Ladder Capital (LADR) Loan Book, Dividend and Debt, Q2 2026

What Ladder owns: loans, securities and real estate

Ladder reports three segments. The loans segment holds balance-sheet loans (held for investment) and conduit loans (held for sale); the securities segment holds CMBS and a few other securities; the real estate segment holds net leased and other owned property plus unconsolidated ventures. Senior notes and corporate costs sit in "corporate/other". The table is the segment assets in the June 30, 2026 10-Q, with shares of total assets as our arithmetic.

The last column is the useful one. Loans earned $50.5 million before taxes in the quarter and securities $16.4 million, but corporate/other, which carries the interest on the senior unsecured notes and the compensation expense, lost $53.9 million, leaving $16.3 million for the company. The 10-Q describes Ladder as "an investment grade-rated, internally-managed" REIT, so there is no external manager fee on top.

The loan book by property type, seven balance sheets

Ladder does not publish a 1-to-5 risk-rating table. The 10-Q says the primary credit-quality indicator it uses for its CECL reserve is the loan portfolio by collateral type, so that is what this table is. Amounts are amortized cost of mortgage loans held for investment, in $ million, from the 10-K or 10-Q for each date. "Other" at December 2022 and 2023 includes manufactured housing ($118.1 million and $115.6 million), and at December 2022 $26.0 million of individually impaired loans; the shares are our arithmetic.

Read the office row two ways. As a share, office peaked at 48.0% at the end of 2024, but only because everything else had been repaid: the book shrank by $1.56 billion that year, with $1.72 billion of repayments against $195.2 million of originations. In dollars, office has only gone down, from $980.0 million to $593.6 million, a 39% fall (our arithmetic). The largest single loan at December 31, 2025 was a $228.2 million office loan in the southeast, 10% of loans held for investment; the June 2026 10-Q does not repeat that disclosure. Mixed use fell from $699.9 million to $117.9 million and hospitality from $137.6 million to $2.7 million, partly through foreclosures that moved properties onto the real estate balance sheet.

On the loans themselves, the June 30, 2026 10-Q reports 88 balance-sheet first mortgage loans with a weighted average loan-to-value of 68.1% at origination (based on third-party as-is appraisals at origination, not today's values), a weighted average yield of 7.26% on loans held for investment, and 88.9% of the loans floating over Term SOFR, every one with a rate floor. Yield was 9.36% at December 31, 2024 and 7.76% at December 31, 2025, so a 2.10-point fall in 18 months (our arithmetic); the book is bigger, but earns less per dollar. Remaining maturity is 1.9 years on initial terms and 3.5 years if all extensions are used. Unfunded commitments rose from $93.4 million to $182.7 million. Dividing book value by loan count gives an average loan of about $32 million (our arithmetic), and the filings require the board's Risk and Underwriting Committee to approve balance-sheet loans over $50.0 million.

Non-accrual loans, the CECL allowance and foreclosures

Ladder puts a loan on non-accrual generally when payments are 90 days past due or when recovery is doubtful. The history in its filings:

The allowance has gone down while loans doubled: $52.3 million on $1.59 billion at the end of 2024 (3.29%) to $47.1 million on $2.79 billion (1.69%) (our arithmetic). Ladder says there were no asset-specific reserves in these periods; the largest loan on non-accrual at June 30, 2026, the $50.7 million hotel, was assessed with a collateral valuation and needed no allowance. Charge-offs were small: $14.4 million in 2022, $2.7 million in 2023, $5.0 million in 2024 (an Oakland, California office loan resolved by foreclosure) and $5.0 million in 2025 (part of a Portland, Oregon office loan, valued at an 11.0% capitalization rate). In the first half of 2026 the 10-Q says the company “did not recognize any interest income” on non-accrual loans.

The other side of non-accrual is foreclosure. In the first six months of 2026 Ladder took four properties for $88.0 million: a three-building New York multifamily portfolio ($61.7 million, January), a hotel in Canton, Ohio ($12.1 million, February), an office in Portland, Oregon ($5.9 million, March) and an office in Birmingham, Alabama ($8.3 million, June), each with no gain or loss recorded at foreclosure. The comparable amounts were $65.1 million in 2025 and $53.0 million in 2024. The allowance only covers loans; the real estate segment carries those properties at fair value at foreclosure, less depreciation.

The securities book: AAA CMBS, not credit risk

Ladder's securities segment is $1.87 billion at June 30, 2026, of which $1,850.9 million is CMBS (112 securities, weighted average rating AAA, yield 5.17%, duration 2.99 years). The 10-Q describes the strategy as “primarily AAA-rated real estate securities, typically front pay securities” with short duration and subordination below them, and says 98.5% of the book by market value was investment grade. Every CMBS dollar is due within five years: $143.5 million within one year and $1,707.4 million in one to five years. About 12.5% of the collateral by market value is in the New York metro area.

