Safehold Inc

Good morning and welcome to Safehold's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. If you need assistance during today's call, please press star zero. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. That's star one to ask a question. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the conference over to Pierce Hoffman, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Safehold's earnings call. On the call today, we have Jay Sugarman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Brett Asness, Chief Financial Officer, and Tim Daugherty, Chief Investment Officer. This morning, we plan to walk through a presentation that details our third quarter 2024 results. The presentation can be found on our website at safeholdinc.com by clicking on the Investors link. There will be a replay of this conference call beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern time today. The dial-in for the replay is 877-481-4010 with a confirmation code of 51479. In order to accommodate all those who want to ask questions, we ask that participants limit themselves to two questions during Q&A. If you'd like to ask additional questions, you may reenter the queue. Before I turn the call over to Jay, I'd like to remind everyone that statements in this earnings call which are not historical facts may be forward-looking. Our actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and the risk factors that could cause these differences are detailed in our SEC reports. Safehold disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as expressly required by law. Now with that, I'd like to turn it over to Chairman and CEO Jay Sugarman. Jay?

Jay Sugarman Thanks, Pierce, and good morning to everyone joining us today. The third quarter saw steady investment activity, including the purchase of minority ownership interests held by our sovereign wealth JV partner and many smaller multifamily ground leases previously originated by Safehold. While it makes more sense for Safehold to own 100 percent of these smaller ground lease deals, we continue to work with our JV partner on larger transactions, where the investment size is more appropriate for the JV. That purchase, along with several other transactions closed in the quarter, were executed at attractive yields, generally done at the higher end of our targeted ROAs and at solid GLTV levels. Overall, the rate environment remains the most important near-term driver of investment activity. Lower rates generated increased engagement across a wide range of customers during the quarter, but the recent jump in yields and increased volatility will likely have an impact on capital stacks and customer decision-making. We remain cautiously optimistic that macro industry conditions are pointing to a better transaction environment in 2025. Turning to earnings, year-over-year EPS was higher, excluding enhancements to our general provision for credit loss methodology implemented during the quarter. We continue to look for ways to run and capitalize the business more efficiently until transaction activity picks up more fully. Lastly, UCA estimates move slightly higher, with existing portfolio UCA pressured by generally higher cap rate assumptions and tougher office fundamentals, offset by new UCA additions from attractive originations during the quarter. And with that quick summary, let me turn it over to Brett to review the quarter in more detail.