KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc.

Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call

7/27/2021

spk09: Good morning and welcome to the KKR Real Estate Finance Trust, Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jack Switala. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you, operator. Welcome to the KKR Real Estate Finance Trust earnings call for the second quarter of 2021. We hope that all of you and your families are safe and healthy. As the operator mentioned, this is Jack Switala. Today I'm joined on the call by our CEO, Matt Salem. our President and COO, Patrick Mattson, and our CFO, Mustafa Nogati. I would like to remind everyone that we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures on the call, which are reconciled to GAAP figures in our earnings release and in the supplementary presentation, both of which are available on the investor relations portion of our website. This call will also contain certain forward-looking statements, which do not guarantee future events or performance. Please refer to our most recently filed 10-Q for cautionary factors related to these statements. Before I turn the call over to Matt, I will provide a brief recap of our results. For the second quarter 2021, we had gap net income of $29.3 million or 52 cents per share, which included a $0.6 million or one cent per share benefit from a lower CECL provision. Distributable earnings this quarter were $30.4 million, or 54 cents per share, driven by the growth of our portfolio, benefits from in-place rate floors, and continued strong asset performance. Book value per share as of June 30th, 2021, increased to $18.91, which includes the cumulative CECL impact of $1.05 per share and 11 cents per share of offering costs incurred during the quarter with our preferred stock offering as compared to $18.89 as of March 31st. Finally, in mid-July, we paid a cash dividend of 43 cents per share with respect to the second quarter. Based on yesterday's closing price, the dividend reflects an annualized yield of 8%. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Matt.
spk03: Thank you, Jack. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. In the second quarter, we harnessed the power of the KKR Origination franchise to originate eight loans for $967 million. We have an additional pipeline of approximately $850 million in loans, which have either closed or are under exclusivity subsequent to quarter end. We also delivered another outstanding quarter of financial results with distributable earnings of 54 cents a share covering the 43 cent dividend by 1.3 times. Our earnings continue to benefit from strong credit performance, existing LIBOR floors, and net portfolio growth. In today's active origination environment, KREF is benefiting from its position as the flagship transitional senior commercial real estate loan strategy inside of a global asset manager with an established real estate platform. We have unique access to economic views from our global macro team and real time market and property level information from our partners in the real estate equity team. This market connectivity is supporting a real estate credit franchise that has grown meaningfully. For perspective, at the end of 2019, our real estate credit franchise was comprised of 24 investment professionals, compared to 46 today. This origination engine will be critical as we continue to see good progress on our sponsors' business plans, which we expect to lead to elevated repayments in the third and fourth quarters. Our investment focus remains the same. senior loans on high quality real estate owned by institutional sponsors. Our second quarter originations of eight loans, totaling $967 million, included three industrial loans, two multifamily loans, and one loan in each of the office, student housing, and single family rental sectors. These eight loans were underwritten in an attractive, low double-digit weighted average IRR in line with returns pre-COVID. Net loan fundings this quarter was $288 million, and our portfolio grew to record size, totaling over $5.6 billion as of June 30th. Our pipeline remains robust with approximately 850 million of loans, either closed or under exclusivity subsequent to quarter end. We continue to be active in our historical segments of multifamily and select office. At the same time, our pipeline reflects our desire to capitalize on attractive opportunities in today's market environment. And we are constructive on certain newer segments, such as life science, which has benefited from an increase in tenant demand, driving a need for new lab space. In the industrial sector, we closed three loans this quarter for a committed loan amount of 410 million, secured by Class A properties. Our largest industrial loan this quarter was to a sponsor who has completed over 350 developments. As always, we will target the highest quality owners and operators. Our industrial focus aligns with our activity in real estate equity, where we own 65 million square feet across the industrial sector. Access to their expertise, market knowledge, and relationships creates differentiated outcomes for KRF. With our focus on industrial development, there's more future funding than we have had in the past. Given the simplicity of construction in the industrial sector, We expect those unfunded commitments to contribute to origination volumes over the next few quarters. Our portfolio composition remains consistent with previous quarters and is comprised predominantly of lighter transitional floating rate senior loans. 83% of the portfolio is comprised of loans secured by multifamily or office properties. Retail loans continue to be underweight and represent just 2% of the portfolio. Industrial now comprises 3% of the portfolio on a funded basis. Overall performance remains strong with interest collected on over 97% of the portfolio in the second quarter. To support our growing opportunity set, we raised net proceeds of 167.1 million of perpetual preferred stock at a fixed for life cost of 6.5% in April. This permanent capital allows us to take advantage of current market opportunities, service our institutional clients, and grow the portfolio, which should lead to improved operating leverage over time. Additionally, in early May, we completed an approximately $115 million secondary offering on behalf of our manager, KKR, One of our goals has been to increase the trading volume in our stock and this sale added to the available float. KKR continues to be our largest shareholder with meaningful skin in the game at 26% ownership. This level of commitment is multiple times that of our peers and we expect KKR to remain the largest shareholder in KRF over the long term. In summary, we achieved another strong quarter across originations, portfolio performance, and earnings. Our broader relationship with KKR and our scaled origination and asset management franchise should benefit us in this active origination and repayment environment as we head into the second half of 2021. With that, I'll turn the call over to Patrick.
