Orchid Island Capital Announces Second Quarter 2021 Results

Orchid Island Capital, Inc. (NYSE:ORC) ("Orchid” or the "Company"), a real estate investment trust ("REIT"), today announced results of operations for the three month period ended June 30, 2021.

Second Quarter 2021 Highlights

• Net loss of $16.9 million, or $0.17 per common share, which consists of:
  • Net interest income of $27.7 million, or $0.28 per common share
  • Total expenses of $3.7 million, or $0.04 per common share
  • Net realized and unrealized losses of $40.8 million, or $0.41 per common share, on RMBS and derivative instruments, including net interest expense on interest rate swaps
• Second quarter total dividends declared and paid of $0.195 per common share
• Book value per common share of $4.71 at June 30, 2021
• Total return of (0.7)%, comprised of $0.195 dividend per common share and $0.23 decrease in book value per common share, divided by beginning book value per common share
• Company to discuss results on Friday, July 30, 2021, at 10:00 AM ET
• Supplemental materials to be discussed on the call can be downloaded from the investor relations section of the Company’s website at https://ir.orchidislandcapital.com

Management Commentary

Commenting on the second quarter results, Robert E. Cauley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “The economy continued its strong recovery from the COVID pandemic during the second quarter of 2021. The surge in COVID cases that occurred during the first quarter of 2021 abated quickly as inoculations of the new vaccines were widely distributed throughout the population. The economic data released during the second quarter tells the story quite well. GDP is estimated to have expanded at an 8.0% annualized rate. The housing market is stronger than it was leading up to the financial crisis. Price pressures are evident due to the combination of constrained supply channels and robust demand. The CPI increased by well over 5% year over year in June as well. As economic activity and inflation accelerated during the second quarter of 2021, market participants anticipated interest rates would continue to rise as they had done during the first quarter of the year. This did not occur. In fact, over the course of the quarter, longer term interest rates declined slowly – by 27.2 basis points in the case of the 10-year treasury note and 32.5 basis points in the case of the 30-year bond. Since quarter end, rates have accelerated their decline, especially so as the delta variant of COVID has appeared to spread at an accelerating rate across both the US and the globe. Market positioning – heavily skewed towards short positions – likely played the primary role in this outcome initially. The Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) has insisted these price pressures are temporary and, based on the persistence of these interest rate moves, the market appears to agree. However, not all members of the Federal Open Market Committee or market participants agree. Herein lies the quandary.

“When we last spoke on our first quarter earnings call, we mentioned we were positioning the portfolio defensively in light of the recovery, and this has not changed. The portfolio retains a bias towards higher rates and the probable tapering of MBS asset purchases by the Fed. While the leadership of the Fed insists their policy will remain accommodative for some time, other Fed officials have hinted at the need for tapering much sooner and the strength of the housing market appears to confirm this. As a mortgage REIT focused solely of the Agency RMBS market, we do not have the option of eliminating our exposure to the sector. What we can do is minimize our exposure to the sub-sectors of the Agency RMBS market that will be most adversely affected by the tapering when it does occur. We believe that these will be the coupons the Fed buys as part of their asset purchase programs. To wit, we have essentially no exposure to Ginnie Mae fixed rate RMBS and very little exposure to 15 and 30-year production coupons. We reduced our exposure to these sectors during the first quarter of 2021. The extremely rich valuations of these securities prevented us from adding subsequently, especially with the inevitable tapering on the horizon. While this strategy prevents us from taking advantage of the very attractive dollar roll opportunities available in many of these securities, especially 30-year, fixed rate production coupons, we have been able to earn attractive returns in other sectors of the Agency RMBS market.

