Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. (NYSE:ARI) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 27, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Stuart Rothstein - President and Chief Executive Officer

Anastasia Mironova - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Sarah Barcomb - BTIG

Richard Shane - JP Morgan

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Steve DeLaney - JMP Securities

Stephen Laws - Raymond James

Operator

[Abrupt start] I would like to remind everyone that today's call and webcast are being recorded. Please note that they are the property of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. and that any unauthorized broadcast in any form is strictly prohibited. Information about the audio replay of this call is available in our earnings press release.

I'd also like to call your attention to the customary Safe Harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking statements. Today's conference call and webcast may include forward-looking statements and projections, and we ask that you refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements and projections.

In addition, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP measures on this call, which management believes are relevant to assessing the company's financial performance. These measures are reconciled to GAAP figures in our earnings presentation, which is available in the stockholders section of our website.

We do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements or projections, unless required by law. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at www.apollocref.com or call us at 212-515-3200.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to the company's Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Rothstein.

Stuart Rothstein

Thank you, operator and good morning, and thank you to those of us joining us on the Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call.

As usual, I’m joined today by Scott Weiner, our Chief Investment Officer; and Anastasia Mironova, our Chief Financial Officer.

Despite the steady stream of negative headlines concerning commercial real estate, ARI's predominantly senior floating rate loan portfolio produced another quarter of distributable earnings comfortably in excess of the common stock dividend with generally stable credit performance across the portfolio. ARI continues to benefit from higher base rates as 99% of the $8.5 billion portfolio consists of floating rate loans, which has resulted in a 360 basis point increase in weighted average yield on the portfolio over the past 12 months. Higher base rates combined with ARI's robust pace of loan origination in 2021 and the first half of 2022 has put ARI in a position to take a conservative approach to additional capital deployment while still comfortably covering the quarterly dividend to our stockholders.