Granite Point Mortgage Trust - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your conference facilitator. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Granite Point Mortgage Trust first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question and answer period. Please note today's call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Chris Petta with investor relations for Granite Point. Chris, please go ahead.

Chris Petta (Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call to discuss Granite Point's first quarter 2023 financial results. With me on the call this morning are Jack Taylor, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Marcin Urbaszek, our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Alpart, our Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations, Peter Morale, our Chief Development Officer and Co-Head of Originations, and Steven Plust, our Chief Operating Officer. After my introductory comments, Jack will provide a brief recap of market conditions and review our current business activities. Steve Alpart will discuss our portfolio, and Marston will highlight key items from our financial results. The press release and financial tables associated with today's call were filed yesterday with the SEC and are available in the Investor Relations section of our website, along with our Form 10-Q.

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. We 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 will 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 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.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. We would like to welcome you all to our first quarter 2023 earnings call, and thank you for joining us today. Our business delivered strong operating results in the first quarter, despite the challenging macro backdrop and negative sentiment around commercial real estate. Our well-diversified, conservatively underwritten, and granular floating rate senior loan portfolio continues to benefit from higher short-term interest rates as our first quarter Distributable Earnings increased to $0.20 per basic share and covered our common stock dividend. Given the highly uncertain market environment, our balance sheet remains defensively positioned, benefiting from a well-diversified funding mix, leverage that is meaningfully below our target range, and a strong liquidity position. We continue to emphasize protecting our balance sheet and our stockholders' capital while actively asset managing our portfolio and rationalizing our liabilities.

The diversity of our funding and the strength of our lender relationships support the execution of our objectives. During the first quarter, we successfully de-levered our FL2 CLO and released a substantial amount of capital, further strengthening our liquidity position. The loans underlying the legacy CLO were refinanced on one of our large bank credit facilities, highlighting our good standing with lenders and our ability to refinance our assets even during periods of major market dislocations. Despite some signs of thawing and recently emerging signs of some more liquidity in the real estate capital markets, we continue to maintain our conservative approach to new loan originations. However, we have been opportunistic with respect to deploying capital into our own securities when they present attractive relative value.

We bought back our common stock, capitalizing on a deep value opportunity created by what we believe to be an unwarranted market discount versus our book value. We repurchased about 1 million common shares, generating attractive returns and meaningful book value accretion for our shareholders while maintaining our strong liquidity position. These repurchases have largely used up our prior stock buyback authorization as from time to time we have been an active market participant over the last couple of years, accretively repurchasing almost 4 million of our common shares. To provide us with more flexibility to actively manage our capital over time, our board has increased our buyback authorization by an additional 5 million common shares or almost 10% of our outstanding shares.

As we have done in the past, we will remain opportunistic with respect to our repurchases, taking into consideration multiple factors as we manage our business. Given our conservative stance on loan originations, we have been emphasizing proactive asset management and collaboratively working with our borrowers to ensure successful loan repayments and resolutions. In general, our borrowers continue to support their properties and protect their investments as they recognize the embedded value in those assets and wait for the markets to stabilize and transaction volumes to begin returning to more normalized levels. In the near term, we believe that the recent developments in the regional banking sector are likely to further delay market recovery and impact liquidity for commercial real estate assets given the regional bank's significant historical presence in this market.

It remains unclear when the market environment stabilizes, the commercial real estate markets improve, and for how long the Fed keeps short-term interest rates elevated. Accordingly, we further increased our CECL reserves on our portfolio in the first quarter to about 3.8% of our total loan commitments as the ongoing market disruptions, especially for certain properties located in some of the more challenging cities, are likely to continue to create uncertainty. We remain focused on the macro trends in the office market and the individual performance of our office loans. We are keenly aware of the headwinds in the office market. The office market is not monolithic, and the performance depends on the specific market fundamentals and the particular assets. Properties located in our portfolio markets, such as Miami, continue having favorable demand characteristics and fundamentals.

