Creative Media (NASDAQ:CMCT) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Friday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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The full earnings call is available at https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=RhuiqyY4

Summary

Creative Media and Community Trust reported a 22% increase in net operating income, driven by improvements in multifamily, office, and hotel segments, despite a $2.8 million increase in JV losses due to non-cash items.

The company's strategic priorities include improving funds from operations, strengthening the balance sheet, funding growth initiatives, and evaluating potential real estate asset sales.

Multifamily occupancy in the Bay Area reached 95.3%, with NOI increasing 238% year over year, while office NOI declined due to JV losses, though performance improved at certain assets.

Hotel renovations in Sacramento led to an 11% increase in NOI, and the company plans to add eight more guest rooms to enhance revenue.

Creative Media is refinancing mortgages for key properties and has extended the mortgage at its Oakland multifamily asset until mid-2027.

FFO improved from negative $7.9 million in Q2 2025 to negative $3.5 million in Q2 2026, due to reduced preferred dividends and transaction-related costs.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to the Creative Media and Community Trust second quarter 2026 earnings conference 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 then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two.

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight. Please go ahead.

Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us. My name is Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight for Creative Media. Also on the call today are David Thompson, our Chief Executive Officer, and Brandon Hill, 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 or 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.

David Thompson, Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Steve. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin with an update on our strategic priorities before reviewing our second quarter operating results. Starting with our strategic priorities, first, we remain focused on improving our funds from operations in 2026 and 2027. We continue to see operating trends strengthening across our multifamily portfolio, our Los Angeles and Austin office assets, and at our hotel asset in Sacramento.

These improvements are translating into stronger operating results. Excluding our JV loss in the quarter, which was primarily impacted by large non-cash items, our net operating income increased 22% from the prior-year period, driven by our multifamily, office, and hotel segments. Second, we continue to strengthen our balance sheet while still funding critical growth initiatives such as office leasing and our hotel renovations. Despite a $2.8 million increase in our JV losses, which was primarily driven by non-cash items, our core FFO still improved by $3.6 million compared to the second quarter of last year.

The improvement was primarily due to a reduction in preferred dividends. Third, we continue to evaluate the potential sale of one or more of our real estate assets. We believe executing on this strategy will further strengthen our balance sheet while also helping close what we view as a significant gap between our current share price and the intrinsic value of the portfolio. Turning now to our operating performance by segment, beginning with multifamily, we believe Creative Media is well positioned to benefit from the continued recovery in the Bay Area residential market.

Approximately 78% of our multifamily units are located in the Bay Area, where leasing demand has continued to improve. Same-store multifamily occupancy reached 95.3% as of June 30, 2026, an increase of 1,190 basis points from a year ago. As a result, multifamily NOI increased 238% year over year. In addition, in-place rents at our Bay Area multifamily properties are approximately 12% below current asking rents, providing a meaningful opportunity to continue NOI growth as new leases roll to market.

Within our office segment, leasing trends continue to improve. Excluding our Oakland office asset, leased occupancy increased to 84.4% at quarter end, up 470 basis points from the second quarter of 2025. Office NOI declined to $4 million from $5.5 million due to a $2.4 million increase in our JV loss. The JV loss was primarily driven by non-cash items. Excluding our JV loss, consolidated NOI increased year over year, primarily due to improved performance at our Wilshire office assets.

Our hotel property in Sacramento also delivered improved operating performance following the completion of recent renovations. Hotel NOI increased 11% year over year. We believe the property remains well positioned to generate additional NOI growth. Overall, we're encouraged by the continued improvement we're seeing across each of our operating segments, and we believe we are positioned to continue to grow our FFO. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve to provide more color on our refinancing activities and property-level performance in the quarter.

Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight

Thanks, David. The actions we've taken over the past several quarters have significantly improved our balance sheet and we believe will improve our funds from operations. We are positioned to benefit from improving fundamentals, particularly in our multifamily assets in the Bay Area. Today, Creative Media owns 621 residential units across two premier Class A assets in the market. The Bay Area recovery continues to gain momentum, bolstered by growth in AI-related employment and investment in the adjacent San Francisco market.

Multifamily rents increased by approximately 11% in the second quarter after increasing approximately 6% in 2025. This rent growth represents a 25-plus-year high, and vacancy has declined to 3.7%, which is a 25-year low. In Oakland, rent growth was 7.6% in the second quarter, also the highest rate of growth in over 25 years, while vacancy declined to 7% at the end of the second quarter, down from a peak of approximately 18% in 2021. Supply growth in the market remains very low and we anticipate that it will remain low for the foreseeable future given the elevated costs of construction.

At the end of the second quarter, occupancy at Creative Media's multifamily properties increased to 96.1%, representing an improvement of over 1,200 basis points compared to the end of the second quarter of last year. We have seen concessions in the markets normalize, and at the end of 2Q26 our in-place rents were approximately 12% below our current asking rents. This should support solid NOI growth over the next year. Turning to Los Angeles, we have made good progress across our two new LA multifamily assets.

