Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE:BXMT) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 26, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Tim Hayes - Vice President, Shareholder Relations

Katie Keenan - Chief Executive Officer

Tony Marone - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Douglas Harter - Credit Suisse

Steve DeLaney - JMP Securities

Sarah Barcomb - BTIG

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Don Fandetti - Wells Fargo

Stephen Laws - Raymond James

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone Mortgage Trust Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. All participants are in a listen-mode only. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Tim Hayes, Vice President, Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Tim Hayes

Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to Blackstone Mortgage Trust's second quarter 2023 conference call. I'm joined today by Mike Nash, Executive Chairman; Katie Keenan, Chief Executive Officer; Tony Marone, Chief Financial Officer; and Austin Peña, Executive Vice President of Investments.

This morning, we filed our 10-Q and issued a press release with the presentation of our results, which are available on our website and have been filed with the SEC. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially.

For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our most recent 10-K. We do not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements.

We will also refer to certain non-GAAP measures on this call. And for reconciliations, you should refer to the press release and our 10-Q. This audio cast is copyrighted material of Blackstone Mortgage Trust and may not be duplicated without our consent.

For the second quarter, we reported GAAP net income of $0.59 per share, while distributable earnings were $0.79 per share. A few weeks ago, we paid a dividend of $0.62 per share with respect to the second quarter. Please let me know if you have any questions following today's call. With that, I'll now turn things over to Katie.

Katie Keenan

Thanks, Tim. Since the onset of the rate hike cycle, BXMT has consistently delivered for our shareholders, with the strength of our business moderating the impact of credit headwinds. This quarter's results again underscored our continued resilience. For the second quarter, we earned $0.79 of distributable earnings per share, up 18% year-over-year and covering our dividend by 127%. We delivered this result while reducing leverage and growing liquidity to a record $1.8 billion. Our book value was stable, as retained earnings offset our reserve build.