Creative Media & Community Trust Corporation (CMCT) reported its Q1 2025 financial results, revealing a decrease in net operating income (NOI) and a negative core funds from operations (FFO). The company’s stock price fell by 4.07% following the announcement, reflecting investor concerns over its financial performance, particularly in the multifamily segment.
Key Takeaways
- Segment NOI decreased to $11.8 million from $13.6 million in Q1 2024.
- Core FFO was negative at $5.1 million.
- Stock price dropped by 4.07% post-earnings.
- Hotel segment showed a positive performance with a 15% increase in NOI.
- The company is focusing on improving its balance sheet and liquidity.
Company Performance
Creative Media & Community Trust faced a challenging quarter, with its segment NOI dropping to $11.8 million from $13.6 million in the same period last year. The multifamily segment particularly struggled, turning a previous profit into a loss. Despite these setbacks, the hotel segment showed resilience with a 15% increase in NOI, indicating strong performance in a difficult market.
Financial Highlights
- Segment NOI: $11.8 million (down from $13.6 million YoY)
- Core FFO: -$5.1 million (-$8.85 per diluted share)
- Office NOI: $7.1 million (down from $7.9 million)
- Multifamily NOI: -$620,000 (vs. +$917,000 YoY)
- Hotel NOI: $4.7 million (up from $4.1 million)
- Lending NOI: $590,000 (down from $789,000)
Market Reaction
The company’s stock price experienced a 4.07% decline following the earnings announcement, closing at $6.55. This movement reflects investor concerns regarding the negative core FFO and the substantial drop in multifamily NOI. While the stock is trading closer to its 52-week low, InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock is slightly undervalued at current levels. The company maintains a notable dividend yield of 12.72%, though investors should note that InvestingPro has identified 11 additional warning signals about the stock’s performance and financial health.
Outlook & Guidance
Looking forward, CMCT plans to focus on asset sales and improving multifamily occupancy rates. The company is also planning renovations in its hotel segment and expects the 1915 Park development to begin leasing in Q3. These strategic moves aim to bolster NOI and improve financial flexibility.
Executive Commentary
"We remain focused on improving our balance sheet and liquidity and accelerating our focus towards premier multifamily assets," said David Thompson, CEO. This statement underscores the company’s strategic pivot towards strengthening its financial position and capitalizing on multifamily opportunities.
Steve Altobrando, responsible for portfolio oversight, noted, "Elevated construction costs have made new development increasingly difficult, which we think will benefit our completed properties." This insight highlights the company’s advantage in the current high-cost environment.
Risks and Challenges
- Office Financing Environment: The challenging office financing environment could hinder growth and profitability.
- High Construction Costs: Elevated costs may affect future development plans.
- Multifamily Segment Decline: The significant drop in NOI poses a risk to overall profitability.
- Market Saturation: Increased competition in key markets like Los Angeles may impact occupancy rates.
- Economic Conditions: Broader economic pressures could affect consumer spending and demand for real estate.
The company is navigating a complex market landscape, focusing on strengthening its core assets and financial health. Despite current challenges, CMCT is strategically positioning itself for future growth in the multifamily and hotel sectors.
Full transcript - Creative Media & Community Trust Corporation (CMCT) Q1 2025:
Conference Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Altobrando.
Please go ahead.
Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: Hello everyone and thank you for joining us. My name is Steve Altobrando, the portfolio oversight for CMCT. 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 our assumptions are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance and some will prove to be incorrect. Therefore, 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, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: Thanks, Steve, and thank you everyone for joining our call today. I’d like to begin by sharing an update on the progress we’ve made with our strategic initiatives followed by a review of our results for the quarter. As we’ve discussed on previous calls, we remain focused on improving our balance sheet and liquidity and accelerating our focus towards premier multifamily assets. With respect to the balance sheet and liquidity, we are pleased to share that we have now fully repaid and retired our recourse corporate level credit facility, a clear demonstration of the progress we’ve been making on our strategic initiatives.
Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: To take
David Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: a step back, last September, we announced our intention to place property level financing on several of our assets with the objective of using a portion of the proceeds to fully repay and retire the recourse credit facility. When we first discussed this goal, that facility carried a balance of approximately $169,000,000 In April, we secured a floating rate mortgage on our Creative Office campus at 3601 South Congress in Austin, also known as Penfield. This financing marked the conclusion of our broader refinancing program through which we successfully completed four financings across six properties. We achieved this in a highly challenging environment for office financing. As of today, the majority of the debt is held at the property level in the form of mortgages and this is non recourse to CMCT itself.
In addition, we now have 12 unencumbered assets further enhancing our financial flexibility. With respect to our other main priority, growing the multifamily portion of the portfolio, including JVs, we now have four operating assets. These include 1150 Clay And Channel House in the Bay Area and 701 South Hudson and 1902 Park Avenue in Los Angeles. Our fifth operating asset 1915 Park in Los Angeles will be delivered on time in the third quarter. We believe there is significant opportunity to grow our multi family net operating income through improving occupancy and marketing rents to the current market.
And lastly, we continue to actively evaluate potential asset sales with the goal of strengthening our balance sheet, improving our liquidity and growing our portfolio of premier multifamily assets. Turning to our first quarter results. Our core FFO improved by approximately $1,900,000 from the prior quarter, primarily due to higher net operating income and lower preferred dividends. Our net operating income increased by approximately $2,600,000,000 from the prior quarter, primarily driven by a $2,600,000 improvement at our hotel. While the first half of the year is typically the strongest seasonally for our hotel, we’re also seeing the clear benefits from the recently completed renovation of our hotel asset, the Sheraton Grand Sacramento.
