Earnings call transcript: Apollo Commercial RE Finance Q2 2025 beats earnings

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI) reported robust financial results for the second quarter of 2025, surpassing earnings and revenue forecasts. The company posted an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.26, exceeding the forecasted $0.25, and achieved a revenue of $70.9 million, outpacing expectations of $64.08 million. Currently trading below its InvestingPro Fair Value, ARI offers an attractive 10.2% dividend yield and has maintained dividend payments for 16 consecutive years. Despite these strong results, the stock saw a modest increase of 0.26% in the latest trading session, reflecting cautious investor sentiment amid broader market uncertainties.

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Key Takeaways

• EPS of $0.26 beat expectations, marking a 4% surprise.
• Revenue of $70.9 million exceeded forecasts by 10.64%.
• Loan portfolio increased by 12% to $8.6 billion.
• Stock price rose slightly by 0.26% post-earnings.
• Projected earnings growth of 30-40% in the coming quarters.

Company Performance

Apollo Commercial RE Finance demonstrated strong performance in Q2 2025, with a notable increase in distributable earnings and loan portfolio value. The company’s impressive 104.6% year-over-year revenue growth and strong financial health metrics, as reported by InvestingPro, underscore its momentum. The company’s strategic focus on residential properties and expansion in European markets contributed to its robust financial results. With a current ratio of 9.7x, ARI maintains strong liquidity to support its growth initiatives. Compared to previous quarters, ARI has shown consistent growth, supported by a diversified loan portfolio and an active origination pipeline.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $70.9 million, up significantly from forecasts.
• Earnings per share: $0.26, surpassing the predicted $0.25.
• Distributable earnings: $36 million, an 8% increase from the prior quarter.
• Loan portfolio value: $8.6 billion, a 12% rise from the previous quarter.

Earnings vs. Forecast

ARI’s EPS of $0.26 outperformed the forecast by 4%, while revenue exceeded expectations by 10.64%. This marks another quarter of positive surprises for the company, reinforcing its strong market position and strategic initiatives.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, ARI’s stock experienced a modest increase of 0.26%, closing at $9.8. While the stock remains below its 52-week high, the slight uptick reflects investor confidence in the company’s performance despite broader economic concerns.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, ARI projects earnings growth of 30-40% and aims to expand its portfolio to over $10 billion. This aligns with InvestingPro analysts’ expectations of profitability this year, though 2 analysts have recently revised their earnings estimates downward. The company remains focused on the housing sector and is exploring opportunities in senior housing, student housing, and selective hotel investments.

Access the comprehensive Pro Research Report for ARI, part of InvestingPro’s coverage of 1,400+ US stocks, for detailed analysis of growth prospects and risk factors.

Executive Commentary

CEO Stuart Rothstein expressed optimism, stating, "We expect this capital rotation will continue to have a positive impact on ARI’s earnings in 2025 and throughout 2026." Chief Investment Officer Scott Wiener added, "We continue to be very constructive on all forms of housing," highlighting the company’s strategic focus.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential macroeconomic pressures could impact real estate investments.
• Interest rate fluctuations may affect financing costs and investment returns.
• Global economic uncertainties could pose risks to future growth plans.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about The Brook development, with executives targeting a 15% market rate lease and potential monetization in early 2026. Questions also focused on maintaining leverage levels and investment selectivity, reflecting investor interest in the company’s strategic direction.

Full transcript - Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc (ARI) Q2 2025:

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. I’m joined today as usual by Scott Wiener, our Chief Investment Officer and Anastasia Maranover, our Chief Financial Officer. ARI delivered strong performance in the 2025 marked by significant progress across originations, portfolio management, and balance sheet optimization. Velocity in loan originations increased as we committed to $1,400,000,000 of new loans during the quarter, quickly redeploying capital we have received back from both repayments and ARI’s focus assets.

Year to date, ARI has committed $2,000,000,000 to new loans. Repayments in the portfolio continue to track expectations with borrowers making progress on their business loans having multiple options for refinancing. As evidenced by the second quarter activity, we are confident in our ability to re redeploy this capital into newly originated loans and continue to identify attractive opportunities across both The United States and Western Europe. ARI continues to benefit from the breath of Apollo’s real estate credit platform and the team’s robust originations pipeline to access transaction flow that matches capital received from repayments eliminating cash drag and enabling ARI to build the diversified loan portfolio. Three of the loans closed in the second quarter were secured by residential properties, continuing ARI’s thematic overweight to a sector benefiting from strong secular tailwinds.

