Good morning, and welcome to the KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. fourth quarter 2021 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a 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.
Great. Thank you, operator. Welcome to the KKR Real Estate Finance Trust earnings call for the fourth 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, Mostafa Nagaty. 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 Form 10-K 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 fourth quarter 2021, we had GAAP net income of $35.2 million or $0.59 per share. Distributable earnings this quarter were -$2.9 million or -$0.05 per share, due to $0.55 per share in realized losses on loan write-offs this quarter. Book value per share as of December 31, 2021 increased to $19.37, which includes the cumulative CECL impact of $0.39 per share as compared to $19.09 per share as of September 30, 2021. This increase in book value was largely driven by a CECL reversal benefit along with an accretive equity offering in October 2021.
This is the seventh consecutive quarter in which we have grown book value per share. Finally, in mid-January, we paid a cash dividend of $0.43 per common share with respect to the fourth quarter. Based on yesterday's closing price, the dividend reflects an annualized yield of 8.1%. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Matt.
Great. Thank you, Jack. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. KREF delivered record originations this quarter, closing on 18 loans for $1.8 billion to cap off a record year of $4.8 billion. In 2021, we grew our portfolio by approximately 35% from $5 billion to start the year to $6.8 billion as of year-end. I'll highlight 4 major drivers contributing to our increased activity. First, the size of our real estate credit team is now 53 professionals, an increase from 24 pre-COVID, and our senior investment team has grown. We now have 8 senior originators with deep borrower and broker relationships. In 2021, we originated 37 loans, 24 of which were to repeat borrowers.
Second, we've grown our suite of CRE lending products across KKR and can offer a host of solutions to our clients. Fixed rate, floating rate, and core-to-value-add. This broader product suite helped drive over $14 billion in total KKR Real Estate credit originations in 2021, which has led to broader and deeper relationships. KREF is well positioned to capitalize on this increased connectivity with the first priority in the allocation waterfall for senior floating rate commercial real estate loans. Third, we've leveraged the KKR platform to further diversify our capital base, including upsizing existing facilities such as our CLO and Term Loan B at attractive terms, raising bespoke fully non-mark-to-market financing, and strategically increase our permanent equity base through issuing fixed-for-life preferred shares and raising accretive common equity. Fourth and finally, we've benefited greatly from being embedded within the broader KKR organization.
We have unique access to economic views from our global macro team, which are particularly valuable to us in a changing interest rate environment and real-time market and property-level data from our real estate private equity team. From an alignment perspective, KKR has been our largest shareholder since inception and owns 23% of our shares today. These factors help drive originations higher than $1 billion in both the third quarter and fourth quarter, and we expect a similar pace of origination going forward. Still, with record growth, our credit DNA remains very much the same. 46% of our portfolio is in multifamily. 28% in office, of which 91% is Class A. We made 18 loans in the fourth quarter, totaling $1.8 billion.
13 were in the multifamily segment, representing 64% of the fourth quarter originations. 2 were in office and life science each, representing 18% and 14% respectively. We originated 1 hospitality loan for $66 million, representing 4% of fourth quarter originations. These loans were underwritten at attractive low double-digit weighted average IRR, which is in line with our target returns pre-COVID. In the fourth quarter, we received $680 million in repayments across 6 loan repayments and 3 partial pay downs. We messaged to the market that the back half of last year would have higher repayments. While always difficult to predict, we now expect a more normal repayment rate of around $2 billion per year, with a modest weighting toward the first half of 2022.
Since the beginning of COVID, our earnings have benefited from LIBOR floors. However, these floors are transitioning through repayments and portfolio growth. Our new originations have floors set close to zero. In the coming few quarters, we expect income to become positively correlated to increases in short-term interest rates. Additionally, in the midst of the rate environment, we are constructive on the senior secured CRE loan market backdrop. We have already seen robust activity in January and have nearly $900 million of loans either closed or under exclusivity subsequent to quarter end. Multifamily loans comprise much of our pipeline, but we expect to be active in some of the growth segments such as life science and industrial, which now represent 9% and 4% of our portfolio, respectively.
I want to close by saying that in what has been a record quarter and year, our portfolio is stronger than it has been since the start of COVID. The portfolio is 100% performing, 100% floating rate, with a weighted average LTV of 68%. At the beginning of the pandemic, we placed 7 loans on our watch list, and today only 3 risk four-rated loans remain, and each of those has positive momentum. Lastly, on the personnel front, I want to take a moment to thank our CFO, Mostafa Nagaty, who will be leaving us in early March to pursue other opportunities. Mostafa has been an integral part of our team and has made significant contributions since joining in 2018. We wish him well in his future endeavors. With that, I'll turn the call over to Patrick.
Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'll first touch on our capital base, which has grown over the course of the last 12 months to support our $6.8 billion funded portfolio as of year-end. On the liability side, we executed on a $350 million repricing and add-on to our term loan B in the fourth quarter, reducing our cost of capital relative to our inaugural issuance by 175 basis points. Just last week, we priced a $1 billion CRE CLO supported by 100% multifamily properties with an investment-grade advance rate of 84.75%. This is our third CLO and our second issuance within the last 6 months.
This transaction will result in approximately $850 million of new matched term, non-mark-to-market and non-recourse liabilities, increasing our percentage of non-mark-to-market liabilities back above 75%. The CLO priced to a weighted average running cost of capital of Term SOFR plus 171 basis points before amortized fees and expenses. Related, going forward, we expect all our new loan originations and associated financings will be SOFR-based. While existing loans, financing facilities, and future borrowing on existing financings may remain in LIBOR until June 2023, we are actively managing the LIBOR to SOFR transition with the goal of mitigating basis risk. Turning to other areas of our capital structure, in January, we raised approximately $155 million of gross proceeds through a follow-on issuance of our Series A preferred shares at a fixed for life cost of 6.5%.
This permanent capital helps support a funded portfolio of $6.8 billion as of year-end, which grew by over $950 million in Q4 on a net basis. This raise, along with the issuance of approximately $125 million in common equity in October 2021, which is accretive to book value by $0.22 per share, helped grow our permanent equity capital base to approximately $1.5 billion today. I also want to touch on the positive momentum we are experiencing with respect to our watch list. The current portfolio has a risk rating of 2.9 on a 5-point scale, a slight improvement from 3.0 last quarter.
Notably, 94% of our loans are now risk rated 3 or better, which is an improvement from 91% last quarter and from 84% as of year-end 2020. At the beginning of the pandemic, we placed 7 loans on the watch list, and today only 3 remain. Most recently, in January, our Brooklyn-based hospitality loan, which was originated in January 2019, was repaid in full through a property refinance with the Money Setter Bank. In December, we took title to the Portland retail property, which we had discussed on our Q3 call. We've capitalized the property through a joint venture with our partners at Urban Renaissance Group or URG, and are beginning the planning phase for the revitalization process of Lloyd Center.
URG is a full-service institutional real estate company with a local Portland presence and specializes in reimagining, developing, and managing Class A commercial real estate. On the equity side of our business, we have a long-standing relationship with URG, where we own a $2.5 billion, 2.6 million sq ft portfolio of Class A office across the Puget Sound region. From an accounting perspective, we were more than adequately reserved for this loan on a GAAP basis with a CECL reserve of $40.3 million as of Q3 on a $109.6 million outstanding principal balance. As a result, in Q4, we recognized an $8.2 million GAAP gain from the CECL reversal with respect to this loan.
We also realized a 32.1 or 54% per share loss on this loan through distributable earnings, contributing to -$0.05 per share in Q4 DE. We are seeing positive underlying trends with our remaining watch list loans. For example, on our New York luxury condo loan, which had an initial loan balance of $240 million, has now paid down to $40 million through unit sales. Only six units remain to be sold, three of which are under contract. Lastly, KREF finished the quarter with a strong liquidity position of approximately $530 million. This total included over $270 million of cash and $200 million in undrawn corporate revolver capacity available to us. We also had $235 million of unencumbered and unpledged loans as of quarter end that can be levered to provide additional liquidity.
In summary, a record originations quarter capped off a record year with $1.8 billion in originations last quarter and a solid start to the year with $900 million closed or under exclusivity since year-end. We grew the funded portfolio by over $950 million in Q4 to a record $6.8 billion, which compares to $5 billion at the start of 2021, all while maintaining our high credit quality standards. We expanded our permanent equity base to approximately $1.5 billion, raising $120 million in accretive common equity in October 2021, and approximately $155 million in gross proceeds of preferred stock last month. Finally, book value increased by $0.28 per share in Q4 and was the seventh consecutive quarter of book value per share growth. Thank you for joining us today.
