ACRES Commercial Realty Corp.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q2 2020 Exentus 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 touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference. Kyle Brinkel, Managing Director of Capital Markets. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Before we begin, I'd 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 8K, 10Q, and 10K. and in particular, the risk factors section of our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of 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 as a substitute to the financial information presented in the accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles are contained in our earnings release for the past quarter. There was an announcement on August 3rd that Acres Capital has acquired the management contract of Exantis. With that, I will now turn it over to the chairman of Exantis, Andrew Fentress, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Kyle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. I'm pleased to be speaking to you today in my new role as the chairman of Exantus following the acquisition of the management contract, which was announced earlier this week. With me today are Mark Fogle, the new president and CEO of Exantus, Dave Bryant, the CFO, who many of you know and have heard from over the years, Michael Piero, a senior managing director who came over from Exantus and has joined Acres, and Kyle Brangle, managing director, who you just heard from. Given the recent transaction, our call today is going to focus on the rationale between or behind this exciting combination, and we will provide some detail on the second quarter results. We will forego the typical forward-looking loan origination expectations at this time. All of us at Acres are excited about the opportunity to serve as the manager of Exantus, and we believe that our lending platforms and portfolios complement each other well. In short, our goal is to be a full end-to-end solution for middle market commercial real estate borrowers nationwide. Let me share some background on Acres. We're a leading balance sheet lender that provides debt capital solutions to the commercial real estate industry in the top 25 MSAs across the country. Since our inception in 2012, we built a highly successful lending platform by providing more than $1.6 billion in transitional loans to strong middle market sponsors in all major asset classes. We focus on short-term first mortgage loans generally overlooked by traditional lenders that range in size from 10 to 80 million. Our senior leadership consists of veteran commercial real estate finance executives with meaningful public company experience. In thinking about the combination, we want to continue to build on the Exantus strengths that were developed over the last four years by focusing on first mortgage loans of similar size and for the next phase of assets life after an ACRS financing. We expect the Acres platform will generate new business pipeline of opportunities for Exantus. The complimentary nature of our lending platforms provides a unique opportunity to offer one-stop commercial lending in the middle market, and we intend to leverage our experience and network of relationships to do just that. There are three important aspects of the transaction that I want to focus on. One is to deliver critical liquidity to Exantus in order to mitigate any potential margin call or liquidity risk. Two is to focus on asset management within the current portfolio. And three is to then put the company back into a position to begin underwriting again with an eye towards growing book value and earnings. Just a note on our two capital providers that you both read about in the transaction recently, Oak Tree and MassMutual. Each of these two companies has been working with Acres in partnership over the last several years, and they are equally energized about the opportunity in front of us all. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mark Fogel, CEO and President of Exantis.