Loans on residential properties now comprise approximately 25% of ARI’s portfolio, representing ARI’s largest property type concentration. Importantly, approximately two thirds of the residential loans in ARI’s portfolio have originated over the past twenty four months benefiting from evaluation reset and enhanced credit quality. In Europe, which represents approximately 50% of ARI’s portfolio and 18% of originations year to date, the market is gaining momentum benefiting from recent interest rate cuts that have reenergized acquisition activity. Our local team is capitalizing on this resurgence with a healthy pipeline across property types and we continue to believe ARI’s international diversification remains a strategic advantage. Turning now to the loan portfolio and a progress update on our focus assets.

At quarter end, the carrying value of ARI’s portfolio had increased 12% from the prior quarter and was comprised of 53 loans totaling approximately $8,600,000,000. No additional asset specific CECL allowances were recorded during the quarter. We saw continued sales momentum at 111 West 50 Seventh Street with nine units closed during the quarter generating a $170,000,000 in proceeds, a 141,000,000 of which reduced ARI’s basis following the full repayment of the senior loan in April. ARI is now senior in the capital stack, and all future proceeds will go directly to repaying its exposure. At the Brook, ARI’s multifamily development in Brooklyn, the leasing office opened in June and tenant move ins began this month marking an important milestone in the assets progress.

Lastly, in Cincinnati, the marketing process for Liberty Center has commenced as we pursue exiting the asset. We remain intensely focused on executing our value maximization plans for our focus assets, which is integral to our strategy of converting underperforming capital into higher yielding reinvestment opportunities. Excuse me. We expect this capital rotation will continue to have a positive impact on ARI’s earnings in the 2025 and throughout 2026. Before I turn the call over to Anastasia, I want to highlight the strong execution we had in connection with the refinancing of our outstanding term loan B facilities in the past quarter.

In June, we completed a new five year floating rate $750,000,000 term loan b, which repaid our existing two term loan b’s, which had pending maturities in 2026 and 2028 respectively. The new loan bears interest at silver plus three and a quarter percent and enabled ARI to term out liabilities at attractive pricing with a well diversified roster of high quality investors highlighting the market’s confidence in ARI. Following the refinancing, ARI’s next corporate debt maturity is now not until June 2029. With that, I will turn the call over to Anastasia to review ARI’s financial results for the year.

Anastasia Maranover, Chief Financial Officer, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thank you, Stuart, and good morning, everyone. ARI reported distributable earnings of $36,000,000 or $0.26 per share of common stock for the first quarter with GAAP net income of $18,000,000 or $0.12 per diluted share of common stock. Distributable earnings for the 2025 represent an 8% increase over the first quarter and provide dividend coverage of about 104 times. Our loan portfolio ended the quarter with a carrying value of $8,600,000,000 up from $7,700,000,000 at the end of Q1. The weighted average unlevered yield of our portfolio was 7.8%.

As Stuart mentioned, we had a strong quarter of loan originations, totaling $1,400,000,000 in commitments. We also completed an additional $394,000,000 in add on fundings for previously closed loans. Year to date, ARI has originated over $2,000,000,000 of new commitments and completed a total of $467,000,000 of fed on funding for previously closed loans. Repayments and sales totaled $631,000,000 during the quarter. Importantly, with the continued redeployment, 41% of our loan portfolio at quarter end was originated post the 2022 rapid rise in interest rates and subsequent reset in property valuation.

With respect to risk ratings, the weighted average risk rating of the portfolio at quarter end was three point zero, unchanged from the previous quarter end. There were no asset specific CECL allowances recorded during the quarter, and no downgrades in risk ratings across the portfolio. Our general CECL allowance increased this quarter by $3,100,000 reflecting growth of the loan portfolio from the previous quarter end. Total CECL allowance in percentage points of the loan portfolio amortized cost basis is down slightly quarter over quarter from four seventy five basis points to four twenty nine basis points. Subsequent to quarter end, Apollo and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reached a settlement agreement in which the Commonwealth agreed to pay us and other Apollo co lenders an additional 44,000,000 as compensation for the previous taking of the hospital by eminent domain.

