Sunrise Realty Trust generates $0.31 per share in distributable earnings, signaling robust financial performance and growing investment pipeline for Q3 2025.
In this transcript
Summary
- Sunrise Realty Trust reported distributable earnings of $0.31 per share, covering their $0.30 dividend for the quarter ended September 30, 2025.
- The company focuses on originating transitional loans in the Southern U.S. to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns, with leverage at 0.4 times, below their target of 1-1.5 times.
- The portfolio consists of $367 million in commitments, with $253 million funded, and a weighted average yield to maturity of approximately 11.8%.
- Management highlighted a pickup in real estate market activity, with increased financing requests and narrowing bid-ask spreads encouraging more transactions.
- The company is exploring options for preferred or unsecured debt issuance to enhance financing without over-leveraging, targeting an investment-grade rating in the long term.
- Operational highlights include originations of $60 million for a Miami condo development and $56 million post-quarter-end for projects in Florida and Texas.
- Management remains confident in their strategic focus on the Southern U.S. and the transitional real estate market, with expectations of continued deal flow and portfolio performance.
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OPERATOR - (00:00:30)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sunrise Realty Trust's third quarter 2025 earnings call. @ this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press Star 11 on your telephone and you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised and to withdraw your question, please press Star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Gabrielle Katz, Chief Legal Officer. Please go ahead.
Gabrielle Katz - Chief Legal Officer - (00:01:29)
Good morning and thank you all for joining Sunrise Realty Trust Earnings call for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. 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 in our October 7, 2025 press release and is posted on the Investor Relations portion of our website@sunriserealtytrust.com along with our third quarter 2025 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 2025 and beyond. These statements are subject to inherent uncertainties in predicting future results. And please refer to Sunrise Realty Trust's most recent periodic filings with the SEC, including our Quarterly Report on Form 10Q 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 third 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 and A. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Executive Chairman Leonard Tannenbaum.
Leonard Tannenbaum - Executive Chairman - (00:03:20)
Thank you Gabe Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. Sunrise Realty Trust generated distributable earnings of $0.31 per share of common stock which covered our dividend of 30 cents. Before Brian walks through our pipeline and portfolio, I want to take a moment to highlight what really sets Sunrise Realty Trust apart from other commercial mortgage REITs. At Sunrise Realty Trust, our investment focus is clear. We originate transitional loans to properties primarily in the Southern United States. This is a region we know well and that local expertise allows us to generate attractive risk adjusted returns through disciplined underwriting and thoughtful structuring. As of September 30, 2025, our leverage was approximately 0.4 times. That should increase as our existing loan commitments continue to fund. This is substantially below our targeted leverage of 1 to 1.5 times. The peer average however, is substantially higher than our target as our long term goal is to achieve an investment grade rating from the top agencies in the next three to five years. Now turning to the portfolio, our weighted average loan to cost to closing is only 56%. This conservative positioning has led to our strong credit performance. Additionally, our new vintage portfolio with no loans made before January 2024 has also contributed to our strong portfolio performance. About 95% of our loans are floating rate with an average SOFR floor across the portfolio of about 4%. SOFR has now dropped below 4% and is anticipated to go lower. Given the SOFR floors in place across our loan book and our credit line's much lower floor at approximately 2.6%, we have the potential to earn additional income through the expansion in Sunrise Realty Trust's net interest margin. As the company's largest shareholder, I believe Sunrise Realty Trust presents a terrific risk adjusted return at a lower effective tax rate. My confidence in our company is why I've continued to make frequent share purchases since our first day of trading. In my view, Sunrise Realty Trust today offers a compelling entry point at a meaningful discount to book value. With stable dividend coverage and clear earnings and dividend growth potential, we've also built a team that's built for success. Our 8 person dedicated real estate team within the larger Tannenbaum Capital Group platform gives us this disciplined underwriting, deep local market knowledge and a differentiated focus on transitional commercial real estate projects across the southern U.S. with that, I'll turn it over to Brian to discuss the market environment and walk through our portfolio in more detail.
