Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2015 Resource Capital Corp. Earnings Conference Call. My name is Steve and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of the conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jonathan Cohen, President and CEO. Please proceed.

Thank you and thank you for joining the Resource Capital Corp. earnings conference call for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015. I am Jonathan Cohen, President and CEO of Resource Capital Corp. Before I begin, I would like to ask Purvi Kamdar, our Vice President of Investor Relations to read the Safe Harbor Statement.

Thank you, Jonathan. When used in this conference call the words believes, anticipates, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although, the company believes that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company’s reports filed with the SEC including its reports on forms 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K, and in particular Item 1A on the Form 10-K report under the title Risk Factors. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The company undertakes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements. With that, I’ll turn it back to Jonathan.

Thank you, Purvi. First, a few highlights from the first quarter ended March 31, 2015. Adjusted funds from operations, AFFO, were $0.16 per share diluted. Book value per share was $5 as of March 31, 2015. During the three months ended March 31, 2015 we originated over $156 million in new commercial real estate loan commitments. During the last 12 months we have originated $817.3 million of total loan commitments, an increase of over 107% from the same period last year, a new peak for our origination platform. We funded $165.6 million of commercial real estate loans during the quarter, an increase of approximately 48% over the same period last year and 122% over the same period in 2013. In February 2015, we closed a $346.2 million commercial real estate securitization at a weighted average cost of LIBOR plus 190 basis points. We expect to earn 17% to 19% on our invested equity over the life of the vehicle. This is our third securitization in 14 months through which we have term financed just over $1 billion of mortgage assets. Our middle market lending group, Northport Capital, originated almost $61 million of originations in the first quarter, it also upsized its credit facility commitment from $125 million to $190 million. We paid a dividend of $0.16 per share on April 28, 2015. We anticipate that 2015 AFFO will be approximately $0.70 per share. With those highlights out of the way, I will now introduce my colleagues. With me today are Dave Bloom, Head of Real Estate; Dave Bryant, our Chief Financial Officer; and Purvi Kamdar, our Director of Investor Relations. 2015 had a great start. Business is good. Our originations are strong. In fact they are strong as we have seen since inception of the company. We reiterate our guidance…

Thank you Jonathan. Resource Capital Corp.'s committed commercial mortgage and CMBS portfolio for the current balance in excess of $1.83 billion in a pull that is both granular and diverse. RSO's commercial and mortgage portfolio is comprised of 84 individual loans with an aggregate committed balance of approximately $1.64 billion and is comprised of 95% self originated whole loans, 4% mezzanine loans and 1% B notes. The underlying collateral base securing RSO's commercial mortgage portfolio continues to be spread across the major asset categories in geographically varied markets with a portfolio breakdown of 47% multifamily, 20% office, 15% hotel, 13% retail and 5% other such as R&D and mixed year's deals [ph]. During the first quarter of 2015, RSO closed new loans with commitments totaling $157 million which represents 48% increase over the same period last year. Of more significance though, those trailing 12-month production as of the end of the first quarter of 2015 was over $817 million, which is a 107% increase over the trailing 12-month period as of the end of the first quarter of 2014 which is record loan origination volume for RSO and in line with our previous announced origination target for 2015 of between $800 million and $950 million. In addition, since the end of the first quarter, we have closed new loans with commitments totaling approximately $115 million have another $76 million of new loans in the process of closing. As of today just slightly over four months into 2015, RSO’s aggregate new loan production activity stands at approximately $350 million across 21 separate loans. Our origination pipeline remains full and continues to grow, while still remaining keenly focused on credit metrics and overall asset and sponsor quality and diversity. We currently have approximately $300 million of new lending opportunities underwritten, quoted and…

Thanks Dave. Now I'll ask our other Dave, Dave Bryant our CFO to discuss our financials.