In other markets that were more impacted by the pandemic and where the trend of returning to the office is more delayed, such as Minneapolis, there have been greater challenges. Fortunately, we have a very diversified and granular office portfolio across 19 MSAs. We have little to no office exposure in some of the most impacted markets, such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Portland and Seattle. As for specific asset characteristics, approximately 90% of our office assets by UPB are either Class A or recently renovated. While we are witnessing greater stress and challenges in some of our loans for which we have established reserves and where we are working with the borrowers on resolutions, these situations are not indicative of the balance of our portfolio.

In addition, we take comfort in the strong sponsorship profile of the owners of the office properties securing our loans, the substantial cash equity invested in these properties to date, and that these sponsors are generally committed to supporting their properties during this period of dislocation. Over the last year, our portfolio borrowers have contributed over $140 million of additional equity in support of their properties. In the near term, we will maintain our conservative stance, actively managing our business, protecting our balance sheet, and maintaining lower leverage while emphasizing liquidity and collaboratively working with our borrowers. As we have said in the past, we believe that the U.S. commercial real estate market provides attractive long-term opportunities and the significant amount of capital which is currently on the sidelines waiting for more market stability will ultimately be deployed providing support for the sector.

As the environment stabilizes and likely increased regulations for banks occur, once we are on the other side of the current disruptions, this will allow us to take advantage as a non-bank lender of attractive investment opportunities. I would now like to turn the call over to Steve Alpart to discuss our portfolio activities in more detail.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Thank you, Jack. Thank you all for joining our call this morning. We ended the first quarter with an aggregate committed balance of $3.5 billion and an outstanding principal balance of about $3.3 billion, with only $205 million of future funding commitments, accounting for less than 6% of our total commitments. Our portfolio is well diversified across regions and property types and includes 88 investments with an average loan size of approximately $38 million. Our loans continue to deliver an attractive income stream with a favorable overall credit profile, generating a realized portfolio yield of about 8%, with a weighted average stabilized LTV at origination of 63%. Given our cautious stance on originations due to the market environment, during the first quarter, we funded about $17 million on existing commitments.

Our repayments and loan paydowns totaled approximately $60 million in the first quarter, which outpaced loan fundings and resulted in a slight decline in our portfolio balance over the quarter. As of March 31st, our portfolio weighted average risk rating was 2.6, which was largely unchanged from the prior quarter of 2.5. During the first quarter, we downgraded a $27.5 million senior loan collateralized by an institutional quality full service hotel property located in downtown Minneapolis to a risk ranking of five. The property was recently substantially renovated and reflagged. It's owned by a well-regarded institutional sponsor who invested significant cash equity to purchase and then renovate the property.

Although the property's performance and the market in general have shown recent signs of improvement, operating performance has continued to be negatively affected by the ongoing impact of delayed business travel trends in the Minneapolis CBD and from the lingering impact of social unrest. We are actively working with the owner of the property who has elected to market the property for sale. We anticipate the property will be listed soon and are hopeful for a resolution this year, although the exact timing is hard to predict. As of March 31st, we have five loans that are risk rated five and on non-accrual status totaling $275 million in UPB, for which we established specific CECL reserves of about $67.5 million, which implies an average estimated loss rate on those loans of about 25%.

As we have mentioned in the past, we are in active discussions with all five of these borrowers and are evaluating a variety of potential resolution alternatives and will provide more information as these situations develop over the course of the year. Four of our non-accrual loans are backed by office properties, each with its own characteristics and attributes. As we evaluate a variety of resolution options for these office assets, some may include a conversion to an alternative use. While not all office properties are amenable to such outcomes, we would like to point out that the Phoenix and San Diego office loans are two where the highest and best use could be other than an office building.