“Orchid was able to raise approximately $125 million of additional capital during the second quarter at very accretive levels – our weighted average net selling price was approximately $5.42 per share during the second quarter. We have deployed the proceeds into higher coupon, specified pools and interest only securities. Our capital allocation to interest only and inverse interest only securities increased from 9.5% at March 31, 2021, to 18.0% at June 30, 2021. We have increased the allocation slightly more so far in the third quarter and may continue to do so, with a soft target of 25%. With the persistent rally in long-term rates, we are quite happy with the performance of the portfolio in terms of prepayment speeds, as the portfolio prepaid at 12.9 CPR in the aggregate for the second quarter versus 12.0 CPR in the first. The pass-through portfolio increased from 9.9 CPR during the first quarter to 10.9 CPR in the second, a very modest increase. Our realized net interest margin for the quarter was flat with the level in the first quarter.

“While we did raise additional capital during the quarter, we have been judicious in putting it to work. Our leverage ratio has declined from 9.1 to 1 at March 31, 2021, to 8.2 to 1 at June 30, 2021. We maintained some dry powder to be deployed as our asset class has cheapened, which started to occur in mid-June and into early July. We are pleased to be able to put this capital to work at far more attractive levels than existed prior to mid-June.”

Details of Second Quarter 2021 Results of Operations

The Company reported net loss of $16.9 million for the three month period ended June 30, 2021, compared with net income of $48.8 million for the three month period ended June 30, 2020. The Company increased its Agency RMBS portfolio over the course of the second quarter of 2021 through capital raised through two follow-on offerings completed in the first quarter of 2021 and shares issued through the ATM program in the second quarter of 2021. Interest income on the portfolio in the second quarter was up approximately $2.4 million from the first quarter of 2021. The yield on our average MBS declined from 2.66% in the first quarter of 2021 to 2.60% for the second quarter of 2021, repurchase agreement borrowing costs declined from 0.20% for the first quarter of 2021 to 0.14% for the second quarter of 2021, and our net interest spread remained level at 2.46% in both the first and second quarters of 2021.

Book value decreased by $0.23 per share in the second quarter of 2021. The decrease in book value reflects our net loss of $0.17 per share and the dividend distribution of $0.195 per share, offset by approximately $0.14 per share added through our capital raising activities. The Company recorded net realized and unrealized losses of $0.41 per share on Agency RMBS assets and derivative instruments, including net interest expense on interest rate swaps.

Prepayments

For the quarter ended June 30, 2021, Orchid received $135.5 million in scheduled and unscheduled principal repayments and prepayments, which equated to a 3-month constant prepayment rate (“CPR”) of approximately 12.9%. Prepayment rates on the two RMBS sub-portfolios were as follows (in CPR):

Portfolio

The following tables summarize certain characteristics of Orchid’s PT RMBS (as defined below) and structured RMBS as of June 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020:

Financing, Leverage and Liquidity

As of June 30, 2021, the Company had outstanding repurchase obligations of approximately $4,514.7 million with a net weighted average borrowing rate of 0.13%. These agreements were collateralized by RMBS with a fair value, including accrued interest, of approximately $4,678.1 million and cash pledged to counterparties of approximately $79.1 million. The Company’s leverage ratio at June 30, 2021 was 8.2 to 1. At June 30, 2021, the Company’s liquidity was approximately $278.5 million, consisting of unpledged RMBS and cash and cash equivalents. To enhance our liquidity even further, we may pledge more of our structured RMBS as part of a repurchase agreement funding, but retain the cash in lieu of acquiring additional assets. In this way we can, at a modest cost, retain higher levels of cash on hand and decrease the likelihood we will have to sell assets in a distressed market in order to raise cash. Below is a list of our outstanding borrowings under repurchase obligations at June 30, 2021.

Hedging

In connection with its interest rate risk management strategy, the Company economically hedges a portion of the cost of its repurchase agreement funding against a rise in interest rates by entering into derivative financial instrument contracts. The Company has not elected hedging treatment under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) in order to align the accounting treatment of its derivative instruments with the treatment of its portfolio assets under the fair value option election. As such, all gains or losses on these instruments are reflected in earnings for all periods presented. At June 30, 2021, such instruments were comprised of Eurodollar and Treasury note (“T-Note”) futures contracts, interest rate swap agreements, interest rate swaption agreements, and to-be-announced (“TBA”) securities transactions.

