Earnings Labs

ACRES Commercial Realty Corp. (ACR)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, May 3, 2016

$20.46

-0.97%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1, 2016 Resource Capital Corp. Earnings. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone, that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Jonathan Cohen, President and CEO of Resource Capital Corp. You may begin.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you. Thank you for joining the Resource Capital Corp. earnings conference call for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016. I am Jonathan Cohen, President and CEO of Resource Capital Corp. Before I begin, I would like to ask Purvi Kamdar, our Director of Investor Relations to read the Safe Harbor Statement.

Purvi Kamdar

Analyst

Thank you, Jonathan. When used in this conference call the words believes, anticipates, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although, the company believes that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company’s reports filed with the SEC including its reports in the forms 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K, and in particular, Item 1A in the Form 10-K report under the title Risk Factors. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The company undertakes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements. Furthermore, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this conference call. Our presentations of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles can be accessed through our filings with the SEC at www.sec.gov. And with that, I’ll turn it back to Jonathan.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Purvi. First a few highlights from the quarter ended March 31, 2016. Adjusted funds from operations, AFFO was $0.47 per share-diluted. Since inception of the common stock repurchase program in August, we repurchased nearly 8% of our outstanding common shares through March 31, 2016. Net interest income increased $1.6 million, or 7%, as compared to the three months ended March 31, 2015. RSO, the company liquidated its investment in RREF CDO 2006-1, a commercial real estate CRE, CDO on April 25, 2015 and received the remaining collateral of $66.3 million in exchange for its remaining interest after paying off the CDO debt. GAAP net income allocable to common shares was $0.31 per share-diluted. Adjusted for the residential mortgage servicing rights mark-to-market, it would have been $0.39 per share. Economic book value was 17.73, and we paid a dividend of $0.42. With those highlights out of the way, I will now introduce my colleagues. With me today are Dave Bloom, Head of Real Estate; David Bryant, our Chief Financial Officer; and Purvi Kamdar, our Director of Investor Relations. Earning from our core commercial real estate business were strong this quarter, and we expect them to be stronger respectively. We also saw a good performance in Northport, our middle market corporate credit business. We continue to see stable credit statistics, exemplifying the result of prune lending through rigorous underwritings Our existing tern financing facilities in CRE securitizations give us certainty in our financing sources at attractive spreads and we see the markets re-price risk across all sectors. During the first quarter, we had nearly $50 million of CRE loan originations, including funding of obligations of existing loans as we focus on liquidating and refinancing properties and position the company for solid originations. We expect our originations to be in the…

Dave Bloom

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Jonathan. Resource Capital Corp.’s committed commercial mortgage and CMBS portfolio has a current balance in excess of $1.85 billion and a granular and diverse pool. RSO’s commercial mortgage portfolio is a 100% self-originated and is comprised of 88 individual whole loans with an aggregate committed balance of approximately $1.8 billion. The underlying collateral base securing RSO’s commercial mortgage portfolio is in geographically varied markets with loans secured by asset in major used categories. The portfolio is broken down as follows, 42% multifamily, 21% office, 21% retail, 15% hotel and 1% other such as mixed used properties. Since the start of 2016, we closed $56.1 million of new loans. Over the trailing 12 months ending March 31, RSO originated $642 million of new loans, inclusive of commitments for future fundings across 35 separate positions. On our last call, I explained that in the fourth quarter of last year, although we remained in the market, we pulled back on originations due to what we felt to be a significant mis-pricing of risk in our long established bridge lending business. We continue to take measured approach to new originations as the market has been recalibrating. During the first quarter we were focused on increasing equity for new loans through liquidating lower leverage, legacy securitization, which allow us to originate new loans at our mid-teens return targets. As Jonathan mentioned, in late April, RSO liquidated our 2006 securitization, received our equity interest in approximately $66 million of collateral that is in the process of being optimally financed. This will free up equity to invest in new loans, as well as increase return on the existing collateral during its short remaining duration. RSOs 2007 securitization is also being prepared for liquidation, and as with the liquidation of the 2006 transaction through the proper…

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

As always, thank you, Dave Bloom. Now I will ask Dave Bryant, our CFO to discuss the financials.

