Q3 2021 Granite Point Mortgage Trust Inc Earnings Call

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Good morning, My name is Glenn and I will be your conference facilitator at this time I would like to welcome everyone to granite point mortgage Trust's third quarter 2021 financial results Conference call.

All participants will be in listen only mode.

After the Speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Petta with Investor Relations for granite Point's. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call to discuss granite Point's third quarter 2021 financial result.

With me on the call. This morning are Jack Taylor, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Marcia in her basket, our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Airport, Our Chief investment Officer, and co head of originations Peter morale, our Chief Development Officer, and co head of originations and Steve Potts, Our Chief operating officer.

After my introductory comments, Jack will review, our current business activities and provide a brief recap of market conditions.

Female part will discuss our portfolio and Marcin will highlight key items from our financial result.

The press release and financial tables associated with today's call as well as our Form 10-Q were filed yesterday with the SEC and are available in the Investor Relations section of our website.

I would like to remind you that remarks made by management. During this call and the supporting slides may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the company's control.

Forward looking statements reflect our views regarding future events and are subject to uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

Please see our filings with the SEC for a discussion of some of our risks that could affect results. We do not undertake any obligations to update any forward looking statements.

We also refer to certain non-GAAP measures on this call. This information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and slides, which are available on our website I will now turn the call over to Jack.

Thank you, Chris and good morning, everyone. We would like to welcome you all to our third quarter 2021 earnings call.

We have made tremendous progress since the beginning of the year to further position granite point to successfully execute on our strategy of investing in a diversified portfolio of floating rate first mortgage loans.

Since restarting originations in the second quarter, we are on pace to deploy over $800 million of capital into new loans for the year.

I am also pleased to report that we continued to further improve our funding profile with the recently announced pricing up our second commercial real estate CLO of the year and our fourth overall.

Granite point status as an established and respected repeat issuer afforded us the opportunity to issue the $621 billion transaction with attractive financing on a term matched nonrecourse and non mark to market basis, including a two year reinvestment period, providing us with more balance sheet and origination flexibility.

Upon the closing of the securitization, we estimate our percentage of credit non mark to market funding to be over 75% of our total borrowings.

Since 2018, we have swapped for foreseeable as totaling $3 $1 billion and we continue to view this market as an attractive way to finance a meaningful portion of our business. It matches very well with our senior loan investment strategy focused on high credit quality and well diversified assets with light to moderate transitional business plans.

During the third quarter, we advanced our business on a number of fronts. We had an active quarter with respect to originations closing eight new loans totaling over $310 million in commitments.

And we currently have an additional $270 million of loans in our pipeline that have either closed or are in the process of closing.

We have been prioritizing loans collateralized by high quality properties with favorable fundamentals, such as multifamily well leased and well located office self storage and warehouse industrial.

The market for lending on transitional properties is very active which allows us to be highly selective and pick the most of appropriate investments for our portfolio.

Our overall portfolio risk rating improved during the quarter from $2 eight in the second quarter to 2.6 as the overall credit of our portfolio continues to progress positively.

The better overall portfolio average risk rating reflects the progress of business plans for the collateral properties, the ongoing economic and market recovery from the pandemic and the resulting generally improved performance of the properties securing our loans.

These factors resulted in risk rating upgrades of multiple loan investments within our portfolio.

We also successfully resolved two of our watch list loans as we previously disclosed in our press release in October during the third quarter, we resolved to $68 million Minneapolis hotel loan through a coordinated sale of the property.

The resolution of the hotel loan resulted in a previously reserved for write off and temporarily affected our distributable earnings.

As part of the sale of granite point provided acquisition financing at a reset basis with the new hotel owner, making a meaningful contribution of fresh equity in the property.

We also resolved a $22 million alone on the New York mixed use retail and office property.

Our brought the loan current with all back interest repaid and funded additional interest reserves.

At September 30, we had two remaining loans that were risk rated five as we continue to work with our borrowers and evaluate a variety of potential strategies.

During the quarter. We also took advantage of our stocks discounted valuation and deployed some of our excess liquidity into open market repurchases totaling 1 million shares, which meaningfully contributed to our quarter over quarter book value growth to $17 33 per share.

And helped to offset some of the dilution related to the settlement of all warrants we issued as part of our term loan financing facility last year.

In two transactions one in late September and the other in early October we settled all of the outstanding warrants to purchase approximately four and a half million shares for a net cash amount of about $32 million, which resulted in a relatively limited combined book value impact of about three 5%.

Using our excess cash to settle the warrants rather than issue shares at a discount helps limit the impact to book value while at the same time it removed a potential overhang in our stock market valuation.

We have been very pleased with the performance of our platform over the course of this year delivering solid operating results and earnings supported by income generated by a well balanced and high credit quality portfolio.

With our continued emphasis on further improving our capital structure lowering overall cost of funds and focus on delivering attractive risk adjusted returns to our stockholders. We are excited about the future growth opportunities for the company as we close out 2021 and head into the new year and beyond.

I would now like to turn the call over to Steve <unk> to discuss our originations forward pipeline and portfolio in more detail.

