Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance Conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host, Tripp Sullivan. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance Conference call to review the company's results for the fourth quarter of 2023. On the call today will be John Masarakis, Executive Chairman, Tony Kappel, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Peter Sack, Co-Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Silverman, Chief Financial Officer. Our results were released this morning in our earnings press release which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, along with our supplemental filed with the SEC. A live audio webcast of this call is being made available today. For those who listened to the replay of this webcast, it reminds you that the remarks made herein, or as of today, March 12, 2024, will not be updated subsequent to this call. During this call, certain comments and statements we make may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning prescribed by the securities laws, including statements related to the future performance of our portfolio, our pipeline of potential loans and other investments, future dividends, and financing activities. All forward-looking statements represent Chicago Atlantic's judgment as of the date of this conference call and are subject to risk and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Investors are urged to carefully review various disclosures made by the company, including the risk and other information disclosed in the company's filings with the SEC. We also will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including but not limited to distributable earnings and adjusted distributable earnings. Definitions of these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in our filings with SEC. And now I'll turn the call over to John Mazarakis. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Tripp. Good morning, everyone. To allow time for more robust discussions in the Q&A, we'll plan on keeping our prepared comments shorter than usual today. This was a good quarter for us that wrapped up an exceptional year. We grew our portfolio in a measured fashion while improving credit quality, increasing our weighted average portfolio yield, and delivering a sector-leading total return of approximately 22.3%, all while keeping leverage well below sector averages. We're incrementally positive with our outlook on the industry and our operators as they benefit from the improving sentiment and strong demand. I think we're all aware of what's going on at the federal level with HHS's recommendation on cannabis rescheduling. We're equally focused on the positive credit quality impact that would result from the elimination of 280E associated with that rescheduling. The elimination of this tax burden will be a huge win for the industry as a whole, leading to significantly improved cash flow generation among our borrowers. At the state level, we're excited about the forthcoming rollout of the adult use sales in Ohio expected in 2024 and other potential voter referendum changes in Florida and recreational sales in Pennsylvania in the medium term. We're well positioned in these states and continue to leverage Chicago Atlantic's platform and relationships to be at the forefront of capitalizing on the evolving state legislative landscape. The demand for credit in this capital-constrained industry should only accelerate as a result. The maturity wall we have previously discussed is also beginning to materialize. Our pipeline of actionable deals across the platform has increased from 400 million in mid 2023 to approximately 600 million today. As the leading and most consistent platform committed to the cannabis industry, Chicago Atlantic remains positioned to be the first call for borrowers and financial institutions alike who want to deploy capital in the space. Providing our investors with attractive returns and protecting principle drives every decision we make at Chicago Atlantic. With improving sentiment in the space and better access to capital to fund growth in the portfolio, we hope for another good year. I will now turn it over to Peter.