Now we're happy to take your questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question will come from Jade Rahmani with KBW. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Can you talk to where you see levered ROEs in the business if they're consistent now versus prior period? And also, you know, what if any rough commentary you could give toward sequential earnings trajectory? One of your peers did talk about, you know, NII outlook based on timing of originations repayments, noting that this quarter for KREF distributable EPS ex items was around $0.50, still in excess of the dividend, but yields are coming in. Just if you could talk to levered ROEs and maybe something around earnings trajectory.
Sure, Jade. Thanks a lot for the question. Thanks for joining the call today. It's Matt. Let's take that first part. I think returns are generally in line with what we saw pre-COVID on an ROE basis. Let's think about that as 11%-13% range. Pretty healthy. Keep in mind that the constituents of that return is largely at the asset level and spread at this point in time, with most of every new loan we're making has a SOFR floor of somewhere around zero. Those ROEs will benefit from future increases in rates. That's where we see kind of the spot market. I think that's been consistent over the course of the last
few quarters, the market is relatively stable on both the asset and the liability side right now. As that translates into earnings, you know, we're not gonna give projections at this point in time. I think we've messaged to the market a couple of things. One, that as our LIBOR floors roll off and we reset the portfolio at a zero LIBOR or SOFR floor, that earnings is gonna come back down in line with what it was on a pre-COVID basis. I think we still see that and expect that to happen. That's maybe the negative side of the equation.
I think on the positive side of the equation, as we message in the prepared remarks, the portfolio is gonna become positively convex to short-term increases in interest rates, over the course of the next, you know, quarter or two. You can get some lift or growth from, you know, from that side of things.
Thank you. Just on the credit side, how would you describe the quality and characteristics of post-COVID or post, you know, March 2020 originations versus the preceding period? Is it consistent? Are there any changes? I know you've increased the exposure to industrial life sciences. Multifamily remains a core focus. Beyond that, anything more specifically you could provide on just how credit might be comparing?
From a pre-COVID basis, Jade?
Yeah. The loans you're doing now. Clearly the production level has materially increased. You know.
Yeah
The platform has grown. The types of deals you're looking at is probably a lot broader than before. You know
Yeah
... how would you characterize credit characteristics?
I would say. Well, let me approach it in a couple different ways. Let me approach it on the equity side and on the credit side. I think largely speaking, the market is very favorable now. I would say more favorable than certainly the quarter or two preceding COVID, from a fundamental lending perspective. First of all, on the equity side, the fundamental backdrop there is very strong. Clearly you're seeing rent increases, and the favored property types. You're seeing a lot of demand for real estate from capital allocators. I think that there's a lot of tailwinds in terms of people seeking yield on real assets, as inflation hedges, and that's driving transaction volumes.
That increase in transaction volume is filling all of our pipelines. If you look at our activity in the fourth quarter, if you look at some of our peers' activity in the fourth quarter, it's really a function of all that demand, all that activity, going on the equity side of the business as we help fund that transaction volume. I think you shift to the other side of the equation, you think about credit. On the credit side, I think partially because we have these big volumes coming through, it's a very balanced trade right now, and LTVs are reasonable. Covenants, cash flow sweeps, et cetera, are consistent with previous quarters. We're not feeling the weight of capital.
We're not feeling the weight of the search for yield on the market currently. There's lots of transactions to look at. The market I'd say is very balanced in how it's you know approaching lending today.
Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you.
The next question is from Timothy Hayes with BTIG. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. Congrats on a nice quarter. First question here, just about, you know, I guess one more about asset sensitivity. I know you made a lot of comments around it, Matt, but, you know, do you have an estimate of how much of the portfolio needs to turn over before, you know, you're in a position to benefit from, you know, call it like a 50 basis point rate hike? I'm just curious if any internal modeling you can share with us or even if it's just kinda like at what point. I think you mentioned over the next couple quarters, but just any way to triangulate that a little bit more based on the pipeline and the repayment activity you see when you think you'll be in a position to benefit from, you know, a modest hike in short-term rates.
