CHIMERA INVESTMENT CORP

The Company

We are a publicly traded REIT that is primarily engaged in the business of investing directly or having a beneficial interest in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets, including residential mortgage loans, Agency RMBS, Non-Agency RMBS, Agency CMBS, business purpose and investor loans, and other real estate-related assets. The MBS and other real estate-related securities we purchase may include investment-grade, non-investment grade, and non-rated classes.

We use leverage to increase potential returns from our investments. Subject to maintaining our REIT status and exemption from registration under the 1940 Act, we do not have any limitations on the amounts we may invest in any of our targeted asset classes.

Our principal business objective is to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns through the generation of distributable income and through asset performance linked to mortgage credit fundamentals. We were incorporated in Maryland on June 1, 2007 and commenced operations on November 21, 2007.

Our Investment Strategy

We make investment decisions based on various factors, including expected cash yield, relative value, risk-adjusted returns, credit fundamentals, macroeconomic considerations, supply and demand, credit and market risk concentration limits, liquidity, cost of financing and financing availability, as well as maintaining our REIT qualification and our exemption from registration under the 1940 Act. Our primary source of income is net interest income from our investment portfolio. Net interest income is the interest income we earn on investments less the interest expense we incur on borrowed funds.

Our investment strategy is intended to take advantage of opportunities in the current interest rate and credit environment. We adjust our strategy in response to changing market conditions by shifting our asset allocations across various asset classes as interest rate and credit cycles change over time. We believe that our strategy will provide us an opportunity to pay dividends throughout changing market cycles.

We attempt to increase our potential returns and finance the acquisition of our assets by borrowing funds secured by our assets (leverage). Our income is generated primarily by the difference, or net spread, between the income we earn on our assets and the cost of our borrowings. We expect to finance our investments using a variety of financing sources, including securitizations, secured borrowing through the use of warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements, as well as the issuance of debt and equity capital. We may seek to manage our debt and interest rate risk by utilizing interest rate hedges, such as interest rate swaps, caps, options and futures to reduce the effect of interest rate fluctuations related to our financing sources.

During 2023, we focused our investment activities primarily on acquiring and securitizing pools of residential mortgage loans and, when we believed market or other conditions were favorable, exercising call options on existing securitizations to acquire the underlying mortgage loans and use additional securitization to re-finance those called mortgage loans. During 2024, we expect to continue acquiring and securitizing mortgage loans as well as calling our existing securitizations depending on market conditions. When we securitize mortgage loans, we typically retain the most subordinate classes of securities, which means we are the first-loss security holder. Losses on any residential mortgage loan securing our RMBS will be borne first by the owner of the property (i.e., the owner will first lose any equity invested in the property) and, thereafter, by us as the first-loss security holder, and then by holders of more senior securities. In addition, most of these subordinate securities are subject to the Dodd-Frank Act and related laws and regulations relating to credit risk retention for securitizations, or the Risk Retention Rules, which significantly limits the liquidity of these securities. See “ Risk Factors - Risks Associated with Our Investments - A significant portion of the RMBS we acquire through securitization is subject to the U.S. credit risk retention rules which materially limit our ability to sell or hedge such investments as needed, which may require us to hold investments that we may otherwise desire to sell during times of severe market disruption in the mortgage, housing or related sectors” discussion in Item 1A “Risk Factors” section for more details. We generally finance these subordinate securities with secured financing agreements. The securities we do not retain are typically sold through securities underwriters. Other than the Risk Retention Rules, there is no limit on the amount we may retain of these below-investment-grade subordinate certificates. As discussed below, during 2023 our use of leverage with respect to the retained securities from the securitizations we sponsored remained low and we have entered into several new non-mark-to-market facilities to finance these retained securities.

In addition, we have purchased and expect to continue to purchase business purpose loans. We believe these business purpose loans strengthened our portfolio in 2023 because they are short duration assets and have a high average coupon, providing an attractive risk reward profile in times of rate volatility. Currently, we do not use term securitization to finance business purpose loans because of their short duration. We currently finance these loans using repurchase facilities, but we may look to finance these loans with revolving securitization structures in the future.

In 2024, in addition to our securitization and business purpose loan activities, we will explore opportunities to increase our Agency MBS portfolio. We have also financed and may continue to finance a portion of our loan portfolio with long-term secured financing facilities rather than securitization until the securitization market improves once the Fed begins rate cuts.

