IMPAC MORTGAGE HOLDINGS INC - Annual Report: 2015 (Form 10-K)

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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

ý

ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 or

o

TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from                      to                     .

Commission File Number: 1-14100

IMPAC MORTGAGE HOLDINGS, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

19500 Jamboree Road, Irvine, California 92612
(Address of principal executive offices)

(949) 475-3600
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: none

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act Yes o No ý

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act. Yes o No ý

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ý No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ý No o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of the Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ý

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, or a non-accelerated filer. See definition of "accelerated filer and large accelerated filer" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Exchange Act Rule 12b-2) Yes o No ý

As of June 30, 2015, the aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $143.5 million, based on the closing sales price of common stock on the NYSE MKT on June 30, 2015. For purposes of the calculation only, all directors and executive officers and beneficial holders of more than 10% of the stock of the registrant have been deemed affiliates. There were 12,178,250 shares of common stock outstanding as of March 4, 2016.

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IMPAC MORTGAGE HOLDINGS, INC.
2015 FORM 10-K ANNUAL REPORT
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PART I

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

           Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc., sometimes referred to herein as the "Company," "we," "our" or "us," is a Maryland corporation incorporated in August 1995 and includes the following subsidiaries: Integrated Real Estate Service Corporation, or IRES, IMH Assets Corp. and Impac Funding Corporation. IRES subsidiary, Impac Mortgage Corp. (IMC), formerly known as Excel Mortgage Servicing, Inc., or Excel, conducts our mortgage lending and real estate services operations.

Forward-Looking Statements

           This report on Form 10-K contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements, some of which are based on various assumptions and events that are beyond our control, may be identified by reference to a future period or periods or by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as "may," "will," "believe," "expect," "likely," "should," "could," "seem to," "anticipate," "plan," "intend," "project," "assume," or similar terms or variations on those terms or the negative of those terms. The forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations. Actual results may differ materially as a result of several factors, including, but not limited to the following: failure to achieve the benefits expected from the acquisition of the CCM operations, including an increase in origination volume generally, increase in each of our origination channels and ability to successfully use the marketing platform to expand volumes of our other loan products; successful development, marketing, sale and financing of new and existing financial products, including expansion of non-Qualified Mortgage originations and conventional and government loan programs; legal and other risks related to new financial products; ability to successfully diversify our financial products; volatility in the mortgage and consumer financial industry; unexpected interest rate fluctuations and margin compression; our ability to manage personnel expenses in relation to mortgage production levels; our ability to successfully use warehousing capacity; increased competition in the mortgage lending industry by larger or more efficient companies; issues and system risks related to our technology; ability to successfully create cost and product efficiencies through new technology; more than expected increases in default rates or loss severities and mortgage related losses; ability to obtain additional financing, through lending and repurchase facilities, debt or equity funding, strategic relationships or otherwise; the terms of any financing, whether debt or equity, that we do obtain and our expected use of proceeds from any financing; increase in loan repurchase requests and ability to adequately settle repurchase obligations; failure to create brand awareness; the outcome, including any settlements, of litigation or regulatory actions pending against us or other legal contingencies; and our compliance with applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations and other general market and economic conditions.

           For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see Item 1A. "Risk Factors" and Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in this report. This document speaks only as of its date and we do not undertake, and specifically disclaim any obligation, to release publicly the results of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statements.

           The information contained throughout this document is presented on a continuing basis, unless otherwise stated.

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Available Information

           Our internet website address is www.impaccompanies.com. We make available our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and proxy statements for our annual stockholders' meetings, as well as any amendments to those reports, free of charge through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. You can learn more about us by reviewing our SEC filings on our website by clicking on "Investor Relations—Stockholder Relations" located on our home page and proceeding to "SEC Filings." We also make available on our website, under "Corporate Governance," charters for the audit, compensation, and governance and nominating committees of our board of directors, our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, our Corporate Governance Guidelines and other company information, including amendments to such documents and waivers, if any, to our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. These documents will also be furnished, free of charge, upon written request to Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc., Attention: Stockholder Relations, 19500 Jamboree Road, Irvine, California 92612. The SEC also maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy statements and other information regarding SEC registrants, including our Company.

Our Company

           We are an established nationwide independent residential mortgage lender. We were founded in 1995 by members of our current management team, who have extensive experience and an established track record of operating our Company through multiple market cycles. We originate, sell and service residential mortgage loans. We primarily originate conventional mortgage loans eligible for sale to U.S. government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (conventional loans), and government-insured mortgage loans eligible for government securities issued through Ginnie Mae (government loans). We originate and acquire mortgage loans through our Retail, Correspondent and Wholesale origination channels. For the year ended December 31, 2015, we had $9.3 billion in origination volume, a 225% increase over 2014.

           We primarily operate as a residential mortgage lender and are focused on expanding our mortgage lending platform providing conventional and government-insured mortgage loans as well as look to provide innovative products to meet the needs of borrowers not met by traditional conventional and government products. To a lesser extent, we provide real estate services and manage our long-term mortgage portfolio. The real estate service segment was created in 2008 to provide solutions to the distressed mortgage and real estate markets, including loan modifications, real estate disposition, monitoring and surveillance services and real estate brokerage. The long-term mortgage portfolio predominantly includes non-conforming mortgage loans originated between 2002 and 2007, and is decreasing in size from principal pay-downs and default liquidations. Since we are no longer adding new mortgage loans to the long-term mortgage portfolio, the real estate services and long-term mortgage portfolio segments are continuing to decrease and are a smaller component of our overall operating results.

           In January 2015, we and our wholly-owned subsidiary, IMC, entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with CashCall, Inc. (CashCall) pursuant to which IMC agreed to purchase certain assets and assume certain liabilities of CashCall's residential mortgage operations. CashCall Mortgage (CCM) operates as a centralized call center that utilizes a marketing platform to generate customer leads through the internet and call center loan agents. As a centralized retail call center, loan applications are received and taken by loan agents directly from consumers and through the internet. As a result of the acquisition of CCM, we had a significant increase in our retail direct origination volume. We intend to leverage this same marketing platform to expand volumes of our Nonqualified mortgage (NonQM) products.

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           During 2014, we began originating NonQM loans and the predominant amount of the originations has come through our wholesale lending channel. However, we expect the CCM division to increase originations through the retail call center as well as correspondent customers to begin delivering loans that meet our NonQM program guidelines. In conjunction with launching these NonQM products, we established a strategic investor relationship with an institution that provides balance sheet capacity to fund these NonQM loans.

           Our warehouse lending group offers funding facilities to approved lenders focusing on smaller mortgage bankers and credit unions. These facilities allow our customers the ability to fund mortgage loans and sell closed loans to their investors. Our funding facilities are repaid when our customer sells the loans to the investor. Offering warehouse lending provides added value for our correspondent customers, which we believe will increase the capture rate from our currently approved customers and increase volumes in our correspondent channel.

           Our operating segments include Mortgage Lending, Real Estate Services and the Long-Term Mortgage Portfolio. A description of each operating segment is presented below with further details and discussions of each segments' results of operations presented in Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Results of Operations."

           Mortgage Lending—As a nationwide mortgage lender, we are approved to originate and service Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae eligible loans. We primarily originate, sell and service conventional, conforming agency and government insured residential mortgage loans originated or acquired through our three channels: Retail, Correspondent and Wholesale. Our mortgage lending operation generates origination and processing fees, net of origination costs, at the time of origination as well as gains or unexpected losses when the loans are sold to third party investors, including the GSEs and Ginnie Mae. We retain servicing rights from the mortgage originations and earn servicing fees, net of sub-servicer costs, from our mortgage servicing portfolio. From time to time we sell our servicing rights from our servicing portfolio.

           Real Estate Services—We provide loss mitigation and real estate services primarily on our own long-term mortgage portfolio, including default surveillance, loan modification services, short sale services (where a lender agrees to take less than the balance owed from the borrower), real estate owned (REO) surveillance and disposition services and monitoring, reconciling and reporting services for residential and multifamily mortgage portfolios. We provide services to investors, servicers and individual borrowers primarily focusing on loss mitigation and performance of our own long-term mortgage portfolio. These operations are conducted by IMC.

           Long-Term Mortgage Portfolio—We manage our long-term mortgage portfolio, which primarily consists of residual interests in the securitization trusts reflected as trust assets and liabilities in our consolidated balance sheets, to mitigate losses and maximize cash flows from our residual interests (net trust assets). We receive cash flows from our residual interests in securitizations to the extent excess cash remains in the trusts after required distributions to bondholders and maintaining required overcollateralization levels are met and other specified parameters within the trusts.

           In addition to the segments listed above, we also have a corporate segment, which supports all of the operating segments. The corporate segment includes unallocated corporate and other administrative costs as described below.

Recent Developments

           As previously announced, in January 2016, we decided to exercise the option to convert a portion of the convertible notes into common stock, eliminating debt and increasing book value by $20.0 million

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and saving $375 thousand ($1.5 million on an annualized basis) in quarterly interest payments beginning in April 2016.

Mortgage Lending Operations

           Our mortgage lending activities primarily consist of the origination, sale and servicing of conventional loans eligible for sale to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and government-insured loans eligible for Ginnie Mae securities issuance. We currently originate and fund mortgages through our wholly-owned indirect subsidiary, IMC. In order to originate mortgage loans we must be able to finance them and hold them on our balance sheet until such loans are sold, generally within 10 to 20 days. In order to do this we must have lines of credit with banks (called warehouse lines) that allow us the short term funding required.

           The following table presents selected data from our mortgage lending operations for the year ended December 31, 2015 and 2014:

           Our origination volumes increased 225% in 2015 to $9.3 billion as compared to $2.8 billion for the prior year. In 2015, our retail channel achieved the most significant growth as a percentage of total originations. Of the $9.3 billion in total originations, approximately $5.6 billion, or 60%, was originated through the CCM retail channel. In contrast, during 2014, our retail originations contributed only 3% to our total origination volume. However, in 2014, the Company purchased mortgage loans from CashCall, Inc. (prior to the acquisition of their mortgage operations by the Company), as a correspondent customer, contributing approximately $800.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2014.

           Our mortgage servicing portfolio increased in 2015 primarily due to servicing-retained sales of conforming GSE-eligible loans and government-insured loans eligible for Ginnie Mae securities, net of bulk sales of servicing rights. In 2015, we had servicing retained loan sales of $7.2 billion of conforming GSE-eligible loans and issued $1.8 billion of government securities through Ginnie Mae on a servicing retained basis, partially offset by bulk sales of servicing rights totaling $7.3 billion in unpaid principal balance (UPB).

           We have three origination channels to originate or acquire mortgage loans—Retail, Wholesale and Correspondent. Each channel produces similar mortgage loan products and applies similar underwriting standards.

           Retail—Beginning in January 2014, we originated retail loans using a centralized approach through our call center. As discussed previously, in January 2015, we acquired certain assets of CCM. CCM, a leading direct-to-consumer originator based in Orange, California, utilizes a high-volume, rapid turn time funding model with a focus on providing exceptional customer service. CCM has proven

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expertise in multifaceted and other mass media marketing and we believe will further diversify IMC's origination channels and capabilities. The acquisition of CCM's residential lending platform added a centralized retail call center to IMC's current business-to-business origination channels and provides additional capacity to process increased origination volumes of expanded products including our non-QM loan programs and government insured Ginnie Mae programs, while profitably creating servicing assets for IMC.

           When loans are originated on a retail basis, the origination documentation is completed inclusive of customer disclosures and other aspects of the lending process and funding of the transaction is completed internally. Our call center representatives contact borrowers through either inbound or outbound marketing campaigns sourced from purchase-money and refinance mortgage leads, including leads sourced from customer referrals and retention of customers in the servicing portfolio that are seeking to refinance or purchase a property. For the year ended December 31, 2015, we closed $5.6 billion of loans in this origination channel, which equaled 60% of total originations, as compared to $80.3 million or 3% of total originations during 2014 prior to the acquisition of CCM.

           Wholesale—In a wholesale transaction, our account executives work directly with mortgage brokers who originate and document loans for delivery to our operational center where we underwrite and fund the mortgage loan. Each loan is underwritten to our underwriting standards and if approved, the borrower is sent new disclosures under our name and the loan is funded in the name of Impac Mortgage.

           Prior to accepting loans from mortgage brokers, each mortgage broker is required to meet our guidelines for minimum experience, credit score and net worth. We also obtain a third-party due diligence report for each prospective broker that verifies licensing and provides information on any industry sanctions that might exist. In addition, each mortgage broker is required to sign our broker agreement that contains certain representations and warranties from the brokers. For the year ended December 31, 2015, we closed loans totaling $1.4 billion in this origination channel, which equaled 16% of total originations, as compared to $598.9 million or 21% of total originations during 2014.

