Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Sunrise Realty Trust's fourth quarter and four-year 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chief Legal Officer Gabriel Katz. You may begin.

Gabriel Katz Good morning, and thank you all for joining Sunrise Realty Trust's earnings call for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31st, 2024. I'm joined this morning by Leonard Tannenbaum, our Executive Chairman, Brian Sedrus, our Chief Executive Officer, and Brandon Hetzel, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to note that this call is being recorded. Replay information is included in our February 12, 2025 press release and is posted on the investor relations portion of our website at sunriserealtytrust.com, along with our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 earnings release and investor presentation. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements and projections that reflect the company's current views with respect to, among other things, market developments, our investment pipeline, anticipated portfolio yield, and financial performance and projections in 2025 and beyond. These statements are subject to inherent uncertainties in predicting future results. Please refer to Sunrise Realty Trust's most recent periodic filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, filed earlier this morning, for certain conditions and significant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and projections. During today's conference call, management will refer to non-GAAP financial measures including distributable earnings. Please see our fourth quarter and fiscal year earnings release uploaded to our website for reconciliations of this non-GAAP financial measure with the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The format for today's call is as follows. Len will provide a general business and capital markets overview. Next, Brian will cover our view on the state of the commercial real estate lending markets, discuss our existing portfolio, and provide an outlook for our investment pipeline. Then Brandon will provide an update on our financial position. After that, we'll open the line for Q&A. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Leonard Tannenbaum.

Thank you, Gabe. Good morning and welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 earnings conference call. As we finished 2024 and began 2025, we've continued the strong momentum since our public listing in July. For the quarter ended December 31st, 2024, SONS generated distributable earnings of 30 cents per weighted average share of common stock. When declaring SONS quarterly dividend, distributable earnings is the primary metric the Board of Directors considers. As such, the Board of Directors has declared a 30 cent dividend per share for the quarter ended March 31st, 2025. Looking ahead, We are focused on paying a dividend that is consistent with the earnings power of the business over the medium term. As we continue to invest our capital and use leverage provided by our senior and unsecured credit lines, we believe the 30 cent dividend should be on or close to our first quarter distributable earnings. As a reminder, Suns is an important part of the TCG real estate platform. The platform consists of a number of funds focused on sourcing, underwriting, and investing in commercial real estate loans. The affiliation with this platform provides SONS with a scalable infrastructure, debt and equity capital markets expertise, and the ability to pursue larger transactions than it could currently pursue on its own. During the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2024, the TCG real estate platform originated $538 million of loans, of which Suns committed $220 million and funded $162 million. As of December 31, 2024, $133 million of principal remained outstanding. As of March 1, the TCG real estate platform has originated $115 million of loans this year, with Suns committing $75 million of that total. With market dynamics in the southern US creating opportunities for commercial real estate lenders, our direct origination platform continues to source attractive deals, and the TCG real estate platform currently has an active pipeline of 1.4 billion, which includes two signed term sheets currently in documentation. Subsequent to year end, we successfully completed an offering for SCUNS, raising approximately $77 million of gross proceeds. We believe that this equity raise was an important step in scaling the company, as it allowed us to capture a greater share of this attractive commercial real estate vintage, gain additional research analyst coverage, significantly increase liquidity, and increase the potential of accessing more attractive financing sources to continue our growth. In conjunction with the equity raise, our manager has agreed to waive at least $1 million of future fees to mitigate the earnings drag as we deploy equity and debt capital. We expect the manager to waive all management fees and all incentive fees in the first quarter of this year. We are excited about the opportunity ahead of us and look forward to meeting many investors and analysts in the upcoming months. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Brian.