Rithm Capital (RITM 1.77%)Q4 2024 Earnings CallFeb 06, 2025, 8:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Rithm Capital fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Emma Bola, associate general counsel. Please go ahead.

Emma Bolla -- Associate General Counsel

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I would like to thank you for joining us today for Rithm Capital's fourth quarter and full year '24 earnings call. Joining me today are Michael Nierenberg, chairman, CEO, and president of Rithm Capital; Nick Santoro, chief financial officer of Rithm Capital; and Baron Silverstein, president of Newrez. Throughout the call, we are going to reference the earnings supplement that was posted this morning to the Rithm Capital website, www.rithmcap.com.

If you've not already done so, I'd encourage you to download the presentation now. I would like to point out that certain statements made today will be forward-looking statements. These statements, by their nature, are uncertain and may differ materially from actual results. I encourage you to review the disclaimers in our press release and earnings supplement regarding forward-looking statements and to review the risk factors contained in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC.

In addition, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings supplement. And with that, I will turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Emma. Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome you to our fourth quarter and full year call for Rithm. The company had a great fourth quarter and a great year.

What I thought I would do today, which is a little bit different than our typical earnings call, I figured I would take a step back and talk about the Rithm story for a minute. When you look at Rithm, you may ask, who are we? We began the company in 2013 while at Fortress to acquire MSRs from banks as Basel III capital rules made them too costly for banks to hold. The company, which started with $1 billion of capital, today has grown to $7.8 billion of permanent capital. Along the way, we grew our asset management business.

We began building and acquiring operating companies. In 2022, the board acquired the management contract of New Residential from Fortress, and then we began the next leg of our journey, which was to continue building a world-class asset management firm. Our thought was to go out and raise third-party capital, so if you think about it, while at Fortress, all the capital and all the growth of the company was done in the public markets. So, to not confuse that story, we built it in the public markets.

As we looked at the next leg of our lives, we said, "Let's go raise private capital." So, in August of '22, we changed our name to Rithm Capital. While we still operate as a REIT, we continue to evaluate the benefits of changing our capital structure. There are still some things to do in order for us to get there. Today, when I look at the firm and we look at the firm, we have what I believe is a complete product offering for shareholders and LPs in all asset classes, ranging from real estate to credit, including the new hot word in the private capital sector, ABF, which is asset-based finance, something that we've been doing our whole careers.

Another exciting thing is we expect to announce soon, probably in the next 30 days, a global energy infrastructure platform with Scale Capital Partners, which will be supplying power to data centers across the world. When I think about our business, I like to think about why us. One, results. We must have performance to grow our business.

Two, we're very different than other asset managers. We have the ability to manufacture assets through our operating businesses. We underwrite, originate, and service the assets from beginning to end. Servicing matters.

We've been in a very benign credit cycle for many, many years, and at some point, that will turn. And having the third largest mortgage company or servicer here in the United States is going to make a big difference for our business, our asset management business. Many of you know we acquired Sculptor in November of 2023. We've been together for one year, and the business is doing great.

The results are great, and we look forward to future growth there as well. So, our value prop is the following: results first again. When you look at the family of all of our companies on the investment side between Rithm, Sculptor, and some of our other investment areas, we have over 400 individuals. Our operating business lines have approximately 7,000 people.

Number two, when I look at our equity, when looking at the sum of the parts, we're severely undervalued. And I know as we continue to -- as we trade as a REIT, like others that trade a REIT, either trade a book or slightly above book or below book, I think that the sector is extremely undervalued relative to when you see other asset managers trading at 30 times DE. Our manufacturing engine for assets differentiates us from others. We can differentiate our product offerings.

We can create whatever product offering whenever LPs would like. So, I'll now refer to our supplement, which has been posted online. I'm going to start with Page 3. I'll go through most of the slides.

