EBITDA with a net origination margin of 74 basis points in July. As the quarter progressed, rising interest rates and significant rate volatility impacted our business. Competitors were slower to raise their rates while we remain disciplined, balancing competitive pricing with the true economics of each loan. At the same time, wider bond spreads and expectations for longer duration impacted the economics of loans already locked in our pipeline, along with loans originated earlier in the quarter. It also affected pricing on new production. Tighter origination margins and less favorable secondary market execution more than offset the benefit of our higher volume levels weighing on quarterly profitability. It is important to distinguish between the level of interest rates and the speed at which they change. Loans can be priced effectively across a range of interest rates, durations, and bond spread environments. The challenge arises when markets are extremely volatile and move so quickly that they create uncertainty around pricing and execution for both lenders and whole loan investors. Although we are quick to respond to such fluctuations by adjusting our lending rate sheets, the magnitude and pace of bond spread volatility and changing duration expectations made the transition difficult. Because we cannot dictate market conditions or competitors' pricing decisions, we concentrate on what we can influence, competing selectively, actively managing our operating cost base, and maintaining disciplined credit standards. First, as competition intensified, some lenders held pricing steady despite changes in the industry environment to preserve their imagination volume. We chose a different path. As I noted last quarter, we are not seeking to win every loan. We continue to compete where we saw opportunities to strengthen valuable broker relationships, but remain selective about loan pricing and quality. That discipline limited our volume growth during the quarter. Second, we are strengthening the business's underlining economics by investing in our platform and supporting our origination network. We ended the quarter with more than 6,300 approved brokers supported by 145 account executives and related sales staff. Our broad network and trusted broker partnerships positioned us well to capture growth as market conditions improved. Network size, however, is only one part of the equation. Brokers also need comprehensive and flexible loan products, reliable execution, and excellent customer service. We continue to invest in these capabilities and in our correspondent channel with certain costs being incurred today ahead of the volume they are structured to support. Finally, and most importantly, we did not compromise our underwriting standards, even as our originations grew modestly in a more competitive market and margins tightened later in the quarter. The weighted average FICO score for third quarter originations was 743 compared with 742 last quarter, while weighted average LTV was 72.39% compared with 71.56%. Credit discipline remains fundamental to how we operate. We also continued working with our warehouse partners to improve financing economics at quarter end. We had 1.65 billion of warehouse capacity across seven facilities, providing more than sufficient funding to support current production levels. For the remainder of the year, we will maintain credit discipline, compete selectively, and improve our operating efficiency while continuing to build the scale we have developed into meaningful earnings over time. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Phil.

Thanks, Kyle, and we'll now open the call for questions.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Marissa Lobo with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Could you talk about your outlook for the agency basis following September widening and how you're comparing incremental returns for agency versus new residential credit opportunities today?

Yeah, sure. Hey, Marissa. Yeah, I mean, obviously, especially after yesterday's move, it's been shifting around a little bit, but I mean, we see returns for agencies somewhere in that mid-teens, call it 16%, 17% range as we see here today. And from a portfolio allocation standpoint, I would say that the marginal dollar, if you will, as we talked about in the past, sort of goes to agencies with respect to our liquidity bucket. We see that as an opportunity to sort of generate a nice nominal cash flow yield while at the same time You know, enjoying the liquid nature of that and the optionality that allows us to draw down on it and allocate to other elements of the business as we see opportunities. And we actually, as I think I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we did that toward the end of the third quarter as we need to settle loans for our PRISM conduit mortgage banking activities, we would draw down on the agencies. As we sit here today from a relative value perspective, you know, we certainly do look at agencies as sort of the benchmark as we look to deploy capital across other parts of the business. And right now we see the agency ROEs on a nominal basis at least looking pretty attractive.

Okay, great. And looking at liquidity and leverage, with leverage higher, additional loans being accumulated for securitization, How are you thinking about the minimum liquidity buffer needed to operate the origination strategy through another period of volatility?

Yeah, well, I mean, as you point out, leverage did increase, and that was purely a function, I would say, of adding the loans in anticipation of securitizing them. So that number is going to go up and down as we aggregate loans and securitize them. If you think about it, though, even if you have, you know, $800 million of loans in the pipeline for securitization, let's just say you're going to hold about, you know, 10% or so, 10 to 12% of capital against that. So you're not talking about huge amounts of capital required to sustain at least where we are today with respect to our PRISM conduit activities. Subramaniam Viswanathan, Victor Falvo draw down all the agencies to support PRISM. And then when we do the securitization and extract capital, we can then put that back into agencies until we need it for another investment down the road.

