Newmark Group, Inc.

Good morning, my name is Ursula and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Newmark First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this time, you will need to press star then the number one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I will now turn the call over to Jason Harbs, VP of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin when you're ready.

Good morning and thanks for joining us. We appreciate your patience as we delayed the call by a few minutes to accommodate a large number of call participants. We issued our first quarter 2020 financial results press release and a presentation summarizing these results this morning. Due to the extraordinary impact of the ongoing pandemic, We created a supplemental COVID-19 slide deck which illustrates Newmark's response to the crisis and it can be found on our Investor Relations website at ir.mgkf.com. Unless otherwise stated, the results provided on today's call compare only the first quarter of 2020 with the year earlier period. We will be referring to our results on this call only on an adjusted earnings basis unless otherwise stated. We may also refer to adjusted EBITDA. Please see today's press release for results under generally accepted accounting principles or GAF. Please see the sections in the back of today's press release for the complete definitions of any such non-GAAP terms, reconciliations of these items to the corresponding GAAP results, and how, when, and why management uses them. Additional information with respect to our GAAP and non-GAAP results mentioned on today's call is available on our website and in our investor presentation. Any outlook discussed on today's call assumes no material acquisitions, shareable purchases, or meaningful changes in the company's stock price. I also remind you that information on this call regarding our business that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Barry Gosin.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning and thank you for joining us for Newmark's first quarter 2020 conference call. Joining me virtually on the call today are Newmark's Chief Financial Officer Mike Rispoli, our Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Day, and our Chief Revenue Officer Lou Alvarado. We are clearly living through an unprecedented moment in time and we wish to express our deepest sympathies to everyone who has suffered due to COVID-19. We would like to thank the medical professionals First responders and all others putting their own health at risk to help. We would also like to thank our employees, the vast majority of whom are now working from home and living with the challenges of this crisis. While maintaining our focus on the health and well-being of our employees and clients, we have responded quickly and have taken numerous steps to solidify our financial position. We have reduced our fixed operating and support expenses by over $100 million through the end of 2020. In addition, we have reduced our dividend and distributions. Given our highly variable expense structure, coupled with the changes we have implemented, Newmark will maintain its strong financial position during a potentially prolonged downturn and thrive when the crisis abates. Our quarterly performance was adversely impacted by the pandemic. as industry transaction volumes fell significantly in the latter part of the quarter. Over the last several years, we have hired some of the most talented brokers in the industry. Many of the leading owners and occupiers of commercial real estate have deep and sustained relationships with our professionals. While transaction volumes will be lower in the near term, we expect our clients to leverage our expertise and deep market knowledge to help them navigate through these difficult times while preparing them to reenter the market. For example, our GCF teams are providing consulting and advisory services for tenants and owners who need assistance with implementing policies with respect to office repopulating and overall portfolio strategy. We are also providing technology solutions to manage density, provide social distancing solutions, and heat map solutions for location reopening to mitigate the impact We are assisting investors by raising capital and helping owners create liquidity. Our valuation and advisory business is helping investors to establish values on leveraged debt instruments in this environment. We are also quantifying changes in risk-adjusted returns for investors and assisting investors and banks with distressed assets. We are also selling loans. We have established a microsite which is accessible on our main website called COVID-19 Perspectives to provide insights into the impact of the pandemic. With that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Mike.