Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. (NYSE:ARI) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 25, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Stuart Rothstein - President & Chief Executive Officer

Anastasia Mironova - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Doug Harter - Credit Suisse

Stephen Laws - Raymond James

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Steve DeLaney - JMP Securities

Rick Shane - JPMorgan

Eric Hagen - BTIG

Operator

I’d 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 they – 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, Inc.’s third quarter 2022 earnings call. I am joined this morning by Anastasia Mironova, our Chief Financial Officer.

From a macro perspective, the dominant themes remain the same, continued efforts by central banks to fight persistent inflation, resulting in additional interest rate increases, continued capital markets volatility and an overall slowdown in capital transaction activity, all of which are permeating the real estate market.

Despite the somewhat challenging backdrop, for the third quarter, ARI reported distributable earnings comfortably in excess of the common stock dividend and significant progress on several key asset management and balance sheet optimization initiatives. It is worth noting that even with a positive move in the stock this morning, ARI's current quarterly dividend run rate of $0.35 per share, ARI is paying common stockholders a 13-plus percent annualized yield while trading at approximately 70% of book value with earnings supported by our portfolio consisting of 98% floating rate loans.