Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation (ACRE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation's Annual Meeting for Stockholders. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Bill Benjamin. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation. I'm Bill Benjamin, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and I will be presiding at this meeting. We recognize that these are challenging times for everyone and we hope this finds you and your families in good health and good spirits. We appreciate your taking the time to join this webcast today. I would like to introduce the other directors of the company who are on the webcast of our Annual Meeting in listen-only mode: Caroline Blakely, Bill Browning, Rand April, Jim Skinner, Ed Moriarty and Mike Arougheti. Also present with us today are Bryan Donohoe, our CEO; Tae-Sik Yoon, our CFO; Anton Feingold, our General Counsel; and Carl Drake and Veronica Mayer from Investor Relations as well as other offices of Acre and of our manager, Ares Commercial Real Estate Management. Anton Feingold will act as secretary of this meeting this morning. Christopher Woods of American Election Services has been appointed to act as inspector of elections. Mr. Woods, we will have time for a question-and-answer session to respond to relevant shareholder questions. Only validated stockholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. [Operator Instructions] Now I will deal with the proposals. The next order is a description of the matters to be voted on at today's meeting. The first proposal before the stockholders of the corporation is the election of 2 Class II directors, each to serve for a term of 3 years until the Annual Meeting of Stockholders in the year 2023 and until his or her successor is duly elected and qualified. The Board of Directors recommend the election of the following 2 persons as directors of the corporation, Caroline Blakely and myself, Bill Benjamin. The second proposal before the stockholders of the corporation is the ratification of the selection of Ernst & Young as the corporation's independent registered accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020. The Board recommends voting for the ratification of the selection of Ernst & Young. The third proposal before the stockholders of the corporation is the approval on a nonbinding advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers as described in the 2020 proxy statement. The Board recommends voting for the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The polls are now open. Only stockholders of record at the close of business on February 26, 2020, are entitled to vote. At this time, any stockholders that are logged on and who have not already submitted a proxy and wish to vote their shares or change their vote, may do so by clicking on the Voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have sent in proxies and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. While we allow time for stockholders who haven't already done so to complete their voting, I'd like to remind you that some of the statements made at this meeting may be considered forward-looking. The company cautions investors that results of future operations may differ from those anticipated. We urge you to review the cautionary statements and other information contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2019, which identifies certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements made during the meeting. Copies of the 10-K and other filings are available through the company or online. We undertake no duty to update any of these statements made during this meeting. Now that everyone has the opportunity to vote, I hereby declare the polls closed. On to the results. We are informed by the inspector of election that a quorum is present for the purposes of transacting business. I will now discuss the results of the voting for the record. We will have time to discuss any questions after we adjourn the official business of the meeting. Accordingly, I hereby declare that the notice of this meeting has been properly served. A quorum is present as a majority of the voting power of the company is presented by proxy. All items of business are properly presented before the meeting. Of the proposals to be voted on, the inspector of elections has informed us that the 2 nominations -- excuse me, the 2 nominees for the election to the Board of Directors to serve until the company's 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their successors are duly elected and qualified have been duly elected. Secondly, the selection of Ernst & Young as the corporation's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year has been duly ratified. And finally, the stockholders have approved on a nonbinding advisory basis the compensation of the company's named executive officers. I now declare the meeting adjourned. I'd like to address any stockholder questions and comments. We have not received any questions or comments in advance, so we will take stockholder questions that are being entered today on the web portal. We will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows but only questions that are relevant to this meeting will be addressed.

No questions have been received on the portal at this time.

Okay. Why don't we just wait 1 minute? And then if we don't receive any, we can adjourn. Nothing submitted?

No questions at this time.

Okay. Well, that concludes our meeting. Thank you, everybody. Have a good rest of the day.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.