Commitments and Contingencies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2022

Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments and Contingencies

Note 13 — Commitments and Contingencies

Impact of COVID-19. The magnitude and duration of COVID-19 and its impact on our business and on our borrowers is uncertain and will mostly depend on future events, which cannot be predicted. As this pandemic continues and if economic conditions deteriorate, it may have long-term impacts on our financial position, results of operations and cash flows. See Note 2 and Item 1A. Risk Factors of our 2021 Annual Report for further discussion of COVID-19.

Agency Business Commitments. Our Agency Business is subject to supervision by certain regulatory agencies. Among other things, these agencies require us to meet certain minimum net worth, operational liquidity and restricted liquidity collateral requirements, and compliance with reporting requirements. Our adjusted net worth and liquidity required by the agencies for all periods presented exceeded these requirements.

At September 30, 2022, we were required to maintain at least $18.1 million of liquid assets in one of our subsidiaries to meet our operational liquidity requirements for Fannie Mae and we had operational liquidity in excess of this requirement.

We are generally required to share the risk of any losses associated with loans sold under the Fannie Mae DUS program and are required to secure this obligation by assigning restricted cash balances and/or a letter of credit to Fannie Mae. The amount of collateral required by Fannie Mae is a formulaic calculation at the loan level by a Fannie Mae assigned tier, which considers the loan balance, risk level of the loan, age of the loan and level of risk-sharing. Fannie Mae requires restricted liquidity for Tier 2 loans of 75 basis points, 15 basis points for Tier 3 loans and 5 basis points for Tier 4 loans, which is funded over a 48-month period that begins upon delivery of the loan to Fannie Mae. A significant portion of our Fannie Mae DUS serviced loans for which we have risk sharing are Tier 2 loans. At September 30, 2022, we met the restricted liquidity requirement with a $45.0 million letter of credit and $18.9 million of cash collateral.

At September 30, 2022, reserve requirements for the Fannie Mae DUS loan portfolio will require us to fund $37.6 million in additional restricted liquidity over the next 48 months, assuming no further principal paydowns, prepayments, or defaults within our at-risk portfolio. Fannie Mae periodically reassesses these collateral requirements and may make changes to these requirements in the future. We generate sufficient cash flow from our operations to meet these capital standards and do not expect any changes to have a material impact on our future operations; however, future changes to collateral requirements may adversely impact our available cash.

We are subject to various capital requirements in connection with seller/servicer agreements that we have entered into with secondary market investors. Failure to maintain minimum capital requirements could result in our inability to originate and service loans for the respective investor and, therefore, could have a direct material effect on our consolidated financial statements. At September 30, 2022, we met all of Fannie Mae’s quarterly capital requirements and our Fannie Mae adjusted net worth was in excess of the required net worth. We are not subject to capital requirements on a quarterly basis for Ginnie Mae and FHA, as requirements for these investors are only required on an annual basis.

As an approved designated seller/servicer under Freddie Mac’s SBL program, we are required to post collateral to ensure that we are able to meet certain purchase and loss obligations required by this program. Under the SBL program, we are required to post collateral equal to $5.0 million, which is satisfied with a $5.0 million letter of credit.

We enter into contractual commitments with borrowers providing rate lock commitments while simultaneously entering into forward sale commitments with investors. These commitments are outstanding for short periods of time (generally less than 60 days) and are described in more detail in Note 11 and Note 12.

Debt Obligations and Operating Leases. At September 30, 2022, the maturities of our debt obligations and the minimum annual operating lease payments under leases with a term in excess of one year are as follows (in thousands):

			Minimum Annual
	Debt		Operating Lease
Year	Obligations		Payments		Total
2022 (three months ending December 31, 2022)	$	1,267,183	$	2,044	$	1,269,227
2023		2,152,200		8,914		2,161,114
2024		3,463,405		8,876		3,472,281
2025		2,098,991		9,003		2,107,994
2026		4,481,821		9,038		4,490,859
2027		633,633		7,597		641,230
Thereafter		358,701		27,706		386,407
Total	$	14,455,934	$	73,178	$	14,529,112

During both the three months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021, we recorded lease expense of $2.4 million, and during the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021, we recorded lease expense of $7.2 million and $7.0 million, respectively.

Unfunded Commitments. In accordance with certain structured loans and investments, we have outstanding unfunded commitments of $1.25 billion at September 30, 2022 that we are obligated to fund as borrowers meet certain requirements. Specific requirements include, but are not limited to, property renovations, building construction and conversions based on criteria met by the borrower in accordance with the loan agreements.

