Creative Media & Community Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

John Moran: I was wondering if you can elaborate on your liquidity position as of March 31. So I think you said you had $25 million left on your line and — but how much cash do you have on your balance sheet? And I guess I was just wanted to tie that in with asking about the repurchase plan, and it seems like the stock trading sloppy. It’s, I don’t know, down 75% since your 2019 restructuring transactions that’s down 40% from the rights offering. And just you have the buyback in place and I guess the only reason not to execute on that at these levels would be liquidity. So anyway, just wondering if you could elaborate on liquidity at March 31 and what would be — am I correct in — that’s an issue with respect to the buyback?

David Thompson: Barry, do you want to touch on the liquidity numbers or Steve, then we can talk a little bit more about the buyback in general.

Barry Berlin: I think for the cash available, I think, we’re roughly around $15 million today plus the availability that you mentioned on the line.

David Thompson: And I think in terms of the buying back stock, again, we’ll continue to look at and find opportunities where we think it’s opportunistic for us to repurchase shares. Again, we want to balance that with the capital needs and opportunities that we think we’re going to see in the market. And we’ve talked about a number of the things on the development side that we’re looking at. So we want to balance that as well. And certainly, we have been active in the past. Affiliates were purchasing shares in 2021 and CMCT repurchased stock in second, third quarters of last year. So it’s something we’ll continue to take a look at.

Operator: The next question comes from Brendan McCarthy with Sidoti.

Brendan McCarthy: Yes. I was wondering if you could shed some light on the — or I’m sorry, the 1450 Wilshire transition on any government roadblocks or rezoning issues? I guess, do you — have you run into any rezoning issues with that with regards to office to multifamily?

Steve Altebrando: Yes. So the short answer is no. I mean, we did have to get the property re-entitled from office to multifamily, but generally, what we found for that particular asset was the community was pretty supportive of that because they would, generally speaking, prefer residential over an office user. So then we got — we received the entitlements last year and then it was just a matter of getting through the permit — permitting. And then fortunately, we were able to start construction in March. So we’re excited for that project should take about 18 months.

Brendan McCarthy: Got it. And one more question about the funding profile. Obviously, preferred is a large portion of the funding profile, but I was wondering if you could also shed some light on what you think the funding profile might look like two to four years down the road just in terms of capital structure?

Steve Altebrando: Yes. Ideally, we would be to a size that’s larger and certainly having more multifamily in the portfolio, which is a more stabilized source of cash flow. And then potentially, we could get to a point where we’re using unsecured financing, which has some advantages, certainly additional flexibility for the Company. But near term, really, we would expect to have this combination of the preferred mortgages and our revolver that we would be utilizing.

Brendan McCarthy: Great. I guess one more quick question just around the mortgage financing aspect. Have you noticed with your banking relationships or other relationships, a significant tightening of lending in the recent environment? Or maybe you could comment on the recent lending environment?

David Thompson: Yes, certainly, it’s gotten tighter. And we’ve felt the impact of that. I mean rates are getting higher, which means we’re seeing higher cap rates, higher borrowing costs. I mean I think for us, we’re are in good shape in terms of — we just renewed the credit facility at the end of 2022. So that’s good for three years, plus two one-year extensions. The mortgage we have really the only other significant mortgage we have is on one Kaiser, which is a CMBS fixed rate, not due until 2026. So from that side of the balance sheet, I think we’re — certainly, the environment has gotten tougher, and things have tightened up, but we’re also in pretty good shape in terms of the portfolio and the underlying assets and where we have debt, again, particularly having just renewed the credit facility.

Operator: Next question is a follow-up from Gaurav Mehta with E.F. Hutton.

Gaurav Mehta: Wanted to follow up on the acquisition again and I just wanted to clarify, the rate on the mortgage debt, did you guys say SOFR plus 336 to 350?

Steve Altebrando: That’s correct.

Gaurav Mehta: And so that would imply like a mid-7% financing on these acquisitions, right?