Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript May 14, 2026

Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.32, expectations were $0.29.

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sunrise Realty Trust’s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to hand it over to our first speaker, Gabriel Katz, Chief Legal Officer. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Katz: Good morning, and thank you all for joining Sunrise Realty Trust’s earnings call for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. I’m joined this morning by Leonard Tannenbaum, our Executive Chairman; Brian Sedrish, our Chief Executive Officer; and Brandon Hetzel, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to note that this call is being recorded. Replay information is included on our April 15, 2026 press release and is posted on the Investor Relations portion of our website at sunriserealtytrust.com, along with our first quarter 2026 earnings release and investor presentation. Today’s conference call includes forward-looking statements and projections that reflect the company’s current views with respect to, among other things, market developments, our investment pipeline, anticipated portfolio yield and financial performance and projections in 2026 and beyond.

These statements are subject to inherent uncertainties in predicting future results. Please refer to Sunrise Realty Trust’s most recent periodic filings with the SEC, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed earlier this morning for certain conditions and significant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and projections. During today’s conference call, management will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including distributable earnings. Please see our first quarter earnings release uploaded to our website for reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The format for today’s call is as follows: Len will provide a general business and capital markets overview.

Next, Brian will cover our view on the state of the commercial real estate lending markets, discuss our existing portfolio and provide an outlook for our investment pipeline. Then Brandon will provide an update on our financial position. After that, we’ll open the lines for Q&A. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Leonard Tannenbaum.

Leonard Tannenbaum: Thank you, Gabe. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, SUNS generated distributable earnings of $0.35 per share of common stock, which covered our dividend of $0.30 per share. The quarter was positively impacted by a short-term loan on a Colorado property, new deal closings and the payoff of a loan to a multifamily property in Dallas. We were pleased with our first quarter results, which reflected the continued earnings power of our portfolio, the benefit of construction and other existing commitments funding during the quarter and our ability to recycle capital through repayments and new originations at an attractive risk-adjusted return.

During the quarter, we completed the foreclosure of our loan secured by Thompson San Antonio, a 162-key Class A hotel in Texas. We believe we are now better positioned to evaluate value maximizing alternatives since the asset is not subject to the former sponsor’s hotel management agreement and brand affiliation. Shortly after taking title, we engaged Easthill to market the asset and the first round of bidding recently concluded. We received multiple attractive offers and expect the process to continue over the upcoming quarters. The ultimate transaction could take the form of an all-cash sale or a sale that includes lower leverage seller financing from SUNS and its affiliates, combined with a meaningful equity contribution from the buyer. Based on the interest to date, we remain positive about our ability to resolve the investment in a timely manner.

On the capital markets front, in March, we completed the expansion of our senior secured revolving facility to $165 million with the addition of Customers Bank, which committed an additional $25 million to our facility. With that, I’ll turn it over to Brian to discuss the market environment and walk through our portfolio in more detail.

Brian Sedrish: Thank you, Len, and good morning. Before turning to the portfolio, I wanted to briefly discuss what we are seeing in the commercial real estate lending market and why we believe SUNS is well positioned. Over the last 2 years, we have worked to construct a loan book that capitalizes on our team’s expertise in providing capital to sponsors of transitional real estate business plans with projects situated in growing southern markets backed by competent owners. Our team seeks to primarily invest in transactions that require a lender which can underwrite complex business plans and create the necessary structure to ensure downside protection. These types of deals are where our team believes it can create alpha. Within the broader transaction market, we continue to see a meaningful divide between acquisitions and refinancings.

Acquisitions where the cost basis has been reset to today’s market are generally where the underwriting works most cleanly and where we have been most active. Pricing on refinancings is harder to establish because relatively few comparable assets actually trade, which creates a wide range of outcomes. We find a subset of refinancings interesting, specifically situations where an incumbent senior lender is forcing the sponsor’s hand to be taken out. Capital markets’ activity in the quarter was more volatile than recent quarters, driven primarily by geopolitical developments. Treasury yields moved meaningfully higher and securitization spreads widened before partially retracing. From our seat, sponsor inquiry activity remained healthy throughout the period, but several transactions in our pipeline paused for several weeks while sponsors and their counterparties reassess cost of capital.

By quarter end, activity had largely normalized. Importantly, because we underwrite to unlevered returns rather than relying on capital markets execution to manufacture our yield, this kind of episodic volatility has limited impact on the deals we have already closed and modest impact on our forward pipeline. Across the markets we lend into, the picture in the Southern United States is not uniform, and we think this nuance matters in how we deploy capital. Florida and the Southeast more broadly remain constructive across most asset classes, supported by sustained in-migration and continued employment growth. The major Texas markets are showing signs of tightening on the residential side with concession burn off underway in select submarkets.

