First Capital, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first Capital REIT Q3 2022 results conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would like to turn the meeting over to Alison. Please proceed with your presentation.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. In discussing our financial and operating performance and in responding to your questions during today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current estimates and assumptions, many of which are beyond our control and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. A summary of these underlying assumptions, risks, and uncertainties is contained in our various securities filings, including our Q3 MD&A, our MD&A for the year ended December 31st, 2021, and our current AIF, which are available on CDAR and our website. These forward-looking statements are made as of today's date, and except as required by securities law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements. During today's call, we will also be referencing certain financial measures that are non-IFRS measures. These do not have standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and should not be construed as alternatives to net income or cash flow from operating activities determined in accordance with IFRS. Management provides these measures as a complement to IFRS measures to aid in assessing the REITs performance. These non-IFRS measures are further defined and discussed in our MD&A, which should be read in conjunction with this conference call. I'll now turn the call over to Adam.

Okay. Thank you very much, Alison. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Q3 earnings conference call. In addition to Alison, with me today are several members of the FCR team, including Neil Downey and Jordi Robbins, who you will hear from shortly. Before we get into the quarterly results, I'll start with commenting on some of the strategy work that the board and management team have recently announced. On September the 15th, we followed through with our promise to unit holders and announced the full restoration and doubling of our distribution. Going back to January of 2021, the board made the decision to reduce the distribution by 50%. We were clear at the time that this would be temporary and was being done to provide the trust with additional financial flexibility in the face of new government mandated COVID related closures in several regions in which we operate. We were also clear that subject to the duration and ultimate economic impact of the pandemic, the board believed the reduction would be in place for a period spanning approximately two years. There were several factors behind our decision to restore the distribution last month. Firstly, the impact of COVID on our business is now behind us. This is supported by the fact that for several quarters now, we have reported strong and improving operating results. Second, and this may not be fully appreciated, Given our tax profile, we have very little flexibility other than to restore our distribution without compromising our REIT status. And finally, this announcement fulfilled the pledge that we made to unit holders nearly two years ago. Last month, we announced the details of our enhanced capital allocation and portfolio optimization plan. This plan is the outcome of months of work by management and the board on how best to unlock the value we have created over the past few years. Notwithstanding headwinds such as the pandemic, high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates, FCR has delivered above average NAV per unit growth over the last number of years. This growth is a function of our best-in-class portfolio and operating platform that has continued to deliver peer-leading same property NOI, lease renewal lifts, and rental rate growth. It is also the result of the strategic decisions that we made, including the sale of $1.5 billion of specific assets from 2019 to 2021. most of which were sold either because we chose to exit secondary markets or sold properties in which we felt we had maximized their value and chose to reallocate that capital to more productive uses. A major contributor to our strong NAV growth is our density pipeline. We have rezoned over 8 million square feet of space with another 9 million square feet currently underway in Canada's most desirable neighborhoods. While the contribution to net asset value has been strong, the cumulative impact of this industry-leading development pipeline creates a short to medium-term drag on EBITDA and FFO, while also adversely impacting our debt metrics, which is why balance is so important in this regard. As a result of the hard work and sweat equity of our team over the last few years, we now have an abundance of assets that are prime for either development or monetization. Executing our monetization plan will ensure our capital is allocated in ways that drive the most value for our unit holders over the short, medium, and long term. It will also rebalance FCR's portfolio to a higher proportion of income producing assets that contribute to key metrics such as EBITDA, FFO, and our debt metrics. In summary, our portfolio composition today is overweight long-term development opportunities for a public company. The depth and scale of our development pipeline is massive by any standard. At 24 million square feet, It is larger in size than our total existing GLA or built portfolio. We are now in a position to utilize these assets to further enhance our short to medium-term