David Bryant

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Jonathan. Resource Capital Corp. declared and paid a cash dividend for the first quarter of $0.42 per common share. Our adjusted funds from operations or AFFO for the quarter was $14.7 million or $0.47 per common share, a payout ratio of 89%. In determining AFFO for the first quarter, there were several non-cash adjustments that netted to approximately $5 million. These non-cash items included amortization of deferred cost and discounts from our convertible senior notes, valuation reserves on residential mortgage origination, mortgage servicing rights and adjustments related to share based compensation. The deconsolidation of our two legacy real estate CDOs RREF 2006 and RREF 2007 and our one remaining bank loan CDO Apidos Cinco resulted in a reclassification of the assets. Interest rate swaps, and debt held at December 31, to what is essentially a net amount representing available for sale securities held in each CDO. Accordingly, we recorded the required adjustments for estimated fair value through retained earnings and we'll record income on a net effective yield basis on these investments going forward. We passed all of the interest coverage and over collateralization tests in each of our securitizations that required these tests, including the deconsolidated real estate CDOs and remaining bank loan CLO. Our three most recent securitizations in - one in 2014 and two in 2015 are subject only to over collateralization tests, which we have comfortably passed. These structured finance vehicles again performed well and produced healthy cash flow to us in the first quarter. We now have total capacity of $650 million on our real estate term facilities and availability of $392 million as of March 31. We see that our commercial real estate portfolio is now comprised of 100% self-originated whole loans and this core business is providing us with several benefits.…

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Dave. In summary, we are pleased with where we are and continue to maintain a consistent focus on credit quality, high underwriting standards and vigilant management of our investments. Our leverage remains low, and we have an experienced and dedicated management team that will carefully monitor our risk, while continuing to look forward to a stable dividend. We thank you for your continued support. And with that I will open up the call to any questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Steve Delaney from JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. And congratulations on the progress in the first quarter, really nice…

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Steve…

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Covered by AFFO. I was struck the - your comments about projected origination volume of 400 to 600 after what was a slower start to the year. And I am just curious if you guys were trying or you're looking out to the second half of the year and you are seeing scheduled maturities and are you some how trying to match the flow of your origination pipeline against the actual pay-offs that you have coming in later in the year?

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thanks, Steve. Good question. We're really doing two things in my opinion and Dave Bloom can add whatever to this. One is that we are moving dollars from non-CRE allocation, primarily from Northport over to CRE. So we're timing that and we expect that to pace in quickly here and in the next two to three, four months, and we'll be redeploying those dollars into earning assets at that point, as well as by the way into stock buyback and other things. The second thing is that, we have old CRE, CDOs like 2006 and 2007 in various properties that are on our book that are more in legacy side, as well as even creeping up to 2013 CDO where these things are starting to mature and those deals will be called eventually just like 2006, those dollars are a lot and our low levered and lower earning. So we'll be able to redeploy that into new higher levered earning assets in the current market. So as we see that, we see a lot happening in the back half for this year. Dave, you want to add to that?

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Got it…

Dave Bloom

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Yes, I don’t really think I have much to add to Jon, other than, we really do see great lending fundamentals as banks are pulling back, the floating rate CMBS market is essentially non-existent. And quite frankly, as people are now just going to begin ramping risk retention compliant, long-term CMBS deals, there is just going to be I think a whole lot more people who want to let that shake out over the next 18 to 24 months and are going to be looking for shorter term solutions, as we tend to offer.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thanks, Dave. And Jon on the Northport - on the middle market portfolio, could you give us rough estimate if you were just able to let's just say, theoretically, you were able to sell that portfolio, pay-off any financing, approximately how much capital could come back from that portfolio to be redirected into CRE lending?

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Well, I mean, it’s a lot of capital, its – the total amount of capital is probably at 100 and…

Dave Bloom

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

$175 million, $180 million…

David Bryant

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

It’s down in total, if we saw at the whole…

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. So about $175 million…

David Bryant

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Yes, and that’s about the amount that we would expect…

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. And that’s essentially – yes, and that’s the majority of the 30% allocation, you are 70% in CRE now, and it seems like that would be the vast majority of the…

David Bryant

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Yes, exactly, and over time that would move us very close to our goal.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Got it. Okay. That’s helpful…

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

And I just want to add, while the market may think BDCs or whatever are trading in low book values, there is an incredible desire on behalf of institutional and other owners to own the middle market loans, specifically that we originated. And so we're quite excited about the value of them.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

It’s funny, Jon, I mean, how the private markets are valuing assets versus the public market is in terms of…

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

It’s very different.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Public equity versus real money, feed to entirely different attitudes about the same asset. Just one other thing, because I think its important long-term. So we know about what's happened with CMBS, and the spreads and that’s obviously has to have some spillover impact I assume on your floating rate, CRE CLO deals. Over the last one [ph] in August, how far away are we, I guess the extreme is could you do a deal today and just not like the pricing or would you say, you know, funding would not at any price probably not available. Where are we in, you know when do you get back to what would feel like normal? Thanks.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Steve, I can say just to reverse enquiry, we could fill a book [ph]

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

As you know these things tend to ratchet in, they boil out quickly, the ratchet it in a little more slowly. But AAAs have certainly come back to levels that are where we'd seen them in the past. Our BBB tranche is very small. So again, it’s something we evaluate regularly, but do look forward to accessing that market again.