Tim, thank you for joining the call, and thanks for the question. I think that we have a better feel for the timing than we do for the sensitivity right now. That's just because, of course, we can run the math, but it's a multivariable equation and, you know, you're really trying to guess repayments-
Yeah
... and originations, and it's kind of a delicate modeling exercise that ultimately-
Sure
... probably creates, you know, a little bit more uncertainty around really what the impact could be. That being said, I do think we have a lot of confidence that in the next quarter or two that we will be positively, you know, convex to those interest rates. Just look at the portfolio growth. Look at the repayments since, you know, since COVID. Like the portfolio is repositioning very quickly, and has already obviously come a long way. We need a little bit further-
Yeah
To go to positive convex. You can see in some of the charts that we put in the earnings supplement that that's come down a lot, that sensitivity. We expect it to turn in the first or second quarter. I wish I could give you more, but it's a little bit of a guessing game.
Yeah. No, that's helpful. I just wasn't when you said, I guess, next quarter or two, I wasn't sure if you meant kinda like end of one Q, early two Q, or end of two Q, early three Q. But it sounds like it's the former there, which is good. Thanks for clarifying there. Then, you know, a question I probably asked before, and I asked some of your peers. I mean, you guys have done a lot at the broader KKR platform. You know, you recently bought a resi transitional lending platform. You've gotten deeper in single-family rental, you know, over the summer on the equity side.
I'm just curious as KKR, you know, the parent company makes more moves and gets deeper in some of these asset classes that haven't been a traditional focus for KREF and your lending portfolio, you know, what type of benefits that could bring you, and if there's opportunities for you to kind of expand your scope there.
Yep. I think that's a great question, Tim, and something we think about every day. I think what it mostly translates back into, well, first and foremost is market connectivity. And the easiest way to think about it is the equity side of our business has grown substantially, and has multiple vehicles it's investing for now across opportunistic and core plus. And is transacting, as you mentioned, in lots of different property types now. So we are a much more relevant counterparty for banks, for brokers in the market, for operating partners. And that translates, I think into better looks and, you know, just that connectivity with the overall market. So that would be one, just relationships are much deeper.
Mm-hmm
Broader across the overall real estate business. Number two would be, as we start to invest in equity in some of these segments we perhaps weren't in historically, that gives us obviously the market data and the diligence, and gives us more confidence to transact on the debt side as well. I think a couple examples of that would be like SFR, right, where we have a sizable history there. We've translated some of that into our lending book. Not a huge position for us, but you know, we certainly are active in that space. Even more simple things like industrial, where we're lending on the industrial space. We own millions of square feet there.
We've been active in that market for some time now, but just the size of our portfolio gives us so much market data that it really allows us to lean into opportunities because we have that additional information or insight that, you know, perhaps some of the competitors don't have. Lastly, I'll just say geographically, you know, we have a global platform, a global real estate equity platform as well. We are actively building a team in Europe. I'd expect us to be active. Again, same business model. It's a collaborative business model. It's an integrated business model across debt and equity. I expect us to be active in Europe over the course of the year.
Can you just remind me kind of just where you're at with that that initiative in terms of building up the team in Europe? Are you acquiring kind of existing infrastructure, teams that are already based there? Like, how is that? Is it being built out organically?
No. We've basically hired someone to lead that effort for us. His name is Ali Imraan. He came over from LaSalle. He's here working with us today in London. We're in the process of building out his team. When we get the team in place, then we'll start lending.
Got it. Okay. Well, thanks for taking my questions this morning.
Thank you, Tim.
The next question will be from Stephen Laws with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I wanted to touch on just geographical. It looks like the exposure to Florida roughly doubled sequentially. You know, can you talk about your origination pipeline there? You know, is it existing borrowers taking you to Florida, or is it, you guys winning, you know, new relationships there? Kind of, talk about the strength in that market, please.
Sure, Stephen, thank you for the question. I think that obviously Florida is a market that's easily identifiable as a growth market with lots of positive fundamental tailwinds. I think this is a good example of how synergistic some of the other pockets of capital we have for KREF. By way of example, we've really increased our lending on the insurance segment of our business outside of KREF, specifically through our affiliate, Global Atlantic. That's given us a lot more borrower relationships of folks that borrow a lot on the core plus side and a lot in multifamily space that we didn't historically have some of you know, some of those touch points because we didn't have the right cost of capital.
Usually, these sponsors are borrowing across, you know, while they're predominantly core plus borrowers, they do have, you know, some needs for a KREF type of loan. That's really driven a lot of our activity. Some of the increased activity that we have is this increased client base. I think you see some of that in what we did in Florida this year. Some of those newer clients were very active in the multifamily segment of the market, within Florida, and we were able to transact with them and on the KREF front, as they were acquiring properties. You just think about the growth and the demographic growth in Florida.