spk04: Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone. At the quarter end, a market leading 76% of our asset financing remains fully non-mark to market. And the 24% remaining balance is only subject to credit marks. This is similar to the financing mix we had at the onset of the pandemic, which has served us well over the last 18 months. At the quarter end, our debt to equity ratio and total leverage ratio dropped slightly to 1.9 times and 3.3 times respectively, following the success we had in the April raise of $167 million in net proceeds of perpetual preferred stock at a fixed-for-life cost of 6.5%. We continue to focus on optimizing our financing. Just last week, we announced a new billion-dollar CRE CLO. The offering was well-received. allowing us to upsize by 30% and price the $1.3 billion transaction on Friday. The CLO features a two-year reinvestment period with an 84.25% investment-grade advance rate at a weighted average running cost of capital of LIBOR plus 1.3% before amortized expenses. In conjunction with this transaction, We'll call our first CLO, but the larger size of the new deal will increase the aggregate amount of match term financing on a non-mark to market and non-recourse basis. The combination of our brand high quality loan portfolio and track record as a manager positioned us to achieve this attractive financing with the market leading cost of capital. As we have discussed in the past, we have a robust quarterly asset review process, and we evaluate every loan in the portfolio to assign a current risk rating. The current portfolio risk rating of 3.1 on a five point scale is consistent with the weighted average risk rating last quarter. Notably, 90% of our loans are now risk rated three or better, up slightly from last quarter. There were no changes to the composition of the watch list in the second quarter. However, we are seeing improving trends in properties, which may lead to positive credit momentum in other assets. In the second quarter, we saw $27.6 million in paydowns on our New York condo loan. On our Brooklyn hospitality loan, occupancy rates ticked up nicely in the second quarter to 77%, relative to occupancy rates of 53% in the first quarter. Our Queens industrial loan is approaching its next maturity and will most likely provide a short-term extension to allow the sponsor to finalize their sale process. As a reminder, we believe we have adequate CECL reserves with respect to our watch list loans and the broader portfolio. If a credit event does incur and a loss is crystallized, It will flow through our distributable earnings, but we would not anticipate a meaningful impact to GAAP net income or book value. We received approximately $271 million of repayments in the second quarter. And while it's always difficult to predict repayments with certainty, our expectation remains for elevated repayment activity in the second half of the year. And our current projections are around a billion dollars in each quarter. In the near term, KREF should continue to benefit from the in-place LIBOR floors and elevated effective net interest margins. But this will decrease as the portfolio transitions to new loans at spot LIBOR. Finally, KREF finished the quarter with a strong liquidity position of over 630 million. This total included 119 million of cash and 335 million in undrawn corporate revolver capacity available to us. In light of our liquidity position and the potential for elevated repayments in the second half of the year, we feel well positioned to capitalize on the growing pipeline of investment opportunities. In summary, another strong quarter with elevated distributable earnings of 54 cents per share, covering our 43-cent dividend by 1.3 times. Robust originations across eight loans totaling $967 million, and an additional pipeline of approximately $850 million under exclusivity or closed subsequent to quarter end. We grew the portfolio to a record $5.6 billion, which compares to $5 billion at the start of 2021. Lastly, we completed an inaugural perpetual preferred stock issuance, adding permanent capital that positions KREF for portfolio growth and improved operating leverage. Thank you for joining us today. Now we're happy to take your questions.
spk09: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question will come from Jade Romani of KBW. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you very much and appreciate the detailed commentary. Starting with the dividend, you know, you mentioned distributable EPS running 30% ahead of the current dividend. Then you mentioned your expectations regarding repayments, which would be elevated as well as a normalization over time in the net interest income margin. I was wondering if you think once things normalize, there could be room for an increase in the dividend. And if there were excess distributable earnings, is it your expectation that for this year, 2021, there could be a special dividend?
