Great Elm Group - Earnings Call - Q1 2026

Executive Summary

• Q1 FY2026 revenue rose sharply to $10.8M driven by a one-time $7.4M Monomoy BTS property sale; however, GEG reported a net loss of $(7.9)M as unrealized losses in GECC stock and a CoreWeave-related investment outweighed operating progress.
• Fee-paying AUM/AUM increased to ~$594M/~$785M (pro forma ~$601M/~$792M), up 9%/6% YoY (10%/7% pro forma), reflecting capital formation across credit and real estate platforms, including a transformative KLIM partnership and Woodstead investment.
• GECC executed significant balance sheet actions (new $57.5M 7.75% 2030 notes; redeemed $40M 8.75% 2028 notes) and raised equity, but NAV was hit by First Branch’s late-September bankruptcy; GEG reiterated confidence in platform scale and future operating leverage.
• No formal financial guidance was provided. Management emphasized scaling real estate (integrated BTS/Construction Services) and credit, capitalizing on ~$53.5M of cash and an expanded $25M buyback with ~$14.1M remaining capacity as potential stock catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Real estate monetization and integration: MBTS sold its second BTS property for ~$7.4M (gain ~$0.5M); Monomoy Construction Services contributed ~$0.7M revenue in its second full quarter, supporting a vertically integrated IOS platform.
• Capital formation and AUM growth: Nearly $250M of recent capital raised across GEG and managed vehicles; FPAUM/AUM up 9%/6% YoY (10%/7% pro forma), underpinned by KLIM partnership (up to $150M to Monomoy REIT) and Woodstead equity/warrants.
• Shareholder alignment and liquidity: Cash and marketable securities of ~$53.5M; buyback expanded to $25M with ~$14.1M remaining; 5.6M shares repurchased for $10.9M at ~$1.93 average price through Nov 11.
  • “We are pleased with the continued momentum of our expanding alternative asset management platform…” — Jason Reese, CEO.

What Went Wrong

• Non-operating headwinds drove a GAAP loss: Net loss $(7.9)M vs. $3.0M income prior-year, primarily from unrealized losses in GECC stock and the CoreWeave-related investment despite a $1.6M realized gain on CoreWeave.
• GECC portfolio setback: First Branch traded down late quarter and filed for bankruptcy; GECC placed exposures on non-accrual, pressuring NAV and contributing to GEG unrealized losses.
• Adjusted EBITDA turned negative: $(0.5)M vs. $1.3M prior-year despite revenue lift from asset sale, reflecting investment losses and higher compensation/operating costs as the platform scales.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings and welcome to the Great Elm Group Fiscal 2026 First Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Adam Yates, Managing Director. Thank you. You may begin.

Adam Yates (Managing Director)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Great Elm Group's Fiscal 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded on Thursday, November 13, 2025. If you would like to be added to our distribution list, you can email GEG Investor Relations at greatelmcap.com, or you can sign up for alerts directly on our website, www.greatelmgroup.com. The slide presentation accompanying today's conference call and webcast can be found on our website under Events and Presentations. A link to the webcast is also available on our website, as well as in the press release that was disseminated to announce the quarterly results. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements, and we ask that you refer to Great Elm Group's filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.

Great Elm Group does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law. In addition, during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable financial measures are included in our earnings release. To obtain copies of our SEC filings, please visit Great Elm Group's website under Financial Information and select SEC Filings. Today's comments do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy interests in any investment vehicle managed by Great Elm or its affiliates. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made pursuant to the applicable offering documents for such investment vehicle. On the call today, we have Jason Reese, CEO, Adam Kleinman, President and General Counsel, Nicole Mills, COO, and Keri Davis, CFO. I will now turn the call over to Jason Reese, CEO.

Jason Reese (CEO)

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Great Elm made significant progress across our strategic initiatives in the fiscal first quarter, building on the momentum from our record year in fiscal 2025. During the quarter, we advanced our goals to expand our platform, grow assets under management, and enhance our profitability. Notably, we raised nearly $250 million of debt and equity capital across our credit and real estate platforms through both private investments from strategic partners and public raises through GECC's At the Market Equity Program and a new baby bond. Fee-paying assets under management grew 9% year over year to approximately $594 million, or 10% on a pro forma basis to approximately $601 million.

