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Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (BXMT)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 3, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Capital Trust fourth quarter and yearend 2009 results conference call. Before we begin, please be advised that the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are subject to certain risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, the success of the company's debt restructuring, the continued credit performance of the company's loan and CMBS investments, its asset liability mix, the effectiveness of the company's hedging strategy, the rate of repayment of the companies portfolio assets and the impact of these events on the company's cash flow as well as other risks indicated from time to time in the company's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events or circumstances. There will be a Q&A session following the conclusion of this presentation. And at that time, I will provide instructions for submitting a question to management. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Plavin, CEO of Capital Trust. Please go ahead, sir.

Steve Plavin

Management

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in Capital Trust. With me are Geoff Jervis, our Chief Financial Officer and Tom Ruffing, our Chief Credit Officer and Head of Asset Management. Last night, we reported our results for the fourth quarter and the full year and filed our 10-K. CT reported a net loss of $390 million or $17.41 per share for the fourth quarter and $576 million or $25.76 per share for the full year. The losses were largely the result of loan-loss provisions and impairments of $399 million for the quarter and $607 million for the year. Geoff will run you through the detailed numbers, but continued weak property level performance, particularly with hotels and office buildings was the primary driver behind the increase in provisions and impairments. Despite some promise in the overall economy, the prognosis of commercial real estate remains uncertain. Industrywide, loan delinquencies continue to rise and property cash flows remain under intense pressure. The recovery in hotel room rates and office building leasing has not taken hold in most markets. And the degree of comeback necessary for most loans originated in 2006 and 2007 continues to increase as property cash flows further deviate from original expectations. Many of the loans from those vintages will be unable to sufficiently recover by maturity to achieve a repayment or even an extension absent a painful restructuring and are being kept afloat by low LIBOR. Our fourth-quarter and full-year results reflect the challenges of loans and securities originated at or near the peak of the market. We expect challenging conditions to persist for the next several quarters. In addition to our provisions and impairments, in the fourth quarter we added three loans totaling $74 million to our loan watch list which…

Geoff Jervis

Management

Thank you, Steve and good morning, everyone. As Steve mentioned, last night, we reported results for the fourth quarter recording a net loss of $390 million or $17.41 per share. The net loss for the quarter was primarily the result of $399 million of reserves and impairments that we took against our loan and securities portfolios. Specifically, we recorded credit loss provisions of $369 million against our loan portfolio, comprised of $377 million of provisions against 12 loans, offset by the recapture of an $8.4 million provision previously taken against a loan that was sold post quarter end. We also recorded net credit-related impairments of $31 million on six securities. Exclusive of credit provisions and impairments, operating net income was $8.9 million or $0.40 per share during the period. The primary component of this quarter's operating income was net interest margin of $9.8 million, down $100,000 from last quarter and $4.4 million from the fourth quarter of 2008, with the reduction due to asset level non-performance, loan and security repayments and lower LIBOR. Other components of operating income were other revenues of $3.2 million, primarily management fees that were flat from Q3. Other expenses of $3.7 million, down $1.9 million from the prior quarter due primarily to lower compensation costs and a $662,000 loss from equity investments as we picked up changes, primarily non-cash in the capital accounts at two of our private equity funds in which we have co-investments. It is important to note that CT's liabilities include provisions for amortization in addition to those related to principal repayments. In the fourth quarter, we redirected $8.3 million of income to our CDOs and repurchase agreements through net interest margin sweeps as well as $1.25 million of scheduled amortization on our unsecured credit facility. Turning to the investment management business,…

Steve Plavin

Management

Thank you, Geoff. Katie, please open the call for any questions that anybody might have.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we will take our first question from the line of Joshua Barber from Stifel Nicolaus. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Hi. It's actually Dave Fick here with Josh. Do any of your credit agreement extensions require you to maintain a positive cap book value?

Geoff Jervis

Management

No. The only financial covenant is the $7 million cash covenant. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. And can you review -- I know you just went through your CDO status. The one, CDO III is the one that is still cash flowing. Where are the primary covenants at this point with that?

Geoff Jervis

Management

CDO III doesn't have OC and IC covenants, if that is what you were referring to. It just has redirection provisions for collateral that is deemed impaired. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: That’s individual collateral by individual collateral?

Geoff Jervis

Management

That's right. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. What are your other sources of cash flow?

Geoff Jervis

Management

Other sources of cash flow beyond… Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Management…

Geoff Jervis

Management

Management fees and interest income? Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Right. Right.

Geoff Jervis

Management

From a cash flow standpoint, other sources would be obviously principal repayments on the book. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Right. Right. And any asset sales planned at this point?

Geoff Jervis

Management

No. We have nothing held for sale after adjusting for the one loan held for sale that was sold post quarter end. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. And what was the prior impairment taken on that loan?

Geoff Jervis

Management

There was an impairment of a couple million dollars taken against that loan. And that loan was then sold for very close to face value. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: And within your funds management business, do you have significant additional drawings available there? Number one and number two, what do you think the current status is of those commitments in terms of investor willingness to fund?

