Starwood Property Trust Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Starwood Property Trust third quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Zach Tannenbaum, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to Starwood Property Trust earnings call. This morning we filed our 10-Q and issued a press release with a presentation of our results, which are both available on our website and have been filed with the SEC. Before the call begins, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made in the course of this call are forward-looking statements, which do not guarantee future events or performance. Please refer to our 10-Q and press release for cautionary factors related to these statements. Additionally, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, please refer to our press release filed this morning. Joining me on the call today are Barry Sternlich, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, Jeff DeModica, the company's president, and Reena Paneri, the company's chief financial officer. With that, I'm now going to turn the call over to Reena.

Thank you, Zach, and good morning, everyone. This quarter, we reported distributable earnings, or DE, of $149 million, or 40 cents per share. Gap net income was 19 cents per share. Our new net lease acquisition, which I will discuss further in my property segment remarks, contributed to lower gap earnings due to 4 cents of depreciation and lower distributable earnings due to 3 cents of dilution, in part because the new assets contributed to only a portion of the quarter while dividends were paid for the full quarter. We also experienced higher than normal cash drag given the $2.3 billion of capital raises we completed in the quarter. We expect earnings to normalize once this cash is deployed and our new acquisition increases its investment pace and completes the refinancing of its existing facilities. In the quarter, we committed 4.6 billion of new investments across our businesses, including 2.2 billion in net lease, 1.4 billion in commercial lending, and a record 791 million in infrastructure lending, bringing total assets to a record 29.9 billion at quarter end and demonstrating the continued diversification and strength of our unique multi-cylinder platform. I will begin my segment discussion this morning with commercial and residential lending, which contributed $159 million of DE to the quarter, or 43 cents per share. In commercial lending, we originated 1.4 billion of loans, of which nearly all was funded, along with another 219 million of pre-existing loan commitments. After repayments of 1.3 billion, including a $58 million office loan, This portfolio grew $271 million to $15.8 billion. On the topic of credit quality, we continue to resolve our higher risk-rated loans and foreclosed assets, which Jeff will discuss. We have $642 million of reserves, $469 million in CECL, and $173 million of previously taken REO impairments. These represent 3.8% of our lending and REO portfolios and translate to $1.73 per share of book value, which is already reflected in today's undepreciated book value of $19.39. You will notice in our 10Q that we classified a $33 million five-rated mezzanine loan on a Dublin office portfolio as credit deteriorated. The loan already maintains an adequate general reserve but in light of a pending loan modification, the reserve was reclassified from general to specific. Turning to residential lending, our on-balance sheet loan portfolio ended the quarter at $2.3 billion, consistent with last quarter, as $52 million of repayments were largely offset by $41 million of positive mark-to-market adjustments. Our retained RMBS portfolio remained relatively steady at $409 million. In our property segment, which now includes our newly acquired net lease platform, we reported DE of $28 million or 8 cents per share. On July 23rd, we completed the $2.2 billion acquisition of fundamental income property, which contributed $10 million of DE in the partial quarter from acquisition to quarter end. The purchase was treated as an asset acquisition for gap purposes which means the purchase price was allocated to properties and lease intangibles. The portfolio consists of 475 properties diversified across 61 industries and 43 states with a weighted average lease term of 17.1 years and occupancy of 100%. Two comments I would like to make on the accounting ramifications of this acquisition. First, from a GAAP perspective, you will see elevated depreciation and amortization levels. The impact was four cents for the partial period with this pace expected to accelerate as the business contributes fully to future quarters and as we acquire new assets. Second, from a DE perspective, we introduced a new gap to DE reconciling item for straight line rent, which is non-cash. In our Woodstar affordable multifamily portfolio, we refinanced 30% of the portfolio's assets with $614 million of new debt. Of this amount, $310 million repaid maturing debt and $302 million was received as incremental proceeds, evidencing the significant value growth in this book during our ownership period. The new debt carries a weighted average spread of SOFR plus 176 and a 10-year term. 368 million of this refinancing closed in the quarter, with the remaining closing in October. Our investing and servicing segment contributed $47 million of DE, or 12 cents per share, to the quarter. Our special servicer continued to benefit from elevated transfer volumes, which were once again dominated by office loans. Our named servicing portfolio ended the quarter at $99 billion. Active servicing balances rose to $10.6 billion due to $300 million of net transfers in, most of which were office, driving special servicing fees higher in the quarter. In our conduit starboard mortgage capital, we completed five securitizations totaling $222 million at profit margins consistent with historic levels. Our infrastructure lending segment contributed $32 million of DE, or 8 cents per share, to the quarter. We committed a record $791 million of loans, of which $678 million was funded, and received $691 million of repayments, leaving our portfolio balance steady at $3.1 billion. Subsequent to quarter end, we completed our sixth actively managed infrastructure CLO. a $500 million transaction that priced at a record low coupon of SOFR plus 172, further expanding our non-recourse capital base. Turning to liquidity and capitalization, we ended the quarter with $2.2 billion of total liquidity elevated due to our recent capital raises and cash-out refinancing. Our debt-to-undepreciated equity ratio remained stable at 2.5 times and we continue to maintain over $9 billion of available credit capacity across our business lines. During the quarter, we executed $3.9 billion of capital markets transactions, including $1.6 billion in term loan repricing at 175 basis points and 200 basis points over SOFR, two high-yield issuances, one for $550 million and one for $500 million at fixed rates of 5.75%, and 5.25%, a $700 million seven-year term loan B at 225 over SOFR, and a $534 million equity raise that was accretive to GAAP book value. These actions increased our average corporate debt maturity to 3.8 years, with only $400 million of corporate debt maturing between now and 2027. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jeff.

