TPG RE Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE:TRTX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So a company’s forward view as expressed through their forecasting tool, whether it’s a loss given default model or they use the warm method, which some companies do, is in my view a bigger driver of establishing the general reserve than our historical dataset, which is perhaps one of the reasons why €“ you know in the old days it was about building reserves, and it was more historical. I think what you’re seeing in the new CECL order is that certainly we €“ I can’t speak for others. We’re focused on what do we think is going to happen in the future, and our objective is to fairly state a CECL reserve based on that, which is I think one of the reasons why you saw our CECL reserve frankly be larger, sooner than some of our peers. Thanks for your question.

Richard Shane: Yes, thanks. And just over thread a little bit further. As you know, we have a pretty broad coverage universe, and we’re dealing with a number of companies who have adopted CECL reserving. And in consumer finance land the key macro number that everybody focuses on is unemployment, and typically we’ll get updates on companies’ unemployment outlooks and how that impacts their diesel reserve. Is there something that we should be asking for updates on that is this sort of focused as unemployment for you or how should we think about what changes you’ve made to your economic outlook this quarter.

Bob Foley: Well, I think that for consumer financial oriented companies, employment is clearly an important driver. I think for commercial real estate lenders, we’re probably as a sector more focused on things like GDP growth and rates. I mean, rates are an important driver of short term issues like interest coverage and clearly have an influence over time on cap rates, which influence refinancing or sales exits for any lender. So in my view, you know those are probably the factors that people should focus on more clearly and that information is available to all of us on this call every day on Bloomberg.

Richard Shane: Got it, okay terrific! Thanks, Bob.

Bob Foley: Thanks, Rick.

Doug Bouquard: Thanks, Rick.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll take the next question from the line of Steve Delaney with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Steve Delaney: Thanks. Well hello Doug and Bob, and the congrats on a strong report, and as Stephen Laws mentioned, nice to see the market reward the shares this morning, so congrats on that.

Doug Bouquard: Thank you.

Steve Delaney: You know the portfolio walk that you provide us on page nine is very helpful. And the drop, about $300 million or so in the actually closer to $400 million, you mentioned the office loan that went to REO and was subsequently sold. Was that a big piece of that shrinkage if you will in the loan portfolio in the fourth quarter.

Bob Foley: Well, from a purely numerical standpoint, it reflected about $89 million of commitment and what we would call about $81 million of net exposure. So it was meaningful, but not the whole story. There were other important repayments, and Doug can elaborate more on that REO conversion and sale in particular. But there were several other sizable loans that we paid, including the largest loan I think that we paid in the fourth quarter was $130 million four rated hotel loan in Southern California. But I think Dough better equipped to address you know the drivers behind that migration.

Steve Delaney: Yes, And Dough the reason Yeah go ahead.

Doug Bouquard: Apart from.