Phillips Edison & Company, Inc.

Head of Investor Relations. Kimberly, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator. I'm joined on this call by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Edison, President Bob Myers, and Chief Financial Officer John Caulfield. Once we conclude our prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A. After today's call, an archived version will be published on our Investor Relations website. As a reminder, today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the company's view of future business and financial performance, including forward earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, specifically in our most recent form 10-K and 10-Q. In our discussion today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures through our GAAP results are available in our earnings press release and supplemental information packet, which have been posted on our website. Please note that we have also posted a presentation with additional information. Our caution on forward-looking statements also applies to these materials. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?

Thank you, Kim, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. PICO delivered market-leading operating results in 2024. We believe we have the best team in the shopping center space. I'd like to thank our PICO associates for their dedication and hard work to maintain our unique competitive advantage and drive value at the property level. The PICO team delivered solid core FFO for share growth of nearly 4% in 2024, despite significant interest expense headwinds. If we added back per share impact of increased interest rates, core FFO for share growth would have been 6% in 2024. Retailer demand across our portfolio remains strong. This is most evident in our high occupancy, strong rent spreads, and our leasing pipeline. Retailers want to be located in our centers where top grocers drive consistent and recurring foot traffic. The transaction market also improved for us in 2024, allowing us to exceed the high end of our original guidance for acquisitions. A unique PICO advantage is that we understand quality differently. We believe we are able to identify quality in our markets with better initial yields and higher growth opportunities than the top 10 markets. We have built a high-quality portfolio, acquisition by acquisition, that is capable of delivering strong cash flow growth. The quality of PICO's cash flows is a product of PICO's cycle-tested performance over more than 30 years. When we look at our performance following both the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-induced downturn, it highlights the resiliency of our Grocer Anchored portfolio. The quality of our cash flows is also reflected in PICO's focused and differentiated strategy of owning neighborhood shopping centers anchored by the number one or two grocer by sales in the market. We know the average American family visits the grocery store 1.6 times per week. Our grocers draw consistent daily foot traffic to our centers, driving sales to our small store shops and increasing the strength of our cash flow. Approximately 70% of our ADR comes from necessity-based goods and services. 30% of our rents come from our grocers. This is the highest in the shopping center space and further strengthens our cash flow. The quality of PICO's cash flows is also reflected in our market-leading operating metrics, including strong lease spreads, high occupancy, the many advantages of suburban markets where we operate our centers, and high neighbor retention. Our average center is about 113,000 square feet, which enhances our pricing power. We believe our smaller centers allow for better long-term FFO and AFFO for share growth, Because our centers are in neighborhoods where retailers want to be, we have a diversified neighbor mix and have limited exposure to big box bankruptcy. We believe that our unique format drives high-quality task flows. The end of 2024 and early 2025 was met with several retailers filing bankruptcy. As a reminder, Party City, Big Lots, and Joann represent just 60 basis points of PICO's ABR when combined. PICO has low exposure to these retailers, which is intentional. The quality of PICO's cash flows are important to acknowledge as we continue to grow our portfolio accretively to stay true to our core strategy and create long-term value for our shareholders. We have been strategic in our decision-making to best position PICO so that we can take advantage of opportunities for growth both internal and external. On acquisitions, we continue to believe that PICO offers the best opportunity for external growth within the shopping center space. These investments continue to be core to PICO's growth plan. PICO is creating value through accretive investments at a point in the cycle where there is very little new development taking place. We have been able to acquire assets at meaningful discounts for replacement costs. Given the strength of the market, the pipeline we are targeting, and the team we have at PECO, we believe we can achieve $350 to $450 million in gross acquisitions this year. We have the capacity to acquire more if attractive opportunities materialize. We closed on nearly $100 million of acquisitions in the fourth quarter. Our pipeline for the first quarter is strong. Recently, we closed on an additional asset in our joint venture with Cohen and Steers. We also acquired an asset in a separate joint venture with Lafayette Square and Northwestern Mutual. We continue to target an unlevered IRR of 9% for our acquisition. If we look at everything we have acquired over the past few years, we are currently exceeding our estimated underwritten returns by 100 basis points on average. For example, in 2023, PICO acquired River Park Shopping Center. The HEB Anchorage Center is located in a fast-growing Houston, Texas suburb and with 79% lease at acquisition. The PICO team has so far improved our estimated underwritten return for the asset by 123 basis points, largely driven by the team's ability to quickly drive the center's lease percentage in 99% while keeping capital costs down. We are disciplined buyers, and we will continue to be disciplined as we go forward. In addition to external growth, the PICO team continues to identify ground up development and repositioning opportunities with weighted average cash on cash yields between nine and 12%. This activity has been a great use of free cash flow and is expected to produce attractive returns with less risk. We continue to grow this pipeline as returns have been accretive to our high-quality portfolio. Our low leverage gives us the financial capacity to meet our growth targets. We also have diverse sources of capital that we can use to grow and match fund our investment activities. These sources include additional debt issuance, dispositions, and equity. In January, we sold an asset and provided seller financing, which was a first for us. Additionally, John will talk about funds raised on our ATM in the fourth quarter. We believe match funding our capital sources with our investments is important to a proper investment strategy as long-term owners and operators of real estate. The combination of our ability to drive cash flow growth from our existing portfolio and to invest accretively in new acquisitions gives us the confidence that we can deliver mid to high single-digit core FFO and AFFO for share growth on a long-term basis. We believe PICO's high-quality portfolio allows for better long-term core FSO and AFFO growth than our shopping center peers. In addition to this earnings growth, we believe PICO offers a solid dividend yield with room to grow. Given our demonstrated track record through various cycles, we believe an investment in PICO provides shareholders with a favorable balance of quality cash flows, mitigation of downside risk, and strong internal and external growth. In summary, the quality of our pastel reduces our beta, and the strength of our growth increases our alpha. Less beta, more alpha. I will now turn the call over to Bob to provide additional color on the operating environment.