The book is financed. Securities repurchase debt was $825.9 million at June 30, 2026 (4.13% average cost, July 2026 stated maturity) against $627.0 million at the end of 2025, so the repo covers 44% of the securities (our arithmetic). This is a liquidity and margin matter more than a credit one: the lenders have sole discretion over collateral value. In the second quarter Ladder bought $333.3 million and sold $468.5 million of securities. Realized gains were $2.8 million for the six months. Ladder is not an SBA lender in these filings and the securities line holds no SBA paper that we could find; the only other securities are $9.2 million of corporate bonds, $0.8 million of interest-only strips and $11.6 million of equities.

The conduit business: $17.0 billion since 2008, almost nothing now

A conduit loan is a fixed-rate first mortgage on stabilized property that Ladder intends to sell into a CMBS securitization. It is the business Ladder was built on, and the filings show how little of it there is today.

All of 2025's held-for-sale originations and sales happened in the first half of the year. The total of all commercial real estate loans originated rose by $1.4 billion in 2025 and $1.1 billion in the first half of 2026 (our arithmetic from the cumulative figures), almost all of it balance-sheet loans. One conduit loan, $27.2 million at a 58.9% loan-to-value, was on the balance sheet at June 30, 2026. Ladder also finances some of its own net leased properties by originating a loan to a subsidiary and securitizing it; those conduit loans eliminate on consolidation until sold. The line to watch is whether held-for-sale originations come back; the filings give no target.

Real estate: 149 net leased properties and the foreclosed assets

The real estate segment is $776.5 million net of depreciation ($1,057.7 million undepreciated: $596.9 million of net leased properties and $460.8 million of diversified property, our arithmetic). The 10-Q lists 149 single-tenant net leased properties, 3.4 million square feet, 100% leased, with 99% of the second-quarter rent collected, and 62 diversified properties with 98% collected. Contractual minimum rent from all leases is $504.7 million over the remaining terms. There is $386.0 million of non-recourse mortgage debt on the real estate at 5.88%.

One number moves in a way the filings do not explain. The weighted average remaining lease term on the net leased portfolio is reported as 8.5 years (December 2023), 7.6 (December 2024), 7.0 (September 2025), 6.7 (December 2025), 3.8 (March 2026) and 3.6 years (June 2026), and the average age since construction goes from 21.2 years to 13.1 years in the same quarter. The property count (149) and area (3.4 million square feet) did not change, so the drop looks like a change of method rather than a wave of expiries; the 10-Qs do not say. If the net lease income matters to you, read the lease maturity schedule in the 10-K, not that headline.

The dividend against distributable earnings, eleven quarters

Ladder's board "considers distributable earnings in determining the amount of quarterly dividends", the company says, and distributable earnings is its non-GAAP measure: income before taxes with real estate depreciation, unrealized gains and losses, loan loss provisions and non-cash stock compensation adjusted out. The company also says distributable earnings is not REIT taxable income, which is what sets the legal minimum payout (at least 90% of REIT taxable income). Coverage below is distributable EPS divided by the $0.23 dividend (our arithmetic).

Three readings. First, the dividend is flat while distributable earnings fell from $0.33 to a low of $0.17 and has partly recovered, so over the last four quarters (Q3 2025 to Q2 2026) distributable EPS was $0.88 against $0.92 of dividends, 96% (our arithmetic). Second, the Q4 2025 low had a $5.0 million charge-off in it; the company's figure before charge-offs was $0.21. Third, GAAP earnings are far below the dividend: GAAP diluted EPS was $0.51 for 2025 and $0.14 for the first half of 2026 (our arithmetic from $0.02 and $0.12). The gap is mostly add-backs: in Q1 2026 non-cash stock compensation was $14.2 million, which is more than half of the $28.0 million distributable earnings that quarter. After-tax distributable return on average equity was 8.3% in Q2 2026, 7.1% for 2025 and 9.9% for 2024.

Dividends declared for the six months to June 30, 2026 were $58.5 million. The 10-K gave a closing price of $10.99 on December 31, 2025, at which $0.92 a year is an 8.4% yield (our arithmetic); we do not quote a current price because filings do not carry one. In 2025 Ladder bought back 964,539 shares at an average $10.60 ($10.2 million), and on April 21, 2026 the board authorized another $100.0 million. Total shareholders' equity divided by shares outstanding was $11.27 at June 30, 2026, $11.66 at December 31, 2025 and $12.08 at December 31, 2024 (our arithmetic; Ladder does not state a book value per share in these releases).

