Retail Opportunity Investments Corp.

Welcome to Retail Opportunity Investments' third quarter 2024 conference call. Participants are currently in a listen-only mode. Following the company's prepared remarks, the call will be open for questions. Now, I would like to introduce Lauren Severia, the company's chief accounting officer.

Thank you. Please note that certain matters which we will discuss on today's call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve risks and other factors which can cause actual results to differ significantly from future results that are expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Participants should refer to the company's filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, to learn more about these risks and other factors. In addition, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial results on today's call. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial results to GAAP results can be found in the company's quarterly supplemental, which is posted on our website. Now, I'll turn the call over to Stuart Tanz, the company's Chief Executive Officer. Stuart?

Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Here with Lauren and me today is Michael Haynes, our Chief Financial Officer, and Rich Schoble, our Chief Operating Officer. Before we begin, over the past several months, we've received a number of market. As a matter of company policy, we do not comment on market rumors or speculation and will not do so today. What we will say is that the company carefully evaluates all opportunities to enhance value with the objective of taking actions that the company firmly believes are in the best interests of all stakeholders. Turning to the company's performance, we were pleased to report that the fundamentals of our grocery-anchored shopping centers and the grocery-anchored sector, as well as the fundamentals of our protected supply-constrained markets, all remain rock-solid and continue to be our long-standing core drivers of our business. Perhaps the best evidence of this is our portfolio lease rate. which has been above 96% for the past 10 years and today stands at a strong 97.1%. Our ability to consistently maintain a high portfolio lease rate is underscored by the strong longstanding demand for space, which continues to come from a growing wide range of diverse tenants. Capitalizing on the demand through the first nine months of 2024, We've already leased well over 1.2 million square feet of space, including over 450,000 square feet in the third quarter alone. Additionally, we continue to capitalize on the demand to enhance tenancies at every opportunity, as well as to drive rents higher. In fact, we are currently on track to post our 12th consecutive year of achieving solid rent growth on both new and renewed leases. Along with enhancing the value of our portfolio through our leasing initiatives, we continue to implement our investment program that is aimed at enhancing the long-term value of our portfolio through disposing certain fully valued properties while acquiring exceptional grocery anchored shopping centers. During the third quarter, we sold two properties, one located in San Diego and the other located up in Seattle. While both properties were stable assets, we felt the growth prospects going forward were limited. And now is the appropriate time to sell each property and capitalize on the value that we created. In terms of acquisitions, as we previously reported back in the second quarter, we acquired a terrific dual-grocery anchored shopping center that is situated in one of the most sought-after affluent communities in the San Diego market. Truly irreplaceable real estate. In terms of the economics, we sold the two properties for a total of $69 million, equating to a blended exit cap rate in the low 6% range. Both properties were sold to private 1031 buyers in separate transactions. With respect to the acquisition, which we sourced through a long-standing off-market relationship, the purchase price was $70 million, equating to a Goinian cap rate in the high 6% range. available space at the center. Going forward, we expect to grow the yield notably over the next several years through releasing below market space as well as enhancing the inline tenant mix. In addition to these transactions, we are currently exploring selling an additional property here in the fourth quarter and have also identified a couple of potential off-market acquisition opportunities that if we decide to move forward with, year end, given that we know both properties very well. Now I'll turn the call over to Michael Haines to take you through our financial results for the third quarter. Mike?