There are increased risks involved with speculative construction, land acquisition and development, multi-family residential, commercial real estate, commercial business and consumer lending activities.
Our lending activities include loans secured by speculative construction, land acquisition and development and commercial real estate. In addition, from time to time we originate loans for the purchase or refinancing of multi-family residential real estate. Speculative residential construction, land acquisition and development, multi-family residential and commercial real estate lending generally is considered to involve a higher degree of risk than single-family residential lending due to a variety of factors, including generally larger loan balances, the dependency on successful completion or operation of the project for repayment, the difficulties in estimating construction costs and loan terms which often do not require full amortization of the loan over its term and, instead, provide for a balloon payment at stated maturity. Our lending activities also include commercial business loans to small to medium businesses, which generally are secured by various equipment, machinery and other corporate assets, and a variety of consumer loans, including home improvement loans, home equity loans and loans secured by automobiles and other personal property. Although commercial business loans and leases and consumer loans generally have shorter terms and higher interest rates than mortgage loans, they generally involve more risk than mortgage loans because of the nature of, or in certain cases the absence of, the collateral which secures such loans.
The Company invests in mortgage-backed securities (“MBS”), including significant legacy positions in private label MBS (“PLMBS”) which could result in impairment charges.
The Company has investments in MBS, including agency and private label MBS. PLMBS investments carry a significant amount of credit risk, relative to other investments within the Company’s portfolio. The PLMBS segment accounts for 0.2% of the Company’s total assets and 0.4% of the Company’s total interest income.
MBS are secured by mortgage properties that are geographically diverse, but may include exposure in some areas that have experienced rapidly declining property values. The MBS portfolio is also subject to interest rate risk, prepayment risk, operational risk, servicer risk and originator risk, all of which can have a negative impact on the underlying collateral of the MBS investments. The rate and timing of unscheduled payments and collections of principal on mortgage loans serving as collateral for these securities are difficult to predict and can be affected by a variety of factors, including the level of prevailing interest rates, restrictions on voluntary prepayments contained in the mortgage loans, the availability of lender credit, loan modifications and other economic, demographic, geographic, tax and legal factors.
During fiscal 2019, 2018, and 2017, the Company recorded $28 thousand, $14 thousand, and $0 thousand, respectively, of credit impairment charges, and $117 thousand, $73 thousand, and $0 thousand, respectively, to accumulated other comprehensive income (net of income tax effect of $31 thousand, $27 thousand, and $0 thousand, respectively) related tonon-credit other than temporary impairments. During fiscal years 2019, 2018, and 2017, the Company was able to accrete back into / (out of) other comprehensive income ($9) thousand, $20 thousand, and $84 thousand, respectively (net of income tax effect of ($3) thousand, $4 thousand, and $43 thousand, respectively), based on principal repayments on private-label mortgage-backed securities previously identified with other than temporary impairment (“OTTI”). Cash repayments on the Company’s PLMBS portfolio totaled $185 thousand, $276 thousand, and $467 thousand, for fiscal years 2019, 2018, and 2017, respectively.
During fiscal 2019, the level of delinquencies continued at high levels within the PLMBS portfolio. Continued deterioration in the mortgage and credit markets could result in additional other-than-temporary impairment charges in our legacy PLMBS which could negatively affect the Company’s financial condition, results of operations, or its capital position.
At June 30, 2019, the Company, based on its analysis, has concluded that it’s three PLMBS are other-than-temporarily impaired, as discussed above. The remaining securities portfolio has experienced unrealized losses and a decreased fair value due to interest rate volatility, illiquidity in the market place or credit deterioration in the U.S. mortgage markets.
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