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Commitments and Contingencies

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2022

Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments and Contingencies

Note 14 — Commitments and Contingencies

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

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

At December 31, 2022, we were required to maintain at least $18.5 million of liquid assets in one of our subsidiaries to meet our operational liquidity requirements for Fannie Mae and we had operational liquidity in excess of this requirement.

We are generally required to share the risk of any losses associated with loans sold under the Fannie Mae DUS program and are required to secure this obligation by assigning restricted cash balances and/or a letter of credit to Fannie Mae. The amount of collateral required by Fannie Mae is a formulaic calculation at the loan level by a Fannie Mae assigned tier, which considers the loan balance, risk level of the loan, age of the loan and level of risk-sharing. Fannie Mae requires restricted liquidity for Tier 2 loans of 75 basis points, 15 basis points for Tier 3 loans and 5 basis points for Tier 4 loans, which is funded over a 48-month period that begins upon delivery of the loan to Fannie Mae. A significant portion of our Fannie Mae DUS serviced loans for which we have risk sharing are Tier 2 loans. At December 31, 2022, the restricted liquidity requirement totaled $64.4 million and was satisfied with a $64.0 million letter of credit and cash issued to Fannie Mae.

At December 31, 2022, reserve requirements for the Fannie Mae DUS loan portfolio will require us to fund $37.0 million in additional restricted liquidity over the next 48 months, assuming no further principal paydowns, prepayments, or defaults within our at-risk portfolio. Fannie Mae periodically reassesses these collateral requirements and may make changes to these requirements in the future. We generate sufficient cash flow from our operations to meet these capital standards and do not expect any changes to have a material impact on our future operations; however, future changes to collateral requirements may adversely impact our available cash.

We are subject to various capital requirements in connection with seller/servicer agreements that we have entered into with secondary market investors. Failure to maintain minimum capital requirements could result in our inability to originate and service loans for the respective investor and, therefore, could have a direct material effect on our consolidated financial statements. At December 31, 2022, we met all of Fannie Mae’s quarterly capital requirements and our Fannie Mae adjusted net worth was in excess of the required net worth. We are also subject to capital requirements on an annual basis for Ginnie Mae and FHA, and we believe we have met all requirements at December 31, 2022.

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

We enter into contractual commitments with borrowers providing rate lock commitments while simultaneously entering into forward sale commitments with investors. These commitments are outstanding for short periods of time (generally less than 60 days) and are described in more detail in Note 12 and Note 13.

Debt Obligations and Operating Leases. At December 31, 2022, the maturities of our debt obligations and the minimum annual operating lease payments under leases with a term in excess of one year are as follows (in thousands):


					Minimum Annual
		Debt			Operating Lease
Year		Obligations			Payments			Total
2023		$	2,660,381		$	8,946		$	2,669,327
2024			3,233,658			8,881			3,242,539
2025			2,035,226			9,008			2,044,234
2026			4,610,371			9,043			4,619,414
2027			696,707			7,598			704,305
Thereafter			347,168			27,706			374,874
Total		$	13,583,511		$	71,182		$	13,654,693

At December 31, 2022 and 2021, our leases had remaining lease terms of 0.2 – 10.4 years and 0.1 – 9.0 years, respectively, with a weighted average remaining lease term of 8.2 years for both periods and a weighted average discount rate of 6.8% and 4.0%, respectively. We recorded lease expense of $9.6 million, $9.3 million and $6.2 million during 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Unfunded Commitments. In accordance with certain structured loans and investments, we have outstanding unfunded commitments of $1.15 billion at December 31, 2022 that we are obligated to fund as borrowers meet certain requirements. Specific requirements include, but are not limited to, property renovations, building construction and conversions based on criteria met by the borrower in accordance with the loan agreements.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since the Court’s decision in August 2020, the parties have engaged in extensive discovery. In early December 2022, the plaintiff and certain co-defendants, including our affiliates, commenced discussions regarding a possible settlement of the litigation and in late December 2022, those parties reached an agreement in principal to settle the litigation. As part of the agreement, we agreed to pay $7.4 million to the plaintiff, and we have accrued that amount in our December 31, 2022 financial statements. As of the date of this report, the parties are negotiating the settlement documents and the settlement will be subject to the approval of the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York. As part of the settlement, we expect to secure certain rights against those co-defendants who have not agreed to participate in the settlement, however, we can give no assurances that will we be successful in our efforts to recover any part of the amount we have accrued.

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