Thanks, Reena, and good morning, everyone. This quarter, we continued to operate in an environment of improving stability in credit market performance. The forward SOFR curve now points to rates falling into the low 3% range by late 2026, about 100 basis points below where expectations stood a year ago, which is positive for our legacy credits. That shift, combined with steady credit spreads, has supported a more constructive real estate financing market in which we expect to maintain our elevated origination pace. In commercial real estate, we're seeing signs of increasing transaction velocity as buyers and sellers narrow valuation gaps and capital flows return to higher quality assets. Banks remain selective and continue to favor growing their secured financing lines over competing with us for whole loans. This allows well-capitalized lenders like Starwood Property Trust to lend at today's tighter spreads while maintaining consistent risk-adjusted returns and strong structural protections. We built this company to perform in all environments. diversified across lending verticals, servicing, and owned properties, which creates a balance sheet that provides flexibility and durability. That diversification, combined with consistent access to capital, allows us to invest through cycles and position for growth as the markets normalize. Following the capital markets activity that Rena mentioned, our liquidity stood at $2.2 billion, leaving our balance sheet well-positioned to support continued investment across our debt and equity businesses. and our intent is to continue to grow. Our commercial lending origination through the first nine months of the year alone totaled $4.6 billion, on pace for our second highest year in our 16-year history. Our total investing pace through the first nine months across all businesses was $10.2 billion, also putting us on pace for a record year. The full earnings power of these new investments will be felt in 2026 as we continue to fund our existing loans and add new ones. In commercial lending, we continue to lean in on our core investment themes, data centers, multifamily, industrial, and Europe, while maintaining a disciplined credit posture. Our U.S. office exposure remains low at 8% of our total assets, down from 9% last quarter. As always, we remain highly focused on credit. Our total CECL and REO reserves, Rena mentioned, reflect prudent additions on a small number of challenged assets, which were somewhat offset by the upgrade of a $139 million office loan in Brooklyn from a four to a three risk rating in the quarter. The improvement follows strong leasing progress that is expected to bring the property to full occupancy in the fourth quarter. This quarter, we downgraded two loans to a five risk rating, a $242 million mixed-use property in Dallas and a $91 million multifamily in Phoenix. both of which were previously forerated. We expect to foreclose on these loans in the coming months, and we use our internal asset management function and the expertise of our manager, Starwood Capital Group, to stabilize operations and reduce elevated expenses before we look to exit in the coming year. To date, we've resolved seven loans totaling $512 million. There are another $230 million of resolutions currently in progress, all of which are expected to recover our original basis. To clarify, we do not consider an asset to be resolved until it has legally exited our balance sheet, so these resolutions exclude foreclosures of $1.1 billion. Inclusive of foreclosures, a resolution's total would be 16 loans for an aggregate of $1.6 billion UPV. We also had three loans move from a 3 to a 4 rating in the quarter, a $107 million studio loan in Queens, a $267 million new-build industrial asset just outside the Midtown Tunnel, and a $33 million multifamily in Dallas, with the downgrades due to slower-than-expected leasing and sponsor liquidity challenges. Our infrastructure lending platform again delivered strong results, with origination volume of $2.