Share count
126Mpeak FY2022
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LADR, Ladder Capital Corp
Ladder Capital is an investment grade-rated, internally-managed real estate investment trust that is a leader in commercial real estate finance.
We maintain a diversified and flexible financing strategy supporting our investment strategy and overall business operations, including the use of senior unsecured notes, non-recourse, non-mark-to-market Collateralized Loan Obligations ("CLO") debt issuances and committed term financing from leading financial institutions.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$293M
+113.9% YoY · 24% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $296M 5-yr avg $122M
Revenue $27M +25.3% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $3M yr-ago $12M
Net margin 9.5% yr-ago 53.1%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not an earnings multiple, and the worst year of credit losses matters more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has sat below the cost of equity (median 7%, above 12% in only 1 of 10 years). A mortgage REIT lives on the spread between what its mortgages earn and what its borrowing costs, levered many times over; weigh the worst rate and credit years in the record, not the average, and read the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $116M | $118M | $151M | $126M | $100M | $102M | $108M | $162M | $137M | $99M | $296M | RevenueRevenue |
| $116M | $118M | $151M | $126M | $12M | ($7M) | $98M | $162M | $137M | $92M | $95M | Net interest incomeNet int. |
| $300K | $0 | $14M | $3M | $19M | ($9M) | $3M | $25M | $14M | ($186K) | ($186K) | Credit-loss provisionProvision |
| $67M | $126M | $222M | $137M | ($9M) | $57M | $165M | $101M | $107M | $64M | $55M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 9% | 6% | 3% | 2% | — | 2% | 3% | 4% | 3% | 5% | 8% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| 1.2% | 2.1% | 3.5% | 2.1% | -0.2% | 1.0% | 2.8% | 1.8% | 2.2% | 1.2% | 1.0% | Return on assetsROA |
| 7% | 10% | 15% | 9% | -1% | 4% | 11% | 7% | 7% | 4% | 4% | Return on equityROE |
| 7% | 10% | 15% | 9% | −1% | 4% | 11% | 7% | 7% | 4% | 4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| 8% | 11% | 17% | 10% | -1% | 4% | 11% | 7% | 7% | 4% | 4% | Return on tangible equityROTCE |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $5.6B | $6.0B | $6.3B | $6.7B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $6.0B | $5.5B | $4.8B | $5.2B | $5.6B | Total assetsAssets |
| $971M | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.4B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 108M | 110M | 97.7M | 106M | 112M | 125M | 126M | 125M | 126M | — | 126M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $0.62 | $1.15 | $2.27 | $1.29 | $-0.08 | $0.46 | $1.31 | $0.80 | $0.85 | — | $0.43 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $9.02 | $11.26 | $14.80 | $13.71 | $13.73 | $12.10 | $12.19 | $12.28 | $12.20 | — | $11.48 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| $8.03 | $10.08 | $13.73 | $12.78 | $12.92 | $11.46 | $11.67 | $11.79 | $11.80 | — | $11.07 | Tangible book / shareTBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +0.2%/yr (8-yr) | −1.6%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −12.9%/yr (8-yr) | −9.3%/yr |
| EPS | +4.1%/yr (8-yr) | −7.9%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −7.8%/yr (8-yr) | −6.3%/yr |
| Book value / share | +3.8%/yr (8-yr) | −2.3%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$99Mlow FY2025
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Below the cost of equityNet income $64M ÷ equity $1.5BIndustry peers: median 7%
What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- ModestNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $0 − intangibles $52M)Industry peers: median 7%
What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Not enough data
What this means
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 28.8%Well capitalizedEquity $1.5B ÷ assets $5.2B
What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Borrowed against bookAssets $5.2B ÷ equity $1.5B
What this means
A mortgage REIT finances a pool of mortgages with borrowed money — mostly short-term repo, which sits in liabilities rather than as tagged debt — so its true leverage is the whole balance sheet against the owners' equity, not just labeled debt. That leverage magnifies both the spread it earns and the loss when rates or credit move against it; read it beside the book value, the question being whether the spread compensated for the leverage through a cycle.
- Credit cost (provision / NII) -0%Net reserve releaseProvision for credit losses ($186K) ÷ net interest income $92M
What this means
What the bank set aside this year against loans going bad, as a share of its lending income. This swings hard with the cycle, low in good years and spiking in recessions, so read it across the record, not in one year. Disciplined underwriting shows up as low, stable provisions through a downturn.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $10.9M | $10.9M | $75M |
| 2022 | $12.5M | $12.5M | $100M |
| 2023 | $15.0M | $15.0M | $176M |
| 2024 | $15.5M | $15.5M | $127M |
| 2025 | $13.9M | $13.9M | $79M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership12.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio36:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$20M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 20% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, REITs — Specialty & Diversified
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | NII / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRSPBrightSpire Capital Inc. | $331M | -5% | -5% | — | 1.5% |
| ARIApollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. | $272M | 7% | 7% | — | 2.7% |
| FBRTFranklin BSP Realty Trust Inc. | $270M | 6% | 7% | — | 3.2% |
| LADRLadder Capital Corp | $293M | 7% | 7% | — | 1.9% |
| TRTXTPG RE Finance Trust Inc. | $146M | 6% | 6% | — | 2.4% |
| ABRArbor Realty Trust | $510M | 10% | 11% | — | 2.1% |
| CIMChimera Investment Corporation | $266M | 9% | 9% | — | 1.7% |
| ADAMAdamas Trust Inc. | $149M | 10% | 11% | — | 1.2% |
| Group median | — | 7% | 7% | — | 2.0% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA mortgage REIT is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Ladder Capital Corp’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered−2%/yr’19→’24
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A mortgage REIT earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a mortgage REIT.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity7%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $1.4B on 125M shares, a 7% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the mortgage REIT keeps earning that return; a rate shock, a spread that compresses or a credit cycle changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Ladder Capital Corp (LADR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/LADR, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← LAD its page in the Manual LAMR →
Industry order: ← KRG the REITs — Specialty & Diversified chapter LAMR →