Share-Based Payments

On September 23, 2009, our 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 our common stock (on a fully diluted basis). The LTIP is administered by the compensation committee of our board of directors (the “Compensation Committee”) and all grants under the LTIP must be approved by the Compensation Committee.

We recognized stock-based compensation expense of $4.0 million and $11.4 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, respectively, related to restricted stock and RSU vesting, as compared to $2.6 million and $9.9 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 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 nine months ended September 30, 2018:



	Type	Restricted Stock		RSUs		Grant Date Fair Value ($ in thousands)
Outstanding at December 31, 2017		105,561		1,632,746
	Grant	28,070		7,100		634
	Vested	(24,840	)	(807	)	N/A
	Forfeiture	—		(44,739	)	N/A
Outstanding at September 30, 2018		108,791		1,594,300

Below is a summary of restricted stock and RSU vesting dates as of September 30, 2018:



Vesting Year	Restricted Stock	RSU	Total Awards
2018	43,094	738,581	781,675
2019	60,803	557,394	618,197
2020	4,894	295,957	300,851
2021	—	2,368	2,368
Total	108,791	1,594,300	1,703,091

At September 30, 2018, we had unrecognized compensation expense of approximately $1.1 million and $19.6 million, respectively, related to the vesting of restricted stock awards and RSUs noted in the table above.

RSU Deliveries

During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, we delivered 514 and 346,510 shares of common stock for 807 and 604,484 vested RSUs, respectively. We allow 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 nine months ended September 30, 2018, and is included as a reduction of capital related to our equity incentive plan in the condensed consolidated statement of changes in stockholders' equity. There was no adjustment for the three months ended September 30, 2018.