Baron will hit the mortgage company, and then we'll go to Q&A. So, when you look at the company today, between Rithm and Sculptor assets really being managed, Rithm has a $45 billion balance sheet. Sculptor has about $35 billion of AUM. The combined entity is about $80 billion of AUM, $7.8 billion of permanent capital, and the company makes a little north of $1 billion a year.

When you look at growth, 76% earnings growth since the first quarter of 2021. To the right side of the page, you can have a look: Newrez, our mortgage company; obviously, Sculptor, the asset management business in the private markets; Genesis Capital, one of the largest nonbank construction/RTL lenders in the business. Last year in June, we took over the management contract of something called Great Ajax. It was kind of a broken REIT.

We renamed it Rithm Property Trust with the intent of growing that into, quite frankly, like a Rithm, like what others have done in the public markets around externally managed vehicles. And then we have a small SFR business in Adoor. Financial highlights, Page 4. Year-over-year growth in earnings 27%; earnings available for distribution, $2.10.

As I look at Q4, GAAP net income, $263 million or $0.50 per diluted share; return on equity, 16%; earnings available for distribution, $316 million or $0.60 per diluted share; return on equity, 20%. When we look at our dividend, it's still 9.2%, and we still paid $0.25 in -- per common share. Book value, we ended the year at 12.56%, which I think is pretty much unchanged versus the prior year. And today, our book value is in and around the same.

For fiscal year '24, full year GAAP net income, $835 million or $1.67 per diluted share, 14% return on equity. That includes marks and other things. Earnings available for distribution, $1 billion -- $1,050,000,000, $2.10 per diluted share, and a 17% return on equity. And then again, the dividend yield of 9.2%.

We pay $1 a year. Page 5, year-end review. Genesis Capital. We acquired this company from Goldman's merchant bank in -- I believe it was December of 2021.

At that time, they were doing about $2 billion in origination. This year, we did $3.6 billion. When we acquired the company, the EBITDA number was about $40 million. Today, it's still in about -- in and around $100 million of EBITDA.

So, it's been a great success story. Obviously, with banks and regional banks pulling back in certain areas, this company is poised for success, and it's also poised for a lot of growth. The asset management side, as I pointed out, we're one year in with Sculptor. That's our asset management arm.

Returns have been super. I mean, if you look at the multi-strat fund, last year, 18% growth or 13.5% net. And if you look at some of the other businesses around the real estate side, and I'll get into that when we look at some of the Sculptor slides, this is great performance, and it echoes my opening remarks that the only thing we care about is performance first. Performance first is going to lead to more AUM growth.

It's not the other way around for us. When I look at the investment portfolio, we did seven securitizations in '24, a little under $3 billion. We invested $1.8 billion in residential mortgage assets. And one of the interesting deals we did, and this is very popular with a lot of LPs, we invested $200 million of equity in a large SRT transaction with a large bank where, effectively, we took a slice of a mortgage warehouse.

Why us? Because we have the operational capacity in the event that there was something that went awry with one of their underwriting mortgage bankers. And the Newrez, again, very proud of this company, proud of the team. Baron has done a great job, as has his leadership team. Top three U.S.

mortgage servicer in total, top five U.S. mortgage originator in total. And keep in mind, when we were at Fortress, we built Mr. Cooper, which was formally known as Nationstar.

We started this company from scratch in 2018. So, very, very proud of the team and the results that we have there. And that company is just poised to grow, and I think a lot of -- and Baron will talk to that in a little bit. When I look at our foundation for growth, we're going to continue to try to grow our third-party asset management business.

We want to shrink our balance sheet. We want to do things more, again, off-balance sheet. If you look to the right side of the page here, Rithm Property Trust, I pointed out, that was an opportunistic situation. Effectively, we just took over the management contract.

The team has done a great job on that. We took it over in June. It was losing money. We actually got it to -- at the end of Q4, where the company is flat to now making money, and that should continue to grow.

This is for Rithm shareholders. That is an external managed vehicle. So, management fees as we grow that will feed to the bottom line. Asset-based finance, a hot topic everywhere.

