- Sector
- Real Estate
- Industry
- REIT - Mortgage
- Address
-
- IPO Date
- Jun 12, 2009
- Business
- CYS Investments, Inc. (CYS) operates as a specialty finance company and real estate investment trust (REIT) that primarily invests on a leveraged basis in residential mortgage pass-through certificates, known as Agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), for which principal and interest payments are guaranteed by U.S. government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae; the company focuses on generating consistent risk-adjusted investment income through these securities while electing REIT status to avoid federal corporate income tax on qualifying distributions. Founded in 2006 by Kevin E. Grant and headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, CYS targets institutional and retail investors in the U.S. mortgage REIT sector with operations centered in the United States. In a significant strategic development, Two Harbors Investment Corp. completed its acquisition of CYS on July 31, 2018, for approximately $1.2 billion in a stock-and-cash transaction valuing CYS at around $1.5 billion enterprise-wide; post-merger, CYS became a wholly owned subsidiary of Two Harbors, with CYS common stockholders receiving 0.4680 shares of Two Harbors common stock plus $0.0965 per share in cash, and Two Harbors assuming CYS's outstanding preferred stock series. This merger enhanced scale, diversification, and liquidity for the combined entity, integrating CYS's Agency RMBS portfolio into Two Harbors' hybrid mortgage REIT operations without reported major subsequent changes, acquisitions, or product launches for CYS as a standalone entity.