spk03: Hey, Jade, it's Matt. I appreciate you joining the call and thank you for the question. You know, I'd say right now we're focused on just the current dividend. Obviously, we'll readjust that after future quarters meeting with the board. But from everything we see now, especially given the low interest rate environment, I think our target is still trying to meet the current dividend.
spk02: And based on where distributable EPS has been running, do you think there's excess retaxable earnings that might require a special dividend?
spk03: Not at this point. We're not really focused on a special dividend. I think there's a number of factors that we'll take into consideration towards the end of the year as we meet with the board, but certainly haven't focused on that yet.
spk02: The billion of repayments you expect in each quarter for the third quarter and the fourth quarter, would that produce early prepayment income?
spk03: We'll have some pull forward on the OID to the extent they're prepaying before their initial maturity, which we expect. So that will generate a little bit more income. Most of them have run through their prepayment penalties or other call protection we may have in place, but you can get a little bit of that OID. So yeah, that can drive earnings, obviously. We don't originate a loan. The exact day a loan pays off, so there'll be some cash drag associated in the interim with a heavy repayment schedule as we ramp up and meet that with our new originations.
spk02: Thank you. Lastly, just on credit, could you give an update on the Portland retail loan? What's your expectation for that loan over the next few months?
spk03: Yeah, happy to. I think we're making good progress there as it relates to working with the next sponsor and the next phase of that investment. And our goal, we hope to come back to you next quarter with a broader update on where we stand.
spk02: So stay tuned on that one. So you say next sponsor. Has the property gone through foreclosure or what is the current status I know it's on non-accrual.
spk03: No, it's same status. It has not been foreclosed on and taken to REO. We're in the middle of all those discussions right now.
spk02: Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.
spk03: Thank you, Jade.
spk09: The next question comes from Steve Delaney of JMP Securities. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on another strong quarter. Matt and Patrick, I was wondering, we've been through so much with COVID and the demographic shifts that that and some economic things have highlighted. As your equity group, number one, and then your sponsors that you're lending to, are you seeing any type of definitive shifts into what geographic markets capital is flowing from the real estate equity side? Specifically, are there any markets that – how dramatic is that? It's kind of what we hear about license plates in Texas and things like this. Maybe just give us a sense for where is the money going from the real estate equity? And on the other side, where is it not going? Thank you.
spk03: Sure, Steve. It's Matt. I can take that. And thank you for the question joining us. I think that if you think about what COVID did, it accelerated some things and it dislocated some of the market. And certainly in the geographic question that you're asking, I think there's been some pretty big acceleration in the growth markets, particularly in the southeast and certainly some of the tech cities. And I think the capital going into that is pretty pronounced. I mean, it's very tangible. And we've seen good, you know, whether it's multifamily or office, I mean, you see very good leasing velocity in those markets still. And again, it was a theme before COVID. I just think it's been accelerated. And we will continue to focus on those markets from a lending perspective. And we're very active on the real estate equity side, as you would suggest. And I think we put it in our commentary every quarter. But the power of being able to sit alongside that and underwrite deals together and get that market information real time is very powerful.
spk00: Are there any markets that – we all hear about Austin, right, and Phoenix and Denver and those places. Are there any sleeper markets coming down, maybe second-tier cities that you see emerging that maybe aren't on the tip of everybody's tongue?
spk03: I mean, nothing that's not obvious. I mean, Charlotte, I mean, I wouldn't call that a second tier city, but, you know, Charlotte is obviously another growth area. And the Florida markets, again, similar theme pre-COVID, but I would say those are particularly strong as well, the southern Florida markets.
spk00: I should probably use the term non-gateway rather than describe them a little better. Okay, and then just to close, the comments about the portfolio. We were $6.5 billion in June. Based on the commentary about pipeline and closings, it seems to me that we should just model essentially a flat portfolio over the second half of the year. Does that sound reasonable to you guys?
spk04: Steve, good morning. It's Patrick. That's right. I think that as we think about the course of the repayments here, and our origination capacity and our ability to match that, we're assuming that we're going to be in that, you know, $6 billion area for the portfolio size.
spk00: Yeah, got it. I understand it can be lumpy month to month as we go through that in the next six months. Thank you both for your comments. Thank you, Steve. Thank you.
spk09: The next question comes from Stephen Laws of Raymond James. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hi, good morning. To follow up on Steve's question, good spot for me, actually. You know, as we think about redeploying that capital, Patrick, can you touch on anticipated cash drag? I mean, I want to make sure I don't overestimate my interest income just using spot quarter-end leverage. You know, does it take, you know, two weeks to turn over the capital, you know, with roughly – you know, a third of the portfolio, I guess, turning over in the next six months. I'm curious how we should think about cash drag or average leverage through the quarter or how you would term that.
spk04: Steve, good morning. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I think that's right. I think what we're trying to highlight is, you know, if you looked at the past couple of quarters, we haven't had a lot of turnover. So we've gotten the benefit of collecting, you know, a full quarter's interest on, you know, a pretty robust portfolio size here. As we think about the latter half, there is going to be, you know, some amount of drag. You know, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have, you know, a month or so gap, right, between some of those repayments and when sort of new closings come. And so it's difficult to quantify it because it really depends on, the time lag between it, but we would certainly expect there to be something. So when you're thinking about it from a modeling standpoint, I would certainly factor in some amount of drag. Great, that's helpful.
spk06: On your comments and prepared remarks, Patrick, on the CLO, I think, what was it, 2018 SO1 being called, Can you give us a number on any transaction expenses that are going to hit in Q3 one time? I assume that it will go into the quarter. And then I would think we would add that number back for distributable earnings, but can you talk about the one-time expenses around the CLO call?
spk04: Sure. Steve, as it relates to the FL1 transaction, all of those deferred financing costs have been amortized through. So we actually didn't incur... any in this quarter or the second quarter, and when we close the transaction in the third quarter, likewise, there'll be nothing that has to get accelerated. The only thing that will happen is upon closing, we'll have a set of costs that will need to be amortized for the new transaction that will need to be factored in. There's no drag from calling the first deal. Great. Thanks for that, Culler.
spk06: And, Matt, one for you. you know, just did the preferred equity raise, you know, kind of, you've got some converts outstanding, you've got an ATM, uh, available that you haven't used. And certainly with the stock above, above equity, you could raise, uh, capital be accretive to book. I know there's a lot of turnover coming in the next six months, but prop, so probably less, less relevant, but how do you think about your capital stack, what the right mix is and how you look at the market for, you know, cost of capital for those various options?
spk03: Yeah, thanks, Steven. Happy to take that one. Well, just having the diversified options, especially as it relates to the equity, I think has been quite powerful. And we were able to access the preferred equity market at a moment in time where it wasn't really accretive from a common equity perspective. And we had a big pipeline and obviously a client base that we wanted to serve. So We thought that was particularly attractive. As we grow from here, I think we're looking at both the common and the preferred as good options. And obviously we need to keep the sizing appropriate for those. And so that's really kind of the mix of those is something we are focused on. But I would say they're both viable at this point in time. That being said, to highlight your comment With the repayment pipeline that we have, we're probably a little bit more focused on using our origination pipeline to fund those repayments. And so the need for equity currently is relatively low. Now, that can change if our pipeline grows or these repayments start to get pushed out a little bit. We may need it. The pipeline side of the equation is is very, very high right now. But again, so is the repayment. So just trying to match those up and predicting the future is difficult, but we're kind of ramped up expecting what we talked about. Great. Appreciate the comments this morning. Take care. Thank you, Stephen.
spk09: The next question comes from Don Fandetti of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk05: Hey, Matt. pretty striking increase in occupancy at your Brooklyn hotel, which obviously reflects New York coming back. I was just curious what your current thoughts are, just given the Delta variant, in terms of interest in putting capital to work in New York. Are there a lot of opportunities that you're seeing in the area? Obviously, your watch list has several New York properties, so maybe you're cognizant of that as well.
spk03: Well, Don, thanks for the question. You know, as it relates to the Delta variant, we're monitoring it very closely. I mean, clearly our first thought is always to our employees' health and safety, so we're watching it from that perspective. We're in the office, you know, working together, and so we want to make sure we're on top of it. As it relates to the portfolio and investment risk, Clearly, it could have an impact on the cyclical nature of the hotels, but I think we've seen our portfolio through the depths of the initial COVID volatility be pretty resilient. So I think that we'll watch it, but it's not something that's making us overly concerned for our existing portfolio. I would say on the New York City comment, we've seen a very big... increase in activity in leasing, not only at the hotel in Brooklyn, but through the multifamily properties that we've had. Over the course of the last year, we've had some pretty sizable repayments in our multifamily portfolio in the tri-state region. So I don't think we're any more hesitant to lend on the multifamily sector in New York outside of the fact that you just have to be more conservative on your lease-up assumptions and your concession assumptions. But we'll still focus on this market and look for good opportunities.
