Creative Media & Community Trust - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 was weak operationally: total revenues fell 13.8% year over year to $29.69M and net loss widened to $(14.28)M, or $(18.94) per share; FFO and Core FFO were $(7.85)M ($(10.42)/sh) and $(7.18)M ($(9.53)/sh), respectively.
• Segment NOI dropped to $9.82M from $16.22M a year ago, driven by Oakland office vacancies, lower multifamily occupancy/rents in Oakland, reduced lending income and Q2 hotel public-space renovation timing; hotel metrics (ADR/RevPAR) were roughly flat YoY while room renovations completed earlier in the year.
• Balance sheet progress continued: corporate revolver fully repaid in April; a $20M SBA 7(a) lending revolver was added in June; Bay Area multifamily debt maturities extended (1150 Clay to mid‑2026; Channel House to Jan 2027).
• Leasing momentum is the near‑term catalyst: ~140k sf executed YTD through July (+55% YoY), including an ~11‑year lease with an investment‑grade tenant at Penn Field; management expects stronger office demand in LA/Austin and improved multifamily NOI as occupancy and rents recover, positioning for 2026.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • “We made further progress in the quarter on our previously announced plan to accelerate our focus towards premier multifamily assets, strengthen our balance sheet and improve our liquidity.” – CEO David Thompson.
  • Leasing acceleration: ~78k sf in 1H25 and another ~61.7k sf signed in July; ~140k sf executed YTD through July (+55% YoY), with notable wins in LA and Austin (including an ~11‑year lease at Penn Field).
  • Hotel execution: all 505 rooms at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento renovated; hotel NOI rose ~15% YoY in Q1 and public‑space upgrades are underway, supported by $8M of key money, setting up 2026.

• What Went Wrong

  • NOI compression: total segment NOI fell to $9.82M (from $16.22M YoY) on office, multifamily and lending weakness; core FFO/share declined to $(9.53) from $(21.93) YoY (adjusted for reverse split), reflecting lower operating income and higher interest expense.
  • Office headwinds centered in Oakland: same‑store office NOI and cash NOI declined on occupancy losses tied to a large tenant’s partial termination; office occupancy 68.1% and leased 70.3% at Q2 end (down 1,540 bps and 1,220 bps YoY, respectively).
  • Multifamily softness in Oakland and JV fair‑value marks: Multifamily segment NOI was $0.189M vs $2.3M YoY, with occupancy at 83.4% and net monthly rent per occupied unit at $2,284 vs $2,469 YoY; lending segment swung to a $(47)k NOI loss on lower interest income and higher CECL.

Transcript

Speaker 2

Good day, and welcome to the Creative Media & Community Trust Corporation's second quarter 2025 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 and then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Altebrando. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. My name is Steve Altebrando, the Portfolio Oversight for Creative Media & Community Trust Corporation. Also on the call today are David Thompson, our Chief Executive Officer, and Barry Berlin, our Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast and will be temporarily archived on the Investor Relations section of our website, where you can also find our earnings release. Our earnings release includes a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during today's call. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of, assumptions made by, and information currently available to us. Our actual results will be affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties, and other factors that are beyond our control or ability to predict.

Although we believe that our assumptions are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance, and some will prove to be incorrect. Therefore, our actual future results can be expected to differ from our expectations, and those differences may be material. For a more detailed description of potential risks, please refer to our SEC filings, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to David Thompson.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Steve, and thank you to everyone for joining our call today. I'll start with an update on business trends, the progress we're making with our strategic initiatives, and then walk through our results for the quarter. Last quarter, we noted that we were seeing an uptick in our office leasing pipeline. We are pleased that this has translated into a significant increase in leasing activity. In 2025, we executed approximately 140,000 square feet of leases through the end of July. This represents an over 55% increase from the prior year period. This activity is primarily driven from our Los Angeles and Austin properties. At the same time, we continue to see uneven demand in our three Oakland assets, two of which are premier Class A multifamily assets. We're working hard to drive occupancy and contain costs and are encouraged by market improvements in the adjacent San Francisco market.

Historically, Oakland has followed the San Francisco market. We remain focused on executing the full scope of the business plan we previously laid out. Today, our key areas of focus are improving our balance sheet and liquidity, improving property-level performance, and evaluating asset sales as part of our broader strategic plan. In terms of our balance sheet and liquidity, we are pleased that we continue to make significant progress on the goals we outlined last September. Since then, we have successfully secured property-level financing on seven of our assets. The proceeds from these financings have allowed us to fully repay and retire our Repurchase Credit Facility, which carried a balance of approximately $169 million at the end of the third quarter of 2024.

