CluenexStarwood Property Trust STWD
Starwood Property Trust scores weak on business quality (1.2 of 10). Here is why, in plain words, and what our sealed record shows.
Why it matters
- What Starwood Property Trust does
Starwood Property Trust originates commercial mortgage loans, invests in real estate debt, and manages property portfolios to generate interest income and dividends for institutional and retail investors. The firm navigates high interest rate environments by managing its extensive debt obligations and deploying capital across its core lending segments.
- What it does best
Starwood generates scale through its commercial lending operations, evidenced by a gross margin of 28.3%. This creates an established footprint in real estate finance that smaller peers struggle to replicate quickly.
- The main risk
High leverage remains a central threat, with total debt reaching $22.1 billion against $499 million in cash. Runaway interest rates increase debt servicing pressures and squeeze margins further.
Quality, check by check
Scored against its own industry, from company filings.
Operating margins rest at 3.8% with a low return on equity of 3.4%, signaling weak earnings power that fails to improve efficiently as the business scales.
The firm relies on scale in commercial real estate lending to capture deal flow, sitting in the bottom quartile with a gross margin rank in the 8th sector percentile.
Revenue contracted 4.5% to $2.1B over the latest period, reflecting a fading top-line trajectory compared to prior annual results where revenue reached $2.3B.
Debt-to-equity sits at 3.3x, keeping the balance sheet heavily leveraged. Net debt of $21.6B strains cash generation as financing costs weigh down overall financial stability.
Insiders
Executives and directors, from SEC Form 4 filings we read ourselves. Open market trades only; grants, option exercises and pre-planned sales left out.
No open market buys or unplanned sales by executives or directors.
Our sealed record on STWD
Verdicts appear here 30 days after we publish them; members see today's. Each one is in the nightly ledger, fingerprinted the night it was made.
The first sealed verdicts appear here on Oct 11, 2026.
Questions
Starwood Property Trust scores weak on the Cluenex quality check (1.2 of 10), measured against its own industry. Profitability is weak, moat weak, growth slow and financial health weak.
In the last 90 days of SEC Form 4 filings: No open market buys or unplanned sales by executives or directors.
Nov 9, 2026, before the open.
See STWD today
- Today's verdict on STWD, and why
- Fair value with cautious, base and optimistic cases
- The exact price that would change the verdict
- Which stocks each signal names, the night it fires
Cite this page: Cluenex, “Starwood Property Trust (STWD)”, https://cluenex.com/stocks/stwd/, data as of Oct 10, 2026.