ACRES Commercial Realty Corp.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2020 Exantus Capital Corp. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Steve Landgraver, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made in the course of this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward-looking statements. When used in this conference call, the words believes, anticipates, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the company believes that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of trends, risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's reports filed with the SEC, including its reports on Forms 8-K, 10Q and 10K, and in particular, the risk factors section of our form 10K. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We speak only at the date hereof. The company undertakes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements. Furthermore, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this conference call. Our presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or or as a substitute to the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most applicable measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles are contained in our earnings release for the past quarter. I will now turn it over to the Chairman of Exantus Capital Corp., Andrew Farkas, for opening remarks.

Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for calling in. With me today are Bob Lieber, our CEO, Matt Stern, president of Exantus, Dave Bryant, our CFO, Paul Hewson, who's head of commercial real estate lending, and as you heard from Steve Landgraver, who's our senior vice president. Let me begin, please, by expressing our hope that all of you and your families are healthy and safe. All of us at Exantus Capital Corp. and C3 Capital Partners, which is Exantus' manager, salute our healthcare and other essential workers who are doing and risking so much at this remarkable time. As an organization, C3 Capital Partners made a concerted effort to provide charitable financial support to both healthcare workers on the front lines and assistance to those in need. The unprecedented fallout from the COVID-19 virus in broad financial markets around the world has had an acute impact on commercial real estate. Like many of our peers, these events have had a material impact on our company. We transitioned our entire operations to a remote setting in the second week of March, There has and continues to be no disruption in our ability to operate, and all of our employees are safe. It's been approximately 12 years since our industry experienced a shock of this magnitude, and we are rigorously monitoring what is a fluctuating environment to ensure that we remain responsive and adaptable. While this period has been and will continue to be difficult, this particular management team has been through several real estate cycles, I'm confident we will find opportunities when the economy and financial markets stabilize. With the uncertainty in our financial markets and our economy today, our first and foremost goal is to protect the franchise and retain sufficient excess liquidity. We therefore did not pay a first quarter dividend on our common and preferred shares. We wanted to do this to maximize the liquidity for the company. We understand this is uncomfortable for shareholders, but the length and depth of this crisis is not yet known. The actions of the Federal Reserve and U.S. government have certainly stopped the freefall we were experiencing in the second half of March, but there's still uncertainty that's originated not from an economic event, but from a medical event, one we really haven't seen in this country in 100 years. We're confident the U.S. will recover when its medical issue is resolved, and we're positioning Xantus to recover as well. There's a lot that's transpired over the course of the last 8 to 10 weeks. Actually, an extraordinary amount has transpired over the course of the last 8 to 10 weeks, all of which have had a material impact on the company. Because there is so much that has transpired, we wanted to ensure that our shareholders had a detailed explanation from the company with regards to exactly what happened, how we responded to what happened, and how it has helped to mitigate further harm to the company. The objective, of course, is to make sure that the company emerges strong and solid as we go forward into the market and make certain that we have a future for all of our shareholders and for the organization. We've done a good job of making sure that that's going to happen. This call will be a little more detailed than usual so you have all the information. With that, let me turn this over to our CEO, Bob Lieber.