How it started
History
The company was founded as Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc. in 1989 by Emmanuel Friedman, Eric Billings, and Russ Ramsey. In 1997, it became a public company via an initial public offering, raising $206 million. Ramsey left the company in 2001.
Following the early 2000s recession, FBR Group invested heavily in subprime mortgages. During the subprime mortgage crisis, the company incurred severe losses related to its underperforming mortgage origination platform and widespread problems in subprime mortgage lending, which led to a sale of ownership in FBR's subprime subsidiary, First NLC Financial Services, in the summer of 2007.
Friedman left FBR Group in 2005. In June 2007, FBR Capital Markets was formed through a corporate spin-off from FBR Group.
From its founding through 2008, FBR Group was taxed as a real estate investment trust. Starting in 2009, the company converted to a C corporation to use its net operating loss carry-forwards and net capital loss carry-forwards to shield substantially all of its income from income taxes.
In May 2009, a month before changing its name to Arlington Asset Investment Corp., it sold a portion of its investment in FBR Capital Markets for $72.5 million. In October 2009, the remaining investment in FBR Capital Markets was sold for $84.1 million.
From Wikipedia’s article on Arlington Asset Investment, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2