Thank you Jack and thank you all for joining our call. This morning.

In the third quarter, we continued to deploy capital into high quality loans that meet our credit and return criteria.

Those eight new loans with total commitments of over 310 million and initial fundings of over $285 million.

We also funded an additional $35 million on existing loan commitments for total portfolio fundings of over $320 million.

Four of the new loans, representing over 50% of our Q3 originations are secured by multifamily properties and three loans totaling about a third of our new loan volume are collateralized by well leased office buildings.

One new hotel loan is related to the sale of the Minneapolis Hotel to a new ownership group, where granite point provided a $45 million first mortgage loan at a reset basis supported by fresh equity capital invested into the transaction.

The newly originated loans carry attractive return and credit profiles with a weighted average yield of LIBOR plus 391 on a weighted average stabilized LTV of under 66%.

Consistent with our overall portfolio LTV.

During the third quarter, we realized $290 million of repayments, which were diversified across various property types, including office multifamily and one warehouse law.

Through the first nine months of the year, we realized over $800 million of repayments and principal amortization, which has been largely consistent with our initial full year estimate of between $500 million and $1 billion.

We currently anticipate approximately $150 million of loan repayments in the fourth quarter, though the exact timing and volume are highly dependent on the typical long closing process.

Which if realized would bring full year repayments.

Almost 1 billion or about 25% of our portfolio balance at the beginning of the year.

Do you believe that healthy loan payoff activity is indicative of continued improvement in real estate fundamentals and the overall credit quality of our investments.

Over the course of the third quarter the outstanding principal balance of our portfolio increased moderately to about $3 7 billion across 100 loans with an additional $430 million and future funding commitments, which account for only about 11% of our total commitments and is consistent with the generally lighter transitional nature of our loans.

Our assets continue to generate attractive returns and exhibit healthy overall credit characteristics with a weighted average unlevered realized yield of about five 2% and a weighted average stabilized LTV of 63%.

We currently have a forward pipeline of attractive investments with over $270 million of total commitments in over $240 million of initial fundings.

So far in the fourth quarter, we have closed four loans and funded approximately $135 million of principal plus another 14 million on prior commitments.

The loans in our current pipeline are secured by multifamily office self storage and industrial properties with strong fundamentals and have attractive risk adjusted return profiles.

Barker for transitional floating rate loans is very active with ample lending opportunities, which allows us to be highly disciplined in selecting the most attractive investments for our portfolio.

Assuming market conditions remain stable and depending on the pace of loan repayments, we intend to grow our portfolio over the next several quarters as we further rationalize our funding profile and redeploy our excess capital.

I will now turn the call over to Martin for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Thank you Steve Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today.

Yesterday afternoon, we reported our third quarter GAAP net income of $18 6 million or 34 cents per basic share as compared to $14 2 million or 26 cents per basic share in Q2.

Our Q3 GAAP earnings include a benefit from provision for credit losses of $5 8 million or <unk> 11 per basic share related to certain reserve releases.

Distributable earnings for the third quarter were $5 1 million or <unk> <unk> per basic share.

Versus $15 $7 million 29 per share in Q2.

As we disclosed in our business update a few weeks ago, we incurred a $9 $7 million or <unk> 18 per basic share write off related to a resolution of our loan collateralized by a hotel property located in Minneapolis.

This write off was the main driver of our distributable earnings variance as compared to the prior period.

Our writeup adjusted distributable earnings of 27 per basic share.

Supported by the attractive returns generated by our portfolio and the ongoing benefits from LIBOR floors continue to cover all 25 per share common dividend.

The average floor rate was 130 basis points in Q3, which declined from 155 basis points in the prior period.

As our portfolio mix has continued to shift to a newly originated assets with lower index floors, while legacy loans with higher floors have been paying off.

Our Q3 book value increased to $17 33 per share from $17 27 per share in Q2.

The increase was driven by our share repurchases, which contributed around <unk> <unk> per share.

And the release of <unk> reserves of about <unk> 11 per share.

These benefits were partially offset by the net cash settlement of warrants to purchase about one 1 million shares which impacted our third quarter book value by about <unk> 14 per share.

As we disclosed in our October press release, the remaining warrants to purchase about $3 5 million shares when that settled for cash in early Q4 and impacted our book value by an additional 46 per share.

The September 30 book value also includes an allowance for credit losses of 88 per share.

Our third quarter allowance declined by about $15 5 million to $47 4 million, which was largely driven by the $9 $7 million write off on the hotel loan resolution.

We also released some reserves due to modestly better economic forecasts loan repayments and the continued improvement in the overall performance of our portfolio as well as certain reserves related to future funding commitments on the nonperforming office loan.

These reserve releases were partially offset by the establishment of an allowance for our newly originated loans.

Our total seasonal reserve represents about a 116 basis points of our total portfolio commitments as of September 30.

It's about $22 million of the 47 million total allowance is allocated to our two remaining collateral dependent loans that continues to be risk weighted five at quarter end.

Turning to our liquidity and leverage we ended the quarter with about $154 million in cash.

As of November 5th we had approximately $134 million in cash and about $89 million of unencumbered whole loans, which we can finance with our facility subject to lender approval.

