Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance Inc. second quarter 2024 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 session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce the host for today's conference, Mr. Tripp Sullivan of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance Conference call to review the company's results. On the call today will be John Masarakis, Executive Chairman, 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 file with SEC. A live audio webcast of this call is being made available today. For those who listened to the replay of this webcast, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today and 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 expectation. 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 the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to John Masarac. Please go ahead. Thanks, Tripp.

Good morning, everyone. The possible federal rescheduling, the addition of adult use on the ballot in Florida this November, and the optimism surrounding the Ohio adult use rollout have many of our operators and those in our pipeline planning for future growth. We'll be ready to help them grow. Despite those tailwinds, You should not be shocked to hear from us that we have maintained a very conservative approach to growing the portfolio, especially given the recent volatility in the public markets. We are focused on attractive risk-adjusted returns that provide an appropriate spread over our cost of capital with exceptionally strong coverage and collateral. Until federal legalization is passed, we will continue to underwrite new loans as if rescheduling never happens. We are never surprised on the downside and like to think that we have already accounted for the potential upside in any opportunity. Our pipeline across the Chicago Atlantic platform currently stands at 508 million. We're still prioritizing operators in limited licensed states and those positioned to transition from medical to adult use. That means we're active in Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, and Ohio, With investments in Florida-based assets accounting for 12% of our portfolio at quarter end, we believe we're very well positioned to continue backing the best operators in that state if adult use is ultimately approved. We once again deployed the ATM program to source accretive capital. During the quarter, we issued approximately 410,000 shares at a weighted average price of $15.76, raising net proceeds of approximately $6.3 million. Each issuance was transacted at a premium to book value. Peter, why don't you take it from here?