spk05: And I saw that you did a single-family housing loan. in the quarter. I was just curious your thoughts on that market. Do you think you'll be more active there or if that was a one-off?
spk03: Yeah, no, it's a good point to bring up. On the real estate private equity side of the KKR business, we're very active in all things housing. And we have a single family rental equity platform there. So we're very familiar with the sector. Obviously, the need for housing is quite dramatic, and you've seen that sector really become an institutional ownership. In this particular case, we kind of serviced one of our existing institutional clients that is in that particular business, and we did it out in Phoenix, which is clearly a growing market. I wouldn't call it a one-off. We like the sector. We'd like to do more. We're seeing a number of opportunities that are attractive. I'm not sure how big it will be as a part of the portfolio because the commercial banks are very active in that sector. So I think it's unclear how much of the opportunities that they will take versus lenders like ourselves. So it's something we're following and hope to do more of, but... unclear how big we can grow it. Thank you. Thanks.
spk09: The next question comes from Rick Shane of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions this morning. I'm curious when you think about the dividend policy and we look at the impact of floor income. Obviously, there is a potential headwind as rates rise, but you guys are also talking about $2 billion in of repayments in the second half of the year. I'm assuming that that brings us, effectively moves us along that floor income scale as you lose a lot of floor income. How much is that impacting the dividend policy?
spk04: Rick, good morning. It's Patrick. I'll take that one. So as we think about what's likely to transpire right over this next couple of quarters, we think that repayments will be elevated. As Matt indicated, we'll get some pull-through on OID acceleration for those quarters. We'll start to lose some of that excess NIM that we've been able to capture through the LIBOR floors. The flip side of that is We're setting new loans at coupons that are almost entirely spread because spot live or at less than 10 basis points means that we're earning all of that income through spread. And so we're setting ourselves up well for the coming years if you anticipate that there could be some rise in rates over time. We'll be much more positively correlated to that than we are today because of the benefit that we're getting. it's difficult to sort of quantify exactly the change or the quantum. A lot of that will depend on the timing, you know, over the next sort of quarter or two and sort of which loans actually, you know, repay.
spk07: Got it. Okay. And one of the things that's interesting is, and again, this is very back of the envelope math, but if we compare the percentage of loans in the first quarter, which was 69% with floors above 1%, and the percentage this quarter, which I believe is 57%, it looks like there was about a $465 million decline in loans with 1% LIBOR floors, but that's substantially above the repayments that you guys experienced during the quarter. So I'm wondering, are there loans that are – or terms that are being renegotiated to reduce floors? Is that something we need to consider as well?
spk04: Yeah, Rick, you highlight a good point, and that's a very detailed point that you're sort of pulling out. There have been some instances where as loans have come up to initial maturities or as we've provided any form of accommodation to the sponsors that We've recast the coupon. In a lot of cases, the coupon has stayed the same, but the mix of LIBOR and spread has changed. And so where we had perhaps a very in-the-money floor, we reset closer to a spot LIBOR and took, again, a lot of that income, the remaining income, in spread just to, again, if the loan is extended longer, make sure that we're going to benefit from an increasing LIBOR rate. Yeah, that's a good find and certainly something that we have been focused on.
spk07: Got it. And so that is actually long-term, and I apologize for the second follow-up question, but that ultimately should turn into slightly wider spreads. That's the tradeoff you're getting by giving up some of that floor.
spk04: That's right. That's right. It's wider spreads, and you see that. you know, in the loans that we're making relative to some of the loans that, you know, are paying off. I think importantly, the last thing I just would highlight here is if you look, you know, quarter over quarter over the last several quarters, you know, we started the year, you know, our weighted average coupon was about 4.8. It's gone down about 10 basis points, you know, in the last two sort of quarters, but still at 4.6. is a pretty strong number relative to our cost of liabilities.
spk07: Got it. Okay. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate all the questions, or all the answers to all my questions.
spk04: Thank you, Rick.