Our total debt to equity ratio at September 30 was three times up slightly from two eight times in the prior quarter and our target remains in the range of three to three five times.

Thank you again for joining us today, and I will now ask the operator to open the call to questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session to ask a question you May Press Star then one on your Touchtone phone.

If youre using a speakerphone please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.

Withdraw your question. Please press Star then two.

At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.

Again, you have a question Star then one.

First question today comes from Doug Harter with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. This is Josh Bolton on for Doug Thanks for taking the question.

As you're thinking about your current excess liquidity position.

How are you thinking about your ability to repay.

Or pay down or replace some of the.

Our senior secured debt.

And what could the timing look like on reducing.

Some of the cost of funds associated thanks.

Hey, Good morning. This is Martin and thank you for your question look as we said before you know refinancing are 8% term loan remains our strategic priority.

It is something we're spending quite a bit of time. It is a micro market dependent we are evaluating a lot of different potential alternatives to refinance it.

So timing again this TBD I would say from an earnings perspective, it's probably a 'twenty two event in 2020, one around kind of given where we are in the air but it is something we're focused on but again, it's highly dependent on kind of market conditions and which.

Which type of product, we eventually decide to go with.

Great. Thanks, Martin and then just thinking about leverage the target leverage that you mentioned.

Versus currently where you guys are today, which is at the lower end of that just curious should we expect leverage to slowly increase to maybe the middle of that range.

Or any thoughts around around leverage over the next several quarters will be helpful. Thank you.

Sure happy to address that good question look I think given the.

The structure of our liabilities with a meaningful.

Allocation to non recourse term match no mark to market financing I think we'd be comfortable bringing leverage up towards the higher end of that range over the next I would say two to four quarters. So I would expect us over the over the course of 2022 to increase leverage.

So we have some room to grow the portfolio and earnings, but again, it's going to take us some time.

Great I appreciate the comments.

Thank you.

Dennis you'd like to ask a question today. It is star then the one star then one to ask a question.

Our next question comes from Chris Butler with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question I'm on for Steve Today, just one quick one from me.

So it's nice to see the resolution of some of the non accruals and five rated bonds do you guys have an estimate of what the drag on EPS is from Roma.

The remaining non accruals and I guess, what that would look like flowing in to earnings once.

Thanks.

Hey, Chris Good morning, It's Martin have you do to take this look I think it's I would say its a few cents a share.

There's a lot that goes into it in terms of financing and capital we are evaluating a lot of different options for the two remaining loans, which may require some some capital if we decided to foreclose on one of them or both of them right. So we need some liquidity for that.

So I would say it's several cents.

Quarter, but again, that's due to timing.

And when that May materialize, it's still TBD I'll turn it over to maybe just Steve Albright.

To give some more clarity on that.

Sure I can I can give a quick update on the on the on the watch list assets.

So.

Just starting with the.

Pasadena retail deal I've got no no major update on that one we mentioned in the past that this is a well secured well located open air infill retail center, it's in a great area of Pasadena, It was low levered.

When we made the loan performing very well prior to the pandemic property was disproportionately impacted by the appropriate about the COVID-19.

Lockdown protocols.

Some of the operating restrictions in La County.

We made a determination that it was not likely to be repaid at the July maturity date and as a result, we moved it to a five.

In Q2.

Pain that five ranking for Q3.

We're continuing to be in active conversations with the borrower looking at a variety of potential options.

Which could include negotiated deal in lieu of foreclosure sale of the property or sales alone.

Just to reiterate property has multiple demand drivers and we're confident of the intrinsic value of the property.

Keep you updated as these conversations progress.

Turning to the to the D C office loan.

Secured by a very well located office building in the district of Columbia.

Prior to the pandemic.

The sub market was about a 5% vacancy we.

We have a great sponsor here lots of equity business plan as a lease up play.

As people probably know the DC market has been impacted by the pandemic a lot of the big space users like law firms and government users are lagging a return to the office.

So leasing has been very slow we moved this one to five in Q2 also maintaining.

The risk ranking for this one in Q3.

Conversations remain productive with the borrower and similar to Pasadena retail, we're looking at a variety of potential options foreclosure or deed in lieu of sale of the property our sales alone.

So those are the two non accrual loans and then the third.

The third watch list assets.

As a newer vintage student housing property in Louisville, Kentucky.

Asset.

It has remained as a four because it's been behind on business plan due to property related issues with the borrower has been addressing.

As a result of that the borrower has requested and we are going to grant.

Extension to November 2022.

Meanwhile, the properties occupancy has been in the high eighties.

We're monitoring the asset and we're going to continue our conversations with the borrower. So that's that's the update on those three.

Overall in the portfolio, we're seeing very positive credit migration and we feel good about the overall credit quality.

And as Jack said earlier, we think will deliver good results overtime.

Very helpful. Thanks for taking the question.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question and answer session.

I would like to turn the conference back over to Jack Taylor for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you for joining us on our call today, we very much appreciate your support and your attention.

And we will look forward to reporting back to you next quarter as we continue our progress program point and positioning it for future growth. Thank you again.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect.