Share-Based Payments

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 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 and on April 16, 2019, our board of directors approved the Amended and Restated Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. 2019 Equity Incentive Plan, 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, 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 and all grants under the LTIPs must be approved by the Compensation Committee.

We recognized stock-based compensation expense of $15.9 million, $13.6 million, and $13.3 million during 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, related to restricted stock and RSU vesting. 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 2019, 2018 and 2017:



	Type	Restricted Stock		RSUs		Grant Date Fair Value ($ in thousands)
Outstanding at December 31, 2016		150,110		1,703,775
	Grant	27,700		912,916		17,496
	Vested	(72,249	)	(938,541	)	N/A
	Forfeiture	—		(45,404	)	N/A
Outstanding at December 31, 2017		105,561		1,632,746
	Grant	28,070		1,006,800		19,148
	Vested	(67,934	)	(739,388	)	N/A
	Forfeiture	—		(47,201	)	N/A
Outstanding at December 31, 2018		65,697		1,852,957
	Grant	27,245		1,069,202		20,483
	Vested	(67,586	)	(877,261	)	N/A
	Forfeiture	—		(37,543	)	N/A
Outstanding at December 31,2019		25,356		2,007,355

Below is a summary of restricted stock and RSU vesting dates as of December 31, 2019:



Vesting Year	Restricted Stock	RSU	Total Awards
2020	25,356	964,829	990,185
2021	—	686,126	686,126
2022	—	356,400	356,400
Total	25,356	2,007,355	2,032,711

At December 31, 2019, we had unrecognized compensation expense of approximately $35.1 million and $0.1 million, respectively, related to the vesting of RSUs and restricted stock awards noted in the table above.

RSU Deliveries

During 2019, 2018 and 2017, we delivered 433,585, 378,855 and 200,859 shares of common stock, respectively, for 730,980, 741,210 and 938,541 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 consolidated statement of changes in stockholders' equity. The adjustments were $5.0 million, $4.8 million and $2.3 million in 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively.