Share-Based Payments

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Share-based Payment Arrangement [Abstract]

On September 23, 2009, our board of directors approved the Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. 2009 Equity Incentive Plan ("2009 LTIP") and on April 16, 2019, our board of directors approved the Amended and Restated Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. 2019 Equity Incentive Plan ("2019 LTIP," and together with the 2009 LTIP, the "LTIPs"), which amended and restated the 2009 LTIP. Following the approval of the 2019 LTIP by our stockholders at our 2019 annual meeting of stockholders on June 12, 2019, no additional awards will be granted under the 2009 LTIP and all outstanding awards granted under the 2009 LTIP remain in effect in accordance with the terms in the 2009 LTIP.

The 2019 LTIP provides for grants of restricted common stock, restricted stock units ("RSUs") and other equity-based awards up to an aggregate of 7,000,000 shares of our common stock. The LTIPs are administered by the compensation committee of our board of directors (the "Compensation Committee") and all grants under the LTIPs must be approved by the Compensation Committee.

We recognized stock-based compensation expense of $3.9 million and $12.1 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019, respectively, related to restricted stock and RSU vesting, as compared to $4.0 million and $11.4 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018. We adopted ASU 2018-07 on January 1, 2019 and the stock-based compensation expense for grants before the adoption of ASU 2018-07 is based on the closing price of our common stock of $16.66 on December 31, 2018, which was the last business day before we adopted ASU 2018-07. Refer to "Note 2 - Summary of Significant Accounting Policies" for further discussion on our adoption of ASU 2018-07.

The following table summarizes the grants, vesting and forfeitures of restricted common stock and RSUs during the nine months ended September 30, 2019:



	Type	Restricted Stock		RSUs		Grant Date Fair Value ($ in thousands)
Outstanding at December 31, 2018		65,697		1,852,957
	Granted	27,245		—		500
	Vested	(47,586	)	(263	)	N/A
	Forfeiture	—		(16,451	)	N/A
Outstanding at September 30, 2019		45,356		1,836,243

Below is a summary of restricted stock and RSU vesting dates as of September 30, 2019:



Vesting Year	Restricted Stock	RSU	Total Awards
2019	20,000	881,403	901,403
2020	25,356	621,515	646,871
2021	—	333,325	333,325
Total	45,356	1,836,243	1,881,599

At September 30, 2019, we had unrecognized compensation expense of approximately $0.3 million and $19.5 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, 2019, we delivered 159 and 433,585 shares of common stock for 263 and 730,980 vested RSUs, respectively. We delivered 514 and 346,510 shares of common stock for 807 and 604,484 vested RSUs for the same periods in the prior year. 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 $5.0 million and $4.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively. The adjustment is a reduction of capital related to our equity incentive plan and is presented net of increases of capital related to our equity incentive plan in the condensed consolidated statement of changes in stockholders' equity.