Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Chicago Atlantic Real Estate Finance, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to 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 Peter Sack, Co-Chief Executive Officer, David Kite, Chief Operating 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 files 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, 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 law, 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 risks 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 filing for the SEC. We also will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including but not limited to distributable earnings. Definitions of these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in our filings with the SEC. Now I'll turn the call over to Peter Sack. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Tripp. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to open this call with a brief discussion of industry developments, accomplishments in Q4, and our outlook as we begin the year. the U.S. cannabis industry turns the year on muted notes. The failure of Florida's adult use ballot initiative, lack of prioritization of federal cannabis reform, and pricing pressure in some markets have contributed to cannabis equity values and implied valuation multiples reaching near record lows. Against this backdrop, Chicago Atlantic executed a tremendous fourth quarter. Our results underscore the continued success of a strategy that places credit and collateral first, adds value to our borrowers collaboratively, and is driven by a leading team of industry experts, originators, and underwriters. We aim to create a differentiated and low-levered risk-return profile that is insulated from cannabis equity volatility and outperforms our industry-agnostic mortgage-read peers. Two data points which underscore these achievements now more than four years since inception. From November 4th, 2024, the eve of the November election, to March 6, 2025, refi stock price increased from 15.13 to 16.15 per share, or 6.7%. And we announced two dividends, while MSOS, the ETF which generally tracks U.S. cannabis operators, declined by 61%. The second and perhaps more important metric Our analysis suggests that benchmarked since inception on a total return basis, assuming dividend reinvestment, refi is the number three top-performing exchange-listed mortgage REIT. We aim to be number one. Amid industry and economic uncertainty, we focus on deploying capital with consumer and product-focused operators in limited license jurisdictions at low leverage profiles and supporting fundamentally sound growth initiatives. We deployed $90.7 million in gross originations in Q4 in nine investments spanning Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Minnesota, among others. Diversification remained strong across 30 portfolio companies. During the year, we increased our senior secured credit facility to $110 million and closed on a $50 million unsecured term loan at attractive pricing, of which we deployed nearly half net of repayments in the fourth quarter. We delivered 2.06 per share in dividends to our shareholders in 2024. The cannabis pipeline across the Chicago Atlantic platform now stands at approximately $490 million, and we have current liquidity of approximately $67 million to fund deployment. Before I pass the mic to David Kite, my fellow managing partner and chief operating officer, I'd like to highlight a significant achievement for which he is primarily responsible. In Q1 2025, the administrative agent completed key milestones in the foreclosure on select operating assets of loan number nine, which has been on non-accrual for some time. Members of the administrative agent were successfully affiliated with the Pennsylvania Department of Health as principals, giving them full operational control of the assets, and we hope that through operational and balance sheet restructuring, we may restore this loan to accrual status this year. Defaults, workouts, and restructurings are inevitable byproduct of direct lending. It is an area in which despite a low default rate, we have considerable expertise and we hope to show definitively in 2025 that we can execute for the benefit of our shareholders. David, thank you for the effort. And why don't you take it from here?