The recently extensively renovated property securing the Phoenix office loan benefits from a convenient pedestrian-oriented downtown location with nearby access to light rail and mass transit. The property's configuration lays out quite well for a conversion to residential use, for which there is demand in the market. Similarly, the San Diego office property has an excellent location, is recently and extensively renovated, and can be converted to hotel, residential, or mixed use. The building's physical and locational attributes lend itself well to conversion. In fact, the borrower was under contract to a buyer who planned to convert the property to a hotel, but it fell out of contract shortly after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. For both the Phoenix and San Diego assets, we are working with the borrowers to take possession of the properties and have had multiple indications of interest for purchase for conversion.

We are evaluating a range of resolution alternatives, which could include a foreclosure or deed in lieu, followed by a sale of the property. I will now turn the call over to Marcin Urbaszek for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Marcin Urbaszek (CFO)

Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Yesterday afternoon, we reported our first quarter GAAP net loss of thirty-seven and a half million dollars or $0.72 per basic share, which includes a provision for credit losses of $46.4 million or $0.89 per basic share. Compared to the prior period, our GAAP net loss widened due to an increase in our CECL reserves, driven by the unsettled market conditions. Distributable Earnings for the first quarter were $10.7 million or $0.20 per basic share as compared to a distributable loss last quarter, which was mainly impacted by the resolution of one of our non-accrual loans in Q4.

On a pre-loss basis, quarter-over-quarter, our Distributable Earnings improved by about $0.03 per basic share, driven by higher net interest income as our floating rate portfolio continues to benefit from increases in short-term interest rates. Our Distributable Earnings covered our common dividend in the first quarter, despite us carrying over $200 million in cash, which represents over 20% of our equity, our balance sheet leverage meaningfully below our target levels, and the five non-accrual loans, which we estimate impacted our interest income by over $5 million in Q1 or about $0.10 per share.

Our first quarter book value declined by about $0.78 per common share or about 5% to $14.08, and was mainly affected by the increase in our CECL reserves, which was partially offset by an estimated $0.19 per share benefit from our share buybacks. As Jack mentioned earlier, during the first quarter, we repurchased about 1 million shares of our common stock, given what we believe is a deep value opportunity our stock price currently represents. Our board's increase in our buyback authorization of an additional 5 million shares furthers our ability to over time be opportunistic in the market given our flexible and shareholder-focused capital allocation strategy. Our CECL reserve at quarter end stood at about $33 million or $2.54 per share, representing about 3.8% of our portfolio commitments.

The $46 million increase in our CECL reserve quarter-over-quarter was mainly related to a higher allowance on our collateral-dependent loans and more recessionary max assumptions used in our analysis reflecting the uncertain market environment. As disclosed in our earnings supplemental, slightly more than half of our CECL allowance or about $67 million is allocated to the five non-accrual loans. Turning to our capitalization and liquidity, as we announced in March, we successfully refinanced our legacy 2019 FL2 CLO and funded the $269 million of loans with one of our bank facilities, which improved the efficiency of our loan level borrowings and released about $85 million of capital, further strengthening our liquidity position.

This is our second refinancing of this type following a similar transaction in the second quarter of last year related to our legacy 2018 FL1 CLO and our term financing facility. We believe this highlights the strong general quality of our loan portfolio, our ability to finance our assets during challenging market conditions, and the strength of our long-standing relationships with our lending partners as they look to do more business with us. In connection with this refinancing, we upsized our JPMorgan financing facility to $425 million. Additionally, post quarter end, we also extended the maturity of our Morgan Stanley facility to June 2024. As a result of the CLO refinancing, our total leverage ticked up at quarter end to 2.5 times from 2.3 times in Q4.

