Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. (NYSE:ARI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Stuart Rothstein: Yes. I think it gets roughly speaking to three, maybe a tick ahead of three on sort of an asset specific basis. If you think about an all first loan portfolio, right. We eliminated $350 million of corporate leverage with respect to the convertible notes last year. I think it’s certainly reasonable to expect. We’ll eliminate $230 million of corporate leverage with the convertible notes maturing in the fourth quarter of this year and unless there was a way to attractively replace that corporate leverage, at some point. I think you run the bucket, call it 3 to 3.1 times of leverage. And maybe at some point, if there was attractive corporate level financing, you might move, towards the mid threes, but I think for now, as we project out, it’s sort of 3, 3.1 times, which makes sense if you think about most of our repo borrowings or call it 70% to 75% advance rate.

Stephen Laws: Yes. Great. Thanks, Stuart.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Will come from the line of Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is open.

Jade Rahmani: Thank you very much. Regarding the credit, can you hear me?

Stuart Rothstein: Yep. Hear you fine.

Jade Rahmani: Okay. Thank you. Regarding the broader credit outlook, can you just make any comments on what you’re expecting? And related to that, away from the focus list assets, which you’ve spent some time talking about, the ones would speak specific CECL reserves, and also on which there’s been some disclosure. Maybe talk about if you’re expecting any further deterioration in performance elsewhere, I noticed two loans moved to risk rated four. Maybe if you could just comment on the credit outlook.

Stuart Rothstein: Yes. Look at a high level. I guess I’d say from an accounting perspective, if I was truly worried about something today, accounting doesn’t let me decide when I want to reflect my concern, I would need to reflect it now. So I would — I think you should interpret our disclosure and what we’ve done from a rating perspective as indicative of what we’re truly losing sleep over today. I think at a high level, we’ve managed through a lot of, what we would describe as the focus assets still work to be done on some of them? I think we, like everybody else are trying to figure out where the economy is ultimately headed. I would say, the market, generally speaking, is functioning to the extent that, if people need more time to execute their business plans, I think they recognize that they don’t get more time for free.

And there are very productive discussions around extensions in exchange for partial pay downs, et cetera. But I would say, I don’t think our credit view has changed a lot over the last quarter or two other than I think we’ve gotten paid off on some things that we’re happy to have gotten paid off. You heard me reference an office building in London. Obviously, resolving Miami Design District made sense. But there’s no obvious warning lights other than beyond what we’ve addressed previously at this point.

Jade Rahmani: Okay. Thanks. Technical question. The non-accrual loans, they are 581 million, there’s Atlanta 111, West 57, Cincinnati, are there any other loans because when I add up this specific CECL reserves it is around 345 million. And then there’s 234 million to get to that 580 million of total non-accrual loans. I think it’s probably pieces of 111, West 57. But are there any other loans that should be included in there in the non-accrual bucket?

Stuart Rothstein: No. That’s it, Jade. It’s pieces of 111, West 57, Liberty Center, which is the Ohio asset and Atlanta.

Jade Rahmani: Thanks for that. So we’re looking at upcoming maturities. How are you feeling about those? Just going through the disclosure you provide some of the deals would include the Cincinnati retail loan has a September maturity. I suspect performance there has been improving given the uptick in bricks and mortar retail Chicago office. Not sure about that one and a few others.