Phillips Edison & Company, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to Phillips Edison and Company's Third Quarter 2021 Results Presentation. My name is Livia, and I will be your conference call operator today. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that today's presentation is being recorded in Simultaneously webcast. The company's earnings release quarterly financial supplement and 10Q were issued yesterday, November 4th, after market closed. These documents and a replay of today's presentation can be accessed on the investor section of the Phillips Edison and Company website at phillipsedison.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Kaler with Phillips Edison and Company. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am Michael Kaler, Vice President of Investor Relations with Phillips Edison and Company. Joining me on today's call are our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison, our President, Devin Murphy, and our Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield. During today's presentation, Jeff will provide a brief overview of Phillips Edison & Company, discuss our differentiated strategy, and touch on the highlights for the quarter. Devin will discuss our third quarter operational results, and John will review our third quarter financial results, our recent capital markets activity, and discuss our guidance. Lastly, Jeff will provide an update on our investment activity and provide closing comments. Following our prepared remarks, we will answer questions from the institutional analyst community. Before we begin, I would like to remind our audience that statements made during today's call may be considered forward-looking, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings. In addition, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure issued yesterday, which are on our website. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Before we get into our results for the quarter, I'd like to provide a brief overview of Phillips Edison and speak to our differentiated strategy. PICA was founded in 1991 when we bought our first gross-ranker shopping center in Danville, Virginia. Over 30 years and multiple cycles later, we now operate a national platform of 289 properties. Our strategy has been focused and consistent for 30 years. We create great omnichannel grocery-anchored shopping experiences, and we improve our communities one center at a time. We are grocery-centered and community-focused. We are one of the nation's largest owners and operators of neighborhood grocery-anchored shopping centers. As we speak today, you'll notice that we call our tenants our neighbors. We do this because we work hard to create community at our centers, and we treat our retailers as neighbors in that community. We believe in customer service and think this nomenclature reminds our team to treat our tenants like we would our neighbors. Our strategy is simple. We focus on owning shopping centers with the number one or two grocer in a market. Our centers have an omnichannel neighbor base where the grocer has delivery and buying online and picking up in the store are focus capabilities. Our centers have high exposure to neighbors selling necessity-based goods and services. And we focus on owning centers in trade areas with favorable demographics for our neighbors to be successful. Each of these components are critical to our strategy. When it comes to our centers, we believe that format drives results. It provides attractive internal growth. Our average center is 114,000 square feet, which is the smallest in the REIT shopping center universe and gives us a competitive advantage. Our smaller centers allow for better growth because we enjoy higher retention rates, higher leasing spreads, and overall positive leasing dynamics. Higher retention rates result in less downtime and lower TI costs. This leads to steady and consistent cash flow. We see retailer demand concentrated in smaller spaces, as approximately 70 percent of leasing activity in U.S. strip centers has been in spaces 2,500 square feet or less during 2021. Considering the average size of our inline neighbor is 2,200 square feet, we believe our centers are best positioned to meet retailer demand. Our smaller format centers with less exposure to secondary anchors require less CapEx than other retail real estate. Lower CapEx leads to higher AFFO. Importantly, our portfolio has performed well in up cycles and proven to be resilient in down cycles. This delivers more alpha and less beta to our stockholders. We target trade areas with demographics where our grocers and small stores can be successful. Our average population density and median household incomes mirror that of Kroger and Publix, our top two neighbors. We make money where our top neighbors make money. Our shopping centers provide necessity-based goods and services to the average American consumer. Our portfolio has been built one asset at a time. We purchased 280 centers for over $4.7 billion from 2012 to 2018. We selectively acquired assets that fit our focus strategy, and we continue this focus today. With our improved balance sheet resulting from the capital we raised during our IPO in July, our plan is to execute $1 billion of acquisitions net of dispositions over the next three years. Our goal is to achieve this by June 2024. This marks three years from our IPO. Our targeted acquisition strategy allows us to purchase properties at initial yields 50 to 100 basis points higher than in coastal markets. This external growth will complement our internal growth. Key drivers of our internal growth include growing rents through new and renewal leasing spreads, executing leases with annual fixed rent increases, leasing vacant space to neighbors, and executing redevelopment opportunities, which are primarily out-parcel developments. We bring an experienced in-house operating platform to the centers we acquire. Our team creates a better experience for both neighbors and their customers. This creates income growth and value. We believe our strategy has and will continue to generate superior risk-adjusted returns. Higher initial yields plus higher NOI growth plus lower CapEx leads to superior returns. Now turning to the results. The third quarter of 2021 reflected the strong execution of our differentiated strategy. The key components of our results for the third quarter are as follows. Our portfolio has fully recovered from COVID as rent collections and lease occupancy have both returned to pre-COVID levels. Our results for the quarter were robust. We enjoyed high neighbor retention, strong leasing spreads, and continued high demand for the retail space in our well-located small format centers. These dynamics drove strong financial results for the quarter. And third, we are capitalizing on investment opportunities that meet our external growth requirements, which is 8% unlevered IRRs. Our acquisition activity is trending ahead of our initial guidance. Our strong results for the year to date and the successful execution of our growth strategy have allowed us to raise our core FFO, same center NOI, and acquisitions guidance for 2021, which John will speak about shortly. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Devin, who will speak in more detail about our operating results for the quarter. Devin?