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:06:24)
Thank you Len and good morning everyone. Before turning to our current portfolio and pipeline, I wanted to take a minute to discuss what we are seeing generally in the real estate market. We have seen a notable pickup in activity over the past quarter as financing requests have increased meaningfully relative to the first half of the year. We believe this is the result of borrowers gaining greater confidence that short term interest rates are on a path of gradual decline. This renewed sense of interest rate stability is encouraging more sponsors to come off the sidelines and actively engage in capital planning, whether it be refinancings or new projects. The increase in activity is not limited to refinancing opportunities as we are also seeing a rise in financing requests tied to new acquisitions. The bid ask spread between buyers and sellers continues to narrow and that is helping to increase transaction volume. We are well positioned to finance new acquisition business plans where the basis has effectively been reset to levels that better align with current rent growth and for sale housing assumptions. We are also seeing traditional commercial banks gradually re enter the market, primarily focusing on lower leverage lending. While their activity remains selective, they are playing an important role as back leverage providers for many of the transactions that we have been targeting. We view that as a healthy development indicative of improving liquidity in the broader CRE financing ecosystem. That said, the depth of the commercial real estate market remains out of balance. There remains a meaningful gap between primary and secondary markets, across property types and at different stages of an asset's life cycle from construction through to stabilization. Most of the new financing activity is concentrated in the bridge lending space, primarily within multifamily and industrial properties. These are assets that have largely completed their improvement plans and are moving towards stabilization. As a reminder, at Sunrise Realty Trust, we primarily focus on transitional real estate projects that have yet to reach stabilization or near stabilization. Our focus remains on this segment as we believe this part of the market still provides the strongest risk adjusted returns. TCG's real estate pipeline primarily comprises loans to transitional assets backed by highly qualified sponsors that require a more structured solution whereby our team can capitalize on its expertise in pre stabilization business plans and complex deal structures. We believe that these unique core competencies allow us to capture the most attractive opportunities emerging in this current market environment. Turning to our active pipeline, we have continued to see improvements in both the quantity and quality of deals sourced. As of today, the TCG Real estate platform has two signed non binding term sheets in documentation totaling approximately $170 million. We expect sums to be allocated a portion of these investments. Turning to the portfolio, our originations for the quarter ended September 30, 2025 partly reflected the slower market dynamics which has picked up since quarter end. Specifically, in Q3, the TCG real estate platform originated a $60 million senior secured loan for a two tower condominium development in the Brickell neighborhood of Miami, Florida of which Sons committed $35 million over the period. Sunrise Realty Trust funded $33 million of new and existing loans as of September 30, 2025, the Sunrise Realty Trust's portfolio at $360 $67 million of commitments with $253 million funded. Subsequent to quarter end, sun successfully closed on $56 million of loan commitments, which include approximately $26 million in a financing package comprised of two senior loans for collection suites and industrial for sale development, including two projects located in Doral and West Palm Beach, Florida and a $30 million loan in a senior bridge loan for the refinancing of a seven story Class A retail property in the Galleria section of Houston, Texas. I remain highly confident in the opportunities set ahead and I look forward to capitalizing on the many attractive opportunities current. In front of us. With that, I will now turn the call over to Brandon Hetzel, our Chief Financial Officer.
Brandon Hetzel - Chief Financial Officer - (00:11:28)
Thank you Brian for The quarter ended September 30, 2025, we generated net interest income of $6.1 million in distributable earnings of 4.12 million or $0.31 per basic weighted average common share and had GAAP net income of 4.05 million or $0.30 per basic weighted average common share. We believe that providing distributable earnings is helpful to shareholders in assessing the overall performance of Sunrise Realty Trust's 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, also known as CECL. For the quarter ended September 30, 2025, the Board of Directors declared a $0.30 dividend per share outstanding. The dividend was paid on October 15, 2025 to shareholders of record. As of September 30, 2025, we ended the third quarter of 2025 with $367 million of current commitments and $253 million of principal outstanding spread across 13 loans. As of November 3, 2025, our portfolio consisted of $421.1 million of current commitments and 295.2 million of principal outstanding across 16 loans with a weighted average portfolio yield to maturity of approximately 11.8%. I'd also like to note that as of September 30, 2025, our CECL reserve was approximately 400,000 or 17 basis points for our loans at carrying value. As of September 30, 2025, we had total assets of 258.8 million and our total shareholder equity was 184.6 million with a book value of $13.76 per share. With that, I will now turn it back over to the operator to start the Q and A.
OPERATOR - (00:13:32)
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. And our first question will come from Timothy D' Agostino with B. Riley securities. Your line is now open.
Timothy D' Agostino - Equity Analyst - (00:13:56)
Hi. Thank you. Good morning and congrats on the quarter. Just getting into the pipeline a little bit in the investor deck. You had mentioned the pipeline assets are broadening your presence across the southern United States. I was just wondering what new geographies within the southern US you're seeing in that pipeline.
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:14:18)
Sure, thanks for the question. It's Brian. We are staying true to our focus of primarily the Southern U.S. I mean that has not changed. Florida, Texas, of course, we are currently looking at, we have one signed in the Carolinas, in this case specifically North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee. Those really remain the primary markets that we're seeing preponderance of our deals and then sporadically, as we've always said, if there are interesting deals that we believe represent good risk adjusted returns, we'll look at those as well.
Timothy D' Agostino - Equity Analyst - (00:15:00)
Okay, great. And then I guess within the geographies. You just mentioned, are there any that stand out as the most attractive in terms of investment?