Every asset manager everywhere is talking about that so-called $30 trillion opportunity. We've been doing this our whole life. Energy transition, I pointed out we're going to be partnering and launching a global energy infrastructure fund. What's going to happen there is we're going to partner with a couple of our old Fortress colleagues, bringing third-party capital.

There was a huge shortage, obviously, of power. I mean, we're not going to get in on the Q&A. We don't need to get into the DeepSeek stuff, but what I would say is a world-class team, we won't enter a vertical unless we have the expertise, and we're super pumped for that because the need for power around the globe is massive, and the amount of capital needed to fund all this power, whether you're building power plants or you're funding some of these hyperscalers, is going to be immense. So, we're really excited about that.

So, that's Page 6. Some of the parts -- I'm not going to spend a ton of time here. Bottom line is I think our equity is extremely cheap. I look at asset managers where they trade.

If you think about it, we make $1 billion. We trade at six and change times. We have asset management. We have operating businesses.

The company is extremely undervalued. I think at some point, and I thought about this coming into the beginning of the year, the market should be looking at some of the REITs and the real earnings potential around not only us but just others and what people are doing in that sector. If you think about something at 30 times or something, that's steady $1 billion at six times. I know where I would think about it.

Capital deployment on Page 6. This just shows, going back to '21, how we've grown our earnings. We've grown it strategically. We have focused on sectors that we believe are going to generate mid-teens or teens returns.

So, when you have a look, earnings growth, again, up 76% since '21, and our EAD from a CAGR standpoint is up 16%. So, again, very proud of that. Just a couple of quick points here on Genesis. I mentioned before we bought the company in '21.

Another great team. The team here at Rithm worked very closely with them. I expect this business to -- we got to be sensitive to credit, obviously, because, as I pointed out in my opening remarks, we've been in a very benign credit environment for many years. While saying that, this $3.6 billion with $100 million of EBITDA, I expect that to continue to grow.

The asset class itself is very much in vogue. It's a mid-teens type return, and we're seeing a lot of demand from LPs for that type of product. A lot of different sponsors. And I think the upside there when you look at, unfortunately, some of the disasters happening, whether it be on the West Coast and other places, we're poised to make loans in those areas.

On the -- I'm going to flip to the Sculptor slide, Page 13. Obviously, when we bought Sculptor and we closed in November, I think it was the 19th of November in 2023. So, truly one full year in. Returns have been great.

Fundraising is going extremely well. When I look at -- or we all collectively look at the team's world-class real estate business, world-class multi-strat business. Credit, we're looking -- we're going to look to continue to try to grow that business over time. We restarted the CLO platform last year, and we've also accelerated some growth in a Sculptor nontraded REIT.

The other thing what I would say around Rithm and Sculptor, Rithm is a true partner to Sculptor. So, when we look at things that Sculptor can do, whether it be launching a fund or something, it's very likely that the support from Rithm will enable us to participate not only in that fund but help grow those funds over time. Page 14, just the performance. Again, if you look at the Sculptor Tactical Credit Fund, for example, 25% gross, almost 20% net, fantastic.

You look at the multi-strat I pointed out earlier, 18% growth, 13.5% net. And then when you look at the real estate business, again, it's -- these guys are -- guys and gals are world-class business, second to none. When they go out with funds, I think we'd expect those to be oversubscribed. Finally, I'll talk to Rithm Property Trust, and then I'll turn it over to Baron.

Again, this is the so-called broken REIT we took over in June. Right now, it's got about $250 million of equity in it. There is a management fee and a promote. So, as we continue to grow that and take advantage of dislocations in the commercial real estate market, it's our expectations that this vehicle could grow into a multibillion-dollar vehicle.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Baron, who will talk about Newrez.

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

Thank you, Michael, and good morning to everybody. So, I'm turning to Slide 20. And Newrez delivered another strong quarter with fourth quarter pre-tax income excluding mark-to-market of approximately $280 million, which is an increase of 12% quarter over quarter and delivering a 20% ROE. We also finished the full year of 2024 with approximately $1 billion in pre-tax income, and that's up 26% year over year with a 19% ROE.