objectives while maintaining and to finance our attractive long-term trajectory. Our plan includes the monetization of more than a billion dollars of low or no yielding assets over the next two years. This is a large and impactful number, but it includes only a quarter of our density pipeline, leaving an opportunity with respect to more than 17 million square feet of future space. A smaller portion of the assets we intend to monetize will not be development assets, but instead will be low yielding income producing properties in which our short to medium term value enhancing goals have been achieved. The King Highline residential property sale is a great example. This recently completed development has a stabilized occupancy level, and it offers no additional intensification opportunities. To be clear, this is a great asset in a great neighborhood, but that is not enough to keep our capital invested. Selling the property at a sub-3% cap rate and an attractive premium to IFRS NAV affords us the opportunity to reinvest that capital in significantly higher return endeavors, which today includes our NCIB. What is not in our billion-dollar monetization pool are stable, cash-flowing, grocery-anchored assets, which we now own only in top-tier neighborhoods with the best demographics in the country. Therefore, as we execute this program, our weighting of these core assets will continue to increase. Our FFO more than covers our reinstated distribution, all maintenance CapEx and all revenue enhancing CapEx. Therefore, the entire billion dollar plus of monetizations will be allocated to other more productive uses. Specifically, at least $400 million to repay debt with the balance allocated to both our NCIB and expected development investments through the end of 2024. Neil will walk through the details of the quarter, but to summarize, it's one of the strongest quarters we've had. I'm the first to say that a quarter does not make a trend, but when stringing Q3 together with the operating results we have delivered for several quarters in a row now, it is clear that the hard work of our talented team coupled with our strategic focus on high quality grocery anchored properties located within Canadian neighborhoods with the most compelling demographic profiles continues to deliver solid operating results. Leasing is critical to our business and it's been a bright spot for FCR through various economic cycles and world events. The strength we've demonstrated for some time now continued in the third quarter with nearly 750,000 square feet of leasing, across 170 transactions at very healthy rent increases. This contributed to solid same property NOI growth of 5.3% or 3.4% without bad debts and lease termination fees for those who prefer to exclude them. We also completed dispositions and made investments during the quarter to advance our real estate strategy and our development program specifically, which Geordie will review. We remain active on additional dispositions that are consistent with our enhanced capital allocation and portfolio optimization plan. Finally, I would like to provide an update on our ESG initiatives. We recently released our 2021 ESG report, marking our 12th year in publishing our results, and I'm pleased with the progress we are making executing on our commitments. From a sustainability perspective, we exceeded our stated three-year target of a 9% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, achieving a 12.7% reduction. And we once again achieved a four-star rating in the 2022 GRESB Real Estate Assessment. For the third consecutive year, we achieved prime status for corporate ESG performance by ISS. And across the portfolio, we continue to invest in sustainable infrastructure. We now have over 250 electric vehicle charging stations installed across 76 properties with a commitment to install an additional 200 next year. Our head office building at 85 Hanna Avenue and our Brooklyn Town Center were awarded the Outstanding Building of the Year Award from BOMA Canada in their respective categories. Also at 85 Hanna, at the entrance to the shops at King Liberty, we recently installed our first indigenous art piece by celebrated Anishinaabe artist Q Rock entitled Bindigan, which means welcome. This brings a total of 31 public art installations in our longstanding public art program. And to close my remarks today, I would like to make a special mention of FCR's Thriving Neighborhood Foundation volunteer team who hosted the first annual commercial real estate softball classic tournament in support of Kids Help Phone. Together with some of our real estate friends and partners, we raised over $100,000 for this important charity focused on kids' mental health. It was a great day for a great cause. Thank you to everyone who made this day happen. So overall, a very busy quarter with healthy and strengthening operating metrics. Before I pass it over to Neil, one thing I did want to say is that the board is committed to listening and responding appropriately to unit holders in accordance with its fiduciary duties and the best interest of all unit holders. As always, we strongly encourage constructive unit holder feedback and input. We believe the best form for this is for unit holders to engage directly with management and the board. Since the purpose of today's quarterly call is to discuss our quarterly results, I respectfully request that questions in the Q&A period of this call focus on the quarter and our real estate strategy. And with that, I will now pass things over to Neil.