Q1 2024 Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Stuart Rothstein; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc

Anastasia Mironova; Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, Secretary; Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc

Jade Rahmani; Analyst; Keefe, Bruyette & Woods North America

Rick Shane; Analyst; JPMorgan

Presentation

Operator

I'd like to remind everyone that today's call and webcast are being recorded. Please note that they are the property of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc., and that any unauthorized broadcast in any form is strictly prohibited. Information about the audio replay of this call is available in our earnings press release.
I'd also like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking statements. Today's conference call and webcast may include forward-looking statements and projections, and we ask that you refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements and projections.
In addition, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP measures on this call, which management believes are relevant to assessing the company's financial performance. These measures are reconciled to GAAP figures in our earnings presentation, which is available in or in the stockholders section of our web we do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements or projections unless required by law. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at w. w. w. dot Apollo CREST.com, or call us at two one two five one five three two zero zero.
At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Rothstein.

Stuart Rothstein

Thank you, operator, and good morning, and thank you to those of you joining us this morning on a on the Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance First Quarter 2024 earnings call. As usual, I am joined by Scott Weiner, our Chief Investment Officer, and Anastasia Moran, our Chief Financial Officer.
In the first quarter, we began to see signs of life in the commercial real estate market with transaction volumes ticking up. The increase in deal flow is supported by a combination of significant dry powder in existing funds that needs to be put to work more borrowers, having reached a point where they must deal with pending loan maturities and an increasing consensus around property level valuations. In addition, to increased transaction activity. Operating fundamentals remain stable to positive across most property types, supported by the continued strength in the economy, with the one notable exception being office properties in certain markets. This operating environment continues to benefit ARI and its floating rate loan portfolio produced another quarter in which a rise to true distributable earnings covered the dividend with the exception of the loans secured by the Steinway building, which I will address later in my remarks.
Ari's portfolio continues to perform well. Notably, there has been a pickup in actual and indicated repayment activity. During the quarter, ARI received $176 million of total repayments, and the current forecast model is tracking another $1 billion of expected repayments over the remainder of the year. Given the increased repayment activity, we anticipate ARI will be more active in deploying capital during the year, and there is an active pipeline of potential transactions in determining how to deploy available capital. We will continue to assess both potential new investment transactions as well as opportunity to repurchase pieces of ARI's capital structure.
Turning now to Steinway during the quarter, we recorded a $142 million specific CECL allowance on a subordinate loan secured by the property, reflecting both the impact of reduction in pricing expectations and a delay in timing with respect to the sale of the remaining units as a result of the increased reserve, ARI's net exposure on the asset comprised of a portion of the senior loan and two mezzanine loans was reduced from approximately $594 million at year end 2023 to $457 million at quarter end subsequent to quarter end in an effort to further reduce ARI's net exposure. The property was refinanced with a new senior loan provided by a third party, thereby reducing ARI's net exposure by $108 million post the refinancing. Ari's net exposure is now comprised of approximately $357 million of mezzanine loans subordinate to a $200 million senior loan held by a third party.
Before I turn the call over to Anastasia, I want to highlight that ARI. has now paid a $0.35 dividend per share of common stock for 16 consecutive quarters, and we believe ARI.'s floating rate portfolio will continue producing distributable earnings sufficient to cover the quarterly distribution for the remainder of 2024.
With that, I will turn the call over to Anastasia to review ARI's financial results for the quarter.

