NYCB's CRE Losses Skyrocket Amid New Leaders' Review Of Loan Book
Troubled lender New York Community Bancorp’s latest quarterly earnings report has done little to restore investor confidence.
The bank reported huge jumps in losses from commercial real estate loans on its book, leading to an overall loss in the quarter of $333M. Its stock price was trading 17% down on Thursday morning but recovered to end the day just 3% below where it had been at Wednesday’s closing bell.
The news follows two recent NYCB sales worth billions of dollars. Last week, the bank closed on the sale of its mortgage warehouse loan business to JPMorgan Chase for $5.9B in a deal announced in May.
Shortly before Thursday’s earnings call, it announced that it had also sold its residential mortgage servicing business for $1.4B to Mr. Cooper Group, MarketWatch reported.
Charge-offs were larger than expected for NYCB during Q2, growing to reach $349M from $81M in the previous quarter. Non-accrual loans reached almost $2B, much more than the $700M in Q1.
Overall delinquencies reached $1.2B, although the bank said that $709M had become current since the end of the quarter.
Multifamily delinquencies were also a significant issue for the lender, which rose by 767% during the quarter, The Real Deal reported. Around half of NYCB’s multifamily portfolio is backed by rent-stabilized buildings.
NYCB’s multifamily loans on rent-stabilized properties have been impacted by inflation, landlord inability to raise rents and difficulty refinancing, NYCB Chief Financial Officer Craig Gifford told analysts Thursday on the bank's earnings call.
The bank's new leadership, led by CEO and former Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting, has now reviewed 80% of its multifamily and office portfolios. Otting said that the bank had re-underwritten loans that had debt service coverage ratios of one-to-one — making it likely that borrowers would only just cover their debts — and ordered appraisals.
Following the review, the bank upped its credit loss allowance by 113% to over $1.2B.
“We're very focused on the remediation of problem loans,” Otting said on the call.
The bank has seen a shakeup since reporting a surprisingly large loss following the fourth quarter. Its stock is down 66% on the year, and it required a billion-dollar injection of rescue capital led by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's firm Liberty Capital, an investment that led to the ouster of its former leadership and the installation of Otting.