Litigation. We are currently neither subject to any material litigation nor, to the best of our knowledge, threatened by any material litigation other than the following:

In June 2011, three related lawsuits were filed by the Extended Stay Litigation Trust (the “Trust”), a post-bankruptcy litigation trust alleged to have standing to pursue claims that previously had been held by Extended Stay, Inc. and the Homestead Village L.L.C. family of companies (together “ESI”) (formerly Chapter 11 debtors, together the “Debtors”) that have emerged from bankruptcy. Two of the lawsuits were filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, and the third in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County. There were 73 defendants in the three lawsuits, including 55 corporate and partnership entities and 18 individuals. A subsidiary of ours and certain other entities that are affiliates of ours are included as defendants. The New York State Court action was removed to the Bankruptcy Court. Currently, there is just a single case in Bankruptcy Court.

The lawsuits all alleged, as a factual basis and background, certain facts surrounding the June 2007 leveraged buyout of ESI from affiliates of Blackstone Capital. Our subsidiary, Arbor ESH II, LLC, had a $115.0 million investment in the Series A1 Preferred Units of a holding company of Extended Stay, Inc. The New York State Court action and one of the two federal court actions named as defendants Arbor ESH II, LLC, Arbor Commercial Mortgage, LLC (“ACM”), and ABT-ESI LLC, an entity in which we have a membership interest, among the broad group of defendants. These two actions were commenced by substantially identical complaints. The defendants are alleged, among other things, to have breached fiduciary and contractual duties by causing or allowing the Debtors to pay illegal dividends or other improper distributions of value at a time when the Debtors were insolvent. The Trust also alleges that the defendants aided and abetted, induced, or participated in breaches of fiduciary duty, waste, and unjust enrichment (“Fiduciary Duty Claims”) and name a director of ours, and a former general counsel of ACM, each of whom had served on the Board of Directors of ESI for a period of time. We are defending these two defendants and paying the costs of such defense. On the basis of the foregoing allegations, the Trust has asserted claims under a number of common law theories, seeking the return of assets transferred by the Debtors prior to the Debtors’ bankruptcy filing.

In the third action, filed in Bankruptcy Court, the same plaintiff, the Trust, named ACM and ABT-ESI LLC, together with a number of other defendants, and asserts claims, including constructive and fraudulent conveyance claims, under state and federal statutes, as well as a claim under the Federal Debt Collection Procedure Act.

In June 2013, the Trust filed a motion to amend the lawsuits, to, among other things, (1) consolidate the lawsuits into one lawsuit, (2) remove 47 defendants from the lawsuits, none of whom are related to us, so that there are 26 remaining defendants, including 16 corporate and partnership entities and 10 individuals, and (3) reduce the counts within the lawsuits from over 100 down to 17.

The remaining counts in the Trust’s amended complaint against our affiliates are principally state law claims for breach of fiduciary duties, waste, unlawful dividends and unjust enrichment, and claims under the Bankruptcy Code for avoidance and recovery actions, among others. The Bankruptcy Court granted the motion to amend and the amended complaint has been filed. The amended complaint seeks approximately $139.0 million in the aggregate, plus interest from the date of the alleged unlawful transfers, from director designees, portions of which are also sought from our affiliates as well as from unaffiliated defendants.

We moved to dismiss the referenced remaining actions in December 2013.

After supplemental briefing and multiple adjourned conferences, in August 2020, the Court issued a decision granting our motion to dismiss in part, dismissing 9 of the 17 counts. The Court permitted claims against director designees to proceed on theories of authorization of illegal dividends and breach of fiduciary duty. The Court permitted claims against the defendant entities, including our affiliated entities, to proceed on theories of constructive fraudulent transfer and fraudulent transfer under state and federal law. Moreover, the Court affirmatively dismissed four counts against the defendant entities to the extent they are based on distributions from certain so-called LIBOR Floor Certificates. According to the amended complaint, the total LIBOR Floor Certificate transfers were $74.0 million in value. As a result, with what remains of the amended complaint, total possible liability against the affiliated entities has correspondingly fallen, whereas total possible liability against the director designees remains at approximately $139.0 million.

The parties have stipulated to a schedule for discovery and we intend to vigorously defend against the remaining claims. We have not made a loss accrual for this litigation because we believe that it is not probable that a loss has been incurred and an amount cannot be reasonably estimated.

Due to Borrowers. Due to borrowers represents borrowers’ funds held by us to fund certain expenditures or to be released at our discretion upon the occurrence of certain pre-specified events, and to serve as additional collateral for borrowers’ loans. While retained, these balances earn interest in accordance with the specific loan terms they are associated with.