The table below presents information related to the Company’s Eurodollar and T-Note futures contracts at June 30, 2021.

The table below presents information related to the Company’s interest rate swap positions at June 30, 2021.

The following table presents information related to our interest rate swaption positions as of June 30, 2021.

The following table summarizes our contracts to sell TBA securities as of June 30, 2021.

Dividends

In addition to other requirements that must be satisfied to qualify as a REIT, we must pay annual dividends to our stockholders of at least 90% of our REIT taxable income, determined without regard to the deduction for dividends paid and excluding any net capital gains. We intend to pay regular monthly dividends to our stockholders and have declared the following dividends since our February 2013 IPO.

Peer Performance

The tables below present total return data for Orchid compared to a selected group of peers based on stock price performance for periods through June 30, 2021 and based on book value performance for periods through March 31, 2021.

Book Value Per Share

The Company's book value per share at June 30, 2021 was $4.71. The Company computes book value per share by dividing total stockholders' equity by the total number of shares outstanding of the Company's common stock. At June 30, 2021, the Company's stockholders' equity was $553.8 million with 117,500,013 shares of common stock outstanding.

Capital Allocation and Return on Invested Capital

The Company allocates capital to two RMBS sub-portfolios, the pass-through RMBS portfolio, consisting of mortgage pass-through certificates issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae (the “GSEs”) and collateralized mortgage obligations (“CMOs”) issued by the GSEs (“PT RMBS”), and the structured RMBS portfolio, consisting of interest-only (“IO”) and inverse interest-only (“IIO”) securities. As of March 31, 2021, approximately 90% of the Company’s investable capital (which consists of equity in pledged PT RMBS, available cash and unencumbered assets) was deployed in the PT RMBS portfolio. At June 30, 2021, the allocation to the PT RMBS portfolio decreased by 8% to approximately 82%.

The table below details the changes to the respective sub-portfolios during the quarter, as well as the returns generated by each.

The tables below present the allocation of capital between the respective portfolios at June 30, 2021 and March 31, 2021, and the return on invested capital for each sub-portfolio for the three month period ended June 30, 2021. The return on invested capital in the PT RMBS and structured RMBS portfolios was approximately (0.7)% and (25.2)%, respectively, for the second quarter of 2021. The combined portfolio generated a return on invested capital of approximately (3.1)%.

Stock Offerings

On August 4, 2020, we entered into an equity distribution agreement (the “August 2020 Equity Distribution Agreement”) with four sales agents pursuant to which we could offer and sell, from time to time, up to an aggregate amount of $150,000,000 of shares of our common stock in transactions that were deemed to be “at the market” offerings and privately negotiated transactions. We issued a total of 27,493,650 shares under the August 2020 Equity Distribution Agreement for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $150.0 million, and net proceeds of approximately $147.4 million, after commissions and fees, prior to its termination in June 2021.

On January 20, 2021, we entered into an underwriting agreement (the “January 2021 Underwriting Agreement”) with J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (“J.P. Morgan”), relating to the offer and sale of 7,600,000 shares of our common stock. J.P. Morgan purchased the shares of our common stock from the Company pursuant to the January 2021 Underwriting Agreement at $5.20 per share. In addition, we granted J.P. Morgan a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,140,000 shares of our common stock on the same terms and conditions, which J.P. Morgan exercised in full on January 21, 2021. The closing of the offering of 8,740,000 shares of our common stock occurred on January 25, 2021, with proceeds to us of approximately $45.2 million, net of offering expenses.

On March 2, 2021, we entered into an underwriting agreement (the “March 2021 Underwriting Agreement”) with J.P. Morgan, relating to the offer and sale of 8,000,000 shares of our common stock. J.P. Morgan purchased the shares of our common stock from the Company pursuant to the March 2021 Underwriting Agreement at $5.45 per share. In addition, we granted J.P. Morgan a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of our common stock on the same terms and conditions, which J.P. Morgan exercised in full on March 3, 2021. The closing of the offering of 9,200,000 shares of our common stock occurred on March 5, 2021, with proceeds to us of approximately $50.0 million, net of offering expenses.

