Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Franklin BSP Realty Trust Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal the conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lindsay Crabb, Director Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for hosting our call today and welcome to the Franklin BSP Realty Trust Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. As the operator mentioned, I'm Lindsay Crabb. With me on the call today are Richard Byrne, Chairman and CEO of FBRT, Jerry Baglian, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of FBRT and Mike Comperato, President of FBRT. Before we begin, I want to mention that some of today's comments are forward-looking statements and are based on certain assumptions. Those comments and assumptions are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, as described in our most recently filed SEC Periodic Reports, and actual future results may differ materially. The information conveyed on this call is current only as of the date of this call, July 31, 2025. We assume no obligation to update any statements made during this call, including any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Additionally, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to GAAP figures in our earnings release and supplementary slide deck, each of which are available on our website at .fbrtreet.com. We will refer to this slide deck on today's call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Richburn.

Great, thanks, Lindsay, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. But before we begin, I just want to take a moment on behalf of our entire team to express our deepest sympathy for those affected this week by the tragic events at 345 Park Avenue. This hit very close to home. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all those affected. Now we'll begin today's call on slide four by reviewing our second quarter results, and then we'll open the call up to your questions, as always. I'll begin with key developments from the second quarter. Jerry will walk through our financial results, and he'll provide details on our successful closing of the New Point acquisition. Then Mike will update you on market conditions, our watch list, and our EO activity. We selectively originated 61 million in new loan commitments this quarter, primarily in multifamily assets. Our originations were deliberately lower this quarter as we maintained a higher cash balance ahead of our July 1st New Point closing. We received 317 million in loan repayments in the second quarter across four different property types. This continues to be an encouraging trend, and one that we are well positioned to capitalize on moving into the back half of 2025. As we redeploy these funds into new loans and more attractive credit metrics, it will clearly benefit us. Our portfolio of post-interest rate hike loan originations was 56% of our portfolio at quarter end, and meaningfully ahead of our peers. This reflects how active we have been in the market over the past two and a half years. Distributable earnings were 27 cents per fully converted share. We believe there is a clear path to growing this to a level that supports our dividend. Jerry will lay this out in detail momentarily. Our average risk rating at quarter end was 2.3, with 137 of 145 positions risk rated two or three. And our watch list loans represent only 5% of our total portfolio. We also made significant progress on our REO portfolio this quarter. Our acknowledge and address mindset has not changed. We sold three multifamily assets totaling 56 million, which in aggregate was above our principal basis at the time of foreclosure. These results reinforce our strategy of being selective and patient in managing REO to maximize our recoveries. Since the new point acquisition closed on July 1st, I'll speak to our liquidity position excluding the cash that was paid at closing. Liquidity then was, or now is 501 million, including 77 million in unrestricted cash, with significant capacity remaining on our warehouse lines and through CLO reinvestment. Acquiring new point is a significant milestone for us. It expands our platform within our core competency multifamily lending. The transaction brings significant synergies to FBRT, including scaled origination and servicing capabilities, which will significantly increase our addressable market. It also adds a fully integrated mortgage servicing platform, which enhances income stability and provides an immediate avenue for recurring book value per share growth. We are confident new point will be a long-term driver of both earnings power and book value creation. Looking at long-term performance, FBRT has delivered economic returns to find this change in book value plus dividends paid of .6% and .9% over the past 12 months and 24 months respectively. This places us at the very top of our peer group. We believe these results reflect our disciplined credit decisions and very thoughtful capital management. Before handing it over to Jerry and Mike, I wanna briefly address our stock valuation. Our stock continues to trade at a steep discount to book value. We suspect the market is focused on three key concerns, our current dividend coverage, the quality of the assets in our legacy portfolio, and our recent acquisition of new point. We have provided additional details in our earning supplement deck to address each of these areas with greater transparency. In addition, Mike and Jerry will also cover these topics in their remarks, which you'll hear right now. With that, Jerry, I'll pass things over to you.