Forum Markets, Incorporated

Hello and welcome to Forum Markets' second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During today's discussion, all callers will be placed in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, the call will be open for questions. This call is being recorded on August 13, 2026, and a replay will be made available on Forum Investor Relations' website later today. I will now turn the call over to John Kristoff, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.

Thank you, Megan. Hello, and thank you all for joining Forum's second quarter 2026 financial results conference call. Joining me on the call today are McAndrew Rudisill, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Saunders, Chief Financial Officer. We hope you've had the opportunity to review our second quarter financial results issued earlier this morning. We've also posted an earnings presentation to our investor relations website. As a reminder, some of the matters we'll be discussing on this morning's call are forward-looking in nature. Please keep in mind that actual results could differ materially from what is expressed in these forward-looking statements. Forum assumes no obligation to update the information, and we encourage you to refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us.

Since our last call, we have continued to execute against Forum's operational strategy while taking a disciplined approach to allocating shareholder capital. We are building Forum by combining deep operating experience with disciplined capital allocation. Operationally, our focus is on acquiring and managing cash-flowing assets with attractive risk-adjusted returns in large, scalable markets with moderate to high complexity and durable demand. Thank you for joining us. Given the disconnect between Forum's market value and what we believe is the intrinsic value of the company, we determined that repurchasing a large percentage of our stock represented the most attractive use of capital available to us. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 7.1 million shares, about 35% of our shares outstanding prior to those repurchases. All shares acquired under the program have been retired. Our second quarter results reflect a deliberate capital allocation decision. We chose to deploy a meaningful amount of capital allocated towards share repurchases rather than acquire additional revenue producing assets based on our view of the value that was available in our shares. We evaluate capital allocation continuously and we'll keep directing it to where it earns the best risk adjusted return for shareholders. With that discipline in place, our near-term core focus is anchored on deploying capital into cash-generating assets and growing revenue in the second half of the year, which John will cover in more detail. Turning to the Board Special Committee, we believe the process has advanced meaningfully since our last call, and we are encouraged by the quality and level of engagement we have seen to date. The Committee continues to evaluate each opportunity against a clear standard. Which path best maximizes long-term value for foreign shareholders? While we cannot comment on specific discussions, potential counterparties, or transaction timing, we expect to be in a position to provide shareholders with a meaningful update prior to our next earnings call. Management remains fully focused on operating the business and strengthening our fundamentals in the meantime. On the asset side, even accounting for capital deployed towards repurchases, we continue to expand our portfolio of income-producing real-world assets and have done so at an accelerating pace since quarter end. Most recently, we acquired two additional commercial aircraft engines, bringing our aviation portfolio to five engines under long-term lease to two of the largest U.S. airlines. Both engines were already on lease and generating contracted revenue at the time of purchase, and we are targeting double-digit annual returns on the pair. John will cover the financial specifics in his remarks. Commercial aircraft engines are representative of the types of high-quality real-world assets where proprietary deal flow, networks, and structuring create investment opportunities that are not broadly accessible through traditional public markets, exactly the profile we look for. We also continue to advance our AI infrastructure vertical, an access-constrained market where we see attractive opportunities to generate great returns and durable cash flow. Our initial work in short-term GPU financing helps surface adjacent opportunities within the same ecosystem, including the deployment and operation of AI equipment across data centers and inference compute locations, generating revenue from the compute. We are now close to deploying capital into AI infrastructure in the area of AI compute, which we expect to contribute meaningfully to the revenue in the second half of the year. We also continue to evaluate opportunities in short-term GPU financing with partners that align with our operational compute model. We believe aviation and AI infrastructure are particularly attractive areas for near-term expansion because both combine substantial capital demand with specialized origination requirements and access-constrained investment opportunities. At the same time, we have built origination capabilities across all four of our core verticals, and overall deal flow has accelerated meaningfully in 2026. That has broadened the range of opportunities available to us and allows us to be highly selective on structure, counterparties, and risk-adjusted returns. Manufactured housing and auto credit round out the platform by providing additional sources of secured cash-generating assets. These categories reflect prioritization of assets that generate attractive income, are backed by tangible collateral and strong off-take counterparties, and can create additional value through origination, management, and distribution over time. We will continue to deploy capital selectively where we see the strongest risk-adjusted returns with a particular focus on markets where our capabilities can improve capital formation. This multi-channel model supports several distinct sources of value, including yield on assets held by Forum, origination and structuring economics, asset management fees as third-party capital participates, and distribution or marketplace economics as those channels mature. In addition, Liquidity.io remains a part of Forum's long-term tokenization strategy, and its platform upgrade is expected to significantly broaden its capabilities during the second half of 2026. Markets, Incorporated, John Saunders We believe Forum has built a differentiated base of income-producing assets, proprietary origination relationships, and distribution capabilities. And we remain focused on increasing the value of that platform and ensuring that value is created for shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.