We ended the quarter with over $220 million in cash and continue to actively manage our liquidity, focusing on protecting the balance sheet and our investors' capital given the market environment. Thank you again for joining us today. Now we would like to open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed into question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Our first question today is coming from Steve DeLaney from JMP Securities. Your line is now live.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Well, look, for starters, we really applaud the share buyback. I think it's a nice way to reward your shareholders during these difficult times, both what you've done and the increase that you plan. I'm wondering if you've also considered trying to buy back some of your convertible notes, through reverse inquiry or other method. We have noticed in this earnings call, a couple of commercial mortgage REITs have had some opportunities and bought back some debt. Any thoughts there, I'd appreciate. Thanks.

Marcin Urbaszek (CFO)

Sure. Good morning, Steve. It's Marcin Urbaszek. Thank you for joining us.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Hi, Marcin.

Marcin Urbaszek (CFO)

Thanks for your question. I appreciate the nice words on the buyback. We thought it was a good use of capital, especially this depressed valuation. To your point on the converts, yes, it is something we've considered and will continue to consider. We've had some discussions around this internally, so, it is on the table as a potential use of our liquidity, obviously, given the upcoming maturity in the fourth quarter. Yes, it is something that's been debated internally.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Okay, great. That's good to know. I wanna apologize, the Dallas office loan that was new in the fourth quarter, I don't think I ever really asked or dug into that. A couple of things pop up. I mean, thank you for the details on the new Minneapolis hotel loan. I, like I said, I kinda whiffed on this one. You know, it's a smaller loan, obviously $32 million compared to the couple of your other office loans that are much larger. Here's what jumps out. It's a 2017 loan, so it's 6 years old, $35 million loan balance. The pricing's high at L plus 540.

The other thing I noticed, you know, $35 million loan, it's almost 400 sq ft, which is similar to Mini and San Diego, but those loans are $90 million, this one's $35 million. Just help me understand that picture as to what is unique here. I'm just curious whether that's Dallas is an older, an older property or just in a not as attractive an area. You know, why the differences between Dallas and those other two office loans in your watch list? Thank you.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

hey Steve. It's Steve Alpart. Good morning. Thank you for your question.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Sure.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Yeah. I think you heard Jack say earlier in his prepared remarks that, about 90% of our portfolio of office loans are Class A or recently renovated, so they're not all in that category.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Yep.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

We've had other assets in the Dallas market. We think the market has some good trends in it. Obviously, you know, building by building, sub-market by sub-market. This is an asset that's underperformed, and the leasing has been sluggish. You know, back to the point that, you know, it's not monolithic and every one of these is a different story. This has just been an underperformer for a number of years. And, you know, we talked about resolution strategies on a few of the assets. This one kind of falls in the same general category. You can extrapolate that. You know, we're looking at all the typical options here. You know, we're, you know, collaborative discussions with our borrower. All options are on the table.

A sale of the property directly by the borrower or possibly a foreclosure or deed in lieu followed by a sale are kind of, like, on the menu. It's something that we're actively working on, but I can't say anything is imminent as of this call.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Okay. That's helpful to understand the status. Is there a specific reserve on this loan? Can you share with me what that amount would be?

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Yeah. The five loans that are rated five-

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Yes.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

have an aggregate asset-specific reserve of about $67.5 million. That's about 25%.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Okay.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

They're all a little bit different, you know, you can kind of maybe, you know, estimate based on what the aggregate is.

Steve DeLaney (Managing Director, Director of Mortgage and Real Estate Finance Research)

Got it. I understand. Also understand probably why it's not a great idea to put your specific reserve out there when you're negotiating with buyers, et cetera, et cetera. Thank you. Thank you very much for the comments. Appreciate it.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Thank you, Steve.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Stephen Laws from Raymond James. Your line is now live.

Stephen Laws (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Yeah, I wanna second what Steve said about the buybacks. You know, I think that's a good sign to support your stock given concerns in the market, especially at these valuations where it's so accretive. You know, first question, really more on the portfolio. Seems like in total 4 and 5-rated loans, there were nine of them, and I know the hotel moved from 4-5. Were there many changes from 3-4 back and forth, or are we seeing the portfolio kind of separate into, you know, these nine loans that are 4 and 5 and you feel good about everything else? Can you maybe talk about that a little bit?