Some of the more recently overbuilt Western Sunbelt markets are still working through excess supply and many have not yet reached an equilibrium. We remain disciplined about where we deploy and have leaned into reset basis opportunities in the markets that have begun to stabilize. On the competitive landscape, regional banks have continued to step back into smaller, simpler stabilized deals and the larger debt funds and commercial mortgage REITs have continued to compete aggressively for stabilized multifamily and industrial loans, where spreads have tightened back to the mid-200s over SOFR in many instances. That is not where we play. Our focus remains on transitional business plans where the deal requires structuring, sponsor selection and asset level conviction, not just an attractive cost of funds.

Said differently, in a market where many lenders are competing on price, we continue to focus on the less trafficked business plans that require operational and development expertise and a sound understanding of local market dynamics. The other dynamic worth highlighting is the growing wave of stress in ’21 and ’22 vintage bridge and construction loans coming due. The market is going to need to clear billions of dollars of this paper through sales, modifications and recapitalizations over the next 2 years. That is not a headwind for SUNS. We did not originate that vintage at scale. Our book is overwhelmingly post rate hike paper at a reset basis and the disgorgement cycle is precisely what creates the acquisition opportunities for the sponsors that we lend to.

Turning to the portfolio. In the first quarter of 2026, the TCG Real Estate platform originated $91 million of loans, of which SUNS committed $62 million across 2 loans. These included $14 million of a $22 million senior bridge loan to finance the acquisition of an 11,000-acre portion of Silver Mountain Ranch in Colorado, which was originated, closed and exited during the quarter and $48 million of a $69 million B note as part of the $406 million refinancing of a 15-property portfolio of Graduate by Hilton Hotels for AJ Capital Partners. Over the period, SUNS funded $90 million of new and existing loans and received $70 million of repayments, including full repayment on 2 loans, Silver Mountain Ranch and Boheme. As of March 31, 2026, the SUNS portfolio had $397 million of commitments with $299 million funded across 15 loans.

Subsequent to quarter end, Jovie Belterra, was fully repaid. Looking ahead, we remain focused on disciplined origination, active portfolio management and prudent capital allocation. We believe the current market favors lenders with flexible capital, structuring expertise and selectivity around basis, sponsorship and downside protection. SUNS is well positioned to capitalize on this environment, balancing growth with risk management and long-term shareholder value. With that, I will now turn the call over to Brandon Hetzel, our Chief Financial Officer.

Brandon Hetzel: Thank you, Brian. For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, we generated net interest income of $7.3 million and distributable earnings of $4.7 million or $0.35 per basic weighted average common share and had GAAP net income of $4.3 million or $0.32 per basic weighted average common share. The quarter included onetime fees from 2 investments, a $400,000 fee on the short-term Silver Mountain Ranch bridge loan and a $1.2 million prepayment fee on the Boheme loan. We believe that providing distributable earnings is helpful to shareholders in assessing the overall performance of SUNS’ business. Distributable earnings represents net income computed in accordance with GAAP, excluding noncash items such as stock compensation expense, unrealized gains or losses and the provision for current expected credit losses.

We ended the first quarter of 2026 with $397.1 million of current commitments and $299.3 million of principal outstanding spread across 15 loans. As of May 8, 2026, our portfolio consisted of $380.2 million of current commitments and $292.1 million of principal outstanding across 14 loans. All loans are current and performing with a weighted average portfolio yield to maturity of approximately 12.4%. As of March 31, 2026, our CECL reserve was approximately $550,000 or 19 basis points for our loans at carrying value. As of March 31, 2026, we had total assets of $330 million, and our total shareholder equity was $182.5 million with a book value of $13.50 per share. For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, the Board of Directors declared a $0.30 dividend per share outstanding.

The dividend was paid on April 15, 2026, to shareholders of record as of March 31, 2026. With that, I’ll now turn it back over to the operator to start the Q&A.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Gaurav Mehta from Alliance Global Partners.

Gaurav Mehta: I wanted to go back to your comments around the pipeline and I wanted to get some more color on what you guys were seeing for acquisition financing versus refinancing. And within the current pipeline, what’s the sort of mix between different kind of property types?

Brian Sedrish: Sure. It’s Brian. Thanks for the question. The pipeline, as mentioned in the prepared remarks, there has definitely been — it’s clear that the banks have returned on more of the most stabilized of assets, multifamily, industrial, existing assets, standing assets. Spreads have come in, as you know. That has not been our focus. What we’re seeing a lot of is the opportunity and a big void as a result of these lenders focusing and some of our competitors focusing on industrial and multistabilized, a big opportunity and void in the markets for more transitional product. So that could include multifamily. It does include multifamily. We’re seeing more transitional assets, certainly some in the bifurcation between acquisition and refinancings.

