Ellington Credit Co

Management Commentary

"The first calendar quarter of 2026 was marked by continued headwinds and volatility in the CLO market," said Laurence Penn, Chief Executive Officer and President. "For Ellington Credit, while as previously communicated our NAV declined during the quarter, our up-in-credit bias and active trading again drove outperformance versus peers.

"We believe that a significant portion of the market weakness was technical—driven by overall sentiment and elevated yield spreads in the corporate credit markets, rather than by fundamental credit deterioration. We selectively leaned into the resulting opportunities, prioritizing CLO mezzanine debt over equity while staying disciplined by adding incremental hedges along the way.

"We also enhanced our capital structure, taking advantage of a narrow market window at the end of March to issue unsecured debt. Following quarter end, we used most of the debt offering proceeds to make new CLO investments, with deployment substantially complete by the end of April, thus positioning us for future earnings growth. The offering has also meaningfully strengthened our balance sheet, as we used a portion of the proceeds to refinance repo financings, replacing short-term secured debt with long-term unsecured debt.

"The first quarter selloff has reset and recharged the opportunity set: prepayments and repricings have slowed, investment yields have increased, and CLO managers are increasingly able to acquire performing discount loans that help support deal structures and interest spreads. In addition, as a meaningful portion of our CLO equity portfolio exits its non-call period, refinancing and reset opportunities should enhance underlying cash flows and support future growth in net investment income. EARN entered the second quarter well positioned to take advantage of this new environment, with ample dry powder and with the active trading and hedging capabilities to turn market dislocations into long-term value. These recent developments have already contributed to EARN’s strong performance so far in the second quarter."

1 Adjusted net investment income is a non-GAAP financial measure. See "Reconciliation of Adjusted Net Investment Income to Net Investment Income" below for an explanation regarding the calculation of Adjusted net investment income.

2 Based on amortized cost; used in the calculation of interest income.

3 "Recurring cash distributions" primarily includes distributions received from our CLO investments but excludes cash received from CLO redemptions or sales during the quarter.