Our Securitization Programs

We currently have the following five securitization programs:

•Our “R” program, our most active program, securitizes seasoned reperforming mortgage loans, whether newly acquired from a third party or upon the exercise of a call option, in a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit, or REMIC, transaction;

•Our “NR” program securitizes seasoned residential mortgage loans that are not eligible to be securitized in REMIC, transactions;

•Our “I” program securitizes Non-Agency eligible investor mortgage loans;

•Our “J” program securitizes jumbo prime residential mortgage loans; and

•Our “INV” program securitizes Agency-eligible investor mortgage loans.

We did not sponsor any securitizations under our “J” and “INV” programs during the year ended December 31, 2023.

“R” and “NR” Non-Rated Programs. The securities issued in our “R” and “NR” securitizations are generally not rated and are subject to the Risk Retention Rules. In these programs, we typically sell the senior securities to an unrelated third party and retain the subordinate securities, which include the first-loss securities which are subject to the Risk Retention Rules, and the interest-only securities. During 2023, we sponsored four “R” securitizations and two “NR” securitization. We are generally required under GAAP to consolidate the assets and liabilities of the “NR” and “R” securitization entities for financial reporting purposes. Each of the consolidated entities is independent of us and of each other, and the assets and liabilities of these entities are not owned by us or legal obligations of ours, respectively, although we are exposed to certain financial risks associated with any role we carry out for these entities (e.g., as sponsor or depositor) and, to the extent we hold securities issued by, or other investments in, these entities, we are exposed to the performance of these entities and the assets they hold.

“I” Programs. The securities issued in our “I” securitizations are rated by one or more nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations, or NRSRO, and are subject to the Risk Retention Rules. In these programs, we typically sell the senior securities to an unrelated third party and retain the subordinate securities, which include the first-loss securities which are subject to the Risk Retention Rules, and the interest-only securities. We are generally required under GAAP to consolidate the assets and liabilities of the “I” securitization entities for financial reporting purposes. We sponsored two securitization under our “I” securitization program.

The table below sets forth certain information about our “R”, “NR” and the “I” securitizations we completed during the year ended December 31, 2023.

(1) For certain of the above securitization deals, we retained certain IO and/or excess servicing classes.

(2) At the time of issuance.

Our Investment Portfolio

At December 31, 2023, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 91% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 8% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 1% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS. At December 31, 2022, based on the fair value of our interest earning assets, approximately 88% of our investment portfolio was residential mortgage loans, 9% of our investment portfolio was Non-Agency RMBS, and 3% of our investment portfolio was Agency MBS. As discussed in “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” we reduced some of our Agency MBS positions during 2023.

The following briefly discusses the principal types of investments that we have made and may in the future make:

Residential Mortgage Loans

We invest in residential mortgage loans (mortgage loans secured by residential real property) through secondary market purchases from banks, non-bank financial institutions, and the Agencies. Our residential mortgage loan portfolio is comprised primarily of reperforming residential mortgage loans, which have been outstanding, or seasoned, for more than 120 months, and typically have higher loan-to-value ratios and spottier pay histories.

Our residential mortgage loan portfolio also includes business purpose loans and investor loans. Our business purpose loans are loans to businesses that are secured by real property which will be renovated by the borrower. Upon completion of the renovation the property typically will be either (i) sold by the borrower, or (ii) refinanced by the borrower who may then subsequently sell or rent the property. Most, but not all, of the properties securing our business purpose loans are residential, and a portion of the loan is used to cover renovation costs. Our business purpose loans are included as a part of our Loans held for investment portfolio and are carried at fair value. Our business purpose loans tend to be short duration, often less than one year, and generally the coupon rate is higher than our residential mortgage loans.

Our investor loans are loans to individuals securing non-primary residences as well as to individuals or businesses who rent the residential properties secured by such loans. We acquire pools of such loans which are eligible for sale to one of the Agencies as well as pools of loans which are not eligible for such sales. In both cases, we securitize the investor loans as part of our loan securitization program.

We acquire residential mortgage loans primarily to securitize them, as discussed above, or to retain them in our portfolio as loans held for investment. Until we securitize our residential mortgage loans, we finance our residential mortgage loan portfolio through warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements, as discussed under “Our Financing Strategy” below.

Currently, we acquire mortgage loans in the secondary market that are originated by third parties and are not underwritten to our specifications. Third-party servicers service the mortgage loans in our portfolio. We conduct a due diligence review of each servicer before the servicer is retained and periodically thereafter. Servicing procedures typically follow Fannie Mae guidelines but are specified in each servicing agreement. In addition, we have purchased residential mortgage loans on a servicing-retained basis, which means a third-party servicer (which may or may not be the seller of the mortgage loans) retained the right to service the loans. In the future, however, we may decide to originate mortgage loans or other types of financing, and we may elect to service mortgage loans and other types of assets.

We engage a third party to perform an independent review of the mortgage files to assess the origination and servicing of the mortgage loans, as well as our ability to enforce the lien on the related mortgaged properties. We typically do not review all the loans in a pool, but rather select loans for diligence review utilizing random sampling based criteria such as property location, loan size, effective loan-to-value ratio, borrower’s credit score, delinquency status and other criteria we believe to be important indicators of credit risk. Additionally, we typically obtain representations and warranties with respect to the mortgage loans from each seller, including the origination and servicing of the mortgage loans as well as the enforceability of the lien on the related mortgaged properties. If any of the representations and warranties with respect to a mortgage loan we acquire are breached, the related seller may be obligated to repurchase the loan from us.

Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

We invest in mortgage pass-through certificates issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which are securities representing interests in “pools” of mortgage loans secured by residential real properties where payments of both interest and principal, plus pre-paid principal, on the securities are made monthly to holders of the security, in effect passing through monthly payments made by the individual borrowers on the mortgage loans that underlie the securities, net of fees paid to the issuer/guarantor and servicers of the securities. We may also invest in collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, issued by the Agencies. CMOs consist of multiple classes of securities, with each class bearing different stated maturity dates. Monthly payments of principal, including prepayments, are first returned to investors holding the shortest maturity class; investors holding the longer maturity classes receive principal only after the first class has been retired. We refer to residential mortgage-backed securities issued or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac as Agency RMBS.

We also invest in investment grade, non-investment grade and non-rated Non-Agency RMBS. We evaluate certain credit characteristics of these types of securities and the underlying mortgage loans, including, but not limited to, loan balance distribution, geographic concentration, property type, occupancy, periodic and lifetime caps, weighted-average loan-to-value and weighted-average Fair Isaac Corporation, or FICO, score. Qualifying securities are then analyzed using base line expectations of expected prepayments and loss severities, the current state of the fixed-income market and the broader economy in general. Losses and prepayments are stressed simultaneously based on a credit risk-based model. Securities in this portfolio are monitored for variance from expected prepayments, severities, losses and cash flow. The due diligence process is particularly important and costly with respect to newly formed originators or issuers because there may be little or no information publicly available about these entities and investments. We may also invest in interest-only, or IO, Agency and Non-Agency RMBS. These IO RMBS represent the right to receive a specified proportion of the contractual interest flows of the collateral.

We have invested in and intend to continue to invest in Non-Agency RMBS which are typically certificates created by the securitization of a pool of mortgage loans that are collateralized by residential real estate properties. The respective bond class sizes are determined based on the review of the underlying collateral. The payments received from the underlying loans are used to make the payments on the RMBS. Based on the sequential payment priority, the risk of nonpayment for the investment grade RMBS is lower than the risk of nonpayment for the non-investment grade bonds. Accordingly, the investment grade class is typically sold at a lower yield compared to the non-investment grade or unrated classes which are sold at higher yields.

Agency CMBS

The Agency CMBS we acquire are Ginnie Mae Construction Loan Certificates, or CLCs, and the resulting project loan certificates, or PLCs, when the construction project is complete. Each CLC is backed by a single multifamily property or health care facility. The investor in the CLC is committed to fund the full amount of the project; however, actual funding occurs as construction progresses on the property. Before each construction advance is funded, it is insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or the FHA, and issued by Ginnie Mae. The principal balance of the CLC increases as payments by the investor fund each construction advance. Each Ginnie Mae approved mortgage originator must provide the Agency with supporting documentation regarding advances and disbursements before each construction advance is issued by Ginnie Mae. We also review this documentation prior to funding each Ginnie Mae guaranteed advance. Upon completion of the construction project, the CLC is replaced with a PLC. Ginnie Mae guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on each CLC and PLC. This obligation is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