On June 22, 2021, we entered into an equity distribution agreement (the “June 2021 Equity Distribution Agreement”) with four sales agents pursuant to which we may offer and sell, from time to time, up to an aggregate amount of $250,000,000 of shares of our common stock in transactions that are deemed to be “at the market” offerings and privately negotiated transactions. Through June 30, 2021, we issued a total of 5,750,000 shares under the June 2021 Equity Distribution Agreement for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $31.1 million, and net proceeds of approximately $30.6 million, after commissions and fees. Subsequent to June 30, 2021, and through July 29, 2021, we issued a total of 5,160,000 shares under the June 2021 Equity Distribution Agreement for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $26.6 million, and net proceeds of approximately $26.2 million, after commissions and fees.

Stock Repurchase Program

On July 29, 2015, the Board of Directors passed a resolution authorizing the repurchase of up to 2,000,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. As part of the stock repurchase program, shares may be purchased in open market transactions, including through block purchases, privately negotiated transactions, or pursuant to any trading plan that may be adopted in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Open market repurchases will be made in accordance with Exchange Act Rule 10b-18, which sets certain restrictions on the method, timing, price and volume of open market stock repurchases. The timing, manner, price and amount of any repurchases is determined by the Company in its discretion and is subject to economic and market conditions, stock price, applicable legal requirements and other factors. On February 8, 2018, the Board of Directors approved an increase in the stock repurchase program for up to an additional 4,522,822 shares of the Company’s common stock. The authorization does not obligate the Company to acquire any particular amount of common stock, and the program may be suspended or discontinued at the Company’s discretion without prior notice.

Since inception of the program through June 30, 2021, the Company repurchased a total of 5,685,511 shares under the stock repurchase program at an aggregate cost of approximately $40.4 million, including commissions and fees, for a weighted average price of $7.10 per share. However, we did not repurchase any shares of our common stock during the three months ended June 30, 2021. As of June 30, 2021, the remaining authorization under the repurchase program is for up to 837,311 shares of the Company’s common stock.

Earnings Conference Call Details

An earnings conference call and live audio webcast will be hosted Friday, July 30, 2021, at 10:00 AM ET. The conference call may be accessed by dialing toll free (833) 794-1168. International callers dial (236) 714-2726. The conference passcode is 9593539. The supplemental materials may be downloaded from the investor relations section of the Company’s website at https://ir.orchidislandcapital.com. A live audio webcast of the conference call can be accessed via the investor relations section of the Company’s website at https://ir.orchidislandcapital.com, and an audio archive of the webcast will be available until August 30, 2021.

About Orchid Island Capital, Inc.

Orchid Island Capital, Inc. is a specialty finance company that invests on a leveraged basis in Agency RMBS. Our investment strategy focuses on, and our portfolio consists of, two categories of Agency RMBS: (i) traditional pass-through Agency RMBS, such as mortgage pass-through certificates and CMOs issued by the GSEs, and (ii) structured Agency RMBS, such as IOs, IIOs and principal only securities, among other types of structured Agency RMBS. Orchid is managed by Bimini Advisors, LLC, a registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Forward Looking Statements

Statements herein relating to matters that are not historical facts, including, but not limited to statements regarding interest rates, liquidity, inflation, portfolio performance, pledging of our structured RMBS, funding levels and spreads, prepayment speeds, returns, portfolio positioning and repositioning, book value, investment and operating strategy, hedging levels, the supply and demand for Agency RMBS, the effect of actions of the U.S. government, including asset purchases by the Fed, market expectations, future dividends, the stock repurchase program and general economic conditions, are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The reader is cautioned that such forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time and on management's good faith belief with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause such differences are described in Orchid Island Capital, Inc.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Orchid Island Capital, Inc. assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements.

Summarized Financial Statements

The following is a summarized presentation of the unaudited balance sheets as of June 30, 2021, and December 31, 2020, and the unaudited quarterly statements of operations for the six and three months ended June 30, 2021 and 2020. Amounts presented are subject to change.

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