KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. (NYSE:KREF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt Salem: Sure. So stepping away from KREF for a second and just talking about what we’re seeing broadly in capital flows. I would say that the start in the real estate credit side, there is a pretty consensus view and a strong view really globally that credit is very attractive today. And within that segment, real estate credit is very attractive. And so, while a lot of allocators in the market are experiencing a denominator effect, just given where the equity market is, to the extent, so the overall pie might be shrinking. You want to think about the component of that pie being real estate credit is growing. So we’re taking market share, if you will. And we’re certainly seeing that on the fundraising side with more allocators favoring real estate credit for that.

That feels like a good opportunity. And on the real estate equity side, I think the market is very much looking at values and trying to understand, okay, where value stay thinking about their own portfolio, but at the same time, the opportunistic funds, I think we’ll have successful raising capital. First of all, there’s ample dry powder available today across the market, almost record levels of dry powder to invest in real estate. And the fundamental setup in many of these property types and markets is still pretty good. So I think you’ll continue to see capital being raised on the optimistic side of the market, as well as on the equity side. And so, its overall, everyone’s dealing again, with a little bit of headwinds from the denominator effect, but still seeing very good flows across the real estate spectrum.

Eric Hagen: That’s really helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question is a follow-up from Jade Rahmani of KBW. Please go ahead.

Jade Rahmani: Thank you very much. You mentioned the $1 billion repayments this year. Do you know the dollar amount of loans scheduled for initial maturity that will have to meet some kind of extension test? And I know, you talked about, you’re not giving away anything for free, so sounds like you’re going to be pretty strict in those discussions?

Matt Salem: Yes, Jade, I can talk about it, and I’ll turn it over to Patrick to give you the exact number. But a lot of the portfolio was originated post-COVID. And so, it is a smaller dollar amount. But we can give you the initial maturity here. And agree, I mean, we want to work with our sponsors, we want to be reasonable. And however, all those initial maturities or most of those initial maturities will have some form of test to get into extension periods. And those tests can be met in many cases. And in some cases where they’re not met, that’s another opportunity to have a discussion and try to better our credit overall. So that’s how we approach it. And with that, I’ll turn it over Patrick. He could add whatever any other comments he wants and talk about the numbers

Patrick Mattson: Jade, sure. Happy to elaborate here. So in the supplement, we show kind of our fully extended terms. And you can see that this year, about 6% of the portfolios is scheduled to have a final maturity date in terms of like the initial maturity date, inclusive of those numbers, that grows to about 21% of the total portfolio. So about 1.7 billion in total.