These results, though, reflect the change in segment reporting by including MSRs that were previously reported as serviced by others and the MSR hedge that were reported in the investment portfolio segment. And we believe this change more accurately reflects the economics of Rithm's origination and servicing segment, which is Newrez overall and more closely resembles industry norms across our sector. And overall, we continue to gain momentum, and these results show the power of our platform. We have $844 billion in total servicing, now the No.

3 servicer, and $59 billion in funded volume for 2024 with the No. 5 originator. Turning to Slide 21. You can also see that we remain in growth mode.

The last few years really present the effectiveness of our well-balanced platform by taking advantage of origination opportunities and servicing opportunities regardless of market conditions. Our 2025 strategy is no different. We don't chase market share nor that we have a hope that rates will come down. We remain focused on growing our brand presence and delivering best-in-class customer experience in order to maximize customer retention and recapture.

Growing our B2B platforms is also focused on building new partnerships, increasing wallet share with our existing customer base, and also being opportunistic on MSR and platform acquisitions. These initiatives, coupled with our operational excellence and improved efficiency through our AI initiatives and our technology, continue to support our financial performance. Turning and moving to Slide 22. Our origination business also continues to perform well.

We funded approximately $17 billion in the fourth quarter, which is up 9% quarter over quarter, and $96 million in originations PTI, up 19% from last quarter. This quarter is our best performance -- financial performance since 2021. On margins, and while the market always remains competitive, we are able to improve our average margins to 131 basis points, up eight basis points overall quarter over quarter while maintaining market share. And while all of our channels were profitable in 2024, our multichannel strategy allows us to optimize on opportunities in all markets.

And this is shown by $270 million of originations PTI for the full year, which is up 100% year over year. And as I mentioned before, one of our top priorities and our biggest opportunity is our ability to retain our customers, which takes us to Slide 23, right? Our portfolio now sits at 3.7 million customers, and the scale affords significant opportunities for portfolio recapture and customer growth through future cross-sell strategies. Our ability to grow our origination business is focused on being able to deliver recapture even without a rate rally, and that includes cash-out refis, home equity loans, purchase transactions to our existing customer base. But delivering our brand and making investments and building digital tools to enhance our customer experience is key to our success.

Moving to Slide 24. Our servicing business also continues to perform well. Our total managed servicing portfolio was $844 billion, which is comprised of $525 billion of owned MSRs directly serviced by Newrez, $65 billion of owned MSRs serviced by others, and $254 billion of third-party servicing. As I mentioned before, the financials related to serviced by others portfolio is now reported in the Newrez or the originations and servicing segment.

But it's important to note that we, Newrez, have always been actively managing these SBO MSRs and the performance of these third-party servicers to ensure alignment to our standards. Our third-party servicing franchise also had a great quarter. We added $21 billion in net notional UPB, which is up 9% quarter over quarter, continuing to gain wallet share with our existing customer base and also adding new customers. But our performance is always driven and continues to be driven by our operational efficiency through our proprietary technology, our scale and cost leadership, and that is seen in our ability to transfer 1.2 million loans in 2024.

On Slide 25, you see our owned MSR performance, which, not surprisingly, is reflective of market conditions, with higher interest rates and low prepayment speeds. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. Moving to Slide 26. Our market-leading special servicing franchise is really our presentation on our core capability of our overall platform.

It's an important business for us as it is both fee-based, capital-light, and provides significant operating leverage to our platform. While delinquencies remain low from a historical context, and Michael talked about that, you can see in the chart on the bottom left, the delinquencies are slowly on the rise, and we help homeowners find a solution to stay in their home. This is proven not only with our third-party clients continuing to grow with us but also through our performance shown on the right side of the slide, as well as supporting homeowners in times of need, like the recent hurricanes and Los Angeles fires. I continue to believe our business is as best positioned as it ever has been, and I'm looking forward to continuing telling the Newrez growth story in '25.

