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Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (BXMT)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 15, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the Capital Trust Fourth Quarter and Year End 2011 Results Conference Call. Before we begin, please be advised that the forward-looking statements contained on this conference call are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to the performance of the Company's investments, the timing of collections, its capabilities to repay indebtedness as it comes due, competition for servicing and investment management assignments, its ability to originate investments, the availability of capital and the Company's tax status as well 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 the presentation. At this time, I will provide instructions for submitting a question to management. I will now turn the call over to Stephen Plavin, CEO of Capital Trust. Please go ahead sir.

Stephen 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 filed our 10-K and announced our results for the fourth quarter, our third full quarter operating CT Legacy REIT the entity formed on March 31, 2011 to hold our legacy assets. Geoff will take you through our results, and also discuss our adjusted balance sheet and operating results. The Capital Trust highlights for 2011 include the successful restructuring of our balance sheet assets and liabilities completed in March. Record revenues and profits at CT Investment Management Company, our invested management and special servicing subsidiary, strong performance of CT Legacy REIT, the entity formed to hold our former balance sheet assets and a $10.4 million increase in our cash balance to $34.8 million at year-end. The formation of CT Legacy REIT established the necessary time and flexibility to work and collect our legacy assets in a market that should improve over time. Our management of Legacy REIT is focused on maximizing the recovery for all stakeholders, the largest of which are the Capital Trust shareholders. Subsequent to year-end, we refinanced the remaining $65.3 million Legacy REIT mezzanine financing through an expansion of the senior credit facility with JPMorgan. The refinancing reduces the overall cost of debt in Legacy REIT; it helps to streamline the asset management. Since the March formation of Legacy REIT, we have collected $270 million on 14 loans representing over 99% of par recovery. There are very significant credit challenges remaining within Legacy REIT, the result to some extent of adverse selection and paid out last year's float. We do remain confident that Tom and his team…

Geoff Jervis

Management

Thank you, Steve and good morning everyone. As Steve mentioned last night we reported our earnings for 2011 and filed our 10-K. Consolidated GAAP net income for the year was $258 million or $10.78 per share on a diluted basis. Total consolidated assets from the balance sheet stood at $1.4 billion and total consolidated liabilities were $1.5 billion resulting in GAAP equity of negative $129 million. As we have discussed on previous calls our GAAP financial statements continued to be subject to required consolidation regimes, restoring the financial picture of the company. In order to address these presentational issues, in 2011, we began reporting an adjusted income statement and balance sheet which can be found in both the earnings press release we filed last night and also in the MD&A section of our 10-K. We believe that these adjusted statements allow investors to better understand the economic condition of the company. These financial statements include four adjustments to our GAAP financials. First, we eliminate the consolidation of CDOs and other securitization vehicles showing only our net investment in such vehicles and since all of the liabilities in these vehicles are non-recourse, we only report a net investment to the extent that it has a positive value. Second, we eliminate the assets and liabilities on our GAAP financials associated with loans that we sold, but where the sale did not meet GAAP criteria for sale accounting and remain consolidated on our financials. We refer to these as participations sold. Third, non-cash interest expense related to the mark-to-market of interest rate swaps that are no longer designated as cash flow hedges has been eliminated. Finally, the fourth adjustment is that we divide the resulting financial statements into those of CT Legacy REIT and those specific to Capital Trust. All the numbers discussed…

Stephen Plavin

Management

Thanks Geoff. Operator please open the call to anybody who has questions.

Operator

Operator

Absolutely. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from the side of Bernay Box with Bonanza Capital. Go ahead your line is open. Bernay Box – Bonanza Capital : Could you give us a little more color on what your longer term game plan is with CTIMCO to possibly build the asset base up there and do you see given the fact that I think one of your comments was the commercial real estate business appeared to be overcapitalized well up to its opportunities. Where do you see the opportunities that actually grow the capital base at CTIMCO.

Stephen Plavin

Management

We're working on raising capital on a variety of fronts, our existing fund mandates in high grade and also in Opportunity Partners, we're developing the successor funds for those now and hope to roll those out later this year. So, we do intend to continue with those investment strategies. We're actively working on a bridge strategy and again, hoping to raise capital around that sometime in the second half of the year. We see a lot of opportunities in the market. We see the dynamic in terms of the availability of capital versus opportunities changing during 2012. We think it will become better for lenders and investors than it is today, because we do think that there will be more force sellers, banks because of the regulatory pressure and borrowers as they reach truly final maturities in that financings. Bernay Box – Bonanza Capital : Got you and on the shelf filing that you still have outstanding, what is the thought process behind that?

Stephen Plavin

Management

It's a $500 million shelf I mean it has a variety of products available to us and it is a tool in our work belt and we evaluate that as well as our other options as we think about capitalizing the businesses going forward. Bernay Box – Bonanza Capital : So you think that the corporate level not externally raised capital, but internally raised capital, but that's something the company needs to address in 2012?

Geoff Jervis

Management

Unclear. Yes, we continue to evaluate. When we look at the business opportunities that are out there and we look at how best to exploit them, we will consider whether we want to raise third-party funds or potentially raise balance sheet capital to execute any of these strategies on balance sheet, so we continue to maintain the optionality to pursue either of those two approaches.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). There are no more questions at this time.

Stephen Plavin

Management

Thank you, everyone. We look forward to reporting to you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.