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, exceeding every full year since we acquired this platform from GE in 2018. As Rena mentioned, we completed our sixth infrastructure CLO subsequent to quarter end, with non-recourse, non-mark-to-market CLOs now financing two-thirds of this portfolio. In residential lending, we continue to evaluate strategic opportunities to re-enter the residential origination space as credit spreads tighten, treasury yields are stable, and market dynamics improve. Our REIS business continues to be a stable and countercyclical contributor, with L&R continuing to be ranked the number one special servicer in the U.S., and we expect above-trend revenues to continue in the coming quarters and years. Our CMBS conduit lending business continues to be a strong performer, and our CMBS portfolio continues to benefit from significant demand for credit assets and the resulting spread compression. Turning to our property segment and our new net lease platform, The team has already begun originating new transactions, and after they were out of the market for a number of months during the marketing process, we are building a very strong pipeline. The triple net assets we acquired have strengthened our portfolio diversification by increasing recurring cash flow from long-term triple net leases financed with long-term fixed rate debt. We remain focused on scaling this business through its established ABS master trust securitization program. Post-quarter end, we completed the first issuance under our ownership for $391 million at a record tight spread of 145 basis points over the seven-year amid strong investor demand. We expect subsequent securitizations to continue to tighten given the master trust grows and becomes more diversified with more securitizations. Rena mentioned the significant depreciation the portfolio creates, which will lower our book value over time. And thus, we will once again be encouraging investors to look at our undepreciated book value. We underwrote and expected this business to create near-term earnings dilution through integration, as it did this quarter, but we expect it to contribute positively to distributable earnings as we scale. This quarter's results highlight the strength of our diversified franchise and our unrivaled access to multiple sources of capital. We remain proud to be the only commercial mortgage REIT that has never cut its dividend. With strong liquidity and our opportunity set increasing, we are positioned to grow and thrive as markets evolve, with a balance sheet built to withstand volatility and capitalize on opportunity. We continue to invest in technology and artificial intelligence, to enhance efficiency and decision-making across our lending and servicing platforms. These efforts are already yielding better analytics and faster response times, and we expect them to support long-term margin expansions as they scale. In fact, I used AI to write the bones of my comments today. With that, I'll turn the call to Barry. Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, Reena and Zach, and good morning, everyone. Just some quick fill-in comments. I guess since Chad wrote the bones of Jeff's comments, we can use his agent. He doesn't have to talk anymore. We can just have his AI agent speak for himself. But moving back to and filling in some comments, I think it was an interesting quarter. Obviously, only half our book today is still large loan lending. It's about half our assets, about $15.5 billion on almost $30 billion of assets. I think we created a near-term trough for ourselves with the fundamental acquisition. It was a strategic move. And while it was dilutive of at least four cents in the quarter, it is very leveraged to its overhead. We bought an entire business, including the management team. And as you scale the book, the results of the creation of the book becomes rather dramatic. And two things we see. One, our cost of financing is dropped, as Jeff mentioned in his final comments, at 145 over. That's materially better than we underwrote when we bought the business. And two, the opportunities that we didn't realize that they had been out of the market for as long as they were during the sale process. So we didn't produce enough net lease in a quarter. But by stretching the duration of the book, the 17 years average lease and the inherent bumps in the rent, which averaged between 2% and 3%, we've actually stretched the duration of our book. And now we have a business inside of us that, and if you look at triple net lease REITs in the marketplace, they're trading between, well, as low as two, but normally on five or six, six, six percent dividend yields. So you have a business that's worth inherently more in us with a parent paying close to ten and a half at the moment. So we will grow this rapidly. We'll have to spin it off and realize the value of the extraordinary business we bought. It will get better and better over time, but near term, We are definitely suffering from dilution and probably didn't communicate that well enough to the analyst community, though we remain very