Back to you, Michael.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks. Operator, if we could just turn and open up the lines for Q&A, that would be great.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.

Bose George -- Analyst

Hey, everyone, good morning. Could you give us any updated thoughts on the potential listing of Newrez in 2025? And then could you also just tie that into your comments, Michael, in your prepared remarks about potential changes in the capital structure at Rithm?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So, we're not there yet on listing the company. We are -- we -- if you had talked to Nick and the team, we've taken steps to have separate segment reporting where everything is now listed at the mortgage company. So, you have a clear view into how that company is doing.

I think the big part for us is how do we think about shareholders, and not just at the mortgage company level, quite frankly, and get the proper multiple for how we see ourselves in the business. That's one of the reasons why I opened up a little different than I typically do. There are some pieces that need to come into play. One is we need to -- if we were going to do that, we want to grow our REIT, so you'd have a dedicated REIT.

You'd have a C corp up top, no different than some of the best-in-class asset managers. And then we'd have our operating companies below. So, that's really the path we're on. I will say the M&A pipeline of stuff that we're looking at is extremely robust, whether that be on the asset management side and just some of the other things, manufacturing businesses, as I referred to them in our opening remarks.

But to tell you today that we're going to list the company, I can't do that. But we are working on our capital structure, and we hope to have some change in that. We put a lot of thought and talked to -- have some good thoughtful board discussions. I'm hopeful at some point down the road that we'll get there.

But we need to grow some scale in the REIT right now.

Bose George -- Analyst

OK. That's helpful. Thanks. And just in terms of timeline that suggests that it's probably not a 2025 event while you sort of build out the other pieces.

Is that fair?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

No. I mean, I'd like to do it in 2024, but that's gone. So, I think if we can get it done in '25, we absolutely will because I still believe that our common is fundamentally undervalued.

Bose George -- Analyst

OK. Great. And actually, just another quick one. The SPAC, I know you can't discuss it, but is that -- would that be part of Sculptor to the extent that happens?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

If it does happen, it will be a Rithm company. I can't go into a lot of details, but the way we think about the business, if we could create more fee-earning businesses that flow up to the parent company, we're going to do that. And as we think about diversification, there are certain types of vehicles that we could potentially explore.

Bose George -- Analyst

OK. Great. Makes sense. Thanks.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Doug Harter with UBS. Please go ahead.

Douglas Harter -- Analyst

Thanks. Michael, you talked about scaling up the REIT in your last answer. Just what assets do you find attractive? And kind of how would you look to scale up the REIT?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Doug, I think it's more of the same in what we do. If you look at the business, we've allocated a lot of capital. We allocate more and more capital to -- the mortgage company has a lot of capital. Obviously, the MSR business has been extremely beneficial to the company and to shareholders.

We continue to believe in that asset. As Baron pointed, I think we have a little under $850 billion and continue to grow the third-party servicing there. When you look at -- you have a, just give or take, for purposes of this discussion, 440 or 450 10-year note. You have mortgages trading 120, 130 in the agency market.

You look at some of the non-QM assets that we actually produce, so you look at the Genesis side, what we can produce, I think that's where you're going to see growth in -- on the REIT side.

Douglas Harter -- Analyst

Just along those lines, do you -- how do you see kind of the investor property loans today, other private label securitizations, and kind of what impact to the Washington discussions around the GSEs have on those opportunities?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

When and if that happens, I think that we are going to be so well-positioned between our capital base, the LPs that we have in our system, and our mortgage company, which I think is in a class -- it's a world-class mortgage company. So, whether they be investor loans, whether -- if the agencies went back to the old way where they get privatized, keep in mind, in the old days, g-fees were -- were they 25 basis points or something? Give or take that. Right, Baron? You look at where they are, they're 50 basis points today. So, there's probably some given.

Part of that could be, as you think about the reinsurance market, around how that could possibly work, and I think that could work. But I think we will be extremely well-positioned for that. And I'd like to see it, quite frankly.

Douglas Harter -- Analyst

And Michael, just one more if I could. Just on your comments about growing and scaling the REIT. Can you do that with your existing capital base? Or would you need to raise additional capital to do that?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

It depends. It could be a combination of both. Keep in mind, most REITs tend to operate by themselves. There's not a lot of M&A activity in the REIT space.

When I look at our business and think about permitting capital and having a little under $8 billion, that's a good place to be, away from our so-called asset management arm. So, if we could grow that and then, at some point, create management fees, I think we're off to the races.

Douglas Harter -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Doug.

Operator

The next question comes from Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Kenneth Lee -- Analyst

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Just one on Sculptor. You talked about some initiatives to grow the credit business. I wonder if I can get a little bit more detail in terms of what particular initiatives, and what are your expectations in terms of fundraising for this year? Thanks.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

So, on the initiatives, it's more of the same. It's lead with performance. Performance is going to bring in more AUM. The team, there's a large capital formation team.

Everybody is out on the road and seeing LPs. When I think about the initiatives to actually grow, whether it be credit and some of the other businesses, there's two ways really to do it, right? You could do some in M&A, but we can't be the folks that are going to pay 20 or 30x on a multiple basis. So, it could be some -- there's a couple of different platforms out there that we're actually looking at. But I think real performance is going to bring in a lot more capital.

If you think about it, the company is a great company. Obviously, in the press for a bit. But out on the other side, the year-end change removed, performance great everywhere. So, I'm excited.

We talk -- we all talk to a lot of LPs, and I think you're going to -- we're going to see a fair amount of capital come in. As you think about how much capital to be raised this year, right now, the real estate guys are -- I can't give you specific numbers, but those guys are doing well. The credit side is doing well. So, we expect a pretty good year.

We're not Blackstone or Apollo, unfortunately, but there's a lot of room for us out there.

Kenneth Lee -- Analyst

Gotcha. Very helpful there. And one follow-up, if I may, just on Sculptor as well. Any updated outlook around the expense base for Sculptor? Is this sort of like still in an investment phase there? Just any kind of color around where expenses could trend there? Thanks.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

I think it's more BAU, honestly. We can -- we always evaluate expenses, whether it be at Sculptor, whether it be at the mortgage company, whether we be at Rithm. Creating synergies, obviously, across all of our operating platforms will help, and we continue to work on those. So, we could have some saves at some point.

I think -- yeah. I mean, it's just part of our discipline about risk management, putting up higher earnings for our shareholders.

Kenneth Lee -- Analyst

Gotcha. Thank you very much.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ken.

Operator

The next question comes from Giuliano Bologna with Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Giuliano Bologna -- Analyst

Good morning, and congrats on the July performance. One thing I'd be curious about when you think about the kind of growing the REITs, would there be any value or like ability to push assets into the Rithm Property Trust structure and use that as a public vehicle, or would you want to create more separate vehicles over time that have slightly different strategies on the kind of the REIT side of the world?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

I think it's both. We prefer not to transfer assets from one REIT to another, just to be clear on that. We are looking at a transaction, for example, now in the commercial real estate sector where both Rithm and Rithm Property Trust will likely participate as two separate entities because obviously, the amount of capital in Rithm Property Trust is not large enough. When we think about risk and the sheer size of doing any one thing, we want to make sure that we're balanced from a risk perspective.

It's going to be more where we'd like to continue to create more vehicles. We want to think about other verticals that we may or may not have been in. I pointed out, on the energy infrastructure side, a couple of world-class folks building a business have third-party capital commitments, trillions needed for that. That's another example of something that will grow, but that will be more in the private fund side.

