NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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Nov 04, 2010
NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. (NRF, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2010-09-30.

Northstar Realty Finance Corp. has a market cap of $334 million; its shares were traded at around $4.3 with and P/S ratio of 1.2. The dividend yield of Northstar Realty Finance Corp. stocks is 9.3%. Northstar Realty Finance Corp. had an annual average earning growth of 87.9% over the past 5 years.NRF is in the portfolios of Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies LLC, Kenneth Fisher of Fisher Asset Management, LLC.

Highlight of Business Operations:

Despite these conditions, REITs have collectively raised nearly $52 billion of debt and equity capital, and the Morgan Stanley REIT Index returned approximately 28.6% for 2009 and approximately 19.6% year-to-date through September 30, 2010. In addition, three newly-formed REITs with a real estate debt focus raised approximately $1.5 billion of capital in 2009, but no new commercial mortgage REITs have gone public during the first nine months of 2010. Notwithstanding the ability of the public REIT market to raise capital, this market is very small relative to the size of the estimated $1.5 trillion commercial real estate finance market. More recently, U.S. economic conditions appear to be improving (based on GDP growth), however, the unemployment rate remains high indicating a low rate of business expansion, which drives commercial real estate cash flows. Commercial real estate tends to lag economic recoveries and we expect commercial real estate fundamentals to continue to be difficult into 2011.

On June 30, 2010, we fully repaid and extinguished, at a discount to the outstanding principal amount, our WA Secured Term Loan, which was fully recourse to us, having an outstanding principal balance of approximately $304.0 million and secured by assets having an aggregate unpaid principal balance of approximately $448.6 at the time of the payoff. We paid approximately $208.0 million of cash and granted the lender a 40% participation interest in the principal proceeds of the German Loan. Additionally, the lender agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to provide us and/or our affiliates with a new credit facility which is expected to have a minimum availability of $200.0 million.

As of September 30, 2010, approximately $4.1 billion of our collateralized debt obligations permit reinvestment of capital proceeds which means when the underlying assets repay we are able to reinvest the proceeds in new assets without having to repay the liabilities. Approximately $516.8 million of our funded loan commitments have their initial maturity date during the remainder of 2010; however, most of the loans contain extension options of at least one year. We also expect that a majority of the $341.4 million of loans having final maturities during the remainder of 2010 will have their maturities extended beyond 2010 with the expectation that future periods will have more attractive economic conditions and cheaper debt capital. It is therefore difficult to estimate how much capital, if any, will be generated in our CDO financings from loan repayments during the remainder of 2010.

of July 8, 2010, at their estimated $396.0 million fair market value. As of September 30, 2010, the CSE RE 2006-A loans had an aggregate $943.8 million outstanding principal balance and an aggregate $287.7 million carrying value, which includes approximately $48.6 million of loans purchased or acquired and approximately $160.9 million of repayments in the third quarter subsequent to the acquisition. The $662.8 million acquisition discount as of September 30, 2010, acts as a built-in reserve for credit issues and recoveries less than contractual amounts related to these acquired loans. Although fair market values and any related discounts to outstanding principal balances were determined on a loan-by-loan basis and therefore cannot be allocated to other loans, we believe the overall discount provides protection to our basis for ongoing credit issues associated with this portfolio.

For the three months ended September 30, 2010, we recorded a $42.9 million credit loss provision relating to seven loans which included a $6.6 million provision for a sold loan and includes a credit of $0.5 million for a loan recorded as held for sale, which was sold during the fourth quarter 2010. For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, we recorded a $136.1 million credit loss provision relating to 14 loans which included $20.9 million in provisions for three loans sold during the period, net of $1.3 million in credits for a loan sold, and a loan recorded as held for sale, for which we received net sale proceeds in excess of their carrying amounts. In March 2010, we foreclosed on a $15.0 million defaulted first mortgage loan backed by hotel collateral located in Phoenix, AZ and we simultaneously sold the hotel for approximately $9.6 million. In prior periods we had recorded $5.0 million of credit loss reserves for this asset and it was a NPL at December 31, 2009. In April 2010, we sold a $13.9 million first mortgage loan backed by land collateral located in New York, NY for approximately $8.5 million. The mortgage was a NPL and in prior periods we had recorded a net $5.5 million of loan loss reserves for this asset. In April 2010, we also sold a $39.1 million mezzanine loan backed by a portfolio of hotel properties for approximately $32.1 million. We had recorded $7.0 million of loan loss reserves for this asset during the first quarter. In April 2010, we also foreclosed on an $18.0 million first mortgage loan backed by office collateral located in Philadelphia, PA. We had in prior periods recorded $8.8 million of loan loss reserves for this asset and took a $1.2 million impairment charge during the second quarter related to the foreclosed real estate. In June 2010, we sold a $40.0 first mortgage loan backed by hotel collateral located in New York, NY for approximately $32.0 million. We recorded an $8.1 million credit loss provision for this asset. In September 2010, we sold a $32.1 mezzanine loan backed by hotel collateral for approximately $25.5 million and recorded a $6.6 million credit loss provision for this asset.

As of September 30, 2010, loan loss reserves totaled $174.7 million and related to 15 loans having an aggregate $407.9 million gross book value (exclusive of the related reserve) and includes reserves of $25.7 million related to loans having an aggregate gross book value of $43.6 million (exclusive of the related reserve) that were added to the reserve balance as a result of the acquisition of N-Star CDO IX.

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