We clearly set ourselves up very well for a multifamily equity and lending investment. Really, it was driven by new client base, the multifamily originations that we had, and then obviously a market that's supportive of that theme.
Great. Thanks, Matt. To touch on unfunded commitments, you know, that's kind of increased over the past year, probably by design. Can you talk a little bit about what's driving that? Is it a shift in mix? Are you doing some things with more deferred financing involved? Kind of what's driving the increase there?
Yeah, I can start out, and then Patrick, feel free to jump in with anything that I miss. It is by design. I think when we think about some of the business plans that we're lending on, some of the market opportunity that we're seeing, it comprises a larger piece of future funding, the most obvious being construction lending. If you look at what we've done on a post-COVID basis, we have done a little bit more construction lending, most of which has been in the industrial segment of the market. Clearly, when we think about future funding, there's a number of things we think about, cash drag, liquidity, constraints, and then how quickly the capital gets allocated into you know, into the loan.
I think from an industrial perspective, the construction period is typically very short, and so you get capital into the ground relatively quickly. That's really what's driving that number. I think we're in the band of where we'll be going forward. Of course, it'll bounce around from quarter to quarter, but it's in the range of what we would expect over the next few quarters.
Great. I appreciate the comments.
Thank you.
The next question will be from Donald Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Yes, Matt. I was wondering if you could talk about on your CLOs, are you seeing the same buyers or investors today that you saw pre-COVID? How much depth do you think there is to that market to handle sort of, you know, like, say, credit widening hiccups and things of that nature?
Hey, Don. Good morning. It's Patrick. I'll take that one. I think as we think about the CLO market today, obviously last year was a huge year in issuance. You know, the segment has really grown significantly over the last couple of years. You know, as part of that, we've seen a widening of that investor base throughout this time. I think if you sort of fast-forward to today and we see the deals that are getting done, I think we largely see that same investor base buying. I think the big difference that we're witnessing in the first part of this year is the demand and the size allocation that some of those large buyers were previously taking has been reduced. I think the question will be, is that a short-term phenomenon or, you know, will that persist, you know, over the longer term?
Obviously, to get to the type of, you know, gross CLO volumes that we had last year, those buyers have to be bigger in the space or you have to grow the, you know, investor base. I think we're seeing a little bit of a pullback in the market just given some of that demand. Not that people are exiting the market, but that people aren't buying as much.
Okay. Thanks, Patrick.
Don, the one-
Welcome.
One thing I would add to that also is that, you know, we really take advantage of that market opportunistically, and we've got so many other options within KREF. I think you've really seen us be a leader through Patrick and through our capital markets team developing these bespoke non-mark-to-market facilities. Of course, we're the leader in terms of that component of our liabilities. So you know, for us, it's not necessarily a material thing whether that market is attractive or not because I think we have a lot of other outlets to go to. But clearly, we watch it as an indication for return on equity for the competitive set.
Thank you.
The next question will be from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question this morning. Look, it's interesting. Almost two years to the day before all of COVID and everything that's happened, we would have been talking a lot about CECL reserves. The good news is that we're kind of going back now to where we were, hopefully two years ago, and you're going to drive some good growth. We're gonna have some good loan growth. We're gonna have normalization of reserves. With all of the information that you have gathered over the past two years and sort of thinking about CECL reserves from an actuarial perspective, how many basis points, roughly, when you add $100 million of loans, for example, should we expect in terms of incremental reserve? Because it's gonna be an important part of the story over the next few years.
Hi, Rick. This is Mostafa. I'll take this one. With respect to the CECL reserve, obviously, the model that we use and, you know, as well as our peers, broadly speaking, is highly dependent on the macroeconomic environment. One of the key factors there is kind of the CRE price index projections over the next few quarters. Also the property type has an, you know, an impact on what the CECL reserve would be. It's kind of hard to pinpoint a CECL reserve in terms of basis points for new originations.
That said, I mean, if you have seen historically and looking at the quarter-over-quarter change in our CECL reserve, I think we ended Q3 with about 110 basis points or so of CECL reserve on outstanding principal balance of our loans. We ended Q4 with about 37 basis points. The significant reduction was a result of the $40 million of reversal on CECL for the Lloyd loan that we wrote off in Q4. You can see most of our reserve historically have been attributed to watch list loans. We expect.