Giuliano Bologna -- Analyst

And this might take a little bit of different angle, but there's -- you've obviously done a great job historically making acquisitions on the mortgage company MSR side. I'm curious when you talk about M&A, is there-are there any opportunities around the mortgage company or originator servicers and/or bulk pools that you might be looking at? Or are you focused on M&A elsewhere on the platform first?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

No. Listen, we look at everything. If there's something that's accretive for the capital and for shareholders, we'll have a hard run at it. There's not that many mortgage companies, quite frankly, that are, in our opinion, from where we sit, that are -- I shouldn't say worth it, but like we don't need anything else.

If there's something that's accretive, obviously, we love the MSR asset. That's been very good to us and our shareholders. We'll continue to look at that. We're starting to see some real demand for MSR funds as well.

So, you may see some of that start going off balance sheet, and that frees up some capital, too. But what I would say, Giuliano, if there's something out there, and we have an M&A team, we look at anything and everything. We just need to have the expertise around the house to execute.

Giuliano Bologna -- Analyst

That's helpful. And maybe one last one. You talked about the potential for a C corp conversion. Is that something that you could pursue in the near term? Or is there any kind of preference to try to do something with the mortgage company, partial IPO-wise, before you go through that? Or could you pursue a C corp conversion sooner?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

I think we could do both, honestly. But it's got to be something that's highly accretive for both shareholders and the company. If you think about us as a REIT, we've paid out, I think, since '21, $5.8 billion in dividends. If you had that capital and you compounded that capital, it's my belief, I think, the stock would be in the 20s, or it should be anyway.

So, when we look at all that stuff, all the stuff goes into our calculation. But I think anything is on the table, knowing, as we all know each other, if we could do something yesterday, I'd prefer to do it yesterday.

Giuliano Bologna -- Analyst

That's very helpful. I appreciate it, and I'll jump back in the queue.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Eric Hagen with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Eric Hagen -- Analyst

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, guys. When we look to the investment portfolio and we strip out the leverage that's associated with the hedging of the MSRs, what is the leverage in that portfolio? How stable do you feel like it is there? And do you feel like there's even some room to apply more leverage if Newrez were to get spun out at some point?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Most of the balance sheet, what I would say today is really around two asset classes: MSRs and our hedges in the mortgage company. So, if you think about it, whether we have swaps on, whether we have treasuries on, whether we have agency mortgages, that's a big chunk of the overall balance sheet. At the Rithm level, the other large part of what I would say in the non-agency space is the Genesis loans because we finance those with some of our banks or insurance companies or do securitizations. So, the short answer is we could increase leverage.

I think we'll only do that if we think it's prudent. But I don't think we need to right now based on the earnings power of where we sit.

Eric Hagen -- Analyst

OK. That's helpful. I actually want to ask about Shellpoint because subservicing feels like an increasingly relevant driver of the earnings story at Newrez. I mean, I think you mentioned how much your subservicing now.

Maybe you can repeat that. And what was the contribution to earnings from Shellpoint? And do you feel like there's any growth opportunities there, even if mortgage rates like stay around these levels and new supply is kind of limited?

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

Look, there continues to be demand on different non-agency products, right? Non-QM is very, very competitive in the marketplace today. We continue to be the No. 1 special servicer for non-QM assets. So, we continue to see growth.

There are opportunities with banks and existing relationships that we take market share based upon how they're positioning. So, we do look at it as continued growth, and you see that by us adding more loans in the fourth quarter. And our pipeline continues to look strong in '25. So, I think you're going to continue to see us taking market share, especially given a lot of the dislocation you saw last year in what I'll say third-party servicing.

Eric Hagen -- Analyst

Yeah. Thank you, guys, so much. Appreciate it.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Eric.

Operator

The next question comes from Jay McCanless with Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Jay McCanless -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two for me. The first one, just kind of a general market question for '25.

If you look at the MBA data, mortgage credit availability is still sitting at levels around 2012, 2013. Do you guys think, just in general, maybe not specifically for Rithm but just in general, do we think mortgage credit availability is going to increase going into this year? Or is some of that going to be dependent on what happens with the GSEs?

