Company: MFAN
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001140361-25-014577
Chunk: 38

Company: MFA FINANCIAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 38
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 It is the Compensation Committee’s role to review the Company’s executive compensation plans and programs and, after noting the outcome of the most recent stockholder advisory vote on executive compensation, make compensation decisions it believes are appropriate. Among other things, below is a summary of certain of the determinations made by the Compensation Committee with respect to 2024 compensation matters, and in particular with respect to Mr. Knutson and Mr. Wulfsohn, our two most senior and most highly compensated employees, each of whom has an employment agreement with us. These items are discussed further within this CD&A and in the executive compensation tables and notes to the tables and other narratives regarding compensation matters, all of which follow.

| MFA Financial, Inc. | 32 | 2025 Proxy Statement |

TABLE OF CONTENTS

| • | MFA delivered strong operating and financial performance during 2024 despite the volatility and uncertainty in interest rates throughout the year.For the third consecutive year, the U.S. economy and financial markets were significantly impacted by, among other factors, the changing expectations regarding the Federal Reserve’s actions to reduce inflationary pressures and engineer a “soft landing”. Interest rate and credit sensitive companies such as MFA and its mortgage REIT peers were not immune to these expectations and the impact of the Federal Reserve’s actions. |

Nonetheless, through active portfolio management, including hedging and securitization activities, we were able to add to our investment assets, maintain a strong balance sheet and mitigate the impact of the volatile interest rate environment on our cost of funds. Among other items, our 2024 performance included the following:

| • | GAAP net income was approximately $119.3 million, as compared to approximately $80.2 million in 2023. |

| • | We paid quarterly dividends of $0.35 per common share throughout 2024, totaling $1.40 per common share. |

| • | We added approximately $3.6 billion of our target investment assets (including business purpose mortgage loans, Non-QM residential whole loans and Agency mortgage-backed securities) at attractive yields throughout the year. |

| • | The yield on our average interest-earning assets increased by 48 basis points to 6.64%, up from 6.16% in 2023. At the same time, through our continued focus on hedging and liability management that we began in 2022, we limited the impact of volatile markets, as our cost of funds (including the impact of interest rate swaps