Lument Finance Trust, Inc.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Lumen Finance Trust third quarter 2021 earnings call. All participants will be in 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 telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Today's call is being recorded and will be made available via webcast on the company's website. I would now like to turn the call over to Charles Duddy with Investor Relations at Lumen Investment Management. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Gary, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call to discuss Lumen Finance Trust third quarter 2021 financial results. With me on the call today are James Flynn, CEO, Michael Larson, President, James Briggs, CFO, and Priscilla Torres, Head of Real Estate Investment Strategies. On Tuesday, we followed our time queue with the SEC and issued a press release which provided details on our third quarter results. We also provided a supplemental earnings presentation which can be found on our website. Before handing the call over to Jim, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during the course of this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. When using this conference, words such as outlook, evaluate, indicate, believes, will, anticipates, expects, intends, and other expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statement. These risks are discussed in the company's reports filed with the SEC including its reports on Form 8K, 10Q, and 10K, and in particular, the risk factor section of our Form 10K. Additionally, many of these risks and uncertainties are currently amplified by and will continue to be amplified by or in the future may be amplified by the COVID pandemic. It is not possible to predict or identify all such risks. 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. Presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation nor as a substitute to the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP can be accessed through our filings with the SEC at sec.gov. With that, I will turn the call over to James Flynn. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Charlie. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Lumen Finance Trust earnings call for the third quarter of 2021. 2021 has been a very busy year and an important year for Lumen Finance Trust. During the year, we executed several significant capital transactions that allowed us to grow our capital and institutional investor base. At the same time, We've made significant incremental investments, observed continued strong performance in our portfolio, and generally positive performance. These were all accomplished in an environment marked with uncertain economic considerations, interest rates, unemployment, asset values, all exacerbated by the impact of such valuables like COVID-19, and also the political and social unrest particularly related to COVID-19. While the lending market continues to be competitive, the breadth of Lumen's platform and its strength in multifamily in particular continue to provide us with compelling and large investment opportunities. During Q3, we invested over $300 million in new floating rate bridge loans, showing our ability to quickly deploy substantial amounts of recently raised capital. Our expansive origination capabilities of the manager have driven this strong deal flow. And based on the current pipeline, we expect to be fully deployed ahead of schedule by the end of the year. As we continue to grow, we also expect to identify other investment opportunities in commercial real estate and to invest a portion of our capital in investments such as preferred equity, MES loans, and other high-yield CRE instruments. It's important to acknowledge that our focus in multifamily bridge lending and the strength of our credit and asset management platform has allowed our portfolio to continue to perform well. As of the end of the quarter, September 30, our loan portfolio was again 100% performing, no impairments, no loan defaults, and no loans subject to forbearance. Similar to previous quarters, I'm happy to report we have still not granted a single forbearance, and more importantly, have not had the need to grant a single forbearance during the COVID era. continue to believe this is a testament to both our rigorous credit standards, our high-quality production, and our proactive asset management efforts. Perhaps most importantly, our ability to continue to execute on our business plan is reflected in the results. Through September 30 on a year-to-date basis, our total distributable earnings has been $0.28 per share, which provides support for our dividends. While the company did experience a decline in distributable EPS during Q3, this was anticipated. As we discussed in previous calls, due to the successful closing of our preferred equity offering on May 5th, the recalling of our prior two CLOs and the refinance into a billion-dollar CLO on June 14th, we experienced a short-term decline in our distributable earnings as we deployed the proceeds from those transactions. We believe this Capital deployment impact is transitory in nature, and we do not anticipate any negative impact to our long-term earnings outlook on a fully invested basis. We'll speak more about that later, but as discussed, our pipeline has grown significantly, and the deal flow continues to increase in velocity. When the management team took over as the manager of LFT in January of 2018, we were clear on our goal of deploying capital into commercial real estate and investments with a focus in multifamily in order to provide stable earnings to support the market return to our shareholders. We indicated a desire to grow LFT to a larger scale, which we felt will provide the most value to our shareholders. This quarter, we've made progress on those goals, and I'm excited for our continued growth as we focus on executing that business plan. In the coming months, we hope to continue discussions with investors educate market participants about LFT and the opportunity that we offer investors. Although relatively small in the commercial mortgage space, our manager and the Lumen platform are not. We are one of the nation's largest capital providers in multifamily and seniors housing space, executing over $16 billion in transaction volume in 2020. Lumen services, a $49 billion servicing portfolio, and employs over 600 employees in more than 25 offices nationwide. The scale of that platform benefits the LT investors and provides great support for the execution of our investment strategy. As we continue to show over these last years, we are utilizing the strength of our manager to focus our investments in Mill Market Multifamily Bridge, and those have continued to perform well. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jim Braggs, We will provide some details on our financial results.