Thank you, Jonathan. Resource Capital Corp. declared and paid a cash dividend for the first quarter and in March 31, 2015 of $0.16 per common share matching our adjusted funds from operations or AFFO for the quarter of $21.3 million, again $0.16 per common share diluted. In determining AFFO for the first quarter, there were several non-cash adjustments that netted to approximately $9 million and cash adjustments of $2.9 million. We passed all the interest coverage and over collateralization tests in all of our securitizations that require such tests, including our legacy real estate CDOs and remaining bank loan CLOs. Our two most recent securitizations RCC 2014-CRE2 and RCC 2015-CRE3 are subject only to over collateralization tests which we have easily passed. Each of these structured finance vehicles performed well and produced healthy cash flow to us in Q1 2015. We had one of our bank loan CLOs liquidate in Q1 and in addition we expect another legacy bank loan CLO to liquidate in June of this year. We anticipate recycling returned capital from each into newly underwritten loans. As we discussed on the year end, the recent rate reduction of 25 bps on our $400 million term facility with Wells Fargo together with the continued portfolio growth outlined by Dave Bloom augment our net interest income and cash flow from real estate operations. As a reference point, we increased the net interest income on our full real estate loan portfolio by $5.7 million or 72% for the 2015 quarter over the same period in 2014. We ended Q1 with availability of $506 million on our real estate term facilities combined after the February paydown of $214 million on our CRE term facilities at the close of the most recent real estate securitization. And we ended the period with $71…

Thank you, Dave Bryant and then with that I will open the call for any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question, which comes from the line of Jade Rahmani from KBW. Please go ahead.

Hi yes. This is actually Ryan Tomasello on for Jade. Thank you for taking my question. Can you talk a bit more about the current competitive environment for us are you lending and where you see RSO having a competitive advantage and in what niches that would be?

Sure, Dave Bloom?

Yes. Thanks Jade, did a, oh right, I'm sorry Ryan. We certainly see a competitive environment, but as Jonathan mentioned, having been in business with essentially the same team facing the market for 10 years now, we have a tremendous advantage in a process that is extremely well understood by borrowers and intermediaries alike. And with markets that focus on certainty of close it provides in an invaluable edge. There will always be outliers who will come in. We oftentimes find them falling out and fine deals coming back to us. But I think that it’s a competitive market, but we are winning more than our share, yes.

Great thanks and then have you seen any particular markets or property types where there has been a loosening of underwriting seen among peers?

No, I mean in general people are staying relatively in locked step. I mean, again there is, there can be outliers in any given deal, but it’s still a very relationship centric business and we continue to grow our relationship base every day.

Great thanks, and then just one last question, the gains on the debt extinguishment you know has still have been contributing to AFFO and I was wondering if you could provide any color on how much more gains do you expect to flow through that line over the next year?

We've anticipated somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million to $6 million total for the year Ryan. There is a lot more behind that, but more the bigger dollars will start to come as those legacy CDOs terminate and liquidate, because a lot of these gains are at the bottom of the tranches. But in terms of actually getting more this year probably close to double what we had for the full year in the first quarter.

Great, thank you.

And your next question comes from the line of Richard Eckert from MLV & Company. Please go ahead.

This is for David Bloom. The funding commitments for the first quarter at least versus my estimate, were a little light. I mean, I may have jumped in a little late, but can you talk about your pipeline and what you are looking at for the full year?

Sure, thanks for the question. We in the last call provided guidance for the year between $800 million and $800 million to $950 million.

And that’s what I have in my estimates. Do you think that's still realistic?

And we, yes we absolutely do. I mean, the first quarter is generally a light quarter. I think we did well in first quarter year-over-year, but certainly as we continue into the year with deals in process and $116 million of deals closed in really April alone, we are at about $350 million of total loan production for the year for four months and so we believe that we are pacing extremely well.

Okay, and then the next question is for David Bryant. You guided to 75% capital allocations to commercial real estate for the year when do you think you’ll get back to the 80% to 85% that you have targeted over time?

I think that we have a chance of getting closer to that by the end of this year, but as I said the minimum goal was 75% for this year. We will certainly get there in 2015 and I would think the higher number in the early part of 2016.

Okay, thank you very much.

There are no further questions at this time. [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Jade Rahmani from KBW. Please go ahead.

Hi thanks just following up again, this is Ryan Tomasello on for Jade. Can you give any color on where incremental yields were on commercial real estate originations during the quarter?

As I look at our current tape where, I think we are still kind of, I mean we're still looking at spreads plus under [indiscernible].

I'm sorry, what was that?

We're still looking at spreads just a touch under 5%.

Great, thanks.

I'm sorry, that's without, as Dave Bryant pointed out, that's the pure spread that faces the borrower and does not include the accretion of the origination thing.

Got it, thank you.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jonathan for closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much. We greatly appreciate your support and we look forward to speaking with you on the next call.