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Sure. It's Steve Alpart again. Hey, Steve. Good morning. We talked about our aggregate risk rating was relatively stable in the quarter, went from 2.-2.6. There was not movement in the 4s and 5s as a group, except we did move that Minneapolis hotel loan from a 4 to a 5. The total of those 4 or 5 loans is the same. As far as the rest of the portfolio, we did have a couple of other downgrades.

They generally fall in the category of good performers that, you know, were not moved to a four, obviously, but they moved from, like, say, a 2 to a 3, where we think, you know, it's on track, everything's fine, but just given the market environment, we thought it was, it's prudent to maybe move it 1 notch.

It was more along those lines. Nothing that we're at this moment concerned about.

Stephen Laws (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Great. As you have discussions with borrowers around, you know, extensions or modifications, you know, how are those discussions going? Any pushback or inability to buy new caps? Are there other protections you'd like to see in an extension or modification maybe instead of a cap at this point? Kinda how can you talk about how those discussions are going with borrowers at the, you know, original maturity date?

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Yeah, the tone of the conversations, we talked about this in prior quarters, is still constructive. You know, we have a good playbook, where, if a borrower is coming up on an extension or more recently, maybe even a final maturity, you know, in exchange for pay downs, additional economics, spreads, fees, structure, we will work with those borrowers who are doing everything right. Some of those conversations that you could imagine involve getting a new cap. You know, all things being equal, we'd like to have a new cap. The majority of our portfolio has either an active cap in place or other structure around the cap.

Certainly in some cases if a borrower wants to put money into a reserve account, debt service reserve account, you know, that's something that we would consider. You know, we look at the cap or other structure as important, so we're almost always getting one of, one or the other.

Stephen Laws (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Appreciate the comments this morning. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, that's star one to be placed into question queue. Our next question is coming from Douglas Harter from Credit Suisse. Your line is now live.

Douglas Harter (Analyst)

Thanks. Can you talk about how much debt you have against the current non-accrual loans and or risk-rated five loans?

Marcin Urbaszek (CFO)

Sure. Good morning, Doug. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for your question. I would say most of those loans in terms of UPB are financed on the two sort of new facilities that we put in place in Q3 and Q4. You see there's over $100 million of leverage against three of those assets. I would say that's the majority of the borrowings against those loans. There's a little bit more on the other two, but this is the majority of the leverage against them.

Douglas Harter (Analyst)

Great. Appreciate the update on the properties that Steve gave. Just, you know, any more clarity on as far as timing as to when you might be getting, you know, some of that capital back that you could either then use for the new buyback authorization or for new loans?

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

It's Steve again. We are, as you can imagine, actively working on all five of these loans. They're all on a different path. Ideally, we like to resolve some or all of these in the next couple of quarters. Given the market, it's the timing is hard to predict, but, you know, high, high level, you know, look, we certainly don't wanna be a, you know, a, you know, and we're not gonna be a forced seller, so we're trying to be thoughtful about it. Certainly the objective is over the next couple of quarters to start resolving as many of these as we can.

Douglas Harter (Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Jade Rahmani from KBW. Your line is now live.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much. beyond the risk five-rated bucket of office, you know, how is everything else going? You have a substantial amount of office loans, some of which are probably slated for maturity this year, given the origination date. Wondering if you can give an update there?

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Hi, Jade. This is Jack. I'll give the more general update, and Steve, if you wanna say something more specific. The headwinds are pretty intense in office nowadays. I would say that the majority of the conversation we're having with borrowers about it relates not to work from home dynamics and things like that, but which seems to dominate the press quite a lot. Really the absolute level of rates, and it's that the Fed has imposed on the market and the cost of carry as they move through this. Which I believe is the main driver for stress in real estate, commercial real estate and in office.