As the holder of a CLC, we generally receive monthly payments of interest equal to a pro rata share of the interest payments on the underlying mortgage loan, less applicable servicing and guaranty fees. Ginnie Mae CLCs pay interest only during construction, and so there are no payments of principal. As a holder of a PLC, we generally receive monthly payments of principal and interest equal to the aggregate amount of the scheduled monthly principal and interest payments on the mortgage loans underlying that PLC, less applicable servicing and guaranty fees. In addition, such payments will include any prepayments and other unscheduled recoveries of principal of, and any prepayment penalties on, an underlying mortgage loan to the extent received by the Ginnie Mae Issuer during the month preceding the month of the payment. The mortgage loans underlying the PLCs generally contain a lock-out and prepayment penalty period of 10 years during which the related borrower must pay a prepayment penalty equal to a specified percentage of the principal amount of the mortgage loan in connection with voluntary and certain involuntary prepayments. Ginnie Mae does not guaranty the payment of prepayment penalties.

Other Real Estate-Related Assets

We may invest in commercial mortgage loans consisting of first or second lien loans secured by multifamily properties, which are residential rental properties consisting of five or more dwelling units, or by mixed residential or other commercial properties, retail properties, office properties or industrial properties. These loans may or may not conform to the Agency guidelines.

We may invest in non-Agency CMBS, which are secured by, or evidence ownership interests in, a single commercial mortgage loan or a pool of mortgage loans secured by commercial properties. These securities may be senior, subordinated, investment grade or non-investment grade.

We may invest in securities issued in various collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, offerings to gain exposure to bank loans, corporate bonds, ABS, mortgages, RMBS, CMBS, and other instruments.

We have invested in a limited partnership managed by a registered investment advisor in which we own a minority equity interest. The limited partnership invests in REIT eligible assets, primarily residential assets. We make other similar investments as well as invest in entities which originate or service mortgage loans.

Investment Guidelines

We have adopted a set of investment guidelines that set out the asset classes, risk tolerance levels, diversification requirements and other criteria used to evaluate the merits of specific investments as well as the overall portfolio composition. Our investment committee periodically reviews our compliance with the investment guidelines. Our Board of Directors and its committees also review our investment portfolio and related compliance with our investment policies and procedures and investment guidelines at regularly scheduled risk and audit committee meetings.

Our Board of Directors and its committees have adopted the following guidelines for our investments and borrowings:

•No investment shall be made that would cause us to fail to qualify as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes;

•No investment shall be made that would cause us to be regulated as an investment company under the 1940 Act;

•With the exception of real estate and housing, no single industry shall represent greater than 20% of the securities or aggregate risk exposure in our portfolio; and

•Investments in non-rated or deeply subordinated ABS or other securities that are non-qualifying assets for purposes of the 75% REIT asset test will be limited to an amount not to exceed 50% of our stockholders’ equity.

These investment guidelines may be changed from time to time by a majority of our Board of Directors without the approval of our stockholders.

Our Financing Strategy

We use leverage to increase potential returns to our stockholders. We are not required to maintain any specific debt-to-equity ratio as we believe the appropriate leverage for the particular assets we are financing depends on the credit quality and risk of those assets. At December 31, 2023 and 2022, our ratio of debt-to-equity was 4.0:1 . For purposes of calculating this ratio, our equity is equal to the Total stockholders’ equity on our Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition, and our debt consists of securitized debt and secured financing agreements.

Subject to maintaining our qualification as a REIT, we may use a variety of sources to finance our investments, including the following primary sources:

•Securitization. A significant element of our financing strategy is to acquire residential mortgage loans for our portfolio with the intention of securitizing them. In our securitizations, we generally create subordinate certificates, providing a specified amount of credit enhancement, which we intend or are required under the Risk Retention Rules to retain in our portfolio. We have acquired and may in the future acquire Non-Agency RMBS for our portfolio with the intention of exercising the call rights and re-securitizing the underlying mortgage loans and retaining a portion of the re-securitized Non-Agency RMBS in our portfolio, typically the subordinate certificates.