On the refinancing side, we’re seeing opportunities where the sponsors need to inject existing incremental equity to see them through to the stabilization period. So that’s — there’s a series of deals that we’ve been focusing on there. And then across asset classes, anything with any degree of complexity is really creating a separation from our side and others. Those have really been the big areas that we’ve been focusing on. That’s what really makes up the majority of our pipeline.

Gaurav Mehta: Okay. As a follow-up on regions in the prepared remarks, you talked about Florida and some Southeast markets seeing demand and then you highlighted some markets still seeing supply. So I guess in terms of capital deployment, should we expect that you would be more focused on Florida and other markets where you’re seeing demand or you could be open to other opportunities in some other markets where there’s still supply and maybe sort of reset opportunities that you talked about?

Brian Sedrish: I would expect the majority of our deals will continue to be in those southern states that we are focused on. That’s really been our focus. That’s where we think we have a bit of a competitive advantage. And that’s the path of growth, and that continues to be the case. We’re seeing that now more pronounced than we’ve seen in a while now. As we mentioned on the West Coast, there’s been — certainly in some of the Sunbelt states, there’s been some supply overhang. We’re seeing that absorb in the markets that we’re focusing on. That’s the majority of our pipeline, majority of what we’re doing. As always, opportunistically, we will find interesting deals away from that, but I would expect a huge majority in our core markets.

Gaurav Mehta: Okay. Last question on the REO. Is that asset currently being marketed for sale? I know earlier you said that you guys received a few offers and it could be all cash sales or you could do some lower leverage financing. But have you accepted the offer? Or is it still in the market?

Leonard Tannenbaum: Good question. It’s still in the market with Easthill. We haven’t accepted an offer. We’re evaluating a number of opportunities, and we will tell you as soon as we accept an offer.

Gaurav Mehta: Okay. And maybe lastly, on the balance sheet, the investment in real estate JV, that’s the REO asset that you talked about?

Brandon Hetzel: Yes, correct.

Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Jade Rahmani from KBW.

Jason Sabshon: It’s Jason Sabshon, on for Jade. So to start, do you expect to generate any near-term income from the San Antonio JV? You mentioned a few possible outcomes, but is there one that you see as most likely? And what would the time line to exit be?

Leonard Tannenbaum: So one of the things that impacted the quarter is on the negative side, even though I think we had a very good quarter is we didn’t get any income from the hotel, probably not getting income from the hotel this quarter, in the current quarter. And in the next quarter, we’ll have to see because I think it does get resolved in a reasonable time line, but I think it’s over the next couple of quarters. So we don’t anticipate any income from a hotel until it gets sold or gets sold and we issue — we have a note attached to it.

Jason Sabshon: Got it. Separately, it would just — you touched on it, but can we just have some more color on what drove up interest income during the quarter? I know you mentioned $400,000 fee in a short-term loan and $1.2 million prepay fee, but — and there was also the new hospitality loan, but was there anything else? It was up $3.1 million quarter-over-quarter. So just curious.

Brandon Hetzel: Yes. And you just touched on the majority of the increase, as mentioned, $1.2 million prepayment fee related to the Boheme loan. That also included accretion of unaccreted OID related to that loan. Second was the short-term bridge loan we did to Silver Mountain Ranch, which contributed about $400,000 to the interest income. And then on top of that is the new investment, which was about $48 million into the Graduate Hotel investment. So those 3 drivers were the main increase as well as additional construction fundings of our construction loans on the normal cadence.

Jason Sabshon: Got it. And then on the short-term loan, just curious, how large was that loan?

Brandon Hetzel: The entire loan was approximately $21 million. SUNS portion was about $14 million, and that loan was outstanding for about 1 week.

Jason Sabshon: Got it. And then lastly, just on forward originations, what would be the target mix of senior and subordinate going forward? Currently, you’re around 75% senior. So just curious.

Brian Sedrish: Yes. I would think it would be somewhere in that range. The majority of what we’re doing is on the senior side. We’ll selectively find interesting relatively low levered sub debt tranches, which we have in the past. Sometimes those are senior lenders approaching us and asking us if we want to team with them. We’re doing more and more of that now as we create more relationships with seniors, but we’ll continue to have the majority — super majority be on the senior side.

Operator: And our next question will come from the line of Timothy D’Agostino from B. Riley Securities.

Timothy D’Agostino: Congrats on the quarter. Looking at Slide 11 in the deck, looking through the deals sourced all the way down to SUNS loan funded, over the past couple of quarters, deal selectivity has kind of hovered around this 1.5%. And I guess you provide a lot of commentary on the call, but I guess, what do you — what would you need or want to see in the market for your selectivity to go up? I know you talked about balancing growth versus risk, but just kind of understanding at what point — like what would you need to see for you to start selecting more deals and growing the portfolio?