Great. Appreciate the answers.

Our next question comes from Trevor Cranston with Citizens. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good morning. I think you said in the prepared comments that you've lifted the TBA short position subsequent to quarter end. Looking at the agency book on slide 11, it looks like you had also discussed have taken the swap portfolio down significantly at some point in 3Q. So can you comment on kind of where the hedge portfolio has gone since quarter end if the TBA has been lifted? Thanks.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, Trevor. The TBA was lifted incrementally over the course of October as volatility came down. So as we see here today, the TBA short is off and if you're referring to the other parts of the hedge complex what we tend to do we're not looking to take rate views in the agency portfolio so we do try to manage to a pretty tight duration gap there keep in mind we do have a combination of in the money caps as well as swaps and over the course of the quarter as we moved up in coupon we did shorten the duration of the portfolio and it did shift around and so forth. But at the end of the day, we're really not looking to take views and we're managing to a pretty tight gap.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then can you comment on how you guys are generally thinking about potential for doing share buybacks relative to continuing to deploy capital into the investment portfolio at this point. Thanks.

Yeah, this is Phil. So as we've said in the past, I think right now as we look at our investment opportunities, we continue to believe that investing is preferable to doing share buybacks is kind of what our view has been.

That's fair. Thank you.

Our next question is from George Bose with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Hi guys. Good morning. This is for Bose. I just want to get a little color on the market, you know, and the current trends you're seeing there. across your portfolio, you have noticed some increases in delinquency rates. So yeah, what are you seeing there? And also maybe you can touch on execution across the non-QM securitization market. Thanks.

Sure. I'm happy to take that. So just if you're looking in our investor deck on the non-QM delinquency chart, you know, it did on our investor DSCR portfolio, you saw a small uptake there. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, that's a 2022-2023 vintage portfolio, and it is performing, I would say, meaningfully inside where sort of composite loans from that vintage are running from a delinquency standpoint. But I would say more broadly speaking, and this goes for the entire sort of non-QM market, is that as you sort of see delinquencies in that mid-single-digit range, I think if you talk to just about anybody, nobody is commenting that losses are exceeding their expectations. Losses have been nominal at best across the non-QM space. So that's consistent with what we're seeing in our portfolio as well as the broader market. In terms of just securitization execution, I'm sure you're probably aware that over the course of the quarter as rates sold off and deals came to market with lower interest rates on the underlying loans. Securitization structures shifted a little bit, and that has impacted securitization economics overall for some of those lower interest rate pools. But I will say, and as we alluded to in our prepared remarks, we were exceptionally pleased with respect to the execution on our initial PRISM transaction, the HX1 deal. If you just look at where AAA's were pricing the week before and the week after we did our deal, sort of putting us right in the middle there. You saw issuers that were on their 12th, 13th deal of the year, and they were pricing their AAAs in the 155 to 165 area, and we got our deal done at 160. So, again, we were exceptionally pleased, and when we had originally agreed Thank you very much. all the different components of the business together in a synergistic and complimentary way. And we see this as being a pretty important component of our ongoing business strategy.

Great. That's very helpful. I don't know if I missed this. Did you provide an update to book value, quarter, or date? And if so, can you just discuss the current, like, What's moving if it spreads or rates?

Yeah, sure. So as of the third, I guess, we were up 5%. And that was really a function of, you know, rates have tightened and spreads have tightened quarter to date. So unlike the breakdown that we gave in the prepared remarks, the composition of that was probably more toward the agency piece just from a book value attribution component than it was over the course of the third quarter.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Doug Harder with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Thanks. It's actually Will Maston for Doug this morning. I know you cited macro volatility as a main driver of the lower Home Express margins in the quarter, but I was just hoping you could talk a little bit more about how you're thinking about margins there in the higher rate environment and I guess how that evolves if volatility comes down.

Yeah, this is Kyle. You know, we had to go through a transition from a lower interest rate environment to a higher rate which means most of our loans are locked on 30 days. So there was a transition of about 30 days where you had to deal with loans that weren't profitable. Today, our pipeline, we believe, is profitable. The rack is near 8%. And so we're still working through, I think, about one more pool that is maybe slightly profitable. Thank you. I'd like to thank all of our shareholders for their support.

and also like to thank all of our employees for the hard work that they went through given the volatility of the quarter. And we look forward to talking to you early next year. Thank you.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.