•Secured Financing Agreements. Secured financing agreements include all non-securitization financing arrangements and are generally, but not always, for shorter terms. Our secured financing agreements are primarily comprised of warehouse facilities and repurchase agreements.

•Warehouse Facilities. We have utilized and may in the future utilize credit facilities for capital needed to fund our assets. We seek to maintain formal relationships with multiple counterparties to maintain warehouse lines on favorable terms.

•Repurchase Agreements. We have financed certain of our assets through repurchase agreements. We anticipate that repurchase agreements will be one of the sources we will use to achieve our desired amount of leverage for our real estate assets. We seek to maintain formal relationships with many counterparties with the intent to obtain financing on the most favorable terms available while diversifying counterparty credit risk.

We maintain a portion of our financing in non-mark-to-market facilities and mark-to-market holiday facilities (meaning, the market value of the collateral must drop below a threshold before a lender can issue a margin call) to finance a portion of our non-Agency RMBS, including risk retention securities. The percentage of our financing allocated to such facilities will vary depending on market conditions. We believe that non-mark-to-market facilities will continue to be a material portion of our financing strategy.

Our Interest Rate Hedging and Risk Management Strategy

From time to time, we use derivative financial instruments to hedge all or a portion of the interest rate risk associated with our borrowings. Under the U.S. federal income tax laws applicable to REITs, we generally enter certain transactions to hedge indebtedness that we incur, or plan to incur, to acquire or carry real estate assets.

We may engage in a variety of interest rate management techniques that seek to mitigate changes in interest rates or other potential influences on the values of our assets. Our interest rate management techniques may include:

•interest rate caps, swaps and swaptions;

•puts and calls on securities or indices of securities;

•Eurodollar futures contracts and options on such contracts;

•U.S. Treasury futures, forward contracts, other derivative contracts and options on U.S. Treasury securities; and

•other similar transactions.

We may attempt to reduce interest rate risks and to minimize exposure to interest rate fluctuations through match funded financing structures, when appropriate, whereby we seek (i) to match the maturities of our debt obligations with the maturities of our assets and (ii) to match the interest rates on our investments with similar debt directly or through interest rate swaps, caps or other financial instruments, or through a combination of these strategies. This helps us to minimize the risk that we have to refinance our liabilities before the maturities of our assets and to reduce the impact of changing interest rates on our asset values and net interest margins.

Operational and Regulatory Structure

REIT Qualification

We have elected to be treated as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes. In order to maintain our qualification as a REIT, we must comply with the requirements under federal tax law, including that we must distribute at least 90% of our annual REIT taxable income (subject to certain adjustments) to our stockholders. As a REIT, we generally are not subject to U.S. federal income tax on our taxable income that is distributed to our stockholders. To ensure we qualify as a REIT, no person may own more than 9.8%, in value or number of shares, whichever is more restrictive, of the outstanding shares of any class or series of our capital stock, which includes our common stock and preferred stock, unless our Board of Directors waives this limitation. We have granted waivers to two mutual funds to own certain classes of our preferred stock above the 9.8% limitation. Also, we have elected to treat certain of our subsidiaries as taxable REIT subsidiaries, or TRS. In general, a TRS may hold assets and engage in activities that a REIT or qualified REIT subsidiary, or QRS, cannot hold or engage in directly and generally may engage in any real estate or non-real estate related business. A TRS is subject to U.S. federal income tax.

1940 Act Exclusion

We continue to conduct our operations so that neither we nor any of our subsidiaries are required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act. Section 3(a)(1)(A) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is or holds itself out as being engaged primarily in the business of investing, reinvesting or trading in securities. Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the 1940 Act defines an investment company as any issuer that is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding or trading in securities and owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40% of the value of the issuer’s total assets (exclusive of U.S. Government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis (the “40% test”). Excluded from the term “investment securities,” among other things, are U.S. Government securities and securities issued by majority owned subsidiaries that are not themselves investment companies and are not relying on the exclusion from the definition of investment company for private funds set forth in Section 3(c)(1) or Section 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act.