First quarter NOI at the hotel increased 15% on a year over year basis. Our office NOI improved by $1,900,000 from the prior quarter and we are seeing a pickup in leasing activity particularly in Los Angeles and in Austin. Our multifamily NOI decreased by $1,500,000 from the prior quarter primarily due to lower occupancy in the seasonally slower winter months. Our lending NOI declined approximately $390,000 primarily due to a decrease in interest income as a result of loan payoffs and lower interest rates. With that, I will turn it over to Steve to provide more detail on the portfolio.
Steve Altobrando, Portfolio Oversight, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: Thanks David. I would like to provide some more details on our segments. Starting with multifamily, we continue to focus on growing our premier newer vintage multifamily portfolio. As David mentioned, we believe there is a significant opportunity to grow our multifamily net operating income through improving occupancy and increasing rents to current market. Starting in Los Angeles, we continue to make progress on the lease up of 701 South Hudson, the residential component of our partial office to residential conversion completed towards the end of last year.
The top two floors of the property were converted into 68 high end residential units while the ground floor creative office known as 4750 Wilshire remains 100% leased. The asset is located in Hancock Park, an affluent supply constrained residential submarket of LA. Multifamily occupancy at the property reached approximately 41% at the end of the quarter, up from 22% at the year end. We continue to make further progress in the second quarter as our lease percentage as of early May is approximately 63%. Given recent zoning changes, we also believe there’s an opportunity to develop additional units on the back surface lot.
This potential second phase would benefit from development and operational efficiencies. For example, amenities are already built out in phase one. We believe this will be an attractive project and we will share more details in the future as we progress through the predevelopment phase. Also in Los Angeles, we have one development underway at 1915 Park, which is a 36 unit ground up multifamily development in Echo Park, a highly desirable walkable submarket with attractive dining and entertainment options. 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.
We expect to begin lease up of this asset in the third quarter. In Oakland, we saw lower occupancy through the seasonally slower winter months, but we are already beginning to see a pickup in the second quarter. As we have noted on these calls before, we continue to believe the recovery of the Oakland residential market will take some time given the broader economic headwinds and local market dynamics. One encouraging factor is the limited pipeline of new supply. Elevated construction costs have made new development increasingly difficult, which we think will benefit our completed properties.
Turning to the office segment, we executed approximately 30,000 square feet of leases in the quarter, which was in addition to the nearly 176,000 square feet of leases completed in the fourth quarter. As David mentioned, we have been seeing leasing activity pick up in LA and Austin, where we have active pipelines. Our office lease percentage was 71.4% at the end of the quarter, and when excluding our office building Oakland, our lease percentage was 83%. Turning to our hotel, we have completed the renovation of all 500 plus rooms at our hotel asset in Sacramento. We were pleased to have a strong first quarter with net operating income improving 15% from the prior year period.
We anticipate starting a renovation of the public space later this year, largely using proceeds from operations, future funding from the mortgage and $8,000,000 of key money we received as part of the extension of our management agreement with Marriott. We believe the asset will be very well positioned heading into 2026. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Barry.
Barry Berlin, Chief Financial Officer, Creative Media and Community Trust Corporation: Thank you, Steve. Good morning. I’m going to spend a few minutes going over the comparative financial highlights for the first quarter of twenty twenty five versus the first quarter of twenty twenty four, starting with our segment NOI, which was $11,800,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to $13,600,000 in the prior year comparable period. Broken down by segment, a decrease of $1,800,000 was driven by decreases of $764,000 for our office properties, 1,500,000.0 from our multifamily properties and $199,000 from our lending business, partially offset by an increase of $622,000 in NOI from our hotel property. Our office segment NOI for Q1 twenty twenty five was $7,100,000 versus $7,900,000 during Q1 twenty twenty four.
The decrease was driven by a decrease in rental revenue at our office property in Oakland, California, attributable to a decrease in occupancy resulting from a large tenant exercising a partial lease termination option. For our Multifamily segment NOI, we reported an operating loss of $620,000 during Q1 twenty twenty five compared to income of $917,000 for the prior year comparable period. The decrease was primarily due to an unrealized loss on investment in real estate at one of our unconsolidated joint ventures during the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Our hotel segment NOI for Q1 twenty twenty five was $4,700,000 compared to $4,100,000 in the prior year comparable period. The increase was driven by an increase in occupancy and average daily rate.
And our lending division NOI decreased to $590,000 from $789,000 in the prior year comparable period, primarily due to a decrease in interest income as a result of loan payoffs and lower interest rates. Below the segment NOI line, we had an increase of interest expense of $1,100,000 which was driven by a higher aggregate debt balance, which was partially offset by a decrease in transaction related costs of $664,000 Our FFO was negative $5,400,000 or negative $9.42 per diluted share compared to negative $5,900,000 or negative $60.42 per diluted share in the prior year comparable period. The positive movement in our FFO was primarily driven by a decrease in preferred stock dividends of $2,300,000 a decrease in the P and L impact of both preferred stock redemptions of $506,000 and the transaction related costs of $664,000 Partially offsetting the positive impacts to FFO for the quarter were the $1,180,000 decrease in our segment NOI and the increase in interest expense of $1,100,000 Our core FFO was negative 5,100,000 or negative $8.85 per diluted share compared to negative $4,400,000 or negative $45.15 per diluted share in the prior year comparable period. This decrease in core FFO is attributable to the previously discussed reductions in FFO from segment NOI and interest expense.
Core FFO calculations exclude reconciliation items to determine FFO that relate to transactional weighted costs and preferred stock redemptions. Finally, we completed a refinancing on our office property in Austin, Texas in early April and used a portion of the proceeds from the new mortgage to fully pay off our credit facility, which has now been retired. And on April 15, we affected the one for 25 reverse split of our common stock that was approved by our shareholders. With that, we can open the line for questions.
Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Seeing no questions, this will conclude our question and answer session as well as conference call. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.