At 701 South Hudson, our partial conversion of office to residential is now 94.1% occupied. We continue to work on pre-development on the 50 units we are entitled to build on the surface lot. We anticipate having the option to start that project later this year. At 1915 Park, our ground-up development in Echo Park, we achieved 58.3% leased at quarter end. This 36-unit project delivered in the fourth quarter and is located in a highly desirable, walkable submarket with significant dining and entertainment options.

Including our joint ventures, we now have five operating multifamily assets. Turning to the office segment, we executed approximately 16,000 square feet of leases in the second quarter. We are seeing steady leasing interest at the few assets where we have some vacancy in LA and Austin. Excluding the company's Oakland office asset, our lease percentage stood at 84.4% at the end of the second quarter, representing an improvement of 470 basis points year over year.

Finally, in our hotel segment we have substantially completed the renovation of the property's public spaces following the full renovation of all 505 guest rooms. This marks the first comprehensive renovation of the asset since its acquisition in 2008 and positions the hotel well for improved performance in 2026 and beyond. We are also evaluating an opportunity to add eight new guest rooms by converting currently underutilized space, which we believe will be highly accretive.

Turning to financing, during the quarter, we extended our mortgage at 1150 Clay, our Class A Oakland multifamily asset, until mid-2027. We are working to refinance our mortgage on the Sheraton Grand. With the renovation now substantially complete, we believe there's an opportunity to both increase the loan balance and reduce the borrowing spread. Finally, at our Oakland office property, our non-recourse mortgage matured in early July. We elected not to invest the additional capital in the asset that would have been required to refinance the mortgage.

We continue to engage with the servicer on a long-term resolution. For context, in the second quarter of 2026 this asset generated approximately $445,000 of income after debt service. With that, I'll turn it to Brandon.

Brandon Hill, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Steve. Good afternoon. I'm going to spend a few minutes going over the comparative financial highlights for the second quarter of 2026 versus the second quarter of 2025, starting with our segment NOI, which was $9.3 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $9.8 million in the prior year comparable period. Loss from unconsolidated entities was $3.2 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $437,000 in the prior year comparable period, primarily driven by fair value adjustments to real estate at two of our unconsolidated office entities and two of our unconsolidated multifamily entities.

Excluding loss from unconsolidated entities, segment NOI was $12.5 million in Q2 2026 compared to $10.3 million in Q2 2025. Broken down by segment, the decrease in segment NOI of approximately $510,000 was driven by a decrease of $1.5 million from our office properties, partially offset by increases of $449,000 from our multifamily properties and $466,000 from our hotel property. Our hotel segment NOI for Q2 2026 was $4.6 million versus $4.2 million in Q2 2025.

The increase was primarily driven by increased occupancy, which resulted in increased room revenues and food and beverage revenues. These increases were partially offset by higher room, food and beverage, and general and administrative expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the prior-year comparable period. Our office segment NOI for Q2 2026 was $4 million versus $5.5 million in Q2 2025. The decrease was primarily driven by fair value adjustments to real estate at two of our unconsolidated office entities during Q2 2026.

The change was partially offset by an increase in rental revenue and tenant reimbursement revenue, together with a decrease in real estate taxes and administrative costs at office properties in Los Angeles, California, an increase in tenant reimbursement revenue at our office property in Oakland, California, and a decrease in administrative costs at our office property in Austin, Texas, during Q2 2026 compared to the prior-year period. Our multifamily segment net operating income increased to $638,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to $189,000 for the same period in 2025, primarily driven by increased occupancy coupled with a decrease in real estate taxes at our multifamily properties in Oakland, California. As of June 30, 2026, our multifamily segment was 93.6% occupied compared to 83.4% as of Q2 2025. Below the segment NOI line, depreciation and amortization expense increased $807,000, primarily due to an increase in tenant improvement amortization at an office property located in Beverly Hills, California, and increased depreciation at our hotel property due to renovation projects which have increased depreciable assets.

Asset management fees increased $510,000, driven by an increase in our net asset value attributable to common stockholders, resulting from the issuance of additional shares of common stock primarily during the first quarter of 2026. We also incurred a $455,000 casualty loss during Q2 2026 due to water damage at our hotel property. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in transaction costs of $786,000 due to a lower volume of contemplated transactions and reduced dead deal costs incurred during Q2 2026 compared to the prior-year period.

Our FFO was negative $3.5 million, or negative $1.28 per diluted share, compared to negative $7.9 million, or negative $981.63 per diluted share, in the prior-year comparable period. The increase in FFO is primarily attributable to a decrease in redeemable preferred stock dividends of $4.3 million and a decrease in transaction-related costs of $786,000, partially offset by a decrease in segment net operating income of $510,000. Our core FFO was negative $3.4 million, or negative $1.25 per diluted share, compared to negative $7 million, or negative $870.25 per diluted share, in the prior-year comparable period.

The increase in core FFO is primarily attributable to the aforementioned changes in FFO. Unlike FFO, core FFO was not impacted by the aforementioned decrease in transaction-related costs, as these are excluded from our core FFO calculation. With that, we can open the line for questions.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Showing no questions. This concludes our question and answer session and the conference has also now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.