Liquidity and Capital Resources
Our liquidity reflects our ability to meet our current obligations (including our operating expenses and, when applicable, the retirement of, and margin calls relating to, our debt, and margin calls relating to hedges on our commitments to purchase or originate mortgage loans and on our MSR investments), fund new originations and purchases, and make investments as we identify them. We expect our primary sources of liquidity to be through cash flows from business activities, proceeds from bank borrowings and proceeds from and issuance of equity or debt offerings. In addition, we utilized existing borrowings to increase our cash balances to $1.5 billion at March 31, 2023. We believe that our liquidity is sufficient to meet our current liquidity needs.
Our current borrowing strategy is to finance our assets where we believe such borrowing is prudent, appropriate and available. Our primary borrowing activities are in the form of sales of assets under agreements to repurchase, sales of mortgage loan participation purchase and sale certificates, notes payable secured by mortgage servicing rights and unsecured senior notes. A significant amount of our borrowings have short-term maturities and provide for advances with terms ranging from 30 days to 270 days. Because a significant portion of our current debt facilities consist of short-term debt, we expect to renew these facilities in advance of maturity in order to ensure our ongoing liquidity and access to capital or otherwise allow ourselves sufficient time to replace any necessary financing.
Our overall borrowing increased by $3.5 billion to fund our inventory of loans held for sale at March 31, 2023 as compared to the previous quarter.
Debt facilities for MSRs and servicing advances (servicing asset facilities) take various forms. Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae MSRs are pledged to special purpose entities, each of which issues variable funding notes (“VFNs”) and may issue term notes and term loans that are secured by such Ginnie Mae or Fannie Mae assets. Term notes are issued to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A of Securities Act and term loans are syndicated to banking entities, while the VFNs are sold to bank partners under agreements to repurchase. Freddie Mac MSR’s are pledged to a lender under a bi-lateral loan and security agreement.
On February 7, 2023, the Company, the Issuer Trust, PLS and PNMAC, entered into two VFN repurchase agreements, as part of the structured finance transaction that PLS uses to finance Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights and related excess servicing spread and servicing advance receivables: a Series 2023-MSRVF1 Master Repurchase Agreement by and among PLS, as seller, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, as administrative agent and as a buyer, and PNMAC, as a guarantor, related to the excess servicing spread, and a Series 2020-SPIADVF1 Master Repurchase Agreement by and among PLS, as seller, and Goldman Sachs Bank USA, as administrative agent and buyer, related to the servicing advance receivables. The maximum purchase under each repurchase agreement is $300 million and the initial terms are each set to expire on May 31, 2024.
On February 28, 2023, the Company, the Issuer Trust and PLS, entered into a syndicated series of term loans (the “Series 2023-GTL1 Loan”), as part of the structured finance transaction that PLS uses to finance Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights and related excess servicing spread and servicing advance receivables. The initial 5-year term of the Series 2023-GTL1 Loan is set to expire on February 28, 2028, unless the Company exercises a one-year optional extension. The initial loan balance of the Series 2023-GTL1 Loan was $680 million.
Our repurchase agreements represent the sales of assets together with agreements for us to buy back the respective assets at a later date. The table below presents the average, maximum daily and ending balances:
| | | | | | |
| | Quarter ended March 31, |
| | 2023 | | 2022 |
|
| | (in thousands) |
Average balance | | $ | 3,508,262 | | $ | 3,722,179 |
Maximum daily balance | | $ | 5,768,570 | | $ | 7,289,147 |
Balance at quarter end | | $ | 5,768,570 | | $ | 3,336,577 |
The differences between the average and maximum daily balances on our repurchase agreements reflect both the effect of increasing loan inventory levels during the quarter ended March 31, 2023 and the fluctuations throughout the periods of our inventory as we fund and pool mortgage loans for sale in guaranteed mortgage securitizations.