           Correspondent—Our correspondent channel represents mortgage loans acquired from our correspondent sellers. Our correspondent channel has historically targeted a market of small banks, credit unions and small mortgage banking firms. Prior to accepting loans from correspondent sellers, each seller is underwritten to determine if it meets financial and other guidelines. Our review of each prospective seller includes obtaining a third party due diligence report that verifies licensing, insurance coverage, quality of recent Federal Housing Administration (FHA) originations and provides information on any industry sanctions that might exist. In addition, each seller is required to sign our correspondent seller agreement that contains certain representations and warranties from the seller allowing us to require the seller to repurchase a loan sold to us for various reasons including (i) ineligibility for sale to GSEs, (ii) early payment default, (iii) early pay-off or (iv) if the loan is uninsurable by a government agency.

           In our correspondent channel, the correspondent seller originates and closes the loan. After the loan is originated, the correspondent seller provides the needed documentation and information to us to review and determine if it meets our underwriting guidelines. The loan is acquired by us only after we approve it for purchase. We focus on customer service for our clients by facilitating prompt review by our due diligence team, providing bid pricing on both newly originated and seasoned portfolios, enabling clients to deliver one loan at a time on a flow basis and providing clients with expedited funding timelines. We purchase conventional loans eligible for sale to the GSEs and government-insured loans eligible for Ginnie Mae securities. For the year ended December 31, 2015, we closed loans totaling $2.2 billion in the correspondent origination channel, which equaled 24% of total originations, compared to $2.2 billion or 76% of total originations during 2014. Although correspondent volume was virtually flat from 2014 to 2015, we were able to maintain the volume in our correspondent channel despite shifting

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the CCM volume from a correspondent customer in 2014, to retail originations in 2015, as a result of the acquisition. As previously discussed, Correspondent purchases from CashCall's mortgage division were approximately $800.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2014.

           Since 2011, we have provided loans to customers predominantly in the Western U.S. with California, Washington and Arizona comprising 83% of originations in 2015. Currently, we provide nationwide lending with our retail call center and correspondent sellers and mortgage brokers.

Originations

           Our loan products primarily include conventional loans eligible for sale to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and loans eligible for government insurance (government loans) by Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Veteran's Administration (VA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and also NonQM. We have enhanced our product offering to include more loan products less sensitive to changing interest rates, including FHA 203(k), a home improvement loan that provides the borrower funds to make renovations, intermediate Adjustable Rate Mortgages and GSE and government-insured loan programs such as Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) loans which help timely paying borrowers to refinance into a loan with a lower interest rate despite the loan balance being greater than the estimated fair value of their home. We believe that these loan products will prepay at a slower rate as compared to other products. By retaining these loan products in our servicing portfolio, we expect to maintain a less volatile mortgage servicing portfolio.

           We believe there is an underserved mortgage market for borrowers with good credit who may not meet the new qualified mortgage (QM) guidelines set out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). During 2014, we rolled out and began originating NonQM loans. As the demand by consumers for the NonQM product grows we expect the investor appetite will increase for the NonQM mortgages. The predominant amount of the early originations came through our wholesale lending channel. Our correspondent customers began delivering loans that meet our NonQM program guidelines during the third quarter of 2015. We have established strict lending guidelines, including determining the prospective borrowers' ability to repay the mortgage, which we believe will keep delinquencies and foreclosures at acceptable levels. In conjunction with launching these NonQM products we established a strategic investor relationship which provides us with an exit strategy for these nonconforming loans.

           The following table indicates the breakdown of our originations by loan type for the periods indicated:

(1)

Includes $132.4 million of NonQM mortgages originated during the year ended December 31, 2015.

Loan Sales—Selling Loans to GSEs, Issuing Ginnie Mae Securities and Selling Loans on a Whole Loan Basis

           We sell our mortgage loans to the secondary market, including sales to the GSEs and issuing securities through Ginnie Mae. We primarily sell loans on a servicing-retained basis where the loan is

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sold to an investor such as Fannie Mae, and we retain the right to service that loan, called mortgage servicing rights, or MSRs. We also "sell" loans to Ginnie Mae by issuing Ginnie Mae securities through a process whereby a pool of loans is transferred to Ginnie Mae as collateral for a government mortgage-backed security. To a lesser extent, we sell our residential mortgage loans on a whole loan basis where the investor also acquires the servicing rights.

           The following table indicates the breakdown of our loan sales to GSEs, issuance of Ginnie Mae securities and loans sold to investors on a whole loan basis for the periods as indicated:

Mortgage Servicing

           Upon our sale of loans to GSEs or the issuance of securities through Ginnie Mae, we generally retain the servicing rights with respect to the mortgage loans. We also sell loans on a servicing-released basis to secondary market investors where we do not retain the servicing rights. When we retain servicing rights, we are entitled to receive a servicing fee which is collected from interest payments made by the borrower and paid to us on a monthly basis equal to a specified percentage, typically between 0.25% and 0.44% per annum of the outstanding principal balance of the loans. We may also be entitled to receive additional servicing compensation, such as late payment fees and earn additional income through the use of non-interest bearing escrows. As a mortgage servicer, we are required to advance certain amounts to meet the contractual loan servicing requirements for certain investors. We may advance principal, interest, property taxes and insurance for borrowers that have become delinquent, plus any other costs to preserve the property. Also, we will advance funds to maintain, repair and market foreclosed real estate properties. Such advances are typically repaid when the loan becomes current or repaid from the proceeds generated from the sale of the property subsequent to foreclosure.

           We have hired a nationally recognized residential servicer to sub-service the servicing portfolio. Although we use a sub-servicer to provide primary servicing and certain default servicing functions, our servicing surveillance team, which is experienced in loss mitigation and real estate recovery, monitors and surveys the performance of the loans and sub-servicer. We generally earn a servicing fee on each loan, but we also incur the cost of the sub-servicer as well as the internal servicing surveillance team. Servicing fees are collected from interest payments made by the borrower. Incurring the cost of both a sub-servicer and an internal surveillance team reduces the net revenues we earn from the mortgage servicing portfolio, however, we believe it reduces our risk by minimizing delinquencies and repurchase risk.

           During 2015, the mortgage servicing portfolio increased to $3.6 billion as of December 31, 2015 from $2.3 billion at the end of 2014, generating gross servicing fees of $10.1 million, and $6.7 million in 2015 and 2014, respectively. We also sell servicing rights to fund the expansion of origination volumes resulting in a decrease in our servicing portfolio. We may continue to monetize servicing rights as needed in the future. Furthermore, the value of mortgage servicing rights are affected by increases and

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decreases in mortgage interest rates. Therefore, volatility in mortgage rates generally causes volatility in the value of mortgage servicing rights.

Risk Management

Underwriting

           We primarily originate residential first mortgage loans for sale that conform to the respective underwriting guidelines established by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA and USDA. Our mortgage loans are underwritten individually on a loan-by-loan basis. Each mortgage loan originated from our retail and wholesale channel are underwritten by one of our in-house loan underwriters or by a third party contract underwriter using our underwriting guidelines. Each mortgage loan originated from our correspondent channel is reviewed internally or by a third party underwriting company to determine if the borrower meets our underwriting guidelines.

           Our criteria for underwriting generally include, but are not limited to, full documentation of borrower's income, assets, other relevant financial information, the specific agency's eligible loan-to-value ratios (LTV), borrower's debt-to-income ratio and full appraisals when required. Variances from any of these standards are permitted only to the extent allowable under the specific program requirements. Our underwriting procedures for all retail and wholesale loans require the use of a GSE automated underwriting systems (AUS). Our underwriting procedures for all correspondent loans that have been originated by a correspondent seller includes a third party file review including verification that the borrower's credit and the collateral meets our applicable program guidelines and an appropriate AUS report has been completed. They also verify the loan is compliant with regulatory guidelines, including the ability to repay. In addition, the third-party performs pre-funding quality control procedures prior to our acquisition of the loan. Management reviews the reports prior to the acquisition of any correspondent loan.

Quality Control

           Our mortgage brokers, within our wholesale channel and our correspondent sellers are reviewed and approved prior to the acquisition or origination of any loans. Each seller is required to sign our correspondent seller agreement that contains certain representations and warranties from the seller requiring the seller to repurchase a loan sold to us for various reasons including loan ineligibility for sale to GSEs or if the loan is uninsurable by a government agency. Each broker is required to sign our broker agreement that contains certain representations and warranties from the broker requiring the broker to indemnify us for various reasons including early payment defaults or early pay-offs which may lead to repurchase requests and reimbursement of premiums to our investors.

           Prior to funding, retail and wholesale loans are reviewed internally by our quality control department to verify the loan conforms to our program guidelines and meets state and federal compliance guidelines. Prior to the acquisition of a correspondent loan, we perform pre-funding quality control procedures. Management reviews the reports prior to the acquisition of any correspondent loan. We also perform post origination quality controls procedures on at least 10% of all mortgage loans funded or acquired. Additionally, we closely monitor the servicing performance of loans retained in our mortgage servicing portfolio to identify any opportunities to improve our underwriting process or procedures and identify any issues with mortgage brokers or correspondent sellers. Findings are summarized monthly and the appropriate changes are implemented.

           Our risk management committee, comprised of senior management, meets monthly to identify, monitor, measure and mitigate key risks in the organization. The committee's responsibilities, sometimes delegated to subcommittees, include monitoring the hedging positions and its effectiveness in mitigating interest rate risk, status of aged unsold loans, status of loans on the warehouse lines, the

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review of quality control reports, review of servicing portfolio and loan performance and the adequacy of the repurchase reserve and methodology.

Hedging

           We are exposed to interest rate risks relating to our mortgage lending operations. We use derivative instruments to manage some of our interest rate risk. However, we do not attempt to hedge interest rate risk completely. Our strategy is to mitigate the market and interest rate risk from loan originations by either selling newly originated loans to GSEs or issuing Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities. We typically attempt to sell our mortgage loans within 10 to 20 days from acquisition or origination.

           We enter into interest rate lock commitments, or IRLCs, and commitments to sell mortgages to help mitigate some of the exposure to the effect of changing interest rates on our mortgage lending operation. We actively manage the IRLCs and uncommitted mortgage loans held for sale on a daily basis. To manage the risk, we utilize forward sold Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities, known as to-be-announced mortgage-backed securities (TBA MBS or Hedging Instruments), to hedge the fair value changes associated with changes in interest rates.

           We are also exposed to interest rate risk associated with our mortgage servicing portfolio. Changes in interest rates affect the value of mortgage servicing rights on our consolidated balance sheets. To help manage the risk, in the fourth quarter of 2015, we began to use TBA MBS securities to hedge a portion of the fair value changes associated with changes in interest rates.

Data Security

           Sensitive borrower information, such as name, address and social security number is included in nearly all mortgage loan files. We seek to keep this information secure for every borrower. To do so, our policy requires all sensitive borrower data to be transmitted to us through our secure website portal which allows all our customers, correspondent sellers, mortgage brokers and individual borrowers to send data to us securely in an encrypted manner.

Real Estate Services

           We provide loss mitigation and recovery services primarily on our long-term mortgage portfolio. Our portfolio loss mitigation and real estate services operations include the following services:

•

Default surveillance and loss recovery services for residential and multifamily mortgage portfolios (primarily our own long-term mortgage portfolio) for loan servicers and investors to assist them with overall portfolio performance and maximizing cash recovery;



•

Loan modification solutions to individual borrowers. We interact with loan servicers and borrowers to assist them in lowering the monthly mortgage payments, which allows them to make their mortgage payments and possibly remain in their homes. We earn fees for these services once the modification is completed;



•

Real Estate Owned (REO) surveillance and disposition services. We provide these services to portfolio managers and servicers to assist them with improving portfolio performance by maximizing liquidation proceeds from managing foreclosed real estate assets. We also provide short sale (where a lender agrees to take less than the balance owed from the borrower) services on pre-foreclosure properties for servicers, investors and institutions with distressed and delinquent residential and multifamily mortgage portfolios, these services also included real estate brokerage services; and

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•

Monitoring, reconciling and reporting services for residential and multifamily mortgage portfolios for investors and servicers.

           We intend to continue to provide these services predominantly for our long-term mortgage portfolio. We expect these revenues to gradually decline over time as our long-term mortgage portfolio declines. To the extent that opportunities arise, we may expand our loss mitigation and real estate services to third parties.