Eleven quarters of the balance sheet

Amounts in $ million at each quarter-end, from the earnings-release balance sheets. "Loans" is mortgage loans receivable held for investment before the allowance.

Look at the middle of the table: in the 18 months to June 2025 Ladder let loans run off and parked the cash in securities, which went from $485.5 million to $1,966.5 million. Since then it has moved the money back into loans. Equity has drifted down from $1,533.1 million to $1,429.3 million as dividends exceeded GAAP earnings. Debt obligations over shareholders' equity is 2.8 times at June 30, 2026 (our arithmetic), under the company's stated aim of about 3.0 to 1.

Debt, maturities and the investment grade rating

At June 30, 2026 Ladder had $4,019.2 million of debt principal. The senior notes, term loan and revolver are unsecured; the repurchase lines and mortgage debt are secured by specific assets.

The schedule of contractual payments is $841.6 million for the last six months of 2026, $705.2 million in 2027, $24.5 million in 2028, $871.7 million in 2029, $933.5 million in 2030 and $642.6 million after that. Most of the 2026 figure is the securities repurchase line ($825.9 million, our reading of the table), which Ladder rolls; the 2027 figure includes the $589.1 million of 4.25% notes, of which the company bought back $10.4 million in the first half of 2026. The notes carry an unencumbered-assets test of 120% of unsecured debt under the 2030 indenture; Ladder reports a $4.2 billion pool of unencumbered assets.

The rating story in the filings is short. The Q2 2024 release said a seventh unsecured bond issue brought “positive actions received from all three rating agencies”. Ladder says it received investment grade ratings from Moody's and Fitch on May 27, 2025, and the same day the revolver's share pledges ended and most subsidiary guarantors were released. In the Q2 2025 release the company called itself “the only investment grade mortgage REIT in the country”, a claim of its own that we have not checked against other issuers. The July 23, 2026 release lists Baa3 (Moody's) and BBB- (Fitch), both stable, and BB+ from S&P with a positive outlook. The 10-K adds that certain covenants in the 2027 and 2029 notes are suspended while Ladder keeps its investment grade ratings and would come back if it were downgraded below that.

What a holder or interested reader can do with this

This page is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. These are the things the filings let you check yourself.

• Test the dividend with the right number. Distributable EPS covered the $0.23 at 104% in Q2 2026 and 96% over four quarters, but GAAP EPS was $0.02 and $0.12 in the last two quarters. The gap is stock compensation and depreciation add-backs; decide which number you rely on.
• Watch the two non-accrual loans and the foreclosures. The $50.7 million hotel, converted from multifamily, is 79% of the $64.1 million on non-accrual (our arithmetic), and four properties came through foreclosure in six months. Non-accrual is reported quarterly; the next report is the Q3 2026 10-Q, which Ladder filed on October 27 in 2025 and October 28 in 2024.
• See what the growth is made of. The loan book rose $573 million in six months (our arithmetic), 60.7% of it multifamily, at a falling yield. Ask whether the 7.26% yield on 1.9 years of initial maturity is enough for the floating-rate and refinancing risk on those apartment buildings; the filings do not answer that.
• Remember the securities are financed. $1.87 billion of AAA CMBS carries $825.9 million of repo. Margin calls in a CMBS sell-off hit liquidity first.
• If you are a borrower, Ladder's own description is first mortgage loans on all major property types with a focus on the middle market, and the average loan is about $32 million. Smaller or residential-investor loans are not what this lender writes; see commercial real estate loan rates and how bridge loans work for the other end of the market.
• For comparison, see how Arbor Realty Trust's dividend cuts and delinquencies look in its own filings, another public lender in Ready Capital, and the maturity picture in the commercial real estate debt maturity wall. If you came from non-traded vehicles, how non-traded REITs differ from publicly traded ones covers liquidity.

FAQ

All figures are from Ladder Capital Corp (CIK 1577670) SEC filings read on EDGAR on October 14, 2026: Forms 10-K for 2023 (accession 0001577670-24-000006), 2024 (0001577670-25-000010) and 2025 (0001577670-26-000011); Forms 10-Q for Q3 2025 (0001577670-25-000041), Q1 2026 (0001577670-26-000026) and Q2 2026 (0001577670-26-000040, filed July 27, 2026); and the quarterly earnings releases furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K from February 8, 2024 to July 23, 2026 (latest accession 0001577670-26-000032). Shares, coverage ratios, sums, yields, averages and the per-share equity figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.