Blackstone Mortgage Trust Takes Advantage of Strong Economy to Crush on Earnings

Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE: BXMT) reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings last week that came in above Wall Street expectations and help the company enter 2020 in a strong position for further growth.

Net earnings came in at $0.59 a share, while core earnings were $0.68 a share. The Street was looking earnings of $0.64 a share so the numbers handily beat expectations. On a year-over-year basis, earnings per share fell from $0.62 per share in the fourth quarter of 2018, however that was driven by an increased share count. Blackstone Mortgage did a secondary share offering during the year which increased shares outstanding. Funds from operations (FFO) were up 7.2%.

Overall, the office sector is performing well. Commercial Real Estate firm CBRE reported that office vacancy rates in the fourth quarter of 2019 were 12.1%, the lowest in 13 years. Asking rents are increasing at a 5.2% clip, which is the fastest since 2016. Finally, office job growth increased by 1.7% to a total of 460,000 jobs. For an office mortgage REIT, these are figures that support continued loan performance.

Source Fool.com