If the value of securities issued by our subsidiaries that are excluded from the definition of “investment company” by Section 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act, together with any other investment securities we own, exceeds the 40% test under Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the 1940 Act, or if one or more of such subsidiaries fail to maintain an exclusion or exception from the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either (a) to substantially change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company or (b) to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, either of which could have an adverse effect on us and the market price of our securities. If we were required to register as an investment company under the 1940 Act, we could, among other things, be required either to (a) change the manner in which we conduct our operations to avoid being required to register as an investment company, (b) effect sales of our assets in a manner that, or at a time when, we would not otherwise choose to do so, or (c) register as an investment company, any of which could negatively affect the value of our common stock, the sustainability of our business model, and our ability to make distributions. See “Risk Factors - Risks Related to Regulatory, Accounting and Our 1940 Exemption - Loss of our 1940 Act exemption would adversely affect us and negatively affect the market price of shares of our capital stock and our ability to distribute dividends.”

Licenses

While we are not required to obtain licenses to purchase mortgage-backed securities, the purchase and sale of residential mortgage loans in the secondary market may, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses. Acquiring the right to service residential mortgage loans may also, in some circumstances, require us to maintain various state licenses even though we currently do not directly engage in loan servicing ourselves and do not expect to do so. As of December 31, 2023, we hold all required licenses or exempt status through two of our wholly owned subsidiaries in 22 states.. We are required to comply with various information reporting and other regulatory requirements to maintain those licenses and exemption statuses. Our failure to obtain or maintain required licenses or exemption statuses or our failure to comply with regulatory requirements that are applicable to our business of acquiring residential mortgage loans may restrict our business and investment options and could harm our business and expose us to penalties or other claims. In one or more states, in lieu of relying on such licenses, we may contribute our acquired residential mortgage loans to one or more trusts in which we or our subsidiaries hold beneficial interests; title to these residential mortgage loans may be held by one or more federally-charted banks as trustee, which may be exempt from state licensing requirements. There can be no assurance that the use of the trusts will satisfy an exemption from licensing requirements because regulatory agencies may adopt different interpretations of applicable laws.

Human Capital

The human capital objectives we focus on in managing our business include attracting, developing, and retaining key personnel. Our employees are critical to the success of our organization and we are committed to supporting our employees’ professional development. We believe our management team has the experience necessary to effectively implement our growth strategy and continue to drive shareholder value. We provide competitive compensation and benefits to attract and retain key personnel, while also providing a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace. We continue to have a focus on diversity initiatives. We offer internal training programs on financial markets, business ethics, government regulatory rules and other topics. We encourage personnel to attend industry sponsored or other conferences and have a tuition reimbursement program to help personnel to further develop their skills and to stay current on evolving trends impacting our industry.

We focus on attracting and retaining employees by providing compensation and benefits packages that are competitive within the applicable market, taking into account the job position’s location and responsibilities. We provide competitive financial benefits such as a 401(k) retirement plan with a company match and offer a comprehensive healthcare benefit plan and other tools to support our employees’ health and well-being. We also generally grant awards of restricted stock units on an annual basis to a meaningful portion of our employees. We have a matching gift program to encourage personnel to be charitable and to support 501(c)(3) organizations.

At December 31, 2023, we had 39 employees, all of whom were full-time. We believe that diversity and inclusion are conducive to a stronger workplace and better decision making. As of December 31, 2023, 72% of our workforce was either gender or racially diverse. We believe that our relationship with our employees is good. None of our employees are unionized or represented under a collective bargaining agreement.

Competition

Our net income depends, in large part, on our ability to acquire assets at favorable spreads over our borrowing costs. In acquiring real estate-related assets, we compete with other mortgage REITs, specialty finance companies, savings and loan associations, banks, mortgage bankers, insurance companies, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, institutional investors, investment banking firms, financial institutions, hedge funds, governmental bodies (including the U.S. Federal Reserve) and other entities. Many of our competitors are significantly larger than we are, have access to greater capital and other resources and may have other advantages over us. In addition, some of our competitors may have higher risk tolerances or different risk assessments, which could allow them to consider a wider variety of investments and establish more favorable relationships than we can. The existence of these entities, as well as the possibility of additional entities forming in the future, may increase the competition for the acquisition of residential mortgage assets, resulting in higher prices and lower yields on such assets.

Available Information

Our investor relations website is www.chimerareit.com. We make available on the website under “Filings & Reports,” free of charge, our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, our current reports and investor presentations on Form 8-K and any other reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, (including any amendments to such reports) as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file or furnish such materials to the SEC. Information on our website, however, is not part of or incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, all our filed reports can be obtained at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.