Long-Term Mortgage Portfolio

           Our long-term mortgage portfolio consists of our residual interests in securitizations represented on our consolidated balance sheet as the difference between total trust assets and total trust liabilities. Our long-term mortgage portfolio includes adjustable rate and, to a lesser extent, fixed rate Alt-A single-family residential mortgages and commercial (primarily multifamily residential loans) mortgages that were acquired and originated primarily by our discontinued, non-conforming mortgage lending operations and retained in our long-term portfolio before 2008. Alt-A mortgages are primarily first lien mortgages made to borrowers whose credit was generally within typical Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines but have loan characteristics that make them non-conforming under those guidelines.

           In previous years, we securitized mortgage loans by transferring originated residential single-family mortgage loans and multifamily commercial loans (the "transferred assets") into non-recourse bankruptcy remote trusts which in turn issued tranches of bonds to investors supported only by the cash flows of the transferred assets. Because the assets and liabilities in the securitizations are nonrecourse to us, the bondholders cannot look to us for repayment of their bonds in the event of a shortfall. These securitizations were structured to include interest rate derivatives. We retained the residual interest in each trust, and in most cases would perform the master servicing. A trustee and servicer, unrelated to us, was named for each securitization. Cash flows from the loans (the loan payments and liquidation of foreclosed real estate properties) collected by the loan servicer are remitted to us, the master servicer. The master servicer remits payments to the trustee who remits payments to the bondholders (investors). The servicer collects loan payments and performs loss mitigation activities for defaulted loans. These activities include foreclosing on properties securing defaulted loans, which results in REO.

           Commercial mortgages in our long-term mortgage portfolio are primarily adjustable rate mortgages with initial fixed interest rate periods of two, three, five, seven and ten years that subsequently convert to adjustable rate mortgages (hybrid ARMs), and are primarily secured with multi-family residential real estate. Commercial mortgages have provided greater asset diversification on our balance sheet as borrowers of commercial mortgages typically have higher credit scores and commercial mortgages typically have lower LTVs.

           Historically, we securitized mortgage loans in the form of collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, which were consolidated and accounted for as secured borrowings for financial statement purposes. Securitized mortgages in the form of real estate mortgage investment conduits, or REMICs, were either consolidated or unconsolidated depending on the design of the securitization structure. We consolidated the variable interest entity, or VIE, as the primary beneficiary of the sole residual interest in each securitization trust where we also performed the master servicing. Amounts consolidated were included in trust assets and liabilities as securitized mortgage collateral, real estate owned, derivative assets, securitized mortgage borrowings and derivative liabilities in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets. At December 31, 2015, our residual interests in securitizations (represented by the difference between total trust assets and total trust liabilities) decreased to $14.2 million, compared to $17.2 million at December 31, 2014.

           Since 2007, we have not added any mortgage loans to our long-term mortgage portfolio.

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           For additional information regarding the long-term mortgage portfolio refer to Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition," and Note 14. "Securitized Mortgage Trusts" in the notes to the consolidated financial statements.

Master Servicing

           Until 2007, we were retaining master servicing rights on substantially all of our non-conforming single-family residential and commercial mortgage acquisitions and originations that were sold through securitizations. Since 2008, we have not retained any additional master servicing rights, but have continued to be the master servicer of previously retained master servicing rights.

           The function of a master servicer includes collecting loan payments from loan servicers and remitting loan payments, less master servicing fees receivable and other fees, to a trustee or other purchaser for each series of mortgage-backed securities or mortgages master serviced. In addition, as master servicer, we monitor compliance with the servicing guidelines and perform or contract with third parties to perform all functions not adequately performed by any loan servicer. The master servicer is also required to advance funds, or cause the loan servicers to advance funds, to cover principal and interest payments not received from borrowers depending on the status of their mortgages, but only to the extent that it is determined that such advances are recoverable either from the borrower or from the liquidation of the property. Master servicing fees are generally 0.03% per annum on the collected unpaid principal balance of the mortgages serviced. As a master servicer, we also earn income or incur expense on principal and interest payments received from borrowers until those payments are remitted to the investors of those mortgages. Fees from the master servicing portfolio have declined significantly due to a decrease in principal balances since the end of 2008, which in turn affects the amount we earn on balances held in custodial accounts. At December 31, 2015, we were the master servicer for approximately 25,600 mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $6.7 billion of which $1.4 billion of those loans were 60 or more days delinquent. At December 31, 2015, we were also the master servicer for unconsolidated securitizations (included in the total master servicing portfolio above) totaling approximately $805 million in unpaid principal balance of which $306 million of those loans were 60 or more days delinquent. Fees earned from master servicing are separate from those earned from mortgage servicing which are generated from servicing rights from new originations since 2011.

Corporate

           This segment includes all corporate services groups including information technology, human resources, legal, facilities, accounting, treasury and corporate administration. This corporate services group supports all operating segments. A portion of these costs are allocated to the operating segments based on certain allocation methods. These corporate services groups are centralized to be efficient and avoid any duplicate cost burdens. Specific costs associated with being a publicly traded company are not allocated and remain in this segment.

           At our corporate headquarters in Irvine, California, we occupy office space under our lease agreement. In January 2016, an amendment to our lease became effective modifying certain terms as well as extending the lease to 2024. The modification of the lease effectively eliminates the shortfall we were recording as lease impairment attributable to the office space we were subletting associated with our previously discontinued operations.

           The corporate segment also includes debt expense related to the Convertible Notes due in 2018 and 2020 as well as capital leases. Debt service expense is not allocated to the mortgage lending, real estate services or long-term mortgage portfolio segments. We have taken advantage of very low financing rates and entered into capital lease arrangements to finance the purchase of equipment,

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mostly computer equipment, used in all three segments. The interest expense associated with the capital leases is not allocated and remains in this segment.

Regulation

           The U.S. mortgage industry is heavily regulated. Our mortgage lending operations, as well as our real estate services, are subject to federal, state and local laws that regulate and restrict the manner in which we operate in the residential mortgage industry. Plus, mortgage bankers and brokers in our wholesale production channel and correspondents from which we purchase loans are also subject to regulation, which may have an effect on our business and the mortgage loans we are able to fund or acquire. Compliance with regulations in the mortgage industry requires us to incur costs and expenses in our operations. To the extent we, or others with which we conduct business, do not comply with applicable laws and regulations, we may be subject to fines, reimbursements and other penalties. The laws and regulations that we are subject to include the following:

•

the Federal Truth-in-Lending Act (known as TILA) and Regulation Z promulgated there under, which require certain disclosures to the borrowers regarding the terms of the loans and require substantial changes in compensation that can be paid to brokers and loan originators;



•

the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B promulgated there under, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, sex, religion, marital status, national origin, receipt of public assistance or the exercise of any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, in the extension of credit;



•

the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or handicap, in housing-related transactions;



•

the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which regulates the use and reporting of information related to the borrower's credit experience;



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the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, which regulates credit reporting and use of credit information in making unsolicited offers of credit;



•

the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which imposes requirements on all lenders with respect to their collection and use of nonpublic financial information and requires them to maintain the security of that information;



•

the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (known as RESPA) and Regulation X, promulgated thereunder, which requires that consumers receive disclosures at various times and outlaws kickbacks that increase the cost of settlement services;



•

the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which requires the reporting of public loan data;



•

the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Can Spam Act, which regulate commercial solicitations via telephone, fax, and the Internet;



•

the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, which preempts certain state usury laws;



•

the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act of 1982, which preempts certain state lending laws which regulate alternative mortgage transactions;



•

the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which prohibits unfair debt collection practices; and

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•

the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008, which establishes national minimum standards for mortgage licensees.

           In addition, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system. The Dodd-Frank Act has increased, and will continue to increase, regulation of the mortgage industry, including: generally prohibiting lenders from making residential mortgage loans unless a good faith determination is made of a borrower's creditworthiness based on verified and documented information; requiring the CFPB to enact regulations to help assure that consumers are provided with timely and understandable information about residential mortgage loans that protect them against unfair, deceptive and abusive practices; and requiring federal regulators to establish minimum national underwriting guidelines for residential mortgages that lenders will be allowed to securitize without retaining any of the loans' default risk.

           Our mortgage lending operations is an approved Housing and Urban Development (HUD) lender, a Ginnie Mae approved issuer and servicer and an approved seller/servicer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As such, we are required to submit annually to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD, as applicable, audited financial statements, or the equivalent, according to the financial reporting requirements of each regulatory entity for its sellers/servicers. The Company's affairs are also subject to examination by Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, CFPB and state regulatory agencies at any time to assure compliance with applicable regulations, policies and procedures. Also refer to "Regulatory Risks" under Item 1A. Risk Factors for a further discussion of regulations that may affect us.

Competition

           We operate in a highly competitive industry that could become even more competitive as a result of legislative, regulatory, economic, and technological changes, as well as continued consolidation or expansion. Our competitors include banks, thrifts, credit unions, real estate brokerage firms, mortgage brokers and mortgage banking companies. Competition is based on a number of factors including, among others, customer service, quality and range of products and services offered, price, reputation, interest rates, lending limits and customer convenience. To compete effectively, we must have a very high level of operational, technological, and managerial expertise, as well as access to capital at a competitive cost. Many of our competitors are larger than we are and have access to greater financial resources than we do, which can place us at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, many of our largest competitors are banks or affiliated with banking institutions, the advantages of which include, but are not limited to, the ability to hold new mortgage loan originations in an investment portfolio and having access to financing with more favorable terms than we do, including lower funding costs with bank deposits as a source of liquidity.

           Our real estate services segment competes with firms that provide similar services, including loan modification companies, real estate asset management and disposition companies and real estate brokerage firms. Our competitors include mega mortgage servicers, established subprime loan servicers, and newer entrants to the specialty servicing and recovery collections business. Efforts to market our ability to provide real estate services for others is more difficult than many of our competitors because we have not historically provided such services to unrelated third parties, and we are not a rated primary or special servicer of residential mortgage loans as designated by a rating agency.

           Risk factors, as outlined below, provide additional information related to risks associated with competition in the mortgage industry.

Employees

           As of December 31, 2015 and 2014, we had a total of 564 and 298 employees, respectively. The increase in employees was primarily due to the aforementioned acquisition of CCM during the first

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quarter of 2015. Management believes that relations with our employees are good. We are not a party to any collective bargaining agreements.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

           Some of the following risk factors relate to a discussion of our assets. For additional information on our asset categories refer to Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," as well as the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements.

Risks Related To Our Businesses

Our long-term success is primarily dependent on our ability to increase the profitability of our mortgage originations.

           We believe that a key driver of growth of our profitability will be increasing the profitability of our mortgage originations. Our success is dependent on many factors, some of which we can control and others we cannot, such as the documentation and data capture technology, increasing our loan origination operational capacities, incorporating CashCall mortgage operations into our systems, increasing our mortgage origination efficiencies, attracting qualified employees, ability to maintain our approvals with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and other investors, ability to increase our mortgage servicing portfolio, the ability to obtain adequate warehouse borrowing capacity, the ability to adequately maintain loan quality and manage the risk of losses from repurchases, the changing regulatory environment for mortgage lending and the ability to fund our originations.

           If we are unable to generate net earnings from our mortgage lending operations and real estate services and cash flows from our mortgage portfolio, we may be unable to satisfy our future operating costs and liabilities, including repayment of our debt obligations.

Mortgage market conditions have had and may continue to have a material adverse effect on our earnings and financial condition.

           Our results of operations are materially affected by conditions in the mortgage and real estate markets, the financial markets and the economy generally. Beginning in 2007, the mortgage industry and the single-family residential housing markets were adversely affected as home prices declined and delinquencies and defaults significantly increased. Borrowers found it difficult to refinance due to home price depreciation and lenders tightened their underwriting guidelines, which led to further increases in defaults and credit losses. During 2013, 2014 and into 2015, although housing prices rebounded in parts of the U.S., the Company continued to be negatively affected. As a result, non-conforming mortgage loans have not performed up to historical expectations, and the fair value of non-conforming mortgage loans deteriorated. This, in turn, previously resulted in declining revenues and increased expenses associated with the long-term mortgage portfolio, including increases in loan losses and impairment charges, losses sustained in the operation of real estate properties acquired in foreclosure proceedings and foreclosure related professional fees. These factors previously led to deterioration in the quality of the Company's long-term mortgage portfolio, as evidenced by the delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses.

           The disruption in the capital markets and secondary mortgage markets has also reduced liquidity and investor demand for mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities, while yield requirements for these products have increased. Continuing concerns about the declining real estate market, as well as inflation, energy costs, mortgage compliance, geopolitical issues and the availability and cost of credit, have contributed to increased volatility and diminished expectations for the mortgage markets going forward. The mortgage market has been severely affected by changes in the lending landscape and there is no assurance that these conditions have stabilized or that they will not worsen. These unprecedented disruptions and deterioration of the mortgage market have had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on the Company's results of operations and financial condition.

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           As a result of tightening of credit guidelines in the overall mortgage market, a decline in financed real estate transactions, volatile interest rates, current economic conditions, the extremely difficult and complex mortgage and credit regulatory environment and other factors it is projected by some mortgage organizations that mortgage originations during 2016 may be at lower volumes than 2015. As a result we may experience reduced volumes, thereby reduced income unless we are able to garner a greater market share of originations or sufficiently reduce costs. In addition, volatility in mortgage interest rates could cause volatility in the value of our mortgage servicing rights, resulting in volatile or adverse financial results.

We may not be able to access financing sources on favorable terms, or at all, which could adversely affect our ability to implement and operate our business as planned.

           Future financing sources may include borrowings in the form of credit facilities (including term loans and revolving facilities), repurchase agreements, warehouse facilities, structured financing arrangements, public and private equity and debt issuances and derivative instruments, in addition to transactions or asset specific funding arrangements. Our access to sources of financing depends upon a number of factors some of which we have little or no control, including general market conditions, resources and policies or lenders. Under current market conditions, many forms of structured financing arrangements are generally unavailable, which also in the past has limited our ability to borrow under short term warehouse and repurchase agreements that are intended to be refinanced by such financings. In addition, if regulatory capital requirements imposed on our private lenders change, they may be required to limit, or increase the cost of, financing they provide to us. In general, this could potentially increase our financing costs and reduce our liquidity. Consequently, the expansion of our mortgage lending operations may be dictated by the cost and availability of financing, specifically warehouse facilities. Depending on market conditions at the relevant time, we may have to rely more heavily on additional equity issuances, which may be dilutive to our shareholders, or on less efficient forms of debt financing that require a larger portion of our cash flow from operations, thereby reducing funds available for our operations and future business opportunities. We cannot assure you that we will have access to such equity or debt capital on favorable terms (including, without limitation, cost and term) at the desired times, or at all, which could negatively affect our results of operations. If our access to such funds are restricted or are on terms that are materially changed, we may not be able to continue those operations which may affect our income and loan origination volumes.

If we are unable to satisfy our debt obligations or to meet or maintain the necessary financial covenant requirements with lenders or satisfy, or obtain waivers from, the continuing covenants, this could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

           We have incurred a significant amount of debt and may in the future enter into additional debt obligations. We have issued $25.0 million Convertible Promissory Notes due May 2020, entered unto a Loan Agreement for a term loan in the aggregate principal amount of $30.0 million due December 2016 (which may be extended at the lender's discretion) and have Trust Preferred Securities with an outstanding balance of $8.5 million and Junior Subordinated Notes with an outstanding principal balance of $62.0 million at December 31, 2015. Furthermore, we primarily fund our mortgage originations through warehouse facilities with third-party lenders which are secured by and used to fund residential mortgage loans until such loans are sold. Our ability to make scheduled payments on our debt obligations depends on our future performance, which is subject to economic, financial, competitive and other factors beyond our control. Our business may not generate cash flow from operations in the future sufficient to service our debt. If we are unable to generate cash flow, we may be required to adopt one or more alternatives, such as selling assets, restructuring debt or obtaining additional equity capital on terms that may be unfavorable to us or highly dilutive, any of which may be material to the holders of our common stock. We may not be able to engage in any of these activities or

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engage in these activities on desirable terms, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

           Furthmore, our warehouse facilities contain covenants, including requirements to maintain a certain minimum net worth, liquidity, litigation judgment thresholds, debt ratios, profitability levels and other customary debt covenants. A breach of the covenants can result in an event of default under these facilities and as such allows the lender to pursue certain remedies, which may constitute a cross default under other agreements.

Our hedging strategies implemented by our mortgage lending operations may not be successful in mitigating our risks associated with the market movement of interest rates.

           We use various derivative financial instruments to provide a level of protection against interest rate risks in our mortgage lending operations, but no hedging strategy can protect us completely. When interest rates change, we expect to record a gain or loss on derivatives which would be offset by an inverse change in the value of mortgage loans held for sale, our held mortgage servicing rights and interest rate lock commitments. We cannot assure you, however, that our use of derivatives will offset the risks related to changes in interest rates. There have been periods, and it is likely that there will be periods in the future, during which we will not have offsetting gains or losses in mortgage loans, mortgage servicing rights and interest rate lock commitment values after accounting for our derivative financial instruments. The derivative financial instruments we select may not have the effect of reducing our interest rate risk. In addition, the nature and timing of hedging transactions may influence the effectiveness of these strategies. Poorly designed strategies, improperly executed and recorded transactions or inaccurate assumptions could actually increase our risk and losses. In addition, hedging strategies involve transaction and other costs. We cannot assure you that our hedging strategy and the derivatives that we use will adequately offset the risk of interest rate volatility or that our hedging transactions will not result in losses.

If we are forced to liquidate, we may have few unpledged assets for distribution to unsecured creditors or equity holders.

           In the event we are forced to liquidate, the majority of our assets is either collateral for specific borrowings or pledged as collateral for secured liabilities. We may have few remaining assets available for unsecured creditors and equity holders.

We may not realize all of the anticipated benefits of our acquisition, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

           In 2015, we expanded our business through the acquisition of CCM. Our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of this acquisition depends, in part, on our ability to integrate the CCM platform and business with our business. The process of integrating the platform may disrupt our business and may not result in the full benefits expected. The risks associated with acquisitions include, among others:

•

unanticipated issues in integrating information, communications and other systems;



•

unanticipated incompatibility of purchasing, logistics, marketing and administration methods;



•

direct and indirect costs and liabilities;



•

not retaining key employees;



•

the diversion of management's attention from ongoing business concerns; and

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•

the inability to make contingent consideration payments to the seller due to lack of cash or the ability to borrow the needed cash, which could result in a default to the seller.

           Moreover, the acquisition of the CCM platform may not contribute to our revenues or earnings to any material extent, and cost savings and synergies we expect at the time of an acquisition may not be realized once the acquisition has been completed. If we inappropriately value the assets we acquire or the value of the assets we acquire declines after we acquire them, the resulting charges may negatively affect the carrying value of the assets on our balance sheet and our earnings. Furthermore, if we incur additional indebtedness to finance the acquisition, the acquired business may not be able to generate sufficient cash flow to service that additional indebtedness. An unsuitable or unsuccessful acquisition could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our goodwill and other intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to earnings.

           We may be required to record a significant charge to earnings in our financial statements should we determine that our goodwill, other intangible assets are impaired. Such a charge might have a significant impact on our financial position and results of operations.

           As required by accounting rules, we review our goodwill for impairment at least annually as of December 31 or more frequently if facts and circumstances indicate that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit that has goodwill is less than its carrying value. Factors that may be considered a change in circumstances indicating that the carrying value of our goodwill might not be recoverable include declines in the Company's profitability, a significant decline in projections of future cash flows and lower future growth rates in our industry. As of December 31, 2015, the Company had approximately $104.9 million of goodwill and $30.0 million of intangible assets, which could be subject to impairment.

Issuances of additional shares of our common stock may adversely affect its market price and significantly dilute stockholders.

           In order to support our business objectives, we may raise capital through the sale of equity or convertible securities. The issuance or sale, or the proposed sale, of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market could materially adversely affect the market price of our common stock or other outstanding securities. We do not know the actual or perceived effect of these issuances, the timing of any offerings or issuances of securities, the potential dilution of the book value or earnings per share of our securities then outstanding and the effect on the market price of our securities then outstanding.

Our share prices have been and may continue to be volatile and the trading of our shares may be limited.

           The market price of our securities has been volatile. We cannot guarantee that a consistently active trading market for our securities will continue. In addition, there can be no assurances that such markets will continue or that any shares which may be purchased may be sold without incurring a loss. Any such market price variation of our shares may not necessarily bear any relationship to our book value, assets, past operating results, financial condition or any other established criteria of value, and may not be indicative of the market price for the shares in the future. The market price of our securities is likely to continue to be highly volatile and could be significantly affected by factors including:

•

unanticipated fluctuations in our operating results;



•

general market and mortgage industry conditions;

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•

mortgage and real estate fees;



•

delinquencies and defaults on outstanding mortgages;



•

loss severities on loans and REO;



•

prepayments on mortgages;



•

the regulatory environment and results of our mortgage originations;



•

mark to market adjustments related to the fair value of loans held- for-sale, mortgage servicing rights, long-term debt and derivatives;



•

interest rates; and



•

litigation.

           During 2015, our common stock reached an intra-day high sales price of $29.85 on May 5, 2015, and an intra-day low sales price of $6.18 on January 2, 2015. As of March 4, 2016, our stock price closed at $14.06 per share. In addition, significant price and volume fluctuations in the stock market have particularly affected the market prices for the securities of mortgage companies such as ours. Furthermore, general conditions in the mortgage industry may adversely affect the market price of our securities. These broad market fluctuations have adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect the market price of our securities. If our results of operations fail to meet the expectations of security analysts or investors in a future quarter, the market price of our securities could also be materially adversely affected and we may experience difficulty in raising capital.

We do not expect to pay dividends in the foreseeable future and we may be restricted in paying dividends on our common stock.

           We do not anticipate paying any dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future and we intend to retain any future earnings for funding growth. We may also be restricted in paying dividends on our common stock. For example, our existing and any future warehouse facilities may contain covenants prohibiting dividend payments upon an occurrence of a default or otherwise. Furthermore, if we receive an adverse judgment on the purposed class action relating to our preferred stock and the Company is required to pay dividends on the preferred stock, we will be prohibited from paying dividends on our common stock until such preferred stock dividends are paid. As a result, you should not rely on an investment in our stock if you require dividend income. Capital appreciation, if any, of our stock may be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.

Our principal stockholders beneficially own a large portion of our stock, and accordingly, may have control over stockholder matters and sales may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

           As of February 25, 2016, Todd M. Pickup and Richard H. Pickup and their respective affiliates beneficially owned approximately17.2% and 21.7%, respectively, of our outstanding common stock. Their beneficial ownership includes 465,116 shares and 639,535 shares of our Company's common stock that Todd Pickup and Richard Pickup, respectively, has the right to acquire at any time by converting the outstanding principal balance of Convertible Notes Due 2020, at the initial conversion price of $21.50 per share. These stockholders could exercise significant influence over our Company. Such ownership may have the effect of control over substantially all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors. Furthermore, such ownership and control may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control of our Company, impeding a merger, consolidation,

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takeover or other business combination involving our Company or discourage a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our Company. We do not expect that these stockholders will vote together as a group. In addition, sales of significant amounts of shares held by these stockholders, or the prospect of these sales, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Growth may place significant demands on our management and our infrastructure.

           For our operations to continue to grow in size, scope and complexity, we will need to improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to meet the demands and maintain efficiency of our business. Growth could strain our ability to maintain reliable service levels, develop and improve our operational, financial and management controls, enhance our reporting systems and procedures and recruit, train and retain highly skilled personnel. Managing our growth will require significant expenditures and allocation of valuable management resources. If we fail to achieve the necessary level of efficiency in our organization as it grows, our business would be harmed.

New regulatory laws affecting our operations may affect our ability to expand our mortgage lending operations.

           Changes to the laws, regulations or regulatory policies can affect whether and to what extent we may be able to expand our mortgage lending activities. Many states and local governments and the Federal government have enacted, or may enact laws, or regulations that restrict or prohibit some provisions in some programs or businesses that we currently participate in or plan to participate in the future. As such, we cannot be sure that in the future we will be able to engage in activities that were similar to those we engaged or participated in the past thereby limiting our ability to commence new operations. As a result, we might be at a competitive disadvantage which would affect our operations and profitability.

           The regulatory changes in loan originator compensation, qualified mortgages requirements and other regulatory restrictions may put us at a competitive disadvantage to our competitors. Since some banks and financial institutions are not subject to the same regulatory changes as mortgage lenders, they could have an advantage over independent mortgage lenders. As a result of the nature of our operations, our capital, costs, source of funds and other similar factors may affect our ability to maintain and grow lending.

           For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has implemented rules with strict residential mortgage loan underwriting standards as called for in the Dodd-Frank Act. The Act imposes significant liability for violation of those underwriting standards, and offer certain protection from that liability only for loans that comply with tight limitations and that do not contain certain alternative features (like balloon payments or interest only provisions). Those requirements and subsequent changes may affect our ability to originate residential mortgage loans or the profitability of those operations.

           We are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations related to the mortgage industry that generally regulate interest rates and other charges, require certain disclosure, and require applicable licensing. In addition, other state and local laws, public policy and general principles of equity relating to the protection of consumers, unfair and deceptive practices and debt collection practices may apply to the origination, servicing and collection of our loans. Violations of certain provisions of these federal and state laws and regulations may limit our ability to collect all or part of the principal of or interest on the loans and in addition could subject us to damages, could result in the mortgagors rescinding the loans whether held by us or subsequent holders of the loans, or could cause us to repurchase the loan and

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thereby suffer a loss on the transaction. In addition, such violations could cause us to be in default under our credit and repurchase lines and could result in the loss of licenses held by us.

           In addition to new rules and regulations involving areas such as loan officer compensation, servicing requirements, origination disclosures and various federal, state and local laws and regulations could pose substantial hardship on our ability to maintain our lending volumes and our compliance with such requirements could expose us to fines, penalties or licensing restrictions that could affect our operations.

New products that we may offer may expose us to liability.

           We originate and acquire various types of residential mortgage products to consumers and our customers. During the third quarter of 2014, we began to offer non-Qualified Mortgage loan products being marketed as NonQM, which, unlike Qualified Mortgages, do not benefit from a presumption that the borrower has the ability to repay the loan. We understand that these types of products may be new in today's marketplace and while we have taken great steps to try and mitigate any exposure and insure that we have made a reasonable determination that the borrowers will have the ability to repay the loan, this type of product does have increased risk and exposure to litigation and claims of borrowers. If, however, we were to make a loan as to which we did not satisfy the regulatory standards for ascertaining the borrower's ability to repay the loan, the consequences could include giving the borrower a defense to repayment of the loan, which may prevent us from collecting interest and principal on that loan. If we have sold the loan or the servicing of the loan, this may violate the representations and warranties we made in such a sale and impose upon us an obligation to repurchase the loan. In addition, if we expand our products beyond residential mortgages to other types of consumer lending products we may run the risk of sharing greater risk both to consumers and regulators.

Our loss of approvals with, or the potential limitation or wind-down of, the role Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in the residential mortgage-backed security (MBS) market could adversely affect our business, operations and financial condition.

           We originate loans eligible for sale to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, government insured or guaranteed loans, such as FHA, VA and USDA loans, and loans eligible for Ginnie Mae securities issuance. We also service loans sold to the GSEs and other investors. We believe that having the ability to both sell loans directly to these agencies and issue Ginnie Mae securities gives us an advantage in the overall mortgage origination market. In 2008, the GSEs were placed in a conservatorship by the U.S. government. The government may eliminate over time the role of the GSEs in guaranteeing mortgages and purchasing mortgage loans, as well as proposals to implement reforms relating to borrowers, lenders, and investors in the mortgage market, including reducing the maximum size of a loan that the GSEs can purchase, phasing-in a minimum down payment requirement for borrowers, changing underwriting standards, and increasing accountability and transparency in the securitization process. There have been discussions concerning the ability or right of the GSEs to limit the amount of loans a company can sell to them based upon the company's net worth. This could negatively impact our growth.

           We also service loans on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as loans that have been delivered into securitization programs sponsored by Ginnie Mae in connection with the issuance of agency guaranteed mortgage-backed securities. These entities establish the base service fee to compensate us for servicing loans as well as the assessment of fines and penalties that may be imposed upon us for failing to meet servicing standards.

           The extent and timing of any regulatory reform regarding the GSEs and the home mortgage market, as well as any effect on Impac's business operations and financial results, are uncertain. We

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expect such proposals to be the subject of significant discussion and it is not yet possible to determine whether such proposals will be enacted and, if so, when, what form any final legislation or policies might take or how proposals, legislation or policies may impact the MBS market and our business, operations and financial condition. Our inability to make the necessary changes to respond to these changing market conditions or loss of our approved seller/servicer status with the GSEs would have a material adverse effect on our mortgage lending operations and our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. If those agencies cease to exist, wind down, or otherwise significantly change their business operations or if we lost approvals with those agencies, our ability to profitably sell the loans could be affected and our profitability, business, operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

Violation of various federal, state and local laws may result in financial losses.

           We are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations related to the mortgage industry that generally regulate interest rates and other charges, require certain disclosure, and require applicable licensing. In addition, other state and local laws, public policy and general principles of equity relating to the protection of consumers, unfair and deceptive practices and debt collection practices may apply to the origination, servicing and collection of our loans. Violations of certain provisions of these federal and state laws and regulations may limit our ability to collect all or part of the principal of or interest on the loans and in addition could subject us to damages, could result in the mortgagors rescinding the loans whether held by us or subsequent holders of the loans, or could cause us to repurchase the loan and thereby suffer a loss on the transaction. In addition, such violations could cause us to be in default under our credit and repurchase lines and could result in the loss of licenses held by us.

           Additionally, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act contains the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act ("Mortgage Act"), which imposes a number of additional requirements on lenders and servicers of residential mortgage loans, including Impac, by amending certain existing provisions and adding new sections to TILA, RESPA, and other federal laws. This includes the TILA RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) requirements which became effective on October 1, 2015 and imposes new disclosure requirements, fee limitations and timing requirements in most of our loan products. The Mortgage Act also broadly prohibits unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices, and knowingly or recklessly providing substantial assistance to a covered person in violation of that prohibition. The penalties for noncompliance with any of these laws are also significantly increased by the Mortgage Act, which could lead to an increase in lawsuits against mortgage lenders and servicers.

Non-conforming mortgage loans may expose us to a higher risk of delinquencies, regulatory risks, foreclosures and losses adversely affecting our earnings and financial condition.

           Our NonQM production and our long-term mortgage portfolio include non-conforming single-family and multifamily mortgage loans. These are mortgages that generally did not qualify for purchase by government-sponsored agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The performance of the long-term mortgage portfolio has been negatively affected by the losses from these mortgages. Credit risks associated with all these mortgages may be greater than those associated with conforming mortgages. Mortgages made to these borrowers generally entail a higher risk of delinquency and higher losses than mortgages made to borrowers who utilize conventional mortgage sources. Delinquency, foreclosures and losses generally increase during economic slowdowns or recessions. The actual risk of delinquencies, foreclosures and losses on mortgages made to these borrowers are higher under current economic conditions than those in the past. Additionally, the combination of different underwriting criteria and higher rates of interest leads to greater risk, including higher prepayment rates and higher delinquency rates and /or credit losses. These also include loans that are interest only. If there is a decline in real estate values, as previously seen, borrowers may default on these types of loans since they have not reduced their principal balances, which, therefore, could exceed the value of their property. In addition, a reduction in property values would also cause an increase in the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for that loan which could have the effect of reducing the value of the property collateralized by that loan, reducing the borrowers' equity in their homes to a level that would increase the risk of default.

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The Company has deferred tax assets that it may not be able to use under certain circumstances.

           We recognize deferred tax assets and liabilities based on the differences between the financial statement carrying amounts and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. Our deferred tax assets, net of valuation allowances, totaled approximately $24.4 million at December 31, 2015. Significant judgment is required in determining our provision for income taxes. We regularly review our deferred tax assets for recoverability and establish a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that some portion or all of a deferred tax asset will not be realized. If we are unable to generate sufficient future taxable income, if there is a material change in the actual effective tax rates, if there is a change to the time period within which the underlying temporary differences become taxable or deductible, then we could be required to increase our valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets, which could result in a material increase in our effective tax rate and an adverse impact on future operating results.

           In addition, changes in tax laws or tax rulings could materially affect our financial position and results of operations. We are also subject to ongoing tax audits in various jurisdictions, the outcomes of which could result in the assessment of additional taxes. Our effective tax rate in the future could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings in states with differing statutory tax rates, the changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and changes in tax laws and regulations.

Our ability to utilize our net operating losses and certain other tax attributes may be limited.

           At the end of our 2015 taxable year, we had net operating loss (NOL) carry-forwards of approximately $462.0 million for federal income tax purposes and approximately $421.2 million for state income tax purposes. Although, under existing tax rules, we are generally allowed to use those NOL carry-forwards to offset taxable income in subsequent taxable years, our ability to use those NOL carry-forwards to offset income may be severely limited to the extent that we experience an ownership change within the meaning of Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code. These provisions could also limit our ability to deduct certain losses (built-in losses) we recognize after an ownership change with respect to assets we own at the time of the ownership change. In general, an ownership change, as defined by Section 382, results from transactions increasing ownership of certain stockholders or public groups in our stock by more than 50% over a three-year period. In addition, the generation of taxable income from cancellation of debt may further reduce the NOL. Any limitation on our NOL carry-forwards that could be used to offset taxable income would adversely affect our liquidity and cash flow, as and when we become profitable. We may not generate sufficient taxable income in future periods to be able to realize fully the tax benefits of our NOL carry-forwards. In 2013, the Company enacted a NOL rights plan, approved by stockholders, which is designed to mitigate the risk of losing net operating loss carry-forwards and certain other tax attributes from being limited in reducing future income taxes. The NOL rights plan expires in September 2016. An NOL rights plan does not prevent a change of control transaction but instead strongly discourages it.

Competition in the residential mortgage industry is intense and may adversely affect our business operations and financial performance; the dominance of a limited number of companies may affect our ability to operate and compete effectively.

           Competition in the residential mortgage industry is intense. Plus, the mortgage business has experienced substantial consolidation. Our competitors include banks, thrifts, credit unions, hedge funds, real estate brokerage firms, mortgage brokers, asset management companies, and mortgage banking companies. Several of our competitors enjoy advantages, including greater financial resources and access to capital, a wider geographic presence, more accessible branch office locations, more aggressive marketing campaigns, better brand recognition, the ability to offer a wider array of services or more favorable pricing alternatives, as well as lower origination and operating costs. To compete effectively, we must have a very high level of operational, technological, and managerial expertise, as

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well as access to capital at a competitive cost. As a result of reduced access to capital, general housing trends, rising delinquencies and defaults and other factors, many mortgage and real estate services firms have recently experienced severe financial difficulty, with some exiting the business or filing for bankruptcy protection, resulting in a consolidation of companies in such industries. The dominance of a limited number of companies have made it difficult to compete effectively, as such it may adversely affect our business operations and financial performance.

We may become, and in some cases are, a defendant in lawsuits, some of which may be class action matters, and we may not prevail in these matters.

           Individual and class action lawsuits and regulatory actions alleging improper marketing practices, abusive loan terms and fees, disclosure violations and other matters are risks faced by all mortgage originators. We are a defendant in purported class actions pending in different states and could be named in other matters. Some of the actions allege generally that the loan originator (whether or not Impac) improperly charged fees in violation of various state lending or consumer protection laws in connection with mortgages that we acquired while others allege that our lending or servicing practice was a statutory violation, an unlawful business practice, an unfair business practice or a breach of a contract. They generally seek unspecified compensatory damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, costs and expenses and rescission of the mortgages, as well as a return of any improperly collected fees. We are subject to a purported class action lawsuit relating to the tender of our preferred stock that is seeking cumulative dividends, unpaid dividends, certain restrictions on our actions, including the ability to pay common stock dividends and the election of two directors by the preferred holders. We will incur defense costs and other expenses in connection with the lawsuits, and we cannot assure you that the ultimate outcome of these or other actions will not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations. In addition to the expense and burden incurred in defending any of these actions and any damages that we may suffer, our management's efforts and attention may be diverted from the ordinary business operations in order to address these claims. We may also issue shares of common stock to settle outstanding obligations and liabilities which could also affect the market price of our common stock. Plus, we may be deemed in default of our warehouse lines if a judgment for money that exceeds specified thresholds is rendered against us. If the final resolution of this litigation is unfavorable to us in any of these actions, our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows might be materially adversely affected.

Representations and warranties made by us in our loan sales and securitizations may subject us to liability.

           In connection with our loan sales to third parties and our prior securitizations, we transferred mortgages acquired and originated by us to third parties or, to a lesser extent, into a trust in exchange for cash and, in the case of a securitized mortgage, residual certificates issued by the trust. The trustee, purchaser, bondholder, guarantor or other entities involved in the issuance of the securities (which may include bond insurers) may have recourse to us with respect to the breach of the representations, and warranties made by us at the time such mortgages are transferred or when the securities are sold. Those representations and warranties may include, but are not limited to, issues such as the validity of the lien, the absence of liens or delinquent taxes, the validity of the appraisal obtained in conjunction with the loan, the truthfulness of information used in the loan approval process, the loans compliance with all local, state and federal laws, the delivery of all documents required to perfect title to the lien, the loan meeting all underwriting criteria and the selection process used to include the loans in any particular transaction. We attempt to limit the potential recourse from such purchasers by seeking remedies from correspondent sellers and wholesale brokers who originated the mortgages if we did not originate the loan. However, many of the entities we acquired loans from in the past are no longer in business or may not be able to financially cover the losses. Furthermore, if we discover, prior to the sale or transfer of a

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loan, that there is any fraud or misrepresentation with respect to the mortgage and the originator fails to repurchase the mortgage, then we may not be able to sell the mortgage or we may have to sell the mortgage at a discount. Changes in the timing, processes and procedures of our primary investors review of loans which they purchase from us may affect the number of loans that are rejected, the timing of our loan sales, or the frequency of repurchase demands issued to us. Also, similar changes by mortgage insurers who agree to insure loans may also affect the frequency and timing of our loan sales. As a result, the effectiveness of our loan sales, our repurchase reserves and our profitability may be affected as we may have to sell loans at a discount.

Litigation in the mortgage industry related to securitizations against issuers, sellers, servicers, originators, underwriters and others may adversely affect our business operations.

           As defaults, delinquencies, foreclosures, and losses in the real estate market continue, there have been lawsuits by various investors, insurers, underwriters and others against various participants in securitizations, such as sponsors, depositors, underwriters, servicers and loan sellers. Some lawsuits have alleged that the mortgage loans had origination defects, that there were misrepresentations made about the mortgage loans and that the parties failed to properly disclose the quality of the mortgage loans or repurchase defective loans wherein servicing standards were not maintained or that there were other misrepresentations or false representations. There have been claims related to our securitizations contending errors or misrepresentations in the securitization documents or process itself. Historically, we both securitized and sold mortgage loans to third parties that may have been deposited or included in pools for securitizations. We have received notices of claims for indemnification relating to mortgage-backed security bond issues, originated or sold by the Company from Countrywide, UBS, Wilmington Trust, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase Bank. The claims seek indemnification from claims asserted against them in various actions in which we are not parties. The notices each seek indemnification for all losses, liabilities, damages and legal fees and costs incurred in those actions. We also received demands to cover losses on the purchases of mortgage-backed securities. In connection with these potential claims, we may become subject to litigation related to the securitizations. As a result, we may incur significant legal and other expenses in defending against claims and litigation and we may be required to pay settlement costs, damages, penalties or other charges which could adversely affect our financial results.

A failure in or breach of our technology infrastructure, or the systems operated by our third-party service providers, to protect confidential information of borrowers could damage our reputation and substantially harm our business.

           We, or our third party service providers, maintain certain confidential information relating to our borrowers for mortgage loans. If the information is maintained electronically, we rely on encryption and authentication technology licensed from third parties to effect secure transmission of confidential information, including personal information and credit card numbers. Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography or other developments may result in a compromise or breach of the technology used by us to protect customer transaction data. We may also be vulnerable to computer viruses, break-ins and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our computer systems, which could lead to loss of critical data or the unauthorized disclosure of confidential borrower data. The possession and use of personal information in conducting our business subjects us to legislative and regulatory burdens that may require notification to customers of a security breach, restrict our use of personal information and hinder our ability to operate our mortgage lending business. A failure in or breach of the security of our information systems, or those of our service providers, could result in damage to our reputation and harm our business.

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If we fail to maintain effective systems of internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, we may not be able to report our financial results accurately or prevent fraud, which could cause current and potential stockholders to lose confidence in our financial reporting, adversely affect the trading price of our securities or harm our operating results.

           Effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures are necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and effectively prevent fraud and operate successfully as a public company. Any failure to develop or maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures could harm our reputation or operating results, or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. We cannot be certain that our efforts to improve or maintain our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures will be successful or that we will be able to maintain adequate controls over our financial processes and reporting in the future. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls or difficulties encountered in their implementation or other effective improvement of our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures could harm our operating results, or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. If we are unable to adequately establish or maintain our internal control over financial reporting, our external auditors will not be able to issue an unqualified opinion on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. In the past, we have reported, and may discover in the future, material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.

           Ineffective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures could cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could have a negative effect on the trading price of our securities or affect our ability to access the capital markets and could result in regulatory proceedings against us by, among others, the SEC. In addition, a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting, which may lead to deficiencies in the preparation of financial statements, could lead to litigation claims against us. The defense of any such claims may cause the diversion of management's attention and resources, and we may be required to pay damages if any such claims or proceedings are not resolved in our favor. Any litigation, even if resolved in our favor, could cause us to incur significant legal and other expenses or cause delays in our public reporting. Such events could harm our business, affect our ability to raise capital and adversely affect the trading price of our securities.

We are subject to risks of operational failure that are beyond our control.

           Substantially all of our operations are located in Orange County, California. Our systems and operations are vulnerable to damage and interruption from fire, flood, telecommunications failure, break-ins, earthquake and similar events. Our operations may also be interrupted by power disruptions. Furthermore, our security mechanisms may be inadequate to prevent security breaches to our computer systems, including from computer viruses, electronic break-ins and similar disruptions. Such security breaches or operational failures could expose us to liability, impair our operations, result in losses, and harm our reputation.

Our performance may be adversely affected by the performance of parties who service or sub-service our mortgage loans.

           We contract with third parties for the servicing of our mortgage loans in our long-term mortgage portfolio, for which we are the master servicer, and the servicing portfolio in our mortgage lending operations, however we retain primary responsibility to insure the loans are serviced meeting contractual and regulatory requirements. Our operations, performance and liabilities are subject to risks associated with inadequate or untimely servicing. If a servicer defaults or fails to perform to certain standards then this can be deemed to be a default or failure by us to perform those duties or functions. If we, or our sub-servicers, commit a material breach of our obligations as a servicer or master servicer, we may be

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subject to damages or termination if the breach is not cured within a specified period of time following notice, causing us to lose servicing rights income. In addition, we may be required to indemnify the investor or securitization trustee against losses from any failure by us, as master servicer or on behalf of the sub-servicer, to perform the servicing obligations properly. If, as a result of a servicer or sub-servicer's failure to perform adequately, we were terminated as servicer by an investor, trustee or master servicer, the value of any servicing or master servicing rights held by us could be adversely affected. Also, this could affect the cash flow generated by our servicing rights portfolio.

           Poor performance by a sub-servicer may result in greater than expected delinquencies and foreclosures and losses on our mortgage loans or, in the case of our long-term mortgage portfolio, in our resulting exposure to investors, bond holders, bond insurers or others to whom we are responsible for the performance of our loan sub-servicers. A substantial increase in our delinquency or foreclosure rate could adversely affect our ability to access the capital and secondary markets for our financing needs. With respect to our long-term mortgage portfolio, greater delinquencies would adversely affect the value of our cash flows and residual interests, if any, we hold in connection with that securitization.

           Mortgage servicing rights are a material asset on our consolidated balance sheets. The value of these rights are dependent upon various factors, including, but not limited to, the adequate performance of the servicing function by our sub-servicer, the responsibilities imposed on us by the investors of our loans for which we hold the servicing rights, interest rates, the cost of our sub-servicers, loan prepayments and delinquencies. As these factors and others vary, the value of our mortgage servicing rights may fluctuate which may affect our ability to meet financial covenants, maintain credit facilities, expand our operations and generate income from our operations.

Our vendor relationships subject us to a variety of risks.

           We have significant vendors that, among other things, provide us with financial, technology and other services to support our mortgage loan servicing and origination businesses. With respect to vendors engaged to perform activities required by servicing criteria, we have elected to take responsibility for assessing compliance with the applicable servicing criteria for the applicable vendor and are required to have procedures in place to provide reasonable assurance that the vendor's activities comply in all material respects with servicing criteria applicable to the vendor, including but not limited to, monitoring compliance with our predetermined policies and procedures and monitoring the status of payment processing operations. In the event that a vendor's activities do not comply with the servicing criteria, it could negatively impact our servicing agreements. In addition, if our current vendors were to stop providing services to us on acceptable terms, including as a result of one or more vendor bankruptcies due to poor economic conditions, we may be unable to procure alternatives from other vendors in a timely and efficient manner and on acceptable terms, or at all. Further, we may incur significant costs to resolve any such disruptions in service and this could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, in April 2012 the CFPB issued CFPB Bulletin 2012-03 which states that supervised banks and non-banks could be held liable for actions of their service providers. As a result, we could be exposed to liability, CFPB enforcement actions or other administrative penalties if the vendors with whom we do business violate consumer protection laws.

The geographic concentration of our mortgages increases our exposure to risks in those areas.

           We do not set limitations on the percentage of mortgages composed of properties located in any one area (whether by state, zip code or other geographic measure). Concentration in any one area increases our exposure to the economic and natural hazard risks associated with that area. A majority of our mortgage acquisitions and originations and mortgages held in our long-term mortgage portfolio are secured by properties in California and, to a lesser extent, Florida, Washington and Oregon. These states have experienced, and may experience in the future, an economic downturn and California and Florida

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have also suffered the effects of certain natural hazards. During past economic downturns, real estate values in California and Florida have decreased drastically, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition. In addition, Florida is among several states with higher than average costs for investors in circumstances of mortgage default and foreclosure, since the foreclosure process takes significantly longer than average. Accordingly, to the extent the mortgages we originate or are held in our long-term mortgage portfolio experience defaults or foreclosures in that area, we may be exposed to higher losses.

           Furthermore, if borrowers are not insured for natural disasters, which are typically not covered by standard hazard insurance policies, then they may not be able to repair the property or may stop paying their mortgages if the property is damaged. This would cause increased foreclosures and decrease our ability to recover losses on properties affected by such disasters. This would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.

Increases in LIBOR rates could significantly reduce the future cash flows we receive from the retained interests in securitization trusts.

           The cash flows from residual interests in certain securitization trusts are contingent upon various factors including the interest income collected on the loans in the trusts in excess of the interest expense paid to respective bondholders. These cash flows are distributed to the residual interest holder after the required interest and principal payments are made to the bondholders. Interest rates on the bonds usually adjust monthly with changes primarily in one-month London Inter-bank Offering Rate (also known as LIBOR). Derivatives instruments (primarily interest rate swap agreements) inside the securitization trusts initially entered into were designed to offset the risk of movements in LIBOR that created the adverse effect of the interest income collected on the loans being less than interest expense paid to the respective bondholders. However, many of these derivatives agreements have maturities less than the maturities of the loans. Therefore, increases in LIBOR rates could significantly reduce the future cash flows we receive from the retained interests in these securitization trusts. The amount of the remaining derivatives instruments is not sufficient to fully protect the residual cash flows from increases in LIBOR. The Company does not have the ability to change the derivatives instruments inside the trusts and does not currently hedge this interest rate risk with derivatives instruments outside the securitization trusts. As a result of not fully hedging interest rate risks, the Company's future residual cash flows could be significantly affected by rising LIBOR rates.

A material difference between the assumptions used in the determination of the estimated fair value of our residual interests in our long-term mortgage portfolio and our actual experience could cause us to write down the value of these securities and could harm our liquidity and financial condition.

           We receive cash flows from the residual interests in the securitization trusts within our long-term mortgage portfolio. Investments in residual interests and subordinated securities are much riskier than investments in senior mortgage-backed securities because these subordinated securities bear credit losses prior to the related senior securities. The risk associated with holding residual interests and subordinated securities is greater than holding the underlying mortgage loans directly due to the concentration of losses attributed to the subordinated securities. The value of residual interests represents the present value of future cash flows expected to be received by us from the excess cash flows created in the securitization transaction. In general, future cash flows are estimated by taking the coupon rate of the loans underlying the transaction less the interest rate paid to the bond holders, less contractually specified servicing and trustee fees, and after giving effect to estimated prepayments, credit losses and over-collateralization requirements. We estimate future cash flows from these securities and value them utilizing assumptions based in part on projected interest rates, delinquency,

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mortgage loan prepayment speeds and credit losses. It is extremely difficult to validate the assumptions we use in valuing our residual interests. Even if the general accuracy of the valuation model is validated, valuations are highly dependent upon the reasonableness of our assumptions and the predictability of the relationships which drive the results of the model. Such assumptions are complex as we must make judgments about the effect of matters that are inherently uncertain. If our actual experience differs from our assumptions, we could be required to reduce the value of these residual interests and securities. Furthermore, if our actual experience differs materially from these assumptions, our cash flow, financial condition, results of operations and liquidity may be harmed.

Losses from defaulted loans in our long term mortgage portfolio may be higher than anticipated because we did not obtain mortgage insurance or if the mortgage insurance company is insolvent.

