Earnings Labs

Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (BXMT)

Q4 2010 Earnings Call· Mon, Apr 4, 2011

$19.97

-0.75%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-2.74%

1 Week

+31.16%

1 Month

+51.71%

vs S&P

+51.45%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the Capital Trust Incorporated Management Conference Call. Before we begin, please be advised that the forward-looking statements contained on this conference call are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the continued credit performance of the Company’s loan and CMBS investments, its asset/liability mix, the effectiveness of the Company’s hedging strategy, the rate of repayment of the Company’s portfolio assets and the impact of these events on the Company’s cash flow, as well as other risks indicated from time-to-time in the Company’s Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events or circumstances. It’s now my pleasure to turn conference over to Mr. Stephen Plavin. Please go ahead sir.

Stephen Plavin

Management

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in Capital Trust. With me are Geff Jervis, our Chief Financial Officer; and Tom Ruffing, our Chief Credit Officer and Head of Asset Management. Last Thursday we announced a comprehensive restructuring of all of the company’s outstanding recourse debt obligations and also reported our results for the fourth quarter and the full year via our 10-K filing. Geff will take you through the quarterly and full-year results as well as through the architecture of the restructuring in greater detail. My remarks will focus on why we restructured and what the restructuring accomplishes for CT. The balance sheet investments that we made during the peak of the market as well as the debt that we used to fund them have been under great pressure since the market downturn. By year-end 2008 we’ve met over $200 million of margin call and the properties underlying our loans and securities were continuing to trend downward. As a result, in March 2009 we completed an interim restructuring that enabled CT to stabilize its liabilities in particular the recourse REPOs for a two-year period of time subject to debt reduction hurdles that we achieved. In recent quarters, property values have begun to recover. However, we knew that the extent of recovery necessary for many of our assets was greater than what could be achieved within the term of our senior recourse indebtedness. So commencing early in 2010, we embarked on a plan to restructure our liabilities, to reduce debt and provide the time necessary to collect our assets and avoid being forced to sell them prematurely at deep discounts. We sought a permanent solution whereby our post restructure liabilities would not require further extension or amendment if the legacy assets under our…

Geoffrey Jervis

Management

Thank you, Steve and good morning everyone. Before we get into the restructuring, I want to spend a moment on Q4 and full-year 2010 results that were filed in our Form 10-K on Thursday afternoon. For the fourth quarter, we recorded net income of $9.9 million or $0.44 per share. The quarter’s income was driven by $9.7 million of operating income on the loan and securities portfolio, $5.4 million of other revenues derived primarily from our investment management subsidiary CTIMCO, $7.6 million of net loan loss recoveries all offset by $10.7 million of securities impairments and G&A of $4.6 million. For the full year, we recorded a net loss of $185.3 million or negative $8.28 per share. The year’s loss was driven by $34.8 million of operating income from the loan and securities portfolios, $15 million of other revenues derived primarily from CTIMCO offset by $221 million of net loan losses and securities impairments and G&A of $18.8 million. At year-end total assets on the balance sheet stood at $4.1 billion, down $115 million from Q3 as the portfolio continues to experience repayments (ph). Total liabilities were $4.5 billion and shareholders’ equity was negative $411 million. On a per share basis based on 22.4 million shares outstanding, book value per share was negative $18.33. Obviously our balance sheet presentation continues to be impacted by the adoption of FAS 167 in Q1 2010, as evidenced by the fact that while we made no new balance sheet investments between yearend 2009 and yearend 2010 our new consolidation regime required us to book over $2 billion of new assets and liabilities doubling the size of our balance sheet. As we move forward, we will be making supplemental disclosures that will more clearly show what we believe to be our true economic portfolio, net…

Stephen Plavin

Management

Thanks Geff. John, please open the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We will take our first question from Brent Christ with Sirios Capital. Please go ahead. Brent Christ – Sirios Capital: Good morning, guys.

Stephen Plavin

Management

Good morning. Brent Christ – Sirios Capital: Yeah, just a quick question in terms of kind of thinking about the earning stream, I guess from the legacy CT versus what’s being transferred over to the Newco. So could you just kind of walk through what portions are retained by CT, whether the management fees, the new dividend payment that you have make and the mezzanine loan, and any other expenses or revenues versus the portion that’s transferred into the new company?

Stephen Plavin

Management

Sure, I’ll take a crack at it. First, let’s start with our interest in legacy REIT. We do have a class of preferred shares that we own that gives us a payment of $7.5 million for the next – almost two years out of that portfolio. Other than that, however, our common stock position won’t receive any cash flow from it until all of the debt is repaid which is a future event. With respect to CT, other than the $7.5 million we have, 100% of our management fees that we have earned before the restructuring, so all the private equity, CDO and special servicing fees. We retain the G&A in the company, although the G&A that was stated in the K, obviously has some element of the restructuring cost, which are non-recurring. And we have – and we have the net operating loss position which obviously is an offset to any future income. Brent Christ – Sirios Capital: So to think about it, you have the management fees offset partially by the G&A and the $7.5 million of preferred interest but you have to first cover the – there are some other obligations before you can start receiving that?

Stephen Plavin

Management

Actually the obligations of secured notes have do not have a current cash component. They just receive payments that we would otherwise receive on our equity interest until they’re satisfied. And, so there is no cash component of that to the company until cash actually starts to flow from the common equity and CT legacy REIT. So we have no – other than – again it’s difficult to talk about this because of the consolidation. But we really have no cash debt service requirement to Capital Trust if you exclude the CDOs as being compartmentalized and the secured – the legacy REIT as being compartmentalized and the secured notes that will appear on our balance sheet as liabilities is only having cash flow, our cash debt service requirements in the event that there is actually cash flow from the equity interest at service collateral for those notes. So no debt service. Brent Christ – Sirios Capital: Got you, okay. So when you boil all that together, is the legacy part – I guess not the non-CT legacy REIT, the old company as we knew it, is it profitable on an ongoing basis or is it reliant on earnings from CT legacy REIT?

Stephen Plavin

Management

It is – if you look at it sort of going backwards, it is – in fact it’s slightly profitable and obviously in the context of our old restructuring – in our old situation that’s a dramatic improvement. But it has no recourse liabilities, which means that it should be a clean vessel for future endeavors. And there’s also, as Steve discussed and I discussed in our remarks, significant upside potential in the legacy portfolio, which will be realized once the legacy liabilities in the new mezzanine loan will were repaid. Brent Christ – Sirios Capital: Alright. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

(Operators Instructions). And it appears we have no further questions at this time sir.

Stephen Plavin

Management

Thank you, John. Thanks everyone for joining.

Operator

Operator

And this concludes your teleconference for today. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines and please have a great day.