optimistic about the pipeline and the future growth. I'm going to step back for a second and talk about the whole company and then the economy, starting with the economy. The economy is a bit bifurcated, as you know, with the lower end of the market not doing very well and the luxury market doing extremely well. But one thing... as it affects real estate, is you'll see, we see tremendous volume in transactions in Europe. And as the rate complex comes down, as the short end comes down, and we all know it will come down, certainly by May of 23 when Powell is replaced, but likely before then, and it's only a question of the pacing between now and then, transaction funds in the United States should pick up dramatically too. And what you're seeing is a lot of people thought rates would be lower. They're not through the woods yet. Rents haven't yet responded in the growth phase in most asset classes in real estate. But I think if you're looking backwards, you're looking the wrong way. I mean, what we saw was a 500 basis point nearly vertical increase in rates happened very suddenly. Companies' assets were supposed to have to adjust to that. Their caps burned off over time. But in front of you, you have a declining interest rate curve. And more importantly, you have a very at least in the United States, a very meaningful drop in supply. So fundamentals should improve unless we get something of a serious recession, which isn't likely to happen in many quarters of the country because net worths are up and people are doing okay, energy prices are calm, inflation will higher than people would like is probably one time with the tariffs. It will bleed through in the fourth quarter and the first quarter, but the labor market should continue to weaken. And I think that sets up for a pretty benign period for real estate. And pretty sound fundamentals coming out in 26, and as we emerge from this, still increasing supply in the market rate multifamily. One of the other interesting things when you look at our company, and you talk about the dilution, which is, we hope, temporary from Fundamental is we're sitting on a billion and a half dollar gain in our affordable book. And there, we mentioned last quarter, but not this quarter, rents in the portfolio will rise 6.7% we know already. That's the carryover from 25 to 26. There'll be an additional increase most likely in April of next year. That might put the increase to closer to 8 or even higher, 10. We'll only probably be able to take a carryover to the following year. So that inherent growth in our book, that gain is available if we wanted it ever to cover the dividend. But we choose to enjoy the fruits of that portfolio. And Jeff mentioned we did a $300 million cash out refi on just 30% of the book this quarter. And I will say that that is one of the most important things about this year for our company is the complete Fortress balance sheet that we've been building at ever lower cost. spreads to SOFR and stretching duration and moving to less secure debt and repaying repos, it's a fundamental change in the balance sheet, which is probably for sure the best in the industry. We'll continue to do that and continue to diversify and continue to strengthen our balance sheet in an effort to continue to bring down our costs, which will allow us to, in the case of fundamental, we can do a deal at a 7, 7.25 instead of a 7.75 because our Cost of funds has dropped dramatically and is a competitive advantage for the franchise. So I think I don't really have much more I want to say. I think that we're very productive. The firm is producing lots of new paper across all its platforms. The businesses, particularly the residential business now with lower rates, perhaps we can recapture some of that capital that's there. Also, we look to resolve our REO and non-ACUA assets And we can see the future in our book as the capital is laid out. We know we can grow our earnings and get back to a place that we want to be, which is earning well north of our dividend. So from regular way business, we can always get there if we want. So thanks. And with that, we'll take questions.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 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 the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Can you talk a little bit more about your near-term DE expectations? I mean, you're running below the dividend. Obviously, you know, the net lease will ramp up and some other factors. Can you just sort of give us a framework there on the timing of covering the dividend?