           Certain securitization trusts in the long term mortgage portfolio do not have credit enhancements such as mortgage pool insurance for all of the mortgages and mortgage investments. Generally, the Company required mortgage insurance on any first mortgage with an LTV ratio greater than 80%. During the time we hold mortgages for investment, we are subject to risks of borrower defaults and bankruptcies and special hazard losses that are not covered by standard hazard insurance. If a borrower defaults on a mortgage that we hold, we bear the risk of loss of principal to the extent there is any deficiency between the value of the related mortgaged property and the amount owing on the mortgage loan and any insurance proceeds available to us through the mortgage insurer. Also, to the extent we have mortgage insurance coverage, we may bear the risk of the insurance carriers rescinding such insurance under the terms of the policy, or not being able to make the required payments which will increase losses on foreclosures.

Loss of our current executive officers or other key management could significantly harm our business.

           We depend on the diligence, skill and experience of our senior executives, including our chief executive officer and president. We believe that our future results will also depend in part upon our attracting and retaining highly skilled and qualified management. We seek to compensate our executive officers, as well as other employees, through competitive salaries, bonuses and other incentive plans, but there can be no assurance that these programs will allow us to retain key management executives or hire new key employees. The loss of our chief executive officer, president, or other senior executive officers and key management could have a material adverse effect on our operations because other officers may not have the experience and expertise to readily replace these individuals. Competition for such personnel is intense, and we cannot assure you that we will be successful in attracting or retaining such personnel. Furthermore, in light of our present financial condition, no assurance can be given that we will retain these and other executive officers and key management personnel. To the extent that one or more of our top executives or other key management personnel are no longer employed by us, our operations and business prospects may be adversely affected. The loss of, and changes in, key personnel and their responsibilities may be disruptive to our business and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our operations may be adversely affected if we are subject to the Investment Company Act.

           We intend to conduct our business at all times so as not to become regulated as an investment company under the Investment Company Act. The Investment Company Act exempts entities that are primarily engaged in the business of purchasing or otherwise acquiring mortgages and other liens on and interests in real estate.

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           In order to qualify for this exemption we must maintain at least 55% of our assets directly in mortgages, qualifying pass-through certificates and certain other qualifying interests in real estate. Our ownership of certain mortgage assets may be limited by the provisions of the Investment Company Act, should we ever be subject to the Act. If the SEC adopts a contrary interpretation with respect to these securities or otherwise believes we do not satisfy the above exception, we could be required to restructure our activities or sell certain of our assets. To insure that we continue to qualify for the exemption we may be required at times to adopt less efficient methods of financing certain of our mortgage assets and we may be precluded from acquiring certain types of higher-yielding mortgage assets. The net effect of these factors will be to lower our net interest income. If we fail to qualify for exemption from registration as an investment company, our ability to use leverage would be substantially reduced, and we would not be able to conduct our business as described. Our business will be materially and adversely affected if we fail to qualify for this exemption.

Provisions in our charter documents and Maryland law, as well as our NOL Rights Plan, impose limitations that may delay or prevent our acquisition by a third party.

           Our charter and bylaws contain provisions that may make it more difficult for a third party to acquire control of us without the approval of our board of directors. These provisions include, among other things, advance notice for raising business issues or making nominations at meetings and blank check preferred stock that allows our board of directors, without stockholder approval, to designate and issue additional series of preferred stock with rights and terms as our board of directors may determine, including rights to dividends and proceeds in a liquidation that are senior to our common stock.

           We are also subject to certain provisions of the Maryland General Corporation Law, which could delay, prevent or deter a merger, acquisition, tender offer, proxy contest or other transaction that might otherwise result in our stockholders receiving a premium over the price for their common stock or may otherwise be in the best interests of our stockholders. This includes the "business combinations" statute that prohibits transactions between a Maryland corporation and "interested stockholders," which is any person who beneficially owns 10% or more of the voting power of our then-outstanding voting stock for a period of five years unless the board of directors approved the transaction prior to the party's becoming an interested stockholder. The five-year period runs from the most recent date on which the interested stockholder became an interested stockholder. The law also requires a super majority stockholder vote for such transactions after the end of the five-year period.

           Maryland law also provides that "control shares" of a Maryland corporation acquired in a "control share acquisition" have no voting rights except to the extent approved by a vote of two-thirds of the shares eligible to vote. The control share acquisition statute would not apply to shares acquired in a merger, consolidation or share exchange if we were a party to the transaction. The control share acquisition statute could have the effect of discouraging offers to acquire us and of increasing the difficulty of consummating any such offers, even if our acquisition would be in our stockholders' best interests.

           We have also adopted a Tax Benefits Preservations Rights Agreement, also known as an NOL rights plan, pursuant to which each share of common stock also has a "right" attached to it. Although the NOL rights plan was adopted to help preserve the value of certain deferred tax benefits, including those generated by net operating losses, it also has the effect of deterring or delaying an acquisition of the Company by a third party. The rights are not exercisable except upon the occurrence of certain takeover-related events—most importantly, the acquisition by a third party (the "Acquiring Person") of more than 4.99% of our outstanding voting shares. Once triggered, the rights entitle the stockholders, other than the Acquiring Person, to certain "flip-in", "flip-over" and exchange rights. The effect of triggering the rights is to expose the Acquiring Person to severe dilution of its ownership interest, as the shares of common stock of our Company (or any surviving corporation) are offered to all of the stockholders other

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than the Acquiring Person at a steep discount to their market value. The NOL rights plan expires in September 2016.

ITEM 1B.    UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

           None.

ITEM 2.    PROPERTIES

           Our primary executive and administrative offices are located at 19500 Jamboree Road, Irvine, California 92612 where we have a premises lease expiring in August 2024. The premises consist of four floors where the Company occupies approximately 210,000 square feet with an initial annual rental rate of $31.20 per square foot, which amount increases every 12 months. As of December 31, 2015, we have subleased approximately 90,000 square feet of our corporate headquarters. We also have an office in Orange, California consisting of approximately 57,200 square feet at an annual rate of $26.05 per square foot..

ITEM 3.    LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Legal Proceedings

           The Company is a defendant in or a party to a number of legal actions or proceedings that arise in the ordinary course of business. In some of these actions and proceedings, claims for monetary damages are asserted against the Company. In view of the inherent difficulty of predicting the outcome of such legal actions and proceedings, the Company generally cannot predict what the eventual outcome of the pending matters will be, what the timing of the ultimate resolution of these matters will be, or what the eventual loss related to each pending matter may be, if any.

           In accordance with applicable accounting guidance, the Company establishes an accrued liability for litigation when those matters present loss contingencies that are both probable and estimable. In any cases, there may be an exposure to losses in excess of any such amounts whether accrued or not. Any estimated loss is subject to significant judgment and is based upon currently available information, a variety of assumptions, and known and unknown uncertainties. The matters underlying the estimated loss will change from time to time, and actual results may vary significantly from the current estimate. Therefore, an estimate of possible loss represents what the Company believes to be an estimate of possible loss only for certain matters meeting these criteria. It does not represent the Company's maximum loss exposure.

           Based on the Company's current understanding of these pending legal actions and proceedings, management does not believe that judgments or settlements arising from pending or threatened legal matters, individually or in the aggregate, will have a material adverse effect on the consolidated financial position, operating results or cash flows of the Company. However, in light of the inherent uncertainties involved in these matters, some of which are beyond the Company's control, and the very large or indeterminate damages sought in some of these matters, an adverse outcome in one or more of these matters could be material to the Company's results of operations or cash flows for any particular reporting period.

           The legal matters summarized below are ongoing and may have an effect on the Company's business and future financial condition and results of operations:

           On or about April 20, 2011, an action was filed entitled Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston v. Ally Financial Inc., et al., naming IMH Assets Corp, IFC, the Company, and ISAC as defendants. The

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complaint alleges misrepresentations in the materials used to market mortgage-backed securities that the plaintiff purchased. The complaint seeks damages and attorney's fees in an amount to be established at time of trial. The case was removed to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and on September 30, 2013, the Court granted the Company's motion to dismiss claims against it arising under the Massachusetts Uniform Securities Act. The case remains pending as to other claims against the Company.

           On December 7, 2011, a purported class action was filed in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City entitled Timm, v. Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc, et al. alleging on behalf of holders of the Company's 9.375% Series B Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock (Preferred B) and 9.125% Series C Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock (Preferred C) who did not tender their stock in connection with the Company's 2009 completion of its Offer to Purchase and Consent Solicitation that the Company failed to achieve the required consent of the Preferred B and C holders, the consents to amend the Preferred stock were not effective because they were given on unissued stock (after redemption), the Company tied the tender offer with a consent requirement that constituted an improper "vote buying" scheme, and that the tender offer was a breach of a fiduciary duty. The action seeks the payment of two quarterly dividends for the Preferred B and C holders, the unwinding of the consents and reinstatement of the cumulative dividend on the Preferred B and C stock, and the election of two directors by the Preferred B and C holders. The action also seeks punitive damages and legal expenses. The court, on January 28, 2013, dismissed all individual director and officer defendants from the case and further dismissed three of the six causes of action. The remaining causes of action against the Company allege the Preferred B holders did not approve amendments to its Articles Supplementary and the holders thereof seek to recover two quarters of dividends and to elect two members to the Board of Directors of the Company. On November 27, 2013, the court denied the plaintiff's motion to reconsider the court's January 28, 2013 order. The Company and Plaintiffs have filed a motion for summary judgment on the remaining claims and motions are currently pending.

           On April 30, 2012, a purported class action was filed entitled Marentes v. Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc., alleging that certain loan modification activities of the Company constitute an unfair business practice, false advertising and marketing, and that the fees charged are improper. The complaint seeks unspecified damages, restitution, injunctive relief, attorney's fees and prejudgment interest. On August 22, 2012, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint adding Impac Funding Corporation as a defendant and on October 2, 2012, the plaintiff dismissed Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc., without prejudice. Discovery is currently proceeding in this matter.

           On December 14, 2013, a matter was filed in the US District Court, District of Minnesota, entitled Residential Funding Company, LLC v. Impac Funding Corp. alleging the defendant is responsible for unspecific debts of Pinnacle Direct Funding Corp., as its successor in interest. On April 3, 2014, the plaintiff filed a First Amended Complaint alleging the defendant is responsible for breaches of representations and warranties in connection with certain loan sales from Pinnacle to plaintiff. The plaintiff seeks declaratory relief and unspecified damages. The Company filed a motion for summary judgment, which remains pending.

           On October 28, 2014, an action was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California in Orange County entitled Mallory Hill v. Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc., Impac Mortgage Corporation et al. In the action Mr. Hill seeks compensatory damages, general damages, treble damages, exemplary damages, an accounting, injunctive relief, attorney's fees and costs for claims based upon a consulting agreement entered into with Mr. Hill, a purported employment relationship entered into with Mr. Hill and other purported claims. The Company filed a motion for summary judgment, which remains pending.

           In October 2011 and November 2012, the Company received letters from Countrywide Securities Corporation (Countrywide), Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (Merrill Lynch), and UBS

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Securities LLC (UBS) claiming indemnification relating to mortgage-backed securities bonds issued, originated or sold by ISAC, IFC, IMH Assets Corp. and the Company. The claims seek indemnification from claims asserted against Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, and UBS in specified legal actions entitled American International Group Inc. v. Bank of America Corp., et al., in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston v. Ally Financial, Inc., et al., in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The notices each seek indemnification for all losses, liabilities, damages and legal fees and costs incurred in those actions. Further related to these claims, the Company received a demand from American International Group (AIG) for claims it purports to have based upon 12 residential mortgage-backed securities it purchased in which the Company was depositor, sponsor, seller and/or originator. AIG contends it has suffered almost $800 million in losses on the securities and contends there were misrepresentations and breaches of representations and warranties regarding the securities. In October 2012, January 2013, and December 2014, Deutsche Bank issued indemnification demands for claims asserted against them in the Superior Court of New York in cases entitled Royal Park Investments SA/NV v. Merrill Lynch, et al. and Dealink Funding Ltd. v. Deutsche Bank and in the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond, Virginia, in a case entitled Commonwealth of VA, et al. v. Barclays Capital Inc, et al. In February of 2013 the Company also received a notice of intent to seek indemnification on behalf of Deutsche Bank AG, Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., DB Structured Products, Inc., ACE Securities Corp and Deutsche Alt-A Securities, Inc. The claims relates to an action filed against those entities in the Superior Court of New York.

