CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Hello and welcome to Core Energy's conference call to discuss the third quarter 2021 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow a formal presentation. Should anyone require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Kreps, Investor Relations for Core Energy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's Core Energy Infrastructure Trust conference call. With me today are Dave Schulte, CEO, John Greer, COO, and Robert Waldron, CFO. This morning we published a press release announcing the third quarter results for 2021. We expect to file a Form 10-Q this afternoon. You can also access a webcast replay on our IR site, typically posted within a couple hours of the live call's end. I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during the course of this presentation that are not purely historical fact may be forward-looking statements and are subject to the safe harbor protection available under the applicable securities laws. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements discussed in our funds with the SEC. These documents are available on the investor relations section of our website. We do not update our forward-looking statements. During this call, we will make reference to certain forward-looking non-GAAP metrics. We will be reconciling subsequent funds as part of our results reporting. We encourage all of you to review our complete disclosures, risk factors, gap numbers, and those non-gap metrics with related reconciliations. And with that, I would like to now turn the call over to Dave Schulte. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Third quarter revenue increased to $37 million, a solid step up from the $32 million in the second quarter, and providing coverage of our preferred and common dividends. We also completed structural changes that simplified and streamlined both our capital stack and the operating structure, implemented a modest rate increase for our California assets, and continued steady operations from all of our assets. I'll quickly recap the changes in our operating capital structure approved by our stockholders at the recent annual meeting. John will talk about our operations, and Robert will finish with a financial review. The first structural change was the internalization of our external manager, issuing equity to the member owners who are mostly on a management team. This reduced the cost of administering our REIT as compared with prior external manager REIT structure, which is especially beneficial as we grow the platform. These cost savings provide a direct benefit to our external equity and debt holders through improved coverage ratios. Second, we updated the Crimson membership unit conversion rights, effectively eliminating the potential of the Series C and Series B preferred from being issued by the company. Eliminating these share classes is also a direct benefit to our external common stockholders due to the reduction in preferred dividend rate from the Series C equivalent A1 units, approximately $450,000 per year, and the subordination of approximately $60 million of management-owned preferred equity to a position below our common equity in the right of the A2 units to exchange into Class B common. all, of course, subject to CPUC approval. The Class B common requires management to achieve certain financial performance and coverage thresholds in order for a dividend to be issued to them. The net takeaway of these actions should be that while our common was already in a good coverage position and the Board has consistently declared dividends to our common holders, these recent steps give even greater confidence of coverage to our common, with subordinated management-owned shares acting as a shock absorber, This is also an indication of the confidence your management team has in the future of our platform, which I'd like John Greer to address next. John?