Barry, do you want to take that?

Well, you know, we can lay out our book and we can see the earnings. And in an individual quarter like this one, if you put the money out in the last month of the quarter, you don't get the full benefit of the capital deployment. So it'll ramp going up, hopefully steadily each quarter. We're looking at other assets that we think can become productive earnings assets again that are turning the corner. So, I don't know, Reena, you want to fill that in a little bit more? But I think in general, you know, we're probably having one more quarter of... I would say rougher, but not the real earnings power of the company. And then I think it's a pretty clear selling. Yeah. We, you know, we expected very over a year ago when we modeled the sort of this trough in, in this period that goes into early next year. And then those earnings start to pick up as we get future funding as, as the funding's on a lot of these portfolios increased as fundamental starts to grow. And we have a few other good news things that we hope will happen in early 26. So, You know, we believe that we're on a path to getting back to where we've historically been in the not-too-distant future.

Got it. And can you talk a little bit about where we are on the credit migration front and building reserves? I mean, do you think, you know, are we looking at like two or three more quarters of just uncertainty on the credit migration and risk of building reserves?

Yeah, it's a great question. Yeah, we obviously did move a couple of things before. We moved one back down, an office building that people probably would have thought would have been terrible in Brooklyn. We've now got three very large leases that will fill that entire building, and we'll decide whether we're going to hold it or move on from that. But we'll be back at our basis, and that was a great outcome on an office. And On the other side, you know, it's been a few undercapitalized sponsors who just haven't leased up as quickly that's moving some loans to four. I think we tend to know the flavor of what these look like. It's a few of the apartments that we did in 2021 against four caps that we expected a five and a quarter, five and a half exit debt yield. We probably got there. But given the rate rise, it's probably not quite enough to get out. Those would be very small losses if we did take losses in the multis. But for the most part, you know, we've already worked out of three and we have another two coming. At our basis on the multi side and in general, I think we don't expect to have larger losses there. And the office side, you know, it's known problems. Whether they get slightly better or slightly worse from here is what's going to create any movement within four and five. But I think we know what the subset is today. Yeah. Three years after the rate rise began, it takes a while to figure it out. In general, our sponsors have continued to put in equity across these assets. Even the ones that we've moved from three to four all had new equity coming in from the sponsors. So you get a little bit surprised sometimes if a sponsor decides not to defend a significant amount of equity. But for the most part, I think we see the playing field now. So I wouldn't expect a significant build from here, Doug, if that's the direction of your question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Jade Romani with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you very much. Regarding the REO and non-accruals, are you expecting sort of a steady cadence of dispositions and ultimate resolution, and over what timeframe?

Yeah, I think we said we've got about $500 million that we've resolved and $1.1 billion that we've foreclosed on. So some people would say that's $1.6 billion. That's not how we look at it, though. We have a three-year plan with our board, and it's about a third per year is how we're looking at it. So we hope to have this pig mostly through the Python at some point in 2027, late 2027. And Along with that, with our larger lending book picking up and offsetting it, the loss of that drag at the same time that we have a much larger book contributing, we really look forward to getting through next year and looking at a much brighter horizon beyond. I don't have a perfect timeline, but it's about a 30-year. I was just going to say that we do have too much liquidity. $2.2 billion is probably a billion higher than we normally carry. So that's additional earnings power. It's just a question of how fast we can deploy it. We just do models. And now you're seeing also repayments. People are paying us back again, which is good news. We can lay it out to capital with fresh lenses, but it will pick up. I think you'll see additional repayments in the U.S. as rates fall. It's not so much rates as spreads. I mean, spreads are are crashing and uh across the corporate and real estate credit markets fortunately our lines are going with it but um keeping our our net spreads attractive and consistent with prior years but it is uh it is uh leading to a lots and refinancings i think the parent company will do something like 30 billion dollars of refinancing this year and that's we're like everyone else we're refinancing anything that's not nailed to the ground because of the attractiveness of spreads And that $2.2 billion is a really big headline number. You know, the low point this month will be probably closer to $1.4 billion after we pay down the secured debt that we expected to pay down on these high-yield issuances. We have a bunch of expected funding. And as Barry said, we did have significant repayments. We had $1.3 billion in CRE and $700 in SIF. That's $2 billion of repayments, so it's over $500 million of equity. That came in at the same time as these high yield deals that we accretively did and the term loan that we accretively did. But with the expectation that we're paying down secured repos and a bunch of fundings on this larger pipeline happening in the near future, if you add in $150 million or so of equity per month that we expect generically to put out in our run rate businesses, should they maintain today's pace, we're right back to a very normal liquidity position in a few months with a lot of firepower to continue to grow.

Thanks. I wanted to ask about the multifamily market. I think it's been somewhat disappointing the second half of this year where everyone expected, you know, turning the corner on the supply overhang and rents troughing and starting to perhaps grow. That seems to be pushed out. But generally speaking, aside from the Florida affordable housing portfolio, what are your views on, you know, the multifamily sector? And are you more, you know, bullish about the outlook in 26?

