Bimini Capital Management, Inc. ($BMNM)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Bimini Capital's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Melissa Alfonso. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Liz. Good morning, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call for Bimini Capital Management. This call is being recorded today, March 13, 2026. At this time, the company would like to remind the 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 on the management's good faith, believe with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from these 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 would like to turn the conference over to the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Robert Cauley. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Melissa, and good morning. The fixed income markets experienced a period of calm as 2025 came to a close and we entered 2026. In fact, the rates market was calm for most of 2025, absent the turbulence surrounding the announcement of tariffs, reciprocal tariffs announced by President Trump in April. Interest rates remain in a very tight range for all of 2025, especially during the fourth quarter. Implied interest rate vol continued its steady decline that began in April of 2025 and Agency RMBS performed well during the fourth quarter of 2025 and for the year, generating returns of 1.7% and 8.58% for the quarter and year, respectively. Other sectors of the fixed markets performed well during the fourth quarter as well and spreads on investment-grade corporate bonds reached levels not seen since 1998. Risk sentiment generally was quite strong during the quarter, and all major sectors of the fixed income market generated positive returns for the quarter and for all of '25 as well. As 2026 began, economic activity remained resilient, including the labor market. The outlook has since changed after the war broke out in Iran, the world's most critical oil and chemical supplier region has suffered intense military attacks leading to supply interruptions. Inflation, which already was already sticky, may move even higher and the economic outlook has become very uncertain. Turning to our results. Benefiting from the favorable market conditions during the fourth quarter of 2025, Orchid Island Capital reported net income of $103.4 million for the quarter and its stockholders' equity increased from $1.086 billion to $3.72 billion. As a result, Bimini's Advisory Services revenue also increased to $4.7 million compared to $4.5 million for the third quarter of 2025. For the year, Orchid shareholders' equity increased by approximately 105%, which led to advisory services revenue increasing from $12.8 million in 2024 to $16.6 million in 2025, a 30% year-over-year increase. Orchid has been able to continue to grow its stockholders' equity further so far in 2026 for Orchid's public disclosures. Our investment portfolio segment also better from the favorable market conditions for both the '25 fourth quarter and full year. The investment portfolio shrank slightly over the course of the year by approximately $0.27 yet net interest and dividend income increased from $1.52 million in 2024 to $2.45 million in 2025. Net realized and unrealized gains and losses on our RMBS portfolio, Orchid shares and derivative positions used for hedging are also positive for the fourth quarter of 2025 and the full year. For the quarter, Bimini generated income of $1.52 million and with a $1.87 million tax benefit, net income after tax of $3.38 million. For the year, Bimini generated pretax income of $4.49 million, a tax benefit of $1.31 million and after-tax net income of $5.8 million, which represents a return on beginning of the year's shareholders' equity of 85%. The company also reinstituted a share buyback plan to enable us to invest in our stock to the extent we believe is undervalued. The plan permits us to purchase up to $2.5 million of our stock. On January 13, 2026, the company announced that a subsidiary of Royal Palm Capital, Bimini Advisors Holdings, LLC, had entered into an agreement to purchase 80% of the fully diluted equity interest of Tom Johnson Investment Management. a privately held registered investment adviser. The transaction is expected to close at the beginning of the second quarter of 2026. As of the announcement date, TJIM had approximately $1.6 billion of assets under management across equity and fixed income markets. TJIM's management agreements are diverse, covering individual accounts, sub-advisory agreements and wrap programs. The existing owners of TJIM will remain an ownership interest in TJIM, and Bimini intends to retain its current staff and investment management team following the closing of the transaction. The purpose of the transaction is to both expand and diversify the advisory services segment of the company. If the transaction closes as anticipated, the company will continue to operate in Agency RMBS portfolio although the portfolio will initially be much smaller as the capital to fund the acquisition of TJIM will come from available cash and the liquidation of the majority of the Agency RMBS portfolio in place at year-end 2025. Going forward, to the extent the company is able to generate positive cash flows from operations, such funds will be deployed in the portfolio, although the leverage employed will be lower than was typically the case prior to the acquisition should it occur. Assuming the transaction closes as anticipated, we will use the first quarter of 2026 earnings call to expand on the details of the transaction, how we plan to operate the business going forward and introduce the management of TGIM. Operator, that concludes my prepared remarks, and we can open the call up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Gary Ribe with Accretive Wealth Partners.

Congrats on your deal. I was just -- it looks like it's a relatively attractive price. I'm just kind of curious if you can help me understand how you guys source the deal? Were you part of a competitive bidding process? Or was this sort of an off-market deal you guys found?

Yes. We have been working with the banker at Westir Capital, Richard Jin, and we worked to do a search. So this was not a competitive bid process. Basically, we were looking for relatively small private asset managers. We had a profile in place, and I'll probably go into more detail on this in this regard in the first quarter once the deal closes and there's more information I can disclose publicly. But it was a search on our part, and we had a profile in place what we're looking for and came upon them. They appeared to be a very attractive acquisition target for us in many respects. Diversification, obviously, they have a nice mix, as we mentioned, of assets under management, including actually fixed income and some REITs from time to time and a very nice long track record of performance and profitability. So as I mentioned, I'll go into it in greater detail, but that's kind of how it came about.

Okay. Got it. That's helpful. So from your remarks, it seems like the money -- the cash that you're going to need to close the deal is going to come from cash on hand and Royal Palm. You guys won't be borrowing or anything like that from anybody to do the deal?

No, no borrowing to close the deal. As I mentioned, the portfolio will shrink substantially. I don't think it's going to quite go to 0, but we don't -- there will be no borrowed funds whatsoever to fund the acquisition.

Okay. That's interesting. Good. Interesting. And then I think in the agreement that you guys have put out there, it said something about a 30% EBITDA margin target. Is that business operating comfortably above that today?

I can't say yet, but that is for kind of -- there's a reference to a bonus pool. But yes, that's -- we don't envision that being a challenge, but I really can't say much beyond that.

Okay. No, I understand that. These things -- it's a very interesting deal. Do you view this as something that you can bolt advisers onto, bolt advisory firms on to? Or is this sort of a stand-alone for you?

Initially, it will be stand-alone. may or may not going forward, but initially, they'll be stand-alone. And they're obviously an RIA. And Bimini Advisors LLC is our RIA, which manages Orchid. So initially, they will be 2 RIAs underneath the same roof.

Okay. That's -- that's good. And I just sort of had a question on the buyback. It's nice to see that you put one in place. The stock doesn't trade a ton. If somebody had a large -- decent-sized block of shares, is there a banker that we should call to see if you guys are interested in?

I have a plan. So it's kind of a hands off, but the agent that we use is Ladenburg Thalmann.

Okay. Okay. And then -- got it. Okay. That's certainly helpful. And then are you guys sort of start to generate more and more cash -- is it a fair assumption that, that's just going to be redeployed to scale Royal Palm back up?

Yes, I would think so. That's our initial plan.

The portfolio, and we could potentially pay down some of the trust preferred debt at some point if we deem it to be attractive to do so.

Yes. That seems like pretty cheap capital with not a lot of strings attached to it. So I can't imagine you guys are too keen to do that, but okay. Very good. Congratulations on everything. It seems like you kind of have the wind at your back a little bit, which is nice to see

Indeed, a good year.

I'm showing no further questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Mr. Cauley for closing remarks

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everybody. To the extent that you weren't able to listen to the call and have -- do have a call, feel free to call the office. The number is (772) 231-1400. And if anybody that did listen to the call has a follow-up or has a question that they didn't get a chance to ask also, you can feel free to call us. Otherwise, we will speak with you probably late April, early May. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.