Geoff Jervis

Management

Well, those commitments are alive and we believe that all of the investors are willing to fund. We have had several capital fundings in both of the live funds over the last 12-month period. And I forget the first part of your question, David. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: What do you have left to do there? I guess what I'm trying to get to is, how active are you being viewed as in the broker community right now? Are you seeing deals? And are you able to commit capital?

Steve Plavin

Management

David, this is Steve Plavin. Yeah, we are actively trying to originate investments for both of our funds. We originated over, I think, $120 million in the fourth quarter. And we are active with all the traditional sources of business that we work. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: And how much do you have left in your current funds? And what are you thinking about additional funds?

Steve Plavin

Management

We have in access of $700 million of capital remaining to invest in our two funds of equity capital remaining to invest in our two funds. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. And you would have to do that before you could go raise any new money, I assume, or have most of it committed?

Steve Plavin

Management

That is our current plan, yes. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Steve Plavin

Management

You are welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we will take our next question from the line of Mark Duvall [ph]. Please go ahead.

Mark Duvall

Analyst

Yes. I'm a private shareholder and -- Steve, is there any way that you being a new captain on board here that you can provide a little more communication on your activities between quarters? You know, this morning your stock just nosedived almost 20%. And it is show of a bit of a lack of communication to the shareholders, I mean your whole plan here is to get out of this hole. But if we don't know what you are doing, other than these quarter calls, there is no way that a shareholder can prepare either to exit or enter into your vehicles. So I am just -- can you share a little bit more about how you're going to go forward with a better job of communicating to your shareholders? Because right now the share value is just -- that is what is keeping you guys afloat, frankly.

Steve Plavin

Management

I think we intend to continue our current policy of quarterly earnings calls and quarterly opportunities for Q&A at the conclusion of the calls. And we'll press release in 8-K those events that happen within the quarter that we feel are appropriately handled in that way.

Mark Duvall

Analyst

So basically, you are just ignoring the fact that there could be successes and failures during your quarter and you just don't want to communicate those out to your shareholders?

Steve Plavin

Management

I think that we have an articulated strategy in terms of how we are going to communicate to the public and that is the strategy that we intend to continue to pursue.

Mark Duvall

Analyst

Are you happy with the fact that your share value of your company has gone down quite a bit today? I mean, as a CEO, does that make you proud?

Steve Plavin

Management

No. I would prefer that the share value increase.

Mark Duvall

Analyst

Okay. So with that, it sounds like your share value has been artificially inflated since your last quarter report. And now it has crashed within less than 24 hours. Is that something that you typically like to see?

Geoff Jervis

Management

Mark, if I may, our job here is to communicate to the shareholders. And I understand that obviously there is a lot of news that comes out on a quarterly basis. And I think what we try and do is we try and give indications of the magnitude of issues that the company faces, particular looking at the watch list of loans, giving detail on the provisions, et cetera. With respect to the stock pricing, we have been frustrated throughout this company's history since 1997 as trying to be predictors and managers of the stock price. And I think our focus is on maximizing the collection on our assets and managing our liabilities. If the communication processes isn't frequent enough for the shareholders, I think that that is just unfortunate and something that to the extent that there is any material activity in a quarter, we will certainly make sure that that is disseminated to the market through an 8-K or press release or otherwise.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We will go and take follow-up questions from Joshua Barber from Stifel Nicolaus. Please go ahead. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Yes. Dave Fick again. Just following up on that, you just said, you are frustrated by your share price. But in a quarter where your book value drops by something like, what was that, $17 or something, you now have negative book value. Isn't it appropriate for your stock to trade close to zero? What is the business case that you would make right now that there is any positive true value in your corporate entity?

Steve Plavin

Management

I think that we continue to have a strong franchise value. We continue to expand our assets under management. And we continue to work our assets and try and improve the overall collections in our portfolio. It is up to the market to decide where our stock is going to trade. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: So you clearly, you have to mark-to-market and deal with impairments that now, at least from a book perspective, have you at negative valuation. And I guess the business case is you try to silo that off; let yours CDOs which were non-recourse burn off over time and your investment management business becomes the thing that investors should look at in terms of positive value?

Steve Plavin

Management

I think that we will continue to work the balance sheet assets as well, in addition to trying to expand the fees that comes from our investment management business. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: So do you anticipate, despite the accounting requirements to take significant impairments that you may actually have a recovery scenario that puts some of them back into positive territory? Or gets you back to a positive real book value?

Steve Plavin

Management

I think that recoveries are possible. But we are not -- we are definitely following the GAAP regime in terms of impairments and provisions. And it's very difficult to predict what is going to happen on our loans and securities as we go forward. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Okay. (inaudible) All right.

Steve Plavin

Management

I can assure you that we are all over them in terms of -- from an asset management standpoint in trying to maximize collection on all of our assets. Dave Fick – Stifel Nicolaus: Thank you. If it helps, just from a sort of impartial viewer's perspective, we do think you guys are working your butts off and you are doing the best that can possibly be done in a very tough set of circumstances. And we don't think you are trying to hide from asking hard questions. Thank you.

Steve Plavin

Management

Thanks. I appreciate that.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) It appears that we have no more questions at this time.

Steve Plavin

Management

Thank you, everyone for joining. We look forward to communicating with you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.