It's very bullish. While supply will drop 60%, 65% or more in some of the markets, and we own 110,000 apartments, of which 53,000 are affordable in the balanced market rate, it is city by city rent increases. And I think one of the, I think Willie Walker's firm just put out a note, 3.5% rent growth next year. I think you'll see it in the back half of the year. I think the supply is definitely going down, but it's still here. And everyone finishing a deal right now, everyone in lease-up is offering fairly significant concessions a month or two months to lease-up so they can pay their debt service and they can try to sell these assets. What's interesting is the depth of the purchase market. I mean, people are reselling in our other opportunity funds dozen or so projects. Cap rates range from 4.3 to 5.5, depending on the market. I'd say around 5, 4.75 is clearing. And why are people buying this? First of all, the negative ARB is going away as the short end comes down. Second of all, you're buying this asset at a huge discount or replacement cost. So unless the country goes into negative population growth... you're going to see continued demand. And demand, as you know, we're 95% occupied in most every market. And rents are affordable. The affordability of rents, since incomes went up and rents didn't go anywhere for two or three years now, your affordability has dropped in our own portfolio from like 25, 26, a warning is 30, down to 22, 21. So again, it's really... We're all watching what's happening to the 18 to 24-year-olds. I think the unemployment rate has more than doubled in 18 months, whether that's chat or people just wanting to do different things in their careers or mismatch of education versus job opportunities. I think that isn't your typical renter. They're usually a little older than that. They may be if you're 18, you're in college, so 18 to 22 is a college-age child. But I do think we're all watching and we're all sort of scratching our heads. But in reality, you still have this wave of apartments finishing in all these markets. And some of them are better than others. You're seeing green shoots in some of the Florida markets. We expect that to accelerate next year. So it really depends on where your footprint is. But cities, some of the other towns, I mean, Austin is a very difficult market. It is the worst in the country. It ran the furthest, quickest, and now it's giving a lot of it back. the rents are falling double-digit in that town. And then if you go to, as you know, marked cities with no supply, you're seeing 4% to 5% rent growth in California. San Francisco is like positive 7%, positive 8%. There's no supply, and there's job growth as companies return to the Valley for their AI ventures. So it is a national stat, but it's a very local thing that we have to watch, and certain scenics is tough. Interestingly, you'd worry about homes competing against apartments, but they still remain unaffordable. And the mortgage spreads are historically high. And you can see the more abundant housing market. So I think people will still be in the renter community. But it would help, by the way, if we had some legal immigration, which has always grown the population in the U.S. And I think it's the first time in 250 years the U.S. population will fall year over year because of net immigration. a 1.7 times birth rate, which is quite low. We have the same birth rate as France. So maybe too much Netflix. Anyway, thanks. Jay, you also mentioned the Florida. Jay, you also mentioned the Florida multi as part of that. And Barry said a billion and a half dollar gain. You know, it could be higher than that. We would see. But this cash out refinancing is the first time that we've shown you guys something that could look somewhat like a mark if you were to extrapolate. We have 309 million of agency debt. previously from our purchase with $75 million of original equity. We took new debt of $614 million, so over $300 million more. That's a $225 million gain, or it's four times our original equity of $75 million on that portfolio, which is plus minus 30% of our portfolio. And that's a gain just on the debt. The equity also has a gain, obviously. So I think that Barry giving you the $1.5 billion plus gain on that portfolio, I think this should make people feel very comfortable that that is, in fact, the number, given this is agency debt to agency debt, and that we have that large of a gain just on the debt side without even including the gain on our equity. So I just wanted to touch on that, given you brought it up.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions this morning. Look, one of the things that we're hearing anecdotally is that companies start to deploy capital again. The market is competitive. Spreads are fairly tight. I guess in some ways it seems to us like the window, the opportunity window, opened or closed very quickly. I'm not even sure which direction to describe it as. Is that what you guys are seeing, too? And what do you attribute that to? Is it competition from your traditional peers? Is it private capital? Is it just that funding costs are so tight, as you've noted, on your own side? What's driving this?

Sorry, you want me to start, and then you can go? Sure. And Dennis can also talk about the markets. I think he's on the call, isn't he? Yeah, Dennis, why don't you go ahead?

