Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 9, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Pamela McCormack - Founder & President

Brian Harris - Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Paul Miceli - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Delaney - JMP Securities

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Sarah Barcomb - BTIG

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Ladder Capital Corp.'s Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2022. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. This afternoon, Ladder released its financial results for the quarter and year-ended December 31, 2022.

Before the call begins, I'd like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our earnings release regarding forward-looking statements. Today's call may include forward-looking statements and projections, and we refer you to our most recent Form 10-K for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements and projections. We do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements or projections unless required by law.

In addition, Ladder will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call, which management believes are relevant to assessing the company's financial performance. The company's presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. These measures are reconciled to GAAP figures in our supplemental presentation, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website.

We also refer you to our Form 10-K and earnings supplement presentation for definitions of certain metrics, which we may cite on today's call.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Ladder's President, Pamela McCormack.

Pamela McCormack

Good evening. We are pleased to report that Ladder generated distributable earnings of $38.9 million or $0.31 per share, reflecting an after-tax return on equity of 10.2% for the fourth quarter of 2022.

Undepreciated book value grew to $13.66 per share. And as of December 31, our same-day liquidity from cash, cash equivalents and our undrawn unsecured revolver was over $900 million. As of December 31, our adjusted leverage ratio was 1.9x and 1.1x net of cash and securities.

For the full year 2022, Ladder generated distributable earnings of $148.4 million or $1.16 per share, representing a 9.7% after-tax return on equity. We are further pleased to report that after raising our quarterly dividend by a cumulative 15% over the course of 2022, our dividend remains well covered with carry from net interest margin and net rental income.