Anastasia Mironova

Thank you, Stuart, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, ARI reported distributable earnings of $0.35 per share of common stock. Gaap net loss attributable to common stockholders was $108 million or $0.76 per diluted share of common stock, reflecting the $142 million CECL allowance reported for the subordinate loan secured by one 11 West 57th Street, also known as Steinway building. As a reminder, this loan was already on nonaccrual status and the additional allowance does not impact distributable earnings. The weighted average risk rating of the portfolio was 3.0 and other than 111 West 57th Street allowance. So there was no additional specific CECL allowance taken during the quarter. The general CECL allowance stood at 42 basis points of the loan portfolio's amortized cost at March 31 and 6 basis points increase as compared to the end of 2023. This change was primarily driven by an increase in the historical loss rate, which we obtain from Trepp database for the purposes of determining general CECL allowance for our portfolio. The increase was also attributable to extend that expected loan payoff date. Ari portfolio ended the quarter with a carrying value of $8.3 billion with a weighted average unlevered yield of 9.1%, 40 basis points higher than at the end of 2023. During the quarter, we completed $322 million of add-on fundings from previously closed loans, including $213 million funded for the UK Park transaction, which we closed at the end of the Q4. As Stuart mentioned, we received $176 million of total repayments during the quarter. Subsequent to quarter end, we received $135 million in proceeds from the sale of for first mortgage secured by a hotel in Honolulu. It's third party at 99.5% of par with regards to real estate owned for the bond grade work continues with the multifamily development in Brooklyn and both of the hotels generate positive cash flow for a ride. The classification of into hotel on the balance sheet was changed during the quarter from held for sale to held for investment due to the sale to prospective buyer no longer deemed probable. In conjunction with the reclassification, we recorded a catch-up depreciation of $3.6 million, representing the amount that would have been recorded had the asset remained as held for investment throughout the whole period to date. As a reminder, depreciation expense does not impact our distributable earnings.
Shifting to the right side of the balance sheet during the quarter, ARI closing new secured credit facility with Goldman Sachs. In connection with the funding of the UK pubs loan. The total capacity of the facility is $159 million. We also amended and upsized our secured credit facility with Atlas provided $114 million of additional capacity and amended the term of the facility to two years with an additional one year extension option. Our debt to equity ratio at quarter end was 3.3 times. And as a reminder, we have no corporate debt maturities until May 2026. Ari is in compliance with all covenants with respect to our borrowings. Our book value per share, excluding general CECL reserves and depreciation, was $13.59 as compared to $14.73 at the end of Q4. $1 of the decline is attributable to the specific seasonal low, including 111 West 57th Street with the balance also reflected $0.12 attributed to the vesting and delivery of restricted stock units and $0.07, reflecting the change in the general CECL allowance and depreciation. And with that, I would like to open the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one. Again, One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Jade Rahmani with KBW. You may proceed.

Jade Rahmani

Thank you very much. As you evaluate the outlook, could you give an overview or summary of your target returns at this point? If those have changed at all the underwriting criteria, seems like there's probably an opportunity there, pretty consistent returns to the past with no lower LTVs, maybe finance some in-place cash flow. But if you could just give an overview on that, that would be helpful.

Stuart Rothstein

Yes. Hey, Jade, at Merck. I think from our perspective to where you sort of implied in your question, the business, the business model still works in that high level. I think we can deploy our equity in some low to mid 10s returns. And I agree with your premise that we could probably do that lower LTVs today, which for us are probably high 50s, low 60s today, as we think about deploying new capital at again, super-high level spreads above. So for in the US at, call it something with a three handle and finance, as we've done historically at again, ballpark 70% to 80% against our position at something today, call it high ones so again, the ROEs work as we're deploying capital, we're definitely seeing things in the market that are interesting from a deployment perspective. And as I indicated in my remarks, I think there will be things for us to do with our capital as it comes back from repayment. But as we're thinking about deploying capital, we will look both at new transactions as well as our own capital structure that may from time to time offer an interesting ROE as well.

Jade Rahmani

Thanks. Can you discuss expected credit outcomes on upcoming loan maturities? For example, the Hawaii hotel loan, I think had a fully extended maturity in April. The decision was made to sell that at close to par. How are you thinking about upcoming maturities?

Stuart Rothstein

I mean, look, as I indicated in my remarks, we're expecting about $1 billion worth of repayments this year. And when I say expecting that is based on sort of ongoing dialogue with borrowers who have reached out and have indicated either through refinance or sale, they expect to pay us off this year. So I would say a high level we expect in a positive way, much of what takes place this year for things that we expected to mature or certainly are within a repayment window to actually repay us on. So again, based on the first quarter, I would say the overall tone has been somewhat more optimistic in terms of just overall transaction activity and people seeing a path in the financing markets. You just repay us at loan maturity.

Jade Rahmani

Thank you very much for.

Operator

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Rick Shane, Rick Shane with JPMorgan. You may proceed.

Rick Shane

Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Can you just tell us in dollars and on a per share basis, the drag from nonaccruals, I'm a little bit confused when I compare and two weighted average cash coupon in mixed use, which is 8.4% on that zeroes, the non-accruals and slide 6, that has a weighted average unlevered all-in yield on the loan portfolio of 6.5%.