Dave Bloom

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

And then definitely is desired, I would say globally from our investors who buy our bonds, to continue to buy our bonds. But you know, at a lower levels they still want to be paid for them and I think we're already starting to see that as ratchet in. So we also have long-term term facilities were re in no pressure to do anything. So we'll just weight it out. Although, I think you might see that if the market opens up we go sooner than later.

Steve Delaney

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Well, guys, good progress in the first quarter. And thanks for your comments.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you, Steve.

Dave Bloom

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

Thanks. You mentioned - thanks for pulling back. Can you quantify the magnitude to which you are seeing this? And I guess, because it make you increasingly cautious about where we are in the cycle or do you think this is just driven by bank concentration risk in CRE and also as you've seen much of an impact on loan spreads as a result?

Dave Bloom

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

Let me try to answer them in order. Banks are pulling back certainly in our space where we would run up against banks on a regular basis. They would be obviously a lower leverage option. We have not that much above them. As there are a number of banking regulations out there, we did see in 2015 banks put on a tremendous amount of direct lending obligations and have noted a pull-back and there is certainly regulatory pressure for them to stay that way. There are many, many banks with lots of Tier 1 capital are far better off going in - you know, doing lines, then doing direct lending at a certain point. They are absolutely not going out of the market. But we don’t see them being as aggressive. I think that’s a fairly standard theme and there is been lots written and lots of talk about that. As far as spreads, there is – we're never going to price through the market, but we have pricing power that had been eroding. We were never the low cost provider, but to the extent that we look back at our sort of weighted average spreads in 2014, a little above 5, which was I think frankly high or on the higher side and we were happy to do it, right, LIBOR that was the spread. We see things – we absolutely see things going, you know, loans are more expensive and borrowers who had been adjusting to it, as I said as the markets recalibrating, certainly if closed and the need to refinance is driving business our way, we feel very optimistic about the future and our positioning.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

Do you have any concerns that the bank pulled back and tightness in CMBS could lead to a liquidity crunch in the market or it’s not nearly of that magnitude at this point?

Dave Bloom

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

It’s not nearly of that magnitude. I mean, there is clearly – look, there is lots of things going on. There is CMBS risk retention issues, there is sort of – there is bank lending caps. But if you look at the balance sheets of the extremely large banks, they are enormous and they are very, very healthy. We tend to play in the $10 million to $40 million space on a floating rate basis, that is not where they can deploy. So quite frankly we again, in our specialized space we really give you it as an opportunity.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

And just the loan repayments moderated sequentially, was that due to timing or was that just lumpiness, or as a couple of other commercial mortgage REITs have noted, they did see the volatility in the market impact the pace of loan repayment?

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

This is Jonathan, I think for us that was mostly just timing and we expect for instance a decent amount of repayments coming forward and we'll turn our machine back on to replace that. And - but for us I don’t think it was the volatility of the CMBS market.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

And just lastly, in terms of credit quality in the portfolio, it seems stable sequentially, did you see any indications of deterioration or are there any pockets of concentration in your portfolio that you have concerns?

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

No, there aren’t. We feel and again we do this quarterly, obviously as opposed every quarter. Things are performing well, ahead of plan and we still see sort of active – an active sales market, an active refinancing market. We are largely in multifamily now, which is - there are still lots of capital chasing it. So we feel – we don’t feel concerned about any of it and we've been through a lot to get to that point.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

Thanks for taking my questions.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW. Your line is now open

Thanks, Jade.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Jessica Levi-Ribner from FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Jessica Levi-Ribner

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Good morning, guys. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Good morning.

A - Dave Bloom

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Morning.

Jessica Levi-Ribner

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Just one question on your Northport segment, is there - I know you talked about finding a more optimal kind of structure for TBN [ph] is there any timeline for that or is that just something that you work on?

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Well, you can see that overall portfolio is shrunk by 15%, 20% over the quarter. There some very active market there, companies have been sold, reified, et cetera. So there is lots of opportunities to shrink the broker base on that. But in terms of a bigger situation that moved us more quickly, as I said in my comments, stay tuned in the near future we'll be updating you.

Jessica Levi-Ribner

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

All right. Thank you very much. And the rest of my questions have been asked and answered.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

All right. Thanks, Jessica.

Dave Bloom

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jonathan Cohen for any further remarks.

Jonathan Cohen

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Thank you very much and we look forward to continuing to build the company and speaking with you next quarter.