spk09: The next question comes from Tim Hayes of BTIG. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a nice quarter here. A lot of my questions have been asked and answered, but just maybe a couple more on the pipeline. I think you mentioned about $850 million of loans closed or under exclusivity since quarter end. Can you maybe just provide a little bit of color there on LTVs and spreads, how that compares to maybe what you closed in the previous quarter? And then I think you talked a little bit about seeing more construction loans closed. in your pipeline as well. So just wondering if all 850 were to close this quarter, the expectations or fundings at a closing for those loans.
spk03: Hey, Tim, it's Matt. I can give a little bit of color around that. I mean, the pipeline's consistent. what we've been doing in the past. There is some construction in our current pipeline. There's life science, so some of the newer sectors that we're looking at, and then, again, some of the traditional multifamily as well. I don't have the exact breakout of committed versus expectations around initial funding in front of me right now, but I would expect something in line with the current quarter, just because we do have some construction component in that origination pipeline. And I don't think the market, just a market commentary to cover your questions around spread. The market's been pretty consistent the last few quarters, or last couple of quarters, I should say, in terms of spread and competitive dynamics. So depending on the property type and whether it's construction or not, I would say our coupons are largely in line with what we did this past quarter.
spk01: Got it. That's helpful. Thanks, Matt. But I guess just from a high level, keeping on the same theme of construction lending, what percentage of the portfolio consists of construction loans today and then Where do you see that going? I know that your level of unfunded commitments jumped up a bit this quarter. I think it's at about 13% of the total portfolio. Where do you feel comfortable with that number going to? And your liquidity position seems pretty solid today, especially considering the expected repayments over the next couple of quarters. But the pipeline is pretty solid too. So just wondering if you feel pretty good about where your liquidity is today relative to your pipeline and unfunded commitments.
spk03: Yeah, I'd say a couple of things. A lot of the construction that we've done today is in the industrial sector. So that will go into the ground pretty quickly. And so it's not going to be out there for that long. It's almost just like forward originations for the next couple of quarters or few quarters. So it's a little bit easier to predict, but that would be one. Given our expectation around the repayments, building some future funding over the next couple of quarters is going to be helpful to us. And then in terms of the size today of our construction budget, It's pretty small. I mean, it's less than 5%. And so we have certainly a ways to go before we would ever hit anything from a risk management perspective, portfolio perspective, portfolio management perspective that would give us any cause for concern. And there's just a lot of activity in that particular part of the market today, especially as it relates to demand from e-commerce on the industrial sector. So I think we'll continue to focus on it over the next couple of quarters if the returns are in line with where we see them today. But understand your point around managing that future funding vis-a-vis the liquidity of the overall company.
spk01: Okay. And then just on the industrial sector, you highlighted how active KKR is there and the resources that brings to you guys. And I think we've heard, and I think you guys have talked about in the past, it's not always easier for you to find industrial loans given the size of the loans you're focusing on versus where that market generally tends to be. So And obviously that's a very competitive asset class. So I guess my questions here are just around, you know, how big you see that segment becoming as a percentage of your portfolio over time. If it's easy, I guess, quote unquote, to find those loans given the broader KKR footprint and then what impact that should have on ROE given it's a competitive asset class.
spk03: Right. It's a good point you bring up. It's historically been difficult to drive overall volumes and portfolio allocation to industrial, just given the granular size of them. A couple of points to make would be, one, We are seeing some larger opportunities. Amazon and some of the other big e-commerce players in the market do have bigger footprints, and so that's creating some need for larger loan sizes. One of the deals we did this quarter was on more granular boxes. However, we did it on a portfolio-wide basis, and we'll be effectively financing an entire kind of years worth of a pipeline for a national developer. So that's another way we can, you know, we can come at it. You know, to think that if you think about our portfolio round numbers today of five and a half billion dollars, you know, could we get it up into the low double digits in terms of portfolio size? I think it's possible, but it obviously won't be our largest exposure by any stretch. But you could see it growing to that much. From an ROE perspective, we're doing these slightly more accretive than obviously what we're doing on a multifamily loan. But at a portfolio level, maybe it's slightly additive, but I wouldn't think about this as really driving the overall ROE of the business. Just think about it as if it becomes a 10% part of the portfolio, it's earning slightly more than you know, maybe the other sectors that we're lending in.
spk01: Got it. Got it. Okay, great. Well, thanks for taking my questions.
spk03: Thank you, Tim.
spk09: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jack Sutala for any closing remarks.
spk08: Great. Thanks for joining, everyone. Please reach out to me or the team if you have any questions. Have a great day.
spk09: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation and you may now disconnect.
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