I guess to answer your question, besides the macro environment, which is one of the key factors that impacts our CECL reserve, any significant changes other than that will be attributed to any changes in our watchlist loans. We expect, in a stable macroeconomic environment, the CECL reserve on performing loans rated 3 or better would be in the range of 20-50 basis points, depending on the macroeconomic environment. I don't know if that answers your question.
Yeah. It does. Obviously we understand the difference between the specific reserve and the general reserve, and I'm thinking about this more from a general reserve perspective. I am curious. The 20-50 basis points is a pretty wide range, and probably I think our expectation is somewhere in the middle of that. If you were to go back to your day one general reserve, what was it? What changes your thinking to the extent and fine, I understand portfolio mix and all sorts of different. There are nuances. These loans are idiosyncratic, but this is an actuarial measure, and if we think generically, what has changed in your thought process on a general reserve from day one to February 2022?
If you think about the general reserve that we had in pre-COVID in the first quarter or the initial 1/1/2020, our CECL reserve was 109 basis points. So it was not significant pre-COVID. Post-COVID, obviously, us and all of our peers have increased the CECL reserve significantly as a result of the impact of COVID on the macro environment. So again, it's very highly sensitive to the macroeconomic environment. It's hard to pinpoint, you know, a range, you know, or a number. But it is just hard. It's just hard.
I can tell you that, you know, day one pre-COVID, our CECL reserve was lower than, you know, Q1 2020. Right now we're reaching a phase where our CECL reserve is more stable given the macroeconomic backdrop. As long as this continues, we expect it to be at that range that I alluded to earlier.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from Steve DeLaney with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask a question about leverage. In the fourth quarter, we saw it move up to 3.7 on the strength of about $800 million in net fundings in the quarter. Now, you know, Patrick's presented us with KREF 2022-FL3. You now have CLO financing of what? $2 billion, and that looks to be about 40% of total funding. KREF 2022-FL3 looks like initial and it's you've got 2 years reinvestment, I think. But 5x leverage, right? With an 84% advance rate. My question is this: You know, with the commercial mortgage REIT industry, we sort of were accustomed to thinking about leverage, you know, 3-3.5x.
It looks like to me for this year when we update the models and roll it forward, it looks like that KREF may average something, you know, north of 4 turns of leverage just because of the benefit of the higher advance rates on the non-recourse CLOs. Could you comment on that and whether you would, you know, if we come out with a model or something shows 4.25x debt to equity, you know, are we thinking about that wrong?
Sure, Steve. Good morning.
Thanks.
It's Patrick. I'll take that. Good morning. A couple of comments there. One, we recall when we do the CLO, it's not new debt that we're adding. Obviously, we're taking loans from-
Right.
Other places. We're pulling those off of repo facilities. We're taking those off of other warehouse facilities when we put that on. We've got that net. Obviously, as you're pointing out, the leverage, the advance rate that we're getting, just given the profile of our assets is-
Yes.
Pretty, you know, it's pretty high. It's close to 85%. The offset to that is that if you look at and we do highlight this number, our unencumbered assets. By taking a little bit more leverage there in the CLO, we can dial back the leverage that we're taking on other assets in the portfolio. We've got some other assets that effectively are unencumbered, you know, as a result of that.
I see.
The other factor to consider, just as you think about, you know, going from fourth quarter to first quarter, we did raise preferred stock in the first quarter.
Right.
That's obviously equity that's going to offset that. That 3.7 really represents kind of the fairway for us as we're thinking about target leverage being in that, you know, mid to high threes. Just to be clear, that's inclusive of all of our financing, including the CLOs. When we show that total leverage number, we're including the CLOs, we're not excluding it.
No, understood. Yeah, I knew that was inclusive. Okay, what I'm hearing you say is, while you get the benefit of higher leverage, you know, on the multifamily loans and the CLOs, on an overall aggregate basis, you're gonna use the additional net cash from the CLO refinancing to just pay down other debt, of course, but just to have more unencumbered assets. So that's helpful because I think, you know, if we didn't adjust for that, we would end up with something higher than your kinda run rate of 3.7. So I appreciate that. Thank you.
Sure. You're welcome.
That's all for me. I just would say, Mostafa, all the best in the future. We've enjoyed working with you. Thanks.
Thanks, Patrick. Appreciate it.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jack Switala for any closing remarks.
Great. Thanks, everyone for joining today's call. Feel free to reach out to me or the team here, with any follow-up questions. Take care.
The conference is, has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.