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

I mean, look, Michael has talked about this on prior quarters. We have an expectation that rates are going to stay elevated. So, what you're going to continue to see is that consumers obviously are going to have to deal with the affordability issue of trying to buy a new home. And that's why we're very much focused on our existing book.

But we continue to also see consumers looking to move. So, you see that in the amount of inventory and housing inventory that's available for sale continues to basically what I'll say is tick up. So, our expectation is you'll probably see a larger purchase market. And we think that home equity loans are going to continue to grow, and we -- and cash-outs are going to continue to grow.

Whether or not any of the government programs make an adjustment, I don't really think that's going to be necessarily a '25 impact, but at the same time, our belief is they're very much focused on affordability. And I think that whatever programs that they adjust are going to basically have that as a focal point as well. So, there is going to be a little bit of a balance. So, I think that mortgage credit availability overall is probably going to stay in its current state in 2025.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Insurance is a problem, obviously, right? I mean, the cost of home ownership has gone up. The rate's up. Insurance is a problem. You just had the L.A.

fire.

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

Yeah. And that just drives into affordability consideration as well.

Jay McCanless -- Analyst

OK. Great. Thank you. And then my second question, you guys talked at the beginning of the call about infrastructure finance and doing some investments there.

I guess with some of the changes that we're seeing in the new administration, how does that affect your desire and potential customer desire to do more investments in that space? And are there any headlines, insights, road map, whatever, however you want to phrase it, anything that we should be watching for to tell us whether or not you guys are going to get more invested in that space?

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Great question. It's a little bit early. You heard this morning that the administration wants to ban DeepSeek. I'm going to tell you that I am not the expert on this stuff.

I have two partners, and we have two partners who are likely going to join us world-class around this. Everybody is talking about the multitrillion-dollar investment opportunity and the huge needs for capital. And that's how we're going to think about it. I mean, I think the world -- this stuff is going to continue to change.

But when I look -- and I recently said in some meetings with some of the extremely large so-called hyperscalers, it's a really, really interesting space. You got to have the expertise to do it, and you got to have a lot of capital because it's -- the world is short of power. Whether it's AI or something else, the world is short of power. And with our team and our partners, I'm extremely excited about where we could go with this.

Jay McCanless -- Analyst

OK. That sounds great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator

The next question comes from Matthew Erdner with JonesTrading. Please go ahead.

Matthew Erdner -- JonesTrading -- Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. So, turning back to Newrez, the funded volume has continued to increase quarter over quarter. You guys have had great growth there.

Kind of within the non-QM and home equity space, we've seen a lot of competition there, and then there's a lot of other players stepping into the place or into the space. How do you continue to drive market share growth there? Is it investment in your team? Are you guys growing that out? Can you just speak to that a little bit? Thanks.

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

It's an investment in the team. It's an investment in our technology. It's an investment in our brand. Those are the three key initiatives across the board, right? We continue to believe there's significant upside for us on just focusing on our own homeowners.

We haven't even really -- we felt like we wanted to get into new customer acquisition, and we do new customer acquisition on our distributed retail platforms. But like on our call centers, it's really just focused internally on our own portfolio and making sure that we're maximizing there. So, I would tell you, unequivocally, we are making significant platform investments on all of those initiatives.

Matthew Erdner -- JonesTrading -- Analyst

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michael Nierenberg for any closing remarks.

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Well, thanks for everybody's questions. Really thoughtful this morning. Obviously, very excited about where we sit as a business and all of our different business lines, and I look forward to updating you after Q1. More to come.

Have a great day and a great rest of the week. Thanks, everyone.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Emma Bolla -- Associate General Counsel

Michael Nierenberg -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Baron Silverstein -- President, NewRez

Bose George -- Analyst

Douglas Harter -- Analyst

Doug Harter -- Analyst

Kenneth Lee -- Analyst

Giuliano Bologna -- Analyst

Eric Hagen -- Analyst

Jay McCanless -- Analyst

Matthew Erdner -- JonesTrading -- Analyst

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