For the rest of our portfolio, so we've gone through our risk rankings and our CECL reserves. There are some that we have our eyes on and are having more, significant conversations. As we said, our portfolio is supported by borrowers that are looking at the embedded value over time in, their assets and are putting money in to support it. You know, it's difficult when rates are so high, to navigate for some of them.

I'll point out another thing too, which what we've observed is, in the more middle market with substantial institutional owners, but not so much the mega funds, if you will, they scramble a lot more to support their properties because it's more meaningful to them, as opposed to some of the larger fund operators who view it as an opportunity maybe just to move on to the next fund that they've already raised, and they will exercise their put option, if you will, for the lender.

We're seeing it's kind of a funny dynamic in that, you know, you might think that the bigger fund operators would be those that would stand behind their properties more. We're seeing it actually bifurcate a bit. The middle market loan, our property say that, $50 million with a $30 million loan, they're really stepping up to the plate. I wanna say, though, that I'm not guaranteeing that we're not gonna see any more credit migration downward. It's really path dependent, I believe, largely on the Fed.

I think there's a lot of inner dynamics about the effect of rates, not just on the intentional destruction of value that they sought, but also the effect on a much broader swaths of the economy, and things like major city centers and all, and the stress that it's putting on municipalities. Those paths are very uncertain still. We're watching it very closely and in deep discussion with our borrowers on a daily or weekly basis.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Having how on top of these loans are you in terms of asset management? What's your level of dialogue? I mean, right now there's four loans within the office portfolio. You know, I don't know. I think it's beyond the Fed that's affecting office. I think that the Fed is affecting the other property sectors, multifamily, industrial, et cetera, where we've seen cap rates widen, but not the level of distress playing out in office. Office, it's the complete inability to underwrite rent and the lack of demand. I think, yes, you are seeing some leasing activity, and I think the best, most renovated buildings are seeing demand, which is also somewhat surprising given your comments about the two conversions. Those are freshly renovated projects. What level of dialogue are you currently having with these borrowers?

I mean, there's many loans that were originated years ago. Can you also talk about the magnitude, the dollar amount of office maturities you'll be facing in the next nine quarters?

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

James, let me address. I thought I heard you, I'm sorry if I misheard you. I thought you were asking me, you know, about the nature of the conversations and what we're seeing with them. We are in repeat, frequent asset management dialogue with our borrowers. And there's many that are doing quite well. There's some that are in between, and there's the ones that we cited. I do agree with you that rates are affecting all of commercial real estate. You know, for example, you know, multifamilies that were originated, bought or originated last year and put into CLOs are coming under significant stress compared to the cap rate levels that they were bought at and the level of rates.

Sticking with this, we're in intense touch with these and the these borrowers on the office side. I did not mean to say, if you took it this way, I did not mean to say that the work from home dynamic and the reduction in demand was not a factor. I think it's a quite significant factor. I think in the near term, though, the bigger factor is about liquidity, and liquidity. The demand affects that. When you have an out-of-favor asset category, the liquidity first drains from it. We'll see where it goes next, right? I personally believe that there will be a healing in the capital markets and in the office market generally, are out reflecting what our borrowers are reflecting back to us about where their main stresses are.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Practically speaking, in terms of, let's just say, across the office portfolio, are you in touch with all of the borrowers, and what's the frequency of dialogue?

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Well, Steve, maybe you can address that. The answer is yes, and it varies, right, by the situation, you know. On some of them, it's not a weekly discussion when there's not that much to be concerned about. In others, it's more, frequent and intense. Steve, do you want to elaborate?

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Yeah. Dave, the way we're set up, the originations team that sources a loan, underwrites, and closes a loan is responsible for that loan to repayment. There's a real, you know, kind of soup to nuts approach here. You know, we're not really originating right now, so this is our focus point for our deal team. The amount of touch we're having is pretty significant. You know, there's conversations about if there's a mod coming up, it'll be a little bit more intense. You know, we're looking at leases, we're reviewing leases, there's site tours, there's business plans, reviewing business plans, budgets, there's still draws going on for CapEx, some leasing.

