Bimini Capital Management - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 printed modest profitability: net income of $0.043M ($0.00 EPS) as advisory services offset MBS portfolio losses; book value per share was $0.74, up from $0.68 at year-end 2024.
• Advisory services revenue rose 20% YoY to $3.81M and +6% QoQ, aided by Orchid Island’s equity raise ($139.4M) despite Orchid’s Q2 net loss ($33.6M), while Royal Palm sold $9.8M of MBS in early Q2 amid tariff-driven turbulence.
• Net interest spreads remained healthy: average economic spread was 1.57% vs 1.60% in Q1 and 0.56% in Q2 2024; CPR rose to 9.9% from 7.3% in Q1, reflecting a pick-up in prepayments.
• Management expects to resume RMBS portfolio growth near-term if rate volatility stays low and no new adverse tariff developments arise; near-term stock catalyst is sector normalization with attractive Agency RMBS valuations and improving spreads.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Advisory services scaled despite sector headwinds: “Bimini's advisory service revenues of approximately $3.8 million represented a 20% increase over the second quarter of 2024 and a 6% increase over the first quarter of 2025”.
• Spreads held up: average economic interest rate spread was 1.57% (Q2) versus 1.60% (Q1) and 0.56% (Q2 2024), supporting core earnings power as funding costs declined post late-2024 Fed cuts.
• Book value stability: BVPS remained $0.74 as of June 30, 2025, reflecting equity of $7.4M and 10,005,457 shares outstanding; BVPS improved from $0.68 at 12/31/24.

What Went Wrong

• MBS segment loss and hedging drag: PT MBS generated a total return loss with hedge losses of $0.431M; combined portfolio ROIC was (2.9)% in Q2 vs +4.4% in Q1, reflecting adverse market moves and asset sales.
• Orchid’s quarterly loss weighed on backdrop: Orchid reported a net loss of $33.6M in Q2 with (4.66)% RoE, though it raised $139.4M and grew equity to $912.0M.
• Sequential softness in investment income and higher other expense: interest revenue declined 9% QoQ due to MBS sales; Q2 “Other (expense) income” was a loss of $0.998M vs a minor loss in Q1.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Good morning and welcome to the second quarter 2025 earnings conference call for Bimini Capital Management. This call is being recorded, August 1, 2025. At this time, the company would like to remind listeners that statements made during today's conference call relating to matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Listeners are cautioned that such forward-looking statements are based on information currently available and 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 the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K.

The company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements. Now I'd like to turn the conference over to the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Robert E. Cauley. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. The second quarter of 2025 had a very rough start. Markets were in turmoil as a result of the extensive reciprocal tariffs announced by the Trump administration on April 2nd. A week after these reciprocal tariffs were announced, the administration announced a 90-day pause to their implementation. As a result, the tariffs actually in place during the second quarter were much less than initially feared, and to date there has not been significant pass-through of tariffs in the inflation data, although it remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case given yesterday's announcement regarding the revised tariff levels. Notably, the administration's effort to negotiate trade deals to date has resulted in reciprocal tariffs far below the levels initially announced, so the market seems far less concerned with their potential impacts for now.

As the distressed market conditions abated gradually over the course of the quarter, financial markets and most risk assets fully recovered, although the agency RMBS sector was an exception. All the mortgage REIT sector companies that have reported earnings to date reported a loss for the quarter. Our RMBS segment reported a loss of $1.3 million as well, but our advisory services segment generated earnings of $1.9 million, and Bimini as a whole generated modest net income of approximately $43,000. For the six months ended June 30th, 2025, Bimini recorded net income of $0.6 million or $0.06 per share, representing a return on shareholders' equity of 8.7% unannualized. Orchid was able to raise additional capital during the second quarter, enhancing the company's advisory services revenue going forward.

Orchid raised $139.4 million during the quarter, and its shareholders' equity increased from $855.9 million at March 31st, 2025 to $912.5 million at June 30th, 2025. As a result, Bimini's advisory services revenues of approximately $3.8 million represent a 20% increase over the second quarter of 2024 and a 6% increase over the first quarter of 2025. Further, our advisory services revenues for the six months ended on June 30th, 2025, increased by 21% over the same period of 2024. With respect to our RMBS portfolio operations, we sold $9.8 million of RMBS early in the second quarter in response to the adverse market conditions mentioned above. However, our net interest revenues still increased 23% over the second quarter of 2024 and by 24% for the six-month period ended June 30th of the year earlier period as well.

As our cash positions have increased over the past few months, we anticipate resuming growth of the RMBS portfolio in the near term. We report net mark-to-market gains and losses in our RMBS assets, associated hedges, and our shares of Orchid Island Capital stock on a consolidated statement of operations as other income. For the second quarter of 2025, other income, as a result of the distressed market conditions described above, resulted in a $1 million loss versus a loss of $0.3 million for the second quarter of 2024. For the six-month period ended June 30th, 2025, we reported a loss of $1.03 million versus income of $0.65 million for the 2024 period. Expenses for the quarter of $2.8 million were up 1% over the 2024 quarter, and expenses for the first two quarters of 2025 of $5.74 million were down 1% versus the 2024 period, so relatively stable.

As the third quarter unfolds, markets are considerably calmer than when the second quarter started. The administration also passed what became known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4th. This legislation appears to have the potential to be quite stimulative for the economy and market, particularly risk assets, which have responded positively. As mentioned, agency RMBS did not fully recover from the turmoil in early April and are still trading at attractive levels. In fact, market conditions generally are quite favorable for RMBS, a positive development for Bimini Capital Management and Orchid Island Capital as well. As long as we have no new adverse developments with respect to reciprocal tariffs and interest rate volatility remains low, the sector should perform well.

With respect to the macroeconomic backdrop, the economy has remained surprisingly resilient until this morning, apparently, but in the event conditions deteriorate, the Federal Reserve appears likely to act and reduce overnight rates, which should buttress the economy. Operator, that concludes my prepared remarks. We can now open up the call for questions.

Speaker 1

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. I'm not showing any questions on the phone lines.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Operator, and thank you once again. To the extent somebody has a question, either because they listened to the replay and weren't able to listen live and have a question, or if something comes up after the call, please feel free to call us at the office. The number is 772-231-1400. Otherwise, we're looking forward to speaking with you at the end of the next quarter. Thank you and have a good day.

Speaker 1

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.