Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc.

Welcome to the Clarus Morgus Trust first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Becky and I'll be your conference facilitator today. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. To ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. I would now like to hand the call over to Ana Huynh, Vice President of Investor Relations for Claris Mortgage Trust. Please proceed.

Thank you. I'm joined by Richard Mack, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Claris Mortgage Trust, and Mike McGillis, President, Chief Financial Officer, and Director of Claris Mortgage Trust. We also have Priyanka Garg, Executive Vice President, who leads MREX Portfolio and Asset Management. Prior to this call, we distributed CMTG's earnings release and supplement. We encourage you to reference these documents in conjunction with the information presented on today's call. If you have any questions, please contact me. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements. as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements made on this call represents our view only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call, such as distributable earnings, which we believe may be important to investors to assess our operating performance. For reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to their nearest GAAP equivalents, please refer to the earnings supplement. I would now like to turn the call over to Richard.

Thank you, Ann, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning for CMTG's first quarter earnings call. Reflecting on recent U.S. tariff and foreign policy volatility, there is now heightened uncertainty as to outcomes that has rippled across the globe. And while it's still unclear what the long term implications will be for the U.S. economy, the global economy and commercial real estate broadly, we've been observing impacts on the real estate capital markets. We are seeing spreads widen slightly and some institutional participants pause before transacting as assessing and ascribing value to risk has become exceptionally difficult and will likely remain so until tariff and other economic policies are settled. All of this combined with the ongoing higher rate environment means that there are continuing headwinds to the broader real estate recovery. Notwithstanding this difficult backdrop, I am pleased to report that CMTG has made progress towards achieving the goals we outlined on our last earnings call, enhancing liquidity, reducing leverage, and optimizing the outcomes on our watch list loans. As of April 30th, we have fully realized five loans and have received $607 million in proceeds from repayments and resolutions. Through these transactions, we accomplished the following. First, we improved our liquidity position. Second, we continued to reduce leverage. Third, we resolved two watch list loans and reduced CMTG's land and office exposure, which are two property types that have experienced challenges in recent years and have been difficult to monetize. Finally, we reduced our hospitality exposure by an aggregate of $326 million, which we view as a positive sign given the potentially increasing economic headwinds and recessionary fears. Further, we have made progress on our multifamily REO strategy described last quarter. During the first quarter, we closed on a $214 million facility that will allow us to finance these nonperforming loans through the REO stage. We continue to believe our path to optimizing outcomes on these cash-flowing assets on behalf of shareholders is to assume title and manage these assets through disposition, given our sponsors' experience as an owner, operator, and developer. As we look to the remainder of the year and the strategic priorities we set out to accomplish, our work continues every day. We also recognize the economic and political climate and its potential impact on capital markets, investor sentiment, and our momentum in accomplishing these priorities. As we navigate this period of uncertainty and volatility, we will continue to consider various paths to loan resolutions. These may include divesting, extending, recapitalizing, or taking assets over as REO depending upon market conditions and our assessment of opportunity through our sponsor's lens as a value-add owner and developer of real estate assets. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike, and I thank you all for joining us today.