Brian Sedrish: Yes. I think it’s 2 things. One, none of us in the market being optimistic have thought about or were — or been as happy of the sort of collapse in the market in terms of really interesting opportunistic loans at big discounts, right? So that hasn’t presented itself to any great size much to everyone’s chagrin. I mean if that start happens more when we have seen banks more willing to enter into DPOs with existing borrowers where we then can team up with those borrowers, that certainly would create it. The other big thing is just generally more acquisition volume. What happened in the last quarter that we saw is acquisition volume increased pretty significantly. I think if that’s sustained, right, and rates stabilize and start coming down, which is obviously it’s unclear right now, but that will eventually happen, that will bring about more investment activity.

That will create more of an opportunity for us and particularly in those transitional type loans where we — again, just to repeat myself, we’re seeing a big divergence in the majority of the competitors who are focusing on more stabilized assets. Those transitional type deals, which will happen more and more as rates come down, will create many more opportunities for us, and that, I think, will increase our volume for sure.

Timothy D’Agostino: Okay. Great. That’s super helpful. And I guess just across the markets you’re in, I know you also speak to making opportunistic investments. I guess, have there been any new markets that stand out to you all? Just trying to get a better sense of what you’re looking at and what’s interesting and what’s out there.

Brian Sedrish: Sure. Well, I hate to be boring, but the reality is that the deals that have been — are most interesting have been in those southern markets what we’ve continued to collectively all talked about. It’s interesting, data — I recently saw is I thought there was going to be a lull in pick your markets, Florida, parts of Texas or let’s just focus on Florida for a second, where you had that massive in-migration that was more getting back to equilibrium. But recently, I’ve seen a big uptick in the continued migration into Florida. I mean we have a big development in — as you guys know, in Florida, Panther National home sales. We talk to those group — that group significantly — or frequently. And we’ve seen just a tremendous increase in volume of homeowners wanting to migrate here.

So it seems like that’s picked up a bit. And that is a knock-on effects for retail demand and for rental demand. So those are the markets that we still see are interesting, and they’re boring in the sense that we continue to do them, but those are the ones that are fun. And then selectively, it’s out — as I mentioned earlier, it’s opportunistically, there are deals we’re seeing in other markets that are interesting out West. But for the most part, we’re just — we’re sticking to what we’re seeing is the real interesting opportunities.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from the line of Tyler Batory from Oppenheimer.

Tyler Batory: Just first one for me on the outlook this year. There were some onetime items, obviously positively impacting Q1, contributing to that $0.35 distributable EPS. What’s a good run rate to think about in terms of distributable earnings this year? Are you still thinking in line with the dividend or covering the dividend? Is that a good way to think about things?

Leonard Tannenbaum: Do you want to answer that, Brandon?

Brandon Hetzel: Sure. So we won’t give specific guidance on projections for distributable earnings throughout the year. But we will say that from time to time, we’ll have various fees that can positively impact our income, and that’s normal course of business for these types of loans. But as you mentioned, the Q1 distributable earnings benefited from those 2 short-term items. But we don’t — the Board doesn’t underwrite the dividend based on one quarter at a time. They look at the medium-term earnings power of the portfolio, including expected fundings and existing commitments, repayments, leverage capacity and forward originations. So we won’t give specific guidance going forward, but we did want to point out the short-term items so you could back into the run rate.

Tyler Batory: Okay. Appreciate that. And then in terms of repayments, $70 million odd this quarter. A couple of those were well before maturity, too. Just trying to understand why if that’s maybe a bigger trend that might be going on or playing out in the portfolio in terms of some loans being repaid earlier than expected?

Brandon Hetzel: Yes, sure. So it’s actually only one that was repaid early, the Boheme loan. The rest of the $70 million was one, the short-term loan that was in and out during the period as well as repayments and draws around the Panther National loan. So that’s a revolving loan where they’ll draw and repay and that gets grossed up into those repayment numbers.

Leonard Tannenbaum: In other words, we’re not seeing anything abnormal.

Tyler Batory: Okay. Okay. That’s what I was trying to get at. And then just the last one for me. So the San Antonio issue, I think it stuck up on us. So I just wanted to be sure when you look across the rest of the portfolio that there’s nothing that is concerning, nothing that you’re watching closely in terms of a potential negative outcome similar to what happened in San Antonio?

Leonard Tannenbaum: Yes. And I get that. I did sneak up on some people. It did happen relatively quickly as well. And we do expect a resolution in the coming quarters and not too bad a resolution. So I don’t think there is — right now, there’s nothing else on watch list, not one other thing on watch list. So things are obviously doing a little bit better, a little bit worse, but everything is right within the tolerances of our plan.

Operator: I’m not showing any further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn it back over to Brian Sedrish for closing remarks.

Brian Sedrish: Thank you all for joining our Q1 call today. We are excited about the opportunity set ahead of us and look forward to sharing our progress with you over the coming quarters. Have a good rest of your week.

Operator: Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.