In addition, the financings have supported key growth initiatives, including lease-up efforts at our Beverly Hills, Culver City, Brentwood, and Austin properties, and renovations at our hotel property in Sacramento. We have also made significant progress in addressing our near-term debt maturities. Specifically, we extended the debt maturity on our multifamily property at 1150 Clay in the Bay Area to the summer of 2026, and earlier this month, we closed on a modification of our other multifamily property in the Bay Area, Channel House, that pushes its maturity to January 2027. In addition, in June, our lending division closed a $20 million revolving credit facility to help support originations. These actions further enhance our financial flexibility as we continue executing on our strategic plan. With respect to improving property-level performance, I'll start with our longstanding goal to grow the multifamily portion of the portfolio.

Including joint ventures, we now have four operating assets: 1150 Clay and Channel House in the Bay Area, and 701 South Hudson and 1902 Park Avenue in Los Angeles. Our fifth, 1915 Park in Los Angeles, remains on track to deliver this quarter. We believe there is significant opportunity to grow our multifamily net operating income through marking rents to the current market, improving occupancy, and lowering costs. The delivery of 1915 Park this quarter will also support improved income in this segment. In our office segment, as I noted earlier, we've seen a sharp increase in leasing activity in the first half of the year, with this momentum continuing into July. We believe the headwinds stemming from the pandemic are largely behind us, and we are starting to see sustained return to office tailwinds.

In our hotel segment, as you know, we recently completed the renovation of all 500 plus guest rooms at our hotel asset, the Sheraton Grand Sacramento, which led to a sharp year-over-year increase in our Q1 income. As further detailed by Steve Altebrando, the planned renovations of the hotel's common areas have impacted our Q2 results and will impact our results for the balance of the year. However, we believe these upgrades will position the asset well as we head into 2026 and beyond. Lastly, regarding asset sales, we continue to actively evaluate opportunities and will provide updates as soon as we have material developments to share. Turning to our second quarter results, our core FFO was negative $7.2 million, and our overall net operating income decreased to $9.8 million from $11.8 million in the prior quarter.

Our office income declined by $1.6 million from the prior quarter, largely due to real estate tax benefits we benefited from in Q1, the timing of tenant reimbursement revenue, and long-expected tenant vacancies at two of our properties in California. As I noted earlier, leasing has picked up, and new leasing activity is not yet captured in our net operating income. Our hotel income was $4.2 million for the quarter compared to $4.7 million in Q1. The first quarter is a seasonally strong period, and our planned renovation impacted bookings toward the end of the second quarter. Multifamily income increased by approximately $800,000 from the prior quarter, primarily due to a decrease in the unrealized losses recognized at our unconsolidated multifamily entities and lower costs at our consolidated properties.

Our lending income declined approximately $640,000, primarily due to higher reserves as well as lower revenue as a result of loan payoffs. Looking ahead, we believe there is a meaningful opportunity to grow income in 2026. This outlook is supported by several key drivers: the continued improvement in office leasing activity, the full completion of renovations at our hotel asset, and steady gains in the multifamily performance through higher rental rates, improved occupancy, and the delivery of new units, as well as the potential benefit of a declining interest rate environment. With that, I will turn it over to Steve to provide more details on the portfolio.

Speaker 1

Thanks, David. I would like to give a little more detail on our segments. Starting with multifamily, we continue to focus on growing our premier newer vintage multifamily portfolio. As David mentioned, we believe there's a significant opportunity to grow our multifamily net operating income through increasing rental rates and occupancy and lowering costs. Starting in Los Angeles, we continue to make progress on our lease-up at 701 South Hudson, the residential component of our partial office-to-residential conversion completed towards the end of last year. Multifamily occupancy at the property was approximately 68% at the end of this quarter, up from 41% at the end of the prior quarter. As a reminder, the top two floors of this property were converted into 68 high-end residential units, while the ground floor creative office known as 4750 Wilshire remains 100% leased.

As mentioned on our previous calls, we believe there's an opportunity to develop additional units on the back surface lot of the property, given recent zoning changes. We will provide additional details in the future as we progress through the pre-development phase. Also in Los Angeles, we have one development underway at 1915 Park, which is a 36-unit ground-up multifamily development. We expect to begin lease-up of this asset in the third quarter. This development is a joint venture with an international pension fund and is being built on land adjacent to our office building at 1910 West Sunset and Echo Park, a highly desirable walkable submarket with attractive dining and entertainment options. In Oakland, we saw a slight pickup in total occupancy in the quarter.