The amount of touch we're having, you know, it's certainly not daily, although it can be daily at certain points, but it's, you know, we're very much in touch with all these borrowers. As you can imagine, you know, a, you know, a 4 or 5 rate of loan might have more of a touch than a one or two. I would say the level of dialogue, you know, both with us and our borrowers, us and our lenders, is kinda daily, weekly, ongoing and constructive.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Jade, I just wanna, you know, point back a little bit. You know, we had, you know, over 20% in repayments during the course of 2022, including on a run rate running through to December. Over half of that was in office. While we fully expect that we're going to see a decrease in the amount of prepayments this year because of the market environment and all the shocks to the system by the continued raising of rates. Those office loans that we paid last year, were financed or blocked by parties, as I said, including through the end of December. We're seeing I don't wanna say anywhere near the robust pace as last year, but a significant pace of retainments in sight now, including for office loans.

That's evidence that, you know, are working with our borrowers and being in touch with them and accommodating or demanding, depending on the situation, their needs in the system as we go on. It is something where we think that plan of working with them, extending out, renegotiating for higher rates, et cetera, has proven fruitful for us.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. On the multifamily side, I know everyone's focus is on office. Generally, I would say summarizing first quarter earnings, multifamily has been pretty good, probably better than expected. However, there have been a few problem areas.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

One of your competitors, which has a GSE servicing business, Freddie Mac delinquencies spiked quite notably within the portfolio. Just today, The Wall Street Journal is talking about performance and CLOs deteriorating.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Right.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

How are you seeing?

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Right.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

the multifamily performance?

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Steve, do you wanna talk about performance, and then I'll make another comment.

Steve Alpart (Chief Investment Officer and Co-Head of Originations)

Sure. Yeah. Not with Jade. Notwithstanding the rise in rates and the economic environment, the multifamily properties in our portfolio are generally, you know, exhibiting healthy fundamentals, and we feel good about them. The portfolio is fairly diverse. It's mainly As and Bs. You know, our largest concentrations are in the southeast and southwest. We're not just in the southeast and southwest.

Those business plans typically involve renovation, CapEx plan, pushing rents, not so much growing rents as far as market rent growth, but more looking at the property next door and saying, "If we do this amount of renovation work, we can get the rents the guys are getting next door." We are still seeing, as rent rolls turn monthly, quarterly, we are still seeing borrowers getting those underwritten rent bumps. Obviously the, you know, the housing market, you know, is expensive and rates are high, so that's helping the multifamily market. We're certainly seeing rents flowing. You know, we did some but not a ton of business, I think when the say, late 2021 into early 2022. We don't have a ton of that vintage.

The vintage that we what we did do with that time period, we had dialed back leverage, you know, probably on average about five points, and we had pushed up exit debt yields. I fully expect that there'll be some multifamily loans that are gonna need another turn or two of the rent roll to get to the exit. These are obviously 3 + 1 + 1, and in, you know, good market, they might pay off in two or three years. Maybe some need an extra year. And we have one right now, by the way, that we did kinda near the peak of the market that they ended up putting in less CapEx, got higher rent bumps, and they're taking us out on an agency deal.

I'm not saying everything's gonna look like that, but, you know, I would say in general, you know, we saw the headlines. You know, in general, you know, we feel good about the multifamily.

Jade Rahmani (Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst)

That's great to hear. Thanks so much.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

Thank you, Jade.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Jack for any further or closing comments.

Jack Taylor (President and CEO)

I'd like to thank everybody for joining us for today. We really appreciate your time and attention. I'd like to thank our team for all the hard work that you've been putting in to maintain our portfolio and the quality of it. I especially wanna thank our investors for the support you've shown to us.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.