Sure. Rick, you know, obviously we had a pretty big quarter in Q3. It was primarily multifamily and industrial. And I think we earned above trend, you know, versus the last handful of quarters. So despite spread sort of, you know, contracting, you know, our financing is also contracted sort of with it. So, you know, we're still earning, you know, a number that's above trend. despite that.

Yeah, I'd add to that. Yes, Rick, to your supposition, more money has been raised in private credit and in the debt space, and there is less transaction volume, so more people are going after similar loans. Ultimately, as Dennis just said, we're earning trend returns, and multifamily loans generically went from, at the beginning of the year, probably $300 over to $240 over or so today for a transitional multifamily floater. And you would think that would hurt our ROEs, but we've been able to move our repos lower at the same time. You know, I mentioned in my earlier that the banks are really leaning in to lend to us. It's a much higher ROE business. They have a 10% capital charge on making a whole loan on real estate. They only have 20% of that 10% if they make a loan to us. So you go from 10 times leverage to 50 times leverage as a bank. and that creates a great ROE story for the bank. So the banks have really leaned into giving us tighter and tighter financing. They have room to continue to tighten. So I'd say if we tighten a bit more, we expect to still earn a similar return to what we're earning. But at some point, I think everybody taps out if you start getting significantly tighter than that, but we are certainly not worried about it in the near future. And as Dennis said, we have a large pipeline coming, and we expect to maintain this pace. This will be our second largest origination year ever and my expectation for next year with the market starring a bit is that we hopefully do more more again next year than this year so things are definitely opening up but they are on the tight end as you suppose barry anything to add yeah i just add i mean if you look at our production it's as you know new records and and the yield on equity the return on equity is actually consistent with past. I think there's one other new kid on the block, which you should not ignore, which is data center financing. As you can see, there's massive paper being written. Hundreds of billions of dollars will hit the market. On the market, we'll figure out where to price it, but many people buying it are doing back leverage. And whether it's Apollo Airways or Blackstone or any of the KKR, I mean, everyone's participating in some of this, and it's virtually endless. And it's really from a portfolio construction, we're really careful about credit quality. Others may not be short-term. And, you know, we are constructive. We're paying a lot of attention to not only the tenant, but the underlying tenant. As we build a book, we did participate in a large financing project. late in the quarter, um, like most of our peers said. So, and that, that pricing works for us. So at the moment, and it, and spreads have tightened dramatically even in that space, but you still can earn the ROEs that we would like to earn. So I'm not, I, we've been through like six or seven, oh my God, there's markets too crowded. And, you know, we have a pretty long, um, relationship in the marketplace now having originated over a hundred billion dollars of loans, um, And people know, I think one thing people have grown to favor is knowing that their counterpart is going to own their loan and they're dealing with one person. I think that has become a really important notion for borrowers who previously had a bank, you know, original loan and then they syndicated it to someone offshore and then they try to restructure it and it's impossible. So I think that's helping players like us across the marketplace because we are a holder. We're going to resolve it and work through it with them. So I think that's been a significant shift in the borrower community. They really want to come to a one-stop shop and know that we'll be there folding the paper. They can talk to us.

So I think that's quite helpful.

Got it. Okay. And I appreciate the thoughtful answer, and I know it's taking a lot of time, but I would like to do one follow-up. Barry, you had talked about data center financing and I think one of the potential risks associated with that is we're talking about long-lived assets, but those buildings are really going to be filled with rapidly and the multiple of the technology versus the property is pretty significant with potentially very quickly depreciating assets inside How do you guys think about that as you measure risk? And I suspect a lot of it has to do with counterparty, but I'm curious how different data center financing is versus your traditional businesses.