The market is still challenging, but we believe our properties will benefit near-term from lower operating costs and ultimately benefit from a lack of new construction in the Oakland residential market, as well as an overall recovery in the Bay Area that is already underway. Turning to the office segment, last quarter we highlighted that we had a very active pipeline, and that has translated into very strong leasing activity. We are specifically seeing strong demand at our Austin and Los Angeles assets. We executed approximately 48,000 square feet of leases in the quarter and approximately 78,000 square feet on a year-to-date basis. This is in addition to the 176,000 square feet of leases in the fourth quarter of 2024. The largest was our nearly 11-year lease with Boston Scientific for approximately 31,000 square feet at our Pennfield Creative Office property.

Our office lease percentage was approximately 70% at the end of the second quarter, and when excluding our office building in Oakland, our lease percentage was approximately 80%. Turning to our hotel, as David mentioned, we recently completed the renovation of all 500-plus rooms at our hotel asset in Sacramento. We were very pleased to see net operating income grow 15% year over year in the first quarter. We are now proceeding with an approximately $11 million renovation of the common area space, which primarily includes upgrades to the ballroom, banquet space, public space, and food and beverage areas. The renovation is being funded by $8 million of key money we received as part of the extension of our management agreement with Marriott, cash flow from the property, and future funding on the mortgage. We believe the asset will be very well positioned as we head into 2026.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Barry.

Speaker 0

Good morning. I'm going to spend a few minutes going over the comparative financial highlights for the second quarter of 2025 versus the second quarter of 2024. Starting with our segment NOI, which was $9.8 million in the second quarter of 2025, compared to $16.2 million in the prior year comparable period. Broken down by segment, the decrease of $6.4 million was driven by decreases of $3.4 million in NOI from our office properties, $2.1 million from our multifamily properties, $0.162 million from our hotel property, and $0.79 million from our lending business. Our office segment NOI for Q2 2025 was $5.5 million versus $8.9 million during Q2 2024.

The decrease was primarily driven by a decrease in rental revenue at our office property in Oakland, California, attributable to a decrease in occupancy, as well as by a decrease in income from our unconsolidated office entities due to a decrease in the unrealized gain recognized on their investments in real estate. Our multifamily segment NOI was $0.189 million during Q2 2025, compared to income of $2.3 million from the prior year comparable period. The decrease was driven by an unrealized loss on investment in real estate at one of our unconsolidated joint ventures during the second quarter of 2025, as well as a decrease in revenues at our multifamily properties in Oakland, California, as a result of a decline in occupancy and monthly rent per occupied unit net of rent concessions compared to the prior year comparable period.

Our hotel segment NOI for Q2 2025 was $4.2 million compared to $4.3 million in the prior year comparable period. The decrease was driven by a decrease in food and beverage sale revenues. Our lending division NOI decreased to a loss of $0.047 million compared to NOI of $0.743 million in the prior year comparable period, primarily due to a decrease in interest income as a result of loan payoffs and lower interest rates, as well as an increase in current expected credit losses recognized during the second quarter of 2025. Below the segment NOI line, we had an increase of interest expense of $1.3 million, which was driven by a higher aggregate debt balance, as well as an increase in transaction-related costs of $0.668 million.

Our FFO was negative $7.9 million or negative $0.1042 per diluted share, compared to negative $3.3 million or negative $0.3346 per diluted share in the prior year comparable period. Our core FFO was negative $7.2 million or negative $0.0953 per diluted share, compared to negative $2.1 million or negative $0.2193 per diluted share in the prior year comparable period. The per share financial information is presented after giving effect to the shareholder-approved one-for-25 reverse stock split that was completed on April 15, 2024. The decrease in our FFO and our core FFO was primarily driven by the previously discussed decrease in total segment NOI, as well as the increases in interest expense, partially offset by a decrease in preferred stock dividends of $2.6 million. Our FFO was further reduced by our transaction costs of approximately $700,000.

Core FFO versus FFO differences relate to excluded reconciliation items added back for core FFO related to transaction-related costs, preferred stock redemption costs, and deemed dividends. Other items to note for the quarter include completion of a refinancing of our office property in Austin, Texas, in early April. We used a portion of the proceeds to fully pay off and satisfy our credit facility, which is now retired. We closed on a warehouse credit facility secured by SBA 7A loans receivable with maximum borrowing capacity of up to $20 million and $8.25 million outstanding on that facility at June 30. We also have now extended the debt maturities on our multifamily assets in Oakland. With that, we can open the line for questions.

Speaker 2

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. We will pause momentarily for callers to join the queue. Seeing no questions, this concludes the question and answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.