AIR’s share of these proceeds is approximately $18,000,000 The payment is expected to be received before the August, and the lawsuit will be dismissed with prejudice, with all related claims released. These proceeds will result in book value per share pickup for ARI in the following quarter, and will be recycled into new loan origination, leading to further upside to earnings. Moving on to the right hand side of the balance sheet. During the quarter, we were very active with optimizing our liabilities. In addition to the refinancing of our term loans that Stuart mentioned, we closed three new secured credit facilities and upsized an existing credit facility, which provided an additional $1,400,000,000 of aggregate borrowing capacity.

Liquidity in the secured borrowing market continues to be plentiful, as lenders get favorable capital treatment for these facilities, and in many instances prefer them over directly lending to properties. The company ended the quarter with $2.00 $8,000,000 of total liquidity, comprised of cash on hand, committed undrawn credit capacity on existing facilities, and loan proceeds held by the servicer. Our book value per share, excluding general CECL allowance and depreciation, was $12.59 a slight decrease from last quarter. With that, I would like to turn the call back to Stuart Rustin.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thank you, Anastasia. Before we turn the call back to the operator to start with questions, I just want to highlight that those of us at Apollo, our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and colleagues at Black Stone after the senseless tragedy that took place there this past Monday. We have heavy hearts and I’m sure many of on the call do as well. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator.

Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from Doug Harter with UBS. You may proceed.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thanks.

Doug Harter, Analyst, UBS: How are you guys today? Just hoping we could get a little bit into more of the kind of the theme of being able to kind of recycle your capital. It seems like January is progressing. How

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): do

Doug Harter, Analyst, UBS: you think about the Brook now that you’re starting to lease? What could be a time frame of, a, I guess, starting to get some cash flow from that asset and b, being able to kind of move on from that and move it into targeted assets?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Yeah, look, think at a high level, and I’ll just sort of refresh for everybody’s memory, the book is roughly 500 plus units of which 70% are market rate, 30% are affordable. We have started leasing on the market rate side of things as the affordable needs to go through a process vis a vis a lottery and qualifications, etcetera. I think the hope for us, Doug, is that we make meaningful progress on the leasing side between now and the end of the year. I think at this point in just the first month, we’re sort of approaching 15% leased on the market rate side of things. I think with progress made on the leasing side, the asset will turn modestly cash flow positive in the early part of next year.

And then the real capital event is whether we decide to bring it a partner or sell the asset outright sometime probably between first and second quarter of next year. And as a reminder, it’s roughly just shy of $300,000,000 worth of capital today that is effectively earning zero from our perspective.

Doug Harter, Analyst, UBS: Got it. And in your answer, when you kind of said the decision of selling it outright or bringing in a partner, is it a consideration to kind of retain the asset and have kind of a long duration cash flows? Or is the ultimate plan to kind of monetize and move on?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): The ultimate plan is to monetize and move on. I think the halfway step of bringing in a partner would only be relevant to the extent we thought the market fully wasn’t providing value to us while we continue to lease up and stabilize.

Doug Harter, Analyst, UBS: Okay. Appreciate the answer. Thank you, Stuart.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jade Rahmani with KBW. You may proceed.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Thank you very much. A follow on to Doug’s question on the Brook. I believe that there’s some land parcels that are also either owned and controlled or there’s some optionality around that. Can you give some color and if this could be material upside for shareholders?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Yeah, there is one small parcel that we refer to for now as the Western parcel, if I’ve got my geography correctly. And in between the Brook and the Western parcel, there’s actually a building that we don’t know in between us that sits on two parcels. We are in discussion too early to know what will happen with the ownership of those parcels Jade around either acquiring air rights or assets outright that would potentially greatly increase the density of what can be done on the Western parcel. And if we’re able to figure it out, I think there’s definitely upside to the ARI shareholders, but I would say too early to predict the likelihood of that right now, but discussions are ongoing.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Thanks very much. On 111 West 50 Seventh, where do you expect the basis amortized cost in the loan to be at year end or maybe early say 1Q of next year?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Look, I think it’s a bit of a timing question as you think about when units get sold. At this point, there’s 11 units left. So there’s definitely activity going on with various potential buyers. Our net basis today from a carrying value perspective is about $270,000,000 We think we will chip away at that between now and the end of the year given dialogue taking place, but don’t wanna sort of give you a specific number per se.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Okay. And one overarching question has to do with the capital structure and leverage of the company. Leverage is around four times today, but that includes significant non earning assets. So, you know, do you plan to maintain leverage at the current level and therefore convert these assets into earning assets and drive dividend growth? Or in that process, do you anticipate reducing leverage?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Think where we’re running leverage is in the ballpark of where we’d expect to run it in the future. Keep in mind that even though the Brook is a non earning asset, it does have a construction loan against it. So that is an asset that we can get capital back and put to work pretty meaningfully without dramatically changing leverage levels. But I think our view is there’s enough capacity in the company to get back the capital we get back and we deploy it all at leveraged ROEs that are very consistent with where we’ve been deploying capital to date and drive as you’ve seen, seen various estimates from us of meaningful earnings growth, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% to 40% on where we are if you assume it all comes back and we’re able to redeploy it effectively.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Harshamnani with Green Street. You may proceed.

