Creative Media

Good day and welcome to the Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Altibrando, Portfolio Oversight. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. My name is Steve Altibrando, the Portfolio Oversight for CMCT. Also on the call today is David Thompson, our Chief Executive Officer. Chao Kuba, co-founder of CIM Group and CMCT board member, and Nate DeBacher, our chief financial officer. This call is being webcast and will be temporarily archived on the investor relations section of our website, where you can also find our earnings release and latest investor presentation. Our earnings release includes reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during today's call. During the course of this call, we will make forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of, assumptions made by, and information currently available to us. Our actual results will be affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties, and factors that are beyond our control or ability to predict. Although we believe that our assumptions are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance, and some will prove to be incorrect. Therefore, our actual future results can be expected to differ from our expectations, and those differences may be material. For a more detailed description of potential risks, please refer to our SEC filings, which can be found in the investor relations section of our website. We'll start the call off today with David, who will discuss some exciting developments with our business and our 2022 strategy. Then Shaul will outline our vision for the future of the office and multifamily market, and I will discuss some updates to our portfolio. And then Nate will finish up with our fourth quarter results. Then we'll be happy to take your questions. David?

Thanks, Steve, and thank you for joining our call today. This morning, we announced our fourth quarter 2021 earnings, which were marked by strong results in our lending segment and improving performance at our one hotel asset. Our office net operating income declined year over year, but we continue to see a significant increase in leasing activity, and we're making progress on our value-add assets. In early January, CIM Group, the manager of CMCT, agreed to a reduction in the management fee that amounts to approximately 21 cents per share in annual cost savings. This reduced fee started January 1, 2022, and we will start seeing the benefit in the first quarter of 2022. We'll get into more detail on our performance in the quarter later in the call, but first, I wanted to take some time to speak about some exciting updates for our business and our go-forward strategy. As you know, we are seeing a shift in the live-work lifestyle, with many high-growth companies and employees embracing hybrid in-person and work-from-home structures and committing to locations in vibrant, culture-oriented, walkable communities. We believe that many of these underlying trends are secular. To reflect this belief, last week we changed our name to Creative Media and Community Trust. This change was made to highlight and sharpen our focus on investing in and developing premier multifamily and creative office properties that cater to fast-growing industries like tech, media, and entertainment. We distinguish creative office from traditional office as bright, open, thoughtfully designed, and comfortable spaces that encourage creativity, flexibility, and collaboration. I'd like to turn it over to Shaul Kuba to discuss this strategy in further detail.