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:15:13)
Not particularly different than what we have historically been looking at. We still are seeing really interesting pockets in the state of Texas. There are certainly some interesting deals still within Florida. It's obviously asset class dependent. You have to worry about over saturation. So just like anything, you have to be cognizant of the particular on the ground dynamics. The Carolinas still remain interesting. Tennessee. We're looking at a bunch of deals right now. Those are continuing to be the areas that we're focusing on. And we're seeing enough deal flow to really enable us to continue to stay focused on those areas.
Timothy D' Agostino - Equity Analyst - (00:15:55)
Okay, great. Thank you so much and congrats on getting recorded.
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:15:59)
Thank you.
OPERATOR - (00:16:01)
As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. And our next question comes from Jade Ramini with kbw. Your line is open.
Jade Ramini - (00:16:17)
Thanks very much. How are things going on the debt side of the business strategy? I know you have been focused on further syndication, bank participation in the repo line as well as plans for bond issuance.
Leonard Tannenbaum - Executive Chairman - (00:16:37)
Okay, we'll start with the easy one. We're not going for a repo Line for sure. We really are differentiated from the other mortgage REITs in that we don't want to do these four time leverage deals and repos. We think that's how you get in trouble. We're instead going more after the latter financial model of getting an investment grade rating over time, not over levering it one to one and a half times. From a bank perspective, it's really great. I mean there's a lot of interest in banks. I think Jeff Bakuzzi, who leads our DCM desk is doing a good job educating these banks as they come in one by one and they're very positive experiences. But because our portfolio is really strong. So I think so far so good with expanding our bank lines at that 275 over SOFR level. So I think that's the way we're going to continue finance. I did say in the last call that I was going to look to do a, I don't know, either preferred or unsecured offering. We're still working on it. We're watching the tape today as REIT after REIT is starting to print perpetual preferreds and they're actually being absorbed by the market. So we are watching that market. We do intend to be there this quarter or next quarter. But you do have to have the market open. So I think that is going to be a good enhancer. Where do you think the cost of.
Jade Ramini - (00:18:00)
The preferred would be?
Leonard Tannenbaum - Executive Chairman - (00:18:04)
I mean you're seeing them at 8, right? You see 7, 7, 8 today from one read 8 got done. Pine got one done at 8. So it seems like that's the number. I really don't want to price much higher than that because I want to make sure we get a good net interest margin over time. So we'll wait for the right price if we have to.
Jade Ramini - (00:18:26)
Okay. And you prefer to do that than to take up leverage through a warehouse line?
Leonard Tannenbaum - Executive Chairman - (00:18:32)
Absolutely. I really have no desire to do repo. I have no desire to do warehouse in this product. This product, I own 25% of the product. We want to protect our investors downside by not over levering it. So we by the way, it may not be preferred, it could be unsecured debt. I really liked our unsecured debt too. You know, five and six and seven year unsecured. It could be a baby bond, it could be a preferred. There's a lot of variety of things that we could do that we could lever appropriately and not get into trouble in the downturn. Thanks.
Jade Ramini - (00:19:07)
It's been an interesting cycle. We have not really seen, you know, I would say high volatility and sort of violent pressure on the repo side as what we saw in the financial crisis. We've seen managed deleveraging from several of the mortgage REITs that have major credit issues. But it's been, you know, a lot more stable on credit lines or bank, you know, warehouse lines are an area that banks definitely seem to be looking to be more active. Could you please comment on the portfolio underlying performance and any trend in the underlying deals that you're seeing thus far? You know, I know these are construction deals so completion is probably the biggest hurdle, but if you could, you know, give a comment on as to how the largest deals are trending.
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:20:00)
Sure, yeah, Jade, I'll take it. It's Brian. Our portfolio now is, is performing as really as expected. I mean, of course in any of these deals there are always things that pop up that need to be addressed. A borrower calls us and says they'd like to do something because they think it's more value add or maybe there's a two week delay here or there, but that's just ordinary. Course the underlying construction activity and progression has been going well on all the loans that we have. And then on the top line in terms of if it's pre sales on condos or whether it's leased up, they've all been moving along as expected. There's nothing particularly exciting about the progress which is what we love, slow, steady, expected and that's what we're continuing to see. There's actually been a bit of a pickup recently on a couple of our for sale projects just resulting from, I think just a view of more migration down in this particular case to South Florida. I expect that will continue in light of some of the political environment, but other than that everything's pretty normal course.
Jade Ramini - (00:21:29)
Thanks very much for taking the questions. Sure, thanks a lot.
OPERATOR - (00:21:35)
I am showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Brian for closing remarks.
Brian Sedrish - Chief Executive Officer - (00:21:46)
Great. Well thank you everybody for joining. We are excited about the upcoming quarters and the prospects and the pickup of momentum and we look forward to talking to you again in the coming quarters.
OPERATOR - (00:21:58)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.
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