AR ARI APOLLO COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE FINANCE, INC. Loading... : Bullish and Bearish Analyst Opinions

Author identifies ARI as the source of distressed CRE assets allegedly transferred to Athene at inflated valuations, flagging asset-quality risk.

"Apollo sold that mortgage portfolio... to an affiliate called Athene... it's a way for them to kind of mask some of the volatility that's flowing through the commercial mortgage sector." The transaction is financial engineering designed to move troubled assets from a public REIT (ARI) to an insurance balance sheet (Athene) that doesn't mark-to-market. This signals underlying distress in the commercial mortgage book that the REIT wants to offload. Avoid the commercial mortgage REIT sector. If rates drop significantly, commercial real estate values could stabilize, making the exit look premature.