Phillips Edison & Company, Inc.

Welcome to the Phillips, Edison, and Company's second quarter 2022 results presentation. My name is Tanya. 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 and simultaneously webcast. The company's earnings release, quarterly financial supplement, and 10Q were issued yesterday, August 4th, after market closed. These documents and the replay of today's call can be accessed in the investor section of the Phillips Edison and Company's website at phillipsedison.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Kimberly Green, Vice President of Investor Relations with Phillips Edison and Company. Please proceed.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'm joined on this call by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison, our President, Devin Murphy, and our Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield. During today's call, Jeff will highlight our strong second quarter performance. Devin will discuss our excellent operational results and John will review our financial results, our recent capital markets activity and our increased guidance. Following our prepared remarks, we'll take questions. Before we begin, I'd 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. We'll 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 information packet, which were issued yesterday. Participants should refer to PICO's filings to learn more about these risks and other factors, and for more information regarding our financial and operating results. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?

Thank you, Kim. Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon, everyone. Our strong second quarter results confirm that PICO's differentiated strategy of owning and operating high-quality, small-format, grocery-anchored centers is driving performance. The PICO team's focused execution, combined with the strength of our national and local neighbors, are resulting in financial performance beyond our internal expectations. Occupancy ended the quarter at an all-time high of 96.8%, and we're using our position of strength to continue to drive our pricing power. Customers are closer to PICO's growth-ranked centers throughout the entire day. That's driving retailers to our neighborhood centers to meet this increased demand. We continue to benefit from the resiliency of PICO's Groceranchored portfolio, with more than 70% of our rents coming from necessity-based goods and services. We continue to see strong foot traffic to Groceranchored centers as visits remain a part of customers' everyday routine, whether they shop for groceries or haircuts or visit the local restaurants. Medical, beauty, fitness, and restaurants all continue to exhibit increased leasing demand. This translates to strong rent growth for PECA. While retailers continue to offer an omnichannel presence, in-person services are essential. Given these dynamics, we expect to continue to see strong tenant demand and strong rent spreads. Higher costs and inflation headwinds are limiting new supply of grocery anchored centers as the barriers for new construction are higher than they've ever been. We expect these trends will continue to positively impact existing shopping centers. There will be fewer new builds coming online, and existing neighbors will be unlikely to relocate because of these costs and high occupancy levels. While we're not currently seeing a slowdown in the strong demand for space at our gross-ranked centers, we remain cautiously optimistic in our actions and continue to incorporate macroeconomic realities into our decision-making. We remain focused on managing our neighbor mix and credit quality as we prepare for market disruptions. One place we are starting to see some movement is in the transactions market. As such, we're updating our acquisitions guidance for the year, and John will provide more detail. PICO is reassessing acquisitions based on our evolving cost of capital. As interest costs and inflation headwinds impact the transaction market, we'll remain cautious in our capital allocation decisions, including the timing and volume of acquisitions, to ensure that we're acquiring assets that are accretive to our financial results and meet our return expectations. We're excited to add Centennial Lakes, a Whole Foods anchored center, to our portfolio during the quarter. Centennial Lakes Plaza is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the entrance to a 24-acre city park space that drives additional foot traffic through the gross-ranked center beyond the strong traffic generated by our neighbors. We believe the lease-up potential and below-market rents in place at this center provide great opportunities for NOI growth. We think movement in the transaction market will create opportunities for PECA. Our national footprint, experience, and reputation give us a unique advantage to be opportunistic. We expect our unlevered IRR for future acquisitions to be in the range of 8.5% to 9% plus in this environment. Our goal is to ensure we achieve these unlevered returns and that all acquisitions are accretive to our earnings. We will continue to evaluate opportunities with the same diligence we've always exercised. Although we are cautious about the transaction market, and particularly the timing of transactions, we remain optimistic about how our growth-ranked portfolio will perform, and we're able to raise our guidance for same-center NOI and core FFO for share growth, given the strong operating results that the PICO team has delivered to date. Now, I will turn the call over to Devin, who will speak in more detail about our strong operating results for the quarter. Devin?