Share-Based Payments

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2018

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

On September 23, 2009, the Company’s board of directors approved the Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc., 2009 Equity Incentive Plan (as amended from time to time, the “LTIP”). The LTIP provides for grants of restricted common stock, restricted stock units (“RSUs”) and other equity-based awards up to an aggregate of 7.5% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock (on a fully diluted basis). The LTIP is administered by the compensation committee of the Company’s board of directors (the “Compensation Committee”) and all grants under the LTIP must be approved by the Compensation Committee.

The Company recognized stock-based compensation expense of $3.3 million and $3.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively, related to restricted stock and RSU vesting.

The following table summarizes the grants, vesting and forfeitures of restricted common stock and RSUs during the three months ended March 31, 2018:



	Type	Restricted Stock		RSUs	Grant Date Fair Value ($)
Outstanding at December 31, 2017		105,561		1,632,746
	Vested	(2,749	)	—	n/a
Outstanding at March 31, 2018		102,812		1,632,746

Below is a summary of restricted stock and RSU vesting dates as of March 31, 2018:



Vesting Year	Restricted Stock	RSU	Total Awards
2018	65,185	758,505	823,690
2019	32,733	569,909	602,642
2020	4,894	304,332	309,226
Total	102,812	1,632,746	1,735,558

At March 31, 2018, the Company had unrecognized compensation expense of approximately $1.3 million and $26.0 million, respectively, related to the vesting of restricted stock awards and RSUs noted in the table above.

RSU Deliveries

During the three months ended March 31, 2018, the Company delivered 345,996 shares of common stock for 603,677 vested RSUs. The Company allows RSU participants to settle their tax liabilities with a reduction of their share delivery from the originally granted and vested RSUs. The amount, when agreed to by the participant, results in a cash payment to the Manager related to this tax liability and a corresponding adjustment to additional paid in capital on the condensed consolidated statement of changes in stockholders' equity. The adjustment was $4.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2018, and is included as a reduction of capital related to the Company's equity incentive plan in the condensed consolidated statement of changes in stockholders' equity.