           The Company is a party to other litigation and claims which are normal in the course of our operations. While the results of such other litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we believe the final outcome of such matters will not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations. The Company believes that it has meritorious defenses to the above claims and intends to defend these claims vigorously and as such the Company believes the final outcome of such matters will not have a material adverse effect on its financial condition or results of operations. Nevertheless, litigation is uncertain and the Company may not prevail in the lawsuits and can express no opinion as to their ultimate resolution. An adverse judgment in any of these matters could have a material adverse effect on the Company's financial position and results of operations.

ITEM 4.    MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

           Not applicable.

PART II

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

           Our common stock is currently listed on the NYSE MKT under the symbol "IMH".

           The following table summarizes the high and low sales prices for our common stock for the periods indicated:

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           On March 4, 2016, the last quoted price of our common stock on the NYSE MKT was $14.06 per share. As of March 4, 2016, there were 204 holders of record, including holders who are nominees for an undetermined number of beneficial owners, of our common stock.

           The Board of Directors of the Company authorizes in its discretion the payment of cash dividends on its common stock, subject to an ongoing review of our profitability, liquidity and future operating cash requirements. We and some of our subsidiaries are subject to restrictions under our warehouse borrowings and long-term debt agreements on our ability to pay dividends if there is an event of default or otherwise. Plus, certain debt arrangements require the maintenance of ratios and contain restrictive financial covenants that could limit our ability, and the ability of our subsidiaries, to pay dividends. The Board of Directors did not declare cash dividends on our common stock during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014. We do not expect to declare or pay any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future.

ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

           The following selected consolidated statements of operations data for each of the years in the five-year period ended December 31, 2015 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of the year-end for each of the years in the five-year period ended December 31, 2015 were derived from the audited consolidated financial statements. Such selected financial data should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to the consolidated financial statements starting on

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page F-1 and with Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations."

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(1)

Prior to 2015, the balance sheet data was reported on a continuing/discontinued basis and may not reflect what was previously reported.

(2)

Represents the unpaid principal balance of loans serviced (UPB).

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

           Management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Refer to Item 1. "Business—Forward- Looking Statements" for a complete description of forward-looking statements. Refer to Item 1. "Business" for information on our businesses and operating segments.

           Amounts are presented in thousands, except per share data or as otherwise indicated.

Market Conditions

           The U.S. economy continued its gradual recovery during 2015. Consumer sentiment reached its highest level in over 10 years, despite volatility associated with the impact of falling oil prices and a slowdown in key economies such as China. Labor market conditions, household and business spending continue their modest improvement. The U.S. economy has recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, adding almost 2.73 million jobs in 2015, while total unemployment fell to 5.0 percent in December 2015. Despite stronger economic data in various regions, wage growth, energy prices, credit market volatility, emerging market and geopolitical concerns continue to weigh on investor sentiment. These conditions in combination with fiscal policy and the impact of recent regulatory changes including the on-going implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the heightened regulatory and government scrutiny of financial institutions will continue to impact our results in 2016 and beyond.

           The residential mortgage banking market experienced an interesting year in 2015. Industry loan origination volumes increased by approximately 16% from 2014 levels driven by a surge in refinance activity during the first quarter of 2015 spurred by a drop in mortgage interest rates. During the remainder of 2015, mortgage interest rates fluctuated ending slightly above December 2014 levels with purchase money dominating the origination activity. The mortgage origination market in 2016 is projected to be more challenging than 2015, based on industry forecasts for a rising interest rate environment, smaller origination market, and with still some remaining uncertainty in mortgage servicing market. Additionally, the heightened regulatory environment and on-going implementation of regulatory changes will continue to saddle the mortgage origination market in 2016 with additional compliance costs.

           In the U.S., both economic data and corporate results have been mixed. The U.S. labor market resumed significant job growth during the fourth quarter after experiencing a slow down during the third quarter. In December 2015, the Federal Reserve Board increased short-term interest rates by 25 basis points, the first increase in interest rates since June 2006. Before raising interest rates further, the Federal Reserve Board has indicated that they will continue to evaluate progress toward their objectives of maximum employment and 2% inflation.

Recent Developments

           As previously announced, in January 2016, we decided to exercise the option to convert a portion of the convertible notes into common stock, eliminating debt and increasing book value by $20.0 million and saving $375 thousand ($1.5 million on an annualized basis) in quarterly interest payments beginning in April 2016.

           As part of our efforts to be a market leader in the financial products and services sector, in 2016, we plan to aggressively expand our Non-Qualified Mortgage (NonQM) originations as well as enhance our technology platform. Technology enhancements include our proprietary system called the Impac

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Direct Access System for Lending (iDASL). We launched iDASL in 2015 as a NonQM prequalification engine and expect to roll out another version in the near future to provide a fully automated approval process for our NonQM loan products. We are committed to providing technologies in all of our origination platforms with the objective to not only increase customer satisfaction, but also enhance our efficiencies to reduce overall costs and time to close and fund loans.

Selected Financial Results for 2015 and 2014

Status of Operations

           As a result of the first quarter 2015 acquisition of the CashCall Mortgage (CCM) operations, 2015 origination volumes increased 225% resulting in a significant increase in gain on sale revenue and a 278% increase in total revenues over 2014. Consequently, operating income, excluding change to the contingent consideration, increased to $33.5 million in 2015 as compared to an operating loss of $13.2 million in 2014. In addition, because of the expected improvements in taxable income in future years, we recognized a $24.4 million deferred tax asset in 2015. Operating income, excluding changes in the contingent consideration (shown below) and the deferred tax benefit, contributed $57.9 million to net earnings in 2015. Our results also included certain fair value adjustments. These included: (i) changes to the contingent consideration adding $37.8 million to net earnings, partially offset by (ii) reductions in fair

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value of the net assets in the long term mortgage portfolio and long-term debt of $14.3 million. These items are the major components contributing to the $80.8 million in net earnings in 2015.

           Net earnings in 2015 increased to $80.8 million or $6.40 per diluted common share, as compared to a net loss of $(6.3) million or $(0.68) per diluted common share for the year ended 2014. For the quarter ended December 31, 2015, we had net earnings of $10.7 million or $0.85 per diluted common share, as compared to a net loss of $(2.2) million or $(0.23) per diluted common share for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.

           Net earnings (loss) includes fair value adjustments for changes in the contingent consideration, long-term debt and net trust assets. The contingent consideration is related to the CCM acquisition transaction, while the other fair value adjustments are related to our legacy portfolio. These fair value adjustments are non-cash items and are not related to current operating results. Management believes operating income excluding contingent consideration changes and the related accretion is more useful to discuss the ongoing and future operations. The table below shows operating income (loss) excluding these items:

           Operating income, excluding the changes in contingent consideration, increased to $33.5 million for 2015 as compared to a loss of $(13.2) million for 2014. In the first quarter of 2015, we completed the acquisition of the CCM operations. The increase in operating income in 2015 was primarily due to higher origination volumes and higher margins associated with CCM.

           During the fourth quarter of 2015, which is usually our weakest quarter due to seasonality, operating income, excluding the changes in contingent consideration, improved by $2.2 million over the fourth quarter of 2014, primarily due to an improvement in gain on sale margins. Gain on sale margins increased in 2015, due to the increase in retail volume which earns higher margins than the other origination channels. The increase in retail originations were a result of the CCM acquisition.

           Operating income (loss), excluding the changes in the contingent consideration, decreased to a loss of $(593) thousand in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to operating income of $8.5 million in the third quarter. This decline was primarily due to a decrease in gain on sale of loans due to a 16% decline in volume combined with an 18 bps decrease in gain on sale margins to 187 bps in the quarter. Offsetting this decline in gain on sale revenue was a $2.7 million decline in marketing expenses in the fourth quarter. With the decline in demand in the fourth quarter for refinance loans associated with normal seasonal declines combined with an increase in mortgage rates, we reduced the amount of television and radio advertising in the fourth quarter.

           The contingent consideration liability represents the estimated fair value of the expected future earn-out payments to be paid to the seller of the CCM operations which was acquired in the first quarter of 2015. In the fourth quarter, similar to the third quarter, we updated assumptions based on current market conditions, resulting in a decline in projected volumes and in turn a lower estimated value of the contingent consideration. As a result, we recorded a change in the fair value of the contingent

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consideration in the third quarter reducing the contingent consideration liability by $17.7 million over the remaining earn-out period of two years. The reduction in projected volumes is consistent with the recent forecasted declines of the overall market by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Despite the decrease in the contingent consideration, the CCM division remained profitable during 2015 and the long term outlook continues to be positive.

Summary Highlights

•

Mortgage lending volumes increase to $9.3 billion in 2015 as compared to $2.8 billion in 2014.



•

Mortgage lending volumes decreased in the fourth quarter of 2015 to $1.9 billion from $2.3 billion in the third quarter of 2015 but increased as compared to $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014.



•

Gain on sale of loans, net decreased in the fourth quarter of 2015 to $36.2 million, or 187 basis points (bps) as compared to $47.3 million, or 205 bps, in the third quarter of 2015, and $8.7 million, or 79 bps in the fourth quarter of 2014.



•

Mortgage servicing portfolio decreased to $3.6 billion at December 31, 2015 as compared to $6.1 billion at September 30, 2015 and $2.3 billion at December 31, 2014.



•

Mortgage servicing rights decreased to $36.4 million at December 31, 2015 as compared to $63.3 million at September 30, 2015 and $24.4 million at December 31, 2014.



•

In our long-term mortgage portfolio, the residual interests generated cash flows of $1.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 and $5.6 million in 2015, as compared to $1.1 million in the third quarter of 2015 and $9.9 million in 2014.

Mortgage Lending

           As a result of the acquisition of the CCM consumer direct channel in 2015, total originations increased 225% to $9.3 billion as compared to $2.8 billion in 2014. During the fourth quarter of 2015, and consistent with the rest of the market, total originations decreased to $1.9 billion, from $2.3 billion in the third quarter of 2015. However, total originations increased approximately 75% from $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014.

           Fourth quarter origination volumes declined due to the normal seasonal decline, and implementation of the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures ("TRID") requirements. Beginning in October 2015, lenders were required to start using new integrated disclosure forms, Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure, as required by TRID. The new forms and disclosure rules were a significant change to the mortgage lending process. Although the Company was prepared for the implementation of TRID in its consumer direct channel, the Company's business to business customers, who were equipped with lesser resources, experienced longer turn times in closing loans as a result of these new closing demands from TRID.

           During 2015, the mortgage servicing portfolio increased to $3.6 billion as of December 31, 2015, produced net servicing fees of $6.1 million in 2015 as compared to $4.6 million in 2014. The estimated

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fair value of mortgage servicing rights increased to $36.4 million at December 31, 2015, as compared to $24.4 million at December 31, 2014.

           During 2015, our warehouse borrowing capacity increased from $415.0 million to $675.0 million. At December 31, 2015, we had five warehouse lender relationships. In addition to funding our mortgage loan originations, we also use a portion of our warehouse borrowing capacity to provide re-warehouse facilities to our customers, correspondent sellers and other small mortgage banking companies. During 2015, we increased our outstanding commitments to customers to $119.5 million. The average outstanding balance related to such commitments of the re-warehouse facilities increased to $51.7 million in 2015 as compared to $2.8 million in 2014. By leveraging our re-warehousing division, we hope to increase the capture rate of our approved correspondent sellers business as well as expand our active customer base to include new customers seeking warehouse lines.

           Our loan products primarily include conventional loans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and government loans insured by FHA, VA and USDA.

Originations by Loan Type:

(1)

Includes government-insured loans including FHA, VA and USDA.

(2)

Includes $132.4 million of NonQM mortgages originated during 2015.

(3)

FICO—Fair Isaac Company credit score.

(4)

LTV—loan to value—measures ratio of loan balance to estimated property value based upon third party appraisal.

           We expect to continue originating conventional and government-insured loans as we believe that having the ability to sell loans direct to GSEs and issue Ginnie Mae securities gives us a competitive advantage with regard to products, pricing, operational efficiencies and overall recruitment of high quality loan originators.

           To mitigate against any reduced refinance volumes with the eventual expected increase in mortgage rates, we are focusing on opportunities that will create diversity in our revenue streams. Our efforts to expand our NonQM volumes as well as increase our geographic footprint of our originations are part of this strategy. We also believe that there is an opportunity to provide servicing retention services to other third party servicers using our CCM platform to create an additional source of revenue.

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Furthermore, we expect to expand lead generation through our internet channel and monetizing our current mortgage leads to diversify our loan product offering. We are moving forward on all of these initiatives in creating growing revenue streams.

           During the year ended December 31, 2015, purchase money transactions increased $784.3 million or 82% as compared to the same period in 2014, despite decreasing as a percentage of total originations. This was primarily the result of a continued increase in purchase money transactions in our business to business channels.