Harshamnani, Analyst, Green Street: Thank you. Maybe one on portfolio size. Right? Of course, it’s it’s grown. Can we expect it to continue to grow?

How are you thinking through that in the near to medium term?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): We never predict the actual size, but I think if you assume we are able to continue to work on focus assets, pull capital back, which effectively is equity and then redeploy the equity at three to four turns of leverage, you’re going to see continued growth in the portfolio size, Just for reference at one point, with effectively the same capital base, the portfolio is north of $10,000,000,000 I’m not saying that’s the number but for each dollar of capital I’m able to bring back from a focus asset or under earning asset, you know, I could put it into a new loan that, you know, headline wise will be three to four turns levered when we get it done.

Harshamnani, Analyst, Green Street: Got it. That’s helpful. And so then that sort of brings up the question of maybe funding some of this growth, and you touched on it a little bit. But it seems like a lot of the equity that is coming back, to your point, is already somewhat levered even from the RDO assets. So is it probably fair to assume that incrementally growth from here will continue to be driven by leverage?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Look. I think it’ll be you know, not all of the assets are levered today. Certainly, 11 West 50 Seventh is not levered today. Liberty Center is under levered relative to what a loan asset would be. So I think it will be both a redeployment of equity and then sort of typical leverage against that equity relative to what we do when we even get repayments back.

Harshamnani, Analyst, Green Street: Got it. Thank you. Sure.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Nicodemus with BTIG. You may proceed.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Hello, and

John Nicodemus, Analyst, BTIG: good morning. We’ve seen more activity in the CRE transaction market in recent weeks, something I’m sure your team has been pleased to see. What are your expectations for commercial real estate transaction market through the end of this year and how is that affecting your plans for ARI Thanks.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): I mean, we agree with the premise of your question where activity has definitely picked up and we are seeing it both on the credit side of our real estate business as well as the areas where we’re active on the equity side of our real estate business. Good news is there’s more capital, more deal flow, more things to look at. Like the challenge like anything is there’s no dearth of capital in the world right now. I think a lot of confidence in our team both here in The US and in Europe to continuing to find things that work for ARI and what ARI is attempting to achieve from a levered ROE perspective. I think we are confident that the market will continue to offer us enough to look at that we will be able to find things that fit nicely with both return as well as other considerations for ARI whether it be geography, property type, etc.

But we expect the market to be pretty robust between now and the end of the year just given what we’re seeing in terms of deal flow pipeline and level of activity today.

John Nicodemus, Analyst, BTIG: Great. Really appreciate that, Stuart. The other one for me, we’ve seen some of your peers move to extend the duration of their portfolios, whether that’s through investing in triple net real estate or adding securities to their portfolio. Just curious if that’s something that your team at ARI is monitoring or looking to add in the near to medium term? Thank you.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Yeah, would describe it as best as monitoring or it’s a constant source of dialogue as a firm. We’ve got capabilities both in the net lease space and in the securities side. I think that this is now a sixteen year debate between Scott and I. I think the challenge we always face is if we are going to do something that quote unquote broadens the strategy. I think there’s a desire to do it in a scale and size such that it’s meaningful and that we’re not just talking about sort of a one off deal.

Obviously, would be easier in some respects if you could extend duration, but it needs to make sense from a credit and return perspective. So on the radar screen, given existing capabilities inside of Apollo, definitely something that we talk about episodically. But I would say sitting here today, no meaningful shift in strategy expected.

Operator: Thanks so much. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Our next question comes from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. You may proceed.

Rick Shane, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hey, Stuart. Thanks for taking my questions this morning. I apologize if I this is redundant. We’re bouncing around between a lot of calls this morning. From from a detailed perspective, the way we look at the provision expense this quarter is it appears to be entirely growth driven related to the increase in earning assets.

