Great Ajax's new ties bring a new name

As part of its continuing shift away from being an investor in reperforming and nonperforming residential and commercial mortgages, Great Ajax Corp. will be rebranding to match its ties with Rithm Capital.

The new name will be Rithm Property Trust, effective at an undisclosed date in the current quarter subject to customary notices.

On June 11, several months after Great Ajax's deal to merge with Ellington Financial collapsed, the company completed an agreement announced in March with Rithm where an affiliate of the latter company would become the external manager of the real estate investment trust.

As part of that transaction, Michael Nierenberg, CEO, chairman and president at Rithm, took on the additional duties of Great Ajax' interim CEO. The new business model envisioned for Great Ajax involves becoming what Rithm management has called making "opportunistic investments," primarily in commercial real estate.

On the second quarter Great Ajax earnings call shortly after the transaction took place, Nierenberg compared the situation at the REIT with what Fortress Investment saw in 2013 regarding the dislocation in the mortgage servicing market that led to the creation of what is now called Rithm.

On June 11, Great Ajax issued $14 million of its stock to Rithm at $4.87 per share; it also granted warrants for up to five years for Rithm to purchase an additional $35 million of shares at $5.36 each. Those prices are below the $6.60 per share agreement for Ellington to purchase 1.67 million shares of Great Ajax stock following the termination of their merger.

Currently Rithm owns 2.9 million shares of Great Ajax, while Ellington holds 1.9 million, making them the fourth and five largest institutional owners, according to CNBC.

"When we completed the strategic transaction with Great Ajax, we were clear about our mission: to transform the company from a legacy residential mortgage vehicle into an opportunistic real estate platform," Nierenberg (cited as Rithm's CEO) said in Great Ajax' third quarter results press release. "During the third quarter, we made significant progress towards doing so by selling down $148 million [unpaid principal balance] of legacy assets and growing our commercial real estate debt portfolio to over $100 million UPB."

The deal for Great Ajax was just one of several undertaken by Rithm to expand its business, including the contentious purchase of Sculptor Capital Management and the acquisition of Specialized Loan Servicing.

For the period ended Sept. 30, on a GAAP basis, Great Ajax lost $8 million, compared with a loss of $12.7 million in the second quarter and a $6.1 million loss for the third quarter of 2023.