As I have reviewed on prior calls, in July, we established a transformative partnership with Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, which invested in both GEG and Monomoy REIT, committing up to $150 million in leverageable capital to Monomoy REIT to accelerate our real estate platform expansion and purchasing 1.3 million shares of GEG common stock. This partnership is a true catalyst for growth, bringing not only capital but also deep institutional expertise in scaling real estate platforms. As part of this partnership, Lloyd Nathan joined the board of GEG, and Ludwig Skritenlauer joined the board of Monomoy REIT. In August, Woodstead Value Fund purchased 4 million newly issued shares of GEG common stock at $2.25 per share, raising approximately $9 million in equity capital. Alongside the investment, Booker Smith joined our boards to help advance and expand our key verticals.

Great Elm also issued 10-year warrants to Woodstead for an additional 2 million shares of GEG common stock, 1 million struck at $3.50, and 1 million at $5, further aligning their interests with those of all shareholders. Great Elm Real Estate Ventures continued to ramp during the quarter. Monomoy BTS sold its second built-to-suit development property in Canton, Mississippi, for over $7 million, generating a gain of over $500,000. Construction on the third BTS property is nearing completion, with a robust pipeline of development opportunities behind it. Monomoy Construction Services completed its second full quarter since inception, contributing approximately $700,000 in revenue. With construction capabilities fully integrated in-house, we can offer tenants comprehensive turnkey solutions, capture more value through the property life cycle, and execute on our growing project pipeline.

At Monomoy CRE, investment management and property management fees increased 12% over the prior year period, driven by the growth in fee-paying AUM and growing rental income. The REIT deployed over $13 million to acquire seven new properties at attractive cap rates and acquired a land parcel adjacent to an existing asset to accommodate a tenant expansion under a new 10-year lease. This transaction demonstrates our ability to meet tenants' needs while enhancing portfolio value. In our alternative credit business, GECC delivered a strong quarter in terms of capital formation and balance sheet optimization. GECC raised approximately $28 million in equity proceeds, including a $15 million private placement and $13 million through its At the Market Equity Program.

In August, GECC doubled the borrowing capacity under its revolver to $50 million from $25 million, reducing the revolver interest rate by 50 basis points and has the ability to further expand the facility to $90 million under certain circumstances. In September, GECC refinanced its highest-cost debt, the $40 million of 8.75% notes due on September 28, with a $57.5 million of 7.75% notes due on December 30, reducing annual cash interest expense by 100 basis points and extending its debt maturity profile. GECC's operating results for the quarter were impacted by First Branch, which traded down sharply in late September before filing for bankruptcy at the end of the quarter. GECC held exposure to First Branch through syndicated loans. Consequently, NAV was negatively affected, and GECC placed its First Branch investments on non-accrual at the end of September.

Despite this operating setback, the capital initiatives executed in the quarter leave GECC in a position of strength, with a strong balance sheet, ample deployable cash, and capacity to invest in income-generating opportunities in the coming quarters. Meanwhile, our Great Elm Private Credit strategy continued with strong performance, returning 15.2% net calendar year to date through September 30. Since inception, we have made income distributions exceeding 15% of original invested capital to investors in this strategy, highlighting disciplined deployment and a focus on value preservation. Outside of our core business, our CoreWeave-related investment remains a significant success story. We have already received over 100% of our initial $5 million investment in distributions to date, and we continue to see meaningful upside potential despite recent volatility in CoreWeave's stock price that contributed to unrealized losses in this investment and GEG's net loss for the quarter.

Shifting back to Great Elm, our balance sheet also remains solid, ending the quarter with approximately $53.5 million in cash, providing us with ample flexibility to support our growth initiatives and take advantage of attractive opportunities as they arise. In July, our board expanded our stock repurchase program by $5 million to $25 million in total. Through November 11, we have repurchased 5.6 million shares for $10.9 million at an average price of $1.93 per share, leaving $14.1 million in remaining program capacity. These repurchases reflect our continued confidence in the company's long-term value and are a highly accretive use of capital. As we move through fiscal 2026, we remain focused on growing fee-paying AUM, scaling our credit and real estate platforms, and translating our strategic progress into sustained financial performance as we seek to create enduring value for our shareholders. With that, I'll hand it over to Keri.

Keri Davis (CFO)

Thank you, Jason. I will provide a brief overview of the quarter and, of course, welcome all of you to review our filings in greater detail or reach out to our team with any questions. Fiscal first quarter revenue was $10.8 million compared to $4 million for the prior year period. The increase was primarily driven by $7.4 million in revenue recognized from the sale of our second Monomoy BTS built-to-suit property. AUM and fee-paying AUM totaled approximately $785 million and $594 million, respectively, with fee-paying AUM up 9% from the prior year quarter end. On a pro forma basis, AUM and fee-paying AUM totaled approximately $792 million and $601 million, up 7% and 10% from the prior year period, respectively. These figures incorporate the pro forma impact of GECC financing activities.

We reported a net loss of $7.9 million for the quarter versus net income of $3 million a year ago, primarily due to unrealized losses on GEG's investments in GECC common stock and our CoreWeave-related investments. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of $500,000 compared to a gain of $1.3 million in the prior year period. As of September 30, 2025, we held approximately $53.5 million cash on our balance sheet to deploy across our growing alternative asset management platform. Please refer to slide 6 for a summary of our financial position and book value per share of approximately $2.30. This concludes my financial review of the quarter. With that, we will turn the call over to the operator to open for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. We have a question from Nate Stewart of NAS Capital. Please go ahead.

Nate Stewart (Research Analyst)

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I've been following Great Elm Group for quite a while, and I'm pretty interested in the evolution the business has had lately. I was just trying to figure out kind of where you are in the growth picture. Obviously, with asset management businesses, if you manage to keep the fixed costs at least relatively flat and grow AUM and revenue, it's going to create a lot of earnings growth. I was just curious what you guys think about your current overhead and expense structure and kind of just from a financial point of view, where are you on this growth trajectory in terms of growing the REIT, growing the BDC, other opportunities? Kind of what clues can you give us about where you see this going and when we're going to really see some operating leverage kick in?

Jason Reese (CEO)

Thanks, Nate. It's Jason Reese. I think best to say we have spent a lot of time and effort building all the back-office infrastructure. As you know, as you stated, this business is high fixed cost and then low marginal cost going forward. I think we have the bulk of our fixed costs in place, and now the strategy is all about growing. As I think you've seen this past quarter, we made a major growth move on the real estate side. We're now putting that capital to work as we look to raise additional capital for the REIT. On the BDC, kind of the same thing. We've done quite a bit of capital raising over the last 15 months. We hope to accelerate that. We do not think we need to come anywhere near growing the costs that we have in the past.

We think we're in a great spot going forward to leverage.

Nate Stewart (Research Analyst)

Okay. Just like a little follow-up question. Obviously, there's a lot of public information on the BDC. The strategy there looks very good with that setback you had this quarter. I know I listened to that call. They talked about the need to diversify and maybe reduce some of the position sizes, which makes a lot of sense. On the Monomoy REIT side, I could be wrong. Perhaps I just am not seeing it. But I'd be interested in just learning more about that business. It doesn't seem to have a lot of public-facing information about it. Am I just missing it or not seeing it, or is that kind of how do we learn more about that and what's going on there? Just a little more in-depth understanding of that.

Jason Reese (CEO)

Let me give you a minute or two, but I'd be happy to get on a call separately with you and get Chris Mackery, who is the head of that business, on the call. It is a private REIT, so there's not a lot of public information about it. It focuses on the industrial outside storage space. The REIT has been operating for approximately 11 years. We have over 150 buildings that we own in that REIT and growing. A lot of our focus is on the equipment rental space. Our largest tenant in the space is United Rentals, which the second largest tenant is Sunbelt Rentals in that space. We've taken the time to build. We're not just an asset manager there.

We have built our BTS business, or built-to-suit, where we're building our own properties that will then go in the REIT or get sold to third parties, for servicing the tenants. If you remember, in January, we purchased a construction business that we were using from the outside, so we brought all of that in-house to have the capabilities to do everything from kind of cradle to grave with properties. We think it's a great business. We think it could be a public vehicle at some point in time. We're probably not quite at the scale I would want it to be before we took it public. That is a possibility in the future. At that point, there would be the ultimate disclosure about it, obviously.

I'd be happy, Nate, if you want to email me after the call to set up a separate call and go in depth with you on Monomoy if you'd like to know more.

Nate Stewart (Research Analyst)

Okay. Yeah. If I just email the IR, will that IR email get through?

Jason Reese (CEO)

It'll get through to me.

Nate Stewart (Research Analyst)

Okay. I'll do that. All right. Thank you.

Jason Reese (CEO)

You're more than welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions, and I would like to turn the floor back over to Jason Reese for closing remarks.

Jason Reese (CEO)

Thank you again for joining us today. We remain confident in the strategic direction of our business. We continue to raise significant capital, advance our credit and real estate platforms, and strengthen our balance sheet. We are committed to executing on our growth strategy, scaling fee-paying assets under management, and delivering sustained value for our shareholders over time. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. Thank you for your time and continued support.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.