And it looks like it’s probably the general reserve was probably put on in the mid-30s to low-40s in terms of basis points on a reserve rate. Is that correct? And is that the way we should be modeling any further expansion of earning assets in terms of growth going forward?

Anastasia Maranover, Chief Financial Officer, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Hey, Rick, this is Anastasia. Yes, this is correct. So you’re correct in saying that the growth in general CECL quarter over quarter is largely driven by the growth in the loan portfolio.

Rick Shane, Analyst, JPMorgan: And no changes to your macro assumptions?

Anastasia Maranover, Chief Financial Officer, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): No. Great.

Rick Shane, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. And then just a broader question, which is a theme we’re exploring with everybody this quarter. The market is the commercial real estate market is kind of at cross currents right now. And it’s probably there are, excuse me, geographies. There are, loan types that are improving, there are some that remain challenged.

I’m curious as you sort of approach the same cross currents of moving from being purely defensive to putting a foot forward, how you’re looking at those opportunities, where you’re going to continue to be defensive, are there categories that have been out of favor you want to wade back into, or where do you see the best opportunities?

Scott Wiener, Chief Investment Officer, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Yeah, it’s Scott. Look, I’ll say we continue to be very constructive on all forms of housing. And so for us, that would include senior housing private pay, where we’ve been active in The UK and also have a few deals in The US we’re working on. Student housing, hotels have always been a part of our portfolio, but there’s times we’ve been more active and not, and I think this is a time that certain types of hotels are finding interesting. On the office front, certainly transaction activity has picked up, and we’re starting to see stuff.

I think for now, not really looking to do that in ARI. We’re doing that elsewhere I think there still continues to be a very large focus on the percentage of office in our portfolio, and based on our long term lease deal in London, it doesn’t seem that people differentiate different quality of office deals. So I think for that, we’ll probably be doing we won’t be seeing ARI doing office deals. And then we continue to find deals in both UK, Europe, and US of interest.

So it’s really just continuing what we’ve been doing. I don’t see us really doing roundup development ex long term lease data centers. I think the construction, there are interesting deals, but it’s challenging to leverage and also put the money out, whereas I think some of the hyperscale deals that we’ve done are interesting and we’re able to work with our bank partners and put on accretive financing. So I think that’s the only area where you’ll see us doing construction in ARI.

Rick Shane, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hey, Scott, thank you for the insight and for sort of swinging at that pitch for us. We appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jade Rahmani with KBW. You may proceed.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thank you for

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: would prevent the dividend from being increased? And do you also expect any change to the long standing policy, dividend policy of the company to generally pay out the lion’s share of earnings as dividend?

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): I mean, the short answer, Jane, is there’s nothing material from an NOL perspective that would unquote give us tax protection to rising earnings. And I think the short answer to the second part of your question is that, the expectation is the goal continues to be to give our investors as much of earnings as possible in the form of a dividend. Like always, we’ll look at things on a quarter by quarter basis. We’ll also try and take a somewhat forward looking approach as I think our desire is to avoid paying special dividends, try and keep things somewhat stable from a quarterly perspective, not lose a lot of sleep if things bounce around a penny or two higher penny too low in any given quarter. And below is review policy with the board on a quarterly basis.

So I think your question is a good one and I think we expect to handle things going forward the way we’ve handled them in the past.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Thanks. And lastly, I wanted to ask about seniors housing. It seems to be an area of focus of the company. And is there a broader thesis you can talk to in that space? I know the demographic trends are particularly favorable in that asset class.

Scott Wiener, Chief Investment Officer, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Yeah, no, I think that’s exactly I mean, I think, certainly not every market, but most markets in certainly The US and UK, think, have a supply demand imbalance. Clearly, the demographic, as you said, continues to grow. We’re very much focused on private pay. So these are people who can afford and are choosing to live here. I would say it’s also, from an acuity basis, much more focused on independent living, maybe a little bit of assisted living, but really not this is not skilled nursing or memory care.

These are just older people who want to enjoy their golden years, if you will, and be with other people. And we’re doing it generally more newer developed properties and stuff that have all the amenities and things. So again, we think it’s an extension of our housing thesis.

Jade Rahmani, Analyst, KBW: Thanks very much.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thanks, Jake.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Stuart Rothstein for any closing remarks.

Stuart Rothstein, CEO/Executive, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI): Thank you all for participating today. As always, myself, Anastasia, Hillary are available if people have follow-up questions after the call. Hope everybody enjoys the rest of the summer. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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