Well, it depends actually what you're financing. Sometimes you are financing the building, and sometimes you're financing the building and the equipment. As you know, the equipment can be 60% of the cost of the building, and then it includes everything. I guess... There are certain credits we favor and certain credits we wouldn't favor. I mean, you can just look in the credit swap market and see how the market thinks about the different credits so far. I will say that I'm actually on the West Coast and I had a technology event. And I think the numbers that have chattered and astonished people in terms of their revenue growth, which will be significantly higher than the market thinks, saying it's true and anthropic. And I think these companies do have, in the aggregate, a trillion dollars of free cash flow. And other than one of them, they don't carry much net debt. So these are really good credits, and I think we're going to rely on the credits. And I think if you look at, we're going to sign a deal with another hyperscale. You know we're in the data center business. We have about a $20 billion book we're building for Amazon, for ByteDance, for hopefully Google, Oracle, Microsoft. I'd say that they're not investing like they're walking. They're investing like they're going to continue to upgrade their equipment to stay competitive, and the burden won't fall on the landlords. I mean, if the markets are correct, the need for a data center space and what you see in the assumption of, I don't know about you, but my chat has gotten slower. I mean, it's definitely slower than it was three months ago. So I think they're at capacity. Um, and, um, if you listen to them, I mean, believe them and believe the productivity gains that will come through, um, corporate PNLs. I mean, I, I think we're pretty sanguine, um, on most of the credits. I think there are a few of them that were yes, and they will be a correction as inevitably as, um, So we just have to have great debt yields, great lease coverage, and the best credits in the world is your guarantor with steps. It's not awful. It's not awful. It's pretty good. It's a pure cash flow. There's no capital X. There's no CapEx for us. So we've got to balance it. I mean, we've got to balance it. Rick, you framed it as counterparty risk and talked about depreciation, but the lease doesn't depreciate. Our loan is fully amortized. We've done probably four large ones. Our loan is fully amortized over the lease term. There's no reliance on residual value in our underwriting. So, again, it comes back to counterparty risk, as Barry talked about, and these are pretty good risks to take when you talk about the companies that we're talking about.

Okay. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Doug Harder with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. As we look at the new triple net lease business, it looks like the, you know, kind of the cap rate that you show on that slide is kind of in the 5% range, which seems below peers. Is there anything that's affecting that in the short term? And as that business scales, kind of where do you think cap rates can get to?

Yeah, we only had two quarters in there. And so this quarter, it will look funky. It's a six point nine or seven percent implied cap rate with no goodwill on this portfolio was the purchase price. So. much higher. So there's a normalization that it will scare people if they see that five-handle number that is not a correct number.

Great. Appreciate that clarity. And then, Jeff, you briefly touched on it, but just hoping you could talk a little bit more about, you know, kind of the value and how the lenders were valuing Woodstar, you know, kind of as you went through that refinance process.

Yeah, thanks, Doug. You know, I did briefly, but we had $75 million of original equity that with this cash-out refinancing, we took $300 million out. Obviously, it's four times our equity return. So the portfolio has done really, really well. And if you gross that up on our entire portfolio of $500 million and change purchase price, and that's just on the debt, the equity piece also has a gain. You know, I think you get very easily to where Barry came in at at a billion and a half dollar gain pretty quickly. So I think the market should feel pretty good about that being something that is available to us should we choose to take some of it.

And that will be up to Barry and the board as to the timing and when. Great. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, Wes.

Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Sternlich for any final comments.

Hey, Barry, before you go, we have something sort of new that just came in because it just priced, but we priced our fourth CLO in the CRE side. It just priced a few minutes ago, so I couldn't really say anything previously. 165 base points over, so for 87% advance rate, that's a very strong deal for us. We have three large billion-dollar CLOs previous to that in the CRE side. We've actually bought out a decent amount of paper over those, so bondholders have done very well on those in Theory CLOs will never be a business for us. It's a trade when it makes sense, and it's made some sense today. It's made a lot of sense in the energy infrastructure business as well, where we just priced our sixth CLO, and I think two-thirds or almost three-quarters of our debt is now financed in CLOs on the energy side. So we're very happy to have priced a CLO really tight with a great advance rate five minutes ago. So good news also there. But, Barry, I'll turn it to you now for final comments. No, I'd say this is because of primarily Fundamental has been a transitionary quarter for us. But the underlying businesses are super strong. The curve is favorable. The team has proven originators across the entire platform. So, you know, we'll get through. I think we made the right long-term decision by buying Fundamental. This is a quarter where you wouldn't recognize that decision, but I think you'll be super happy as we scale the business. We're betting, so we own a lot of our stock. Thanks for being with us today, and enjoy your week.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.