Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Franklin BSP Realty Trust First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a 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 your touchtone 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 Lindsey Crabb, Executive Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to FBRT's first quarter earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us today. As the operator mentioned, I'm Lindsey Crabb. With me on the call today are Michael Camperato, Chief Executive Officer of FBRT, Jerry Baglian, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of FBRT, and Brian Buffone, President of FBRT. Before I 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, April 30th, 2026. The company assumes 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. We will refer to the supplementary slide deck on today's call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike Camperotto.

thank you lindsay and good morning everyone thank you for joining today i will begin with key developments from the first quarter and an overview of the market then jerry will walk through our financial results and brian will provide updates on our portfolio the quarter played out against an increasingly complex macro backdrop geopolitical uncertainty and ongoing conflict have added volatility across markets But in many ways, commercial real estate has already gone through its correction over the past few years. Values have reset meaningfully across all asset classes, and we believe we are much closer to the end of this cycle than the beginning. What remains is the final phase, working through the legacy positions as lenders move beyond extend and pretend. Against that backdrop, liquidity in our markets remains strong and competition is high, with spreads near cyclical types. We've stayed disciplined in that environment while continuing to find opportunities in origination. Our origination activity outpaced repayments this quarter, resulting in portfolio growth. That speaks to the strength of our platform and our ability to operate outside of the most crowded parts of the market. In addition, last year we selectively began deploying capital into equity investments where we saw the potential for strong risk-adjusted returns. We've already seen meaningful appreciation in those assets, with the estimated fair value significantly increasing since our initial investment. This is another good example of how we're using the breadth of our platform to allocate capital opportunistically and enhance overall returns. We expect the equity allocation of the portfolio to increase throughout 2026, but we will also strategically exit equity investments if the pricing is compelling. On the credit side, we continue to make progress resolving legacy assets, including reducing our REO account this quarter. We believe the majority of the legacy issues have been identified and are prioritizing resolution and redeployment of capital over holding underperforming assets. Within Newpoint, first quarter activity was seasonally higher, which is typical. excuse me, seasonally lighter, which is typical. If rates stabilize, we would expect origination volumes to build throughout the remainder of the year. As we've said before, even modest movements in rates today have an outsized impact on transaction activity. All in all, I would put this in the excellent category for a quarter. Our adjusted distributable earnings covered our dividend. We increased book value. We bought back a meaningful amount of stock at a substantial discount to book value. The board approved more stock buybacks post-quarter end. We sold our largest REO position early in the second quarter, grew the overall portfolio size, issued a highly accretive CRE CLO that closed in the second quarter. We integrated the entire BSP servicing book into Newpoint, and we had meaningful appreciation on two equity investments. The team really did an outstanding job this quarter. And with that, I'll hand it off to Jerry.