Stuart Rothstein

Yes. Look, I think at a high level, Rick, the way we think about it is some sort of net of reserves there, $550 million to $600 million worth of loans that are on non-accrual at the end of the quarter. Some of that is financed, even though it's on nonaccrual. So on an equity basis, it's about $375 million-ish of net equity that is on nonaccrual. And then that amount was reduced again in April in light of what I referenced with respect to and the Steinway transaction, if it's easier post call just for sort of you and Anastasia to go through sort of the details in the mass. Happy to do that as well.

Rick Shane

Perfect. On and again, on a what am I missing connecting the 6.5% all in yield on slide 6, with the 8.4%, our weighted average cash coupon, which like I said, I would have thought the difference was non-accruals, but the footnote on page 12 of the Q says that non-accruals are are reported it as zero.

Anastasia Mironova

Yes. Look, if we can take it offline and walk you through the math there of folks at.

Rick Shane

Terrific. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for questions for our next question comes from Jade Rahmani with KBW. You may proceed.

Jade Rahmani

Thanks for taking the follow-up on 111 West 57th to do you have a rough number of what the quantity of remaining units are?

Stuart Rothstein

A little if you think about what is under contract or out for signature at this point, Jade, there's still some plus or plus or minus 25 units that still need to be sold. So little bit, yes, a little bit less than half the project.

Jade Rahmani

And how many units are under undercar. And today between what's under contract and what we expect to sign.

Stuart Rothstein

It's about a handful, call it five or six.

Jade Rahmani

Okay. So total that there would generate proceeds, Dan would be probably 30, 31 units.

Stuart Rothstein

Post what I say that again, post what's in process right now we'd get you'd have sort of low 30s sold and you'd still have 26, 27 still to be sold.

Jade Rahmani

Okay. Yes, I was just looking at, you know, expected net proceeds and I was getting to around $500 million, and I believe there is more indebtedness than that outstanding. And then there's also a discounting factor. I might be using pricing that's too low. I know that there's quite a range on the units, but are those, you know, rough numbers reasonable?

Stuart Rothstein

I think are life and from our perspective, I would say we still view their big nominal value over and above sort of your estimate of what debt outstanding is today. And that's a combination of the to be sold condos there also a retail condo that has some value and there's also and some other cash flows that will come our way as well. But well, I would say at this point, right in light of where we've got it marked, which is there's a $200 million senior loan. And then as I indicated on our call, post the refinance, we're now at $357 million of mez loans. So call it $560 million in round numbers in total debt for us to get into where the last dollar of debt. And for us to get pull paid back, we see nominal value in excess of that today, including some discounting on units to be sold.

Jade Rahmani

Okay. Fair enough. And then on the office portfolio, we are still seeing a lot of pressure in the office sector. I think you noted that in your opening remarks, but definitely, you know, the liability structure of the lender is a big driver of how much no wiggle room there is modifications and flexibility to work with power.
And so what are you seeing in the office portfolio? I know the predominance also is in Europe, but if you could give a comment there, that'd be helpful.

Stuart Rothstein

Yes. I think like most people, I think our expectation sort of all with our biggest office exposure, which is an office redevelopment in London. Obviously, that one is 100% leased by a major financial institution. And at this point, we're just in that deal because we're continuing to fund the completion of the work that needs to be done, but obviously feel very positive with respect to the exit on that loan at the finish line.
In terms of the broader portfolio. Last year, we had a handful of transactions where sponsorship stepped up and put more capital into transactions to play for time. And obviously, the capital coming in is for a mix, some principal paydowns, some funding of reserves for TI. and LC. as needed, and obviously any necessary interest rate protection as well.
I would say our view of most of the office portfolio is that we will be in the transactions for a period of time. And we continue to have productive dialogue with sponsorship across the portfolio, which for us is, I think, 10 deals on at this point. And that product, which has been newly created either ground-up or through redevelopment, we're actually seeing have decent leasing activity, not great leasing activity, but definitely some interest level from tenants for newly created products. So I think they'll continue to be active dialogue with borrowers, but obviously, nothing has risen to the level individual deal commentary this particular quarter.

Jade Rahmani

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Rossi for any closing remarks, and I appreciate everybody participating this morning. And as always, I'm Hilary and Anastasia are reachable and available if people have follow-up questions. Thank you.

Stuart Rothstein

Thank you. This concludes the conference thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.