American Assets Trust, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q1 2022 American Assets Trust, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Adam Weil, President and Chief Operating Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to American Asset Trust's first quarter 2022 earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, our earnings release and supplemental information were furnished to the SEC under Form 8K. Both are now available on the investor section of our website, AmericanAssetsTrust.com. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to our GAAP financial results and our earnings release and supplemental information. We will also be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations, which statements are subject to risks and uncertainties discussed in our SEC filings. Your caution not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as actual events could cause our results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, including due to the impact of COVID-19. And with that, I'll turn it over to Ernest Rady, our chairman and CEO, to begin discussion of our first quarter 2022 results. Ernest?

Thanks, Adam. Great job, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Over the past two years, I hope you heard me say that I truly believed that American Assets Trust would come out of the pandemic as good a company, if not better. And actually, I think what I said, better than when it all started. I believe that to be the case as we have strengthened our balance sheet, continued upgrading and improving our irreplaceable properties, and we are optimistic about the buoyant leasing interest across the portfolio in all segments, including the continued recovery of our retail properties and strengthening retail rates at our multifamily properties. In first quarter, 2022, we made great progress and actually we had a 50% increase in FFO over 2021. We are pleased to see better than budgeted financial results in our portfolio, significantly driven by outperformance of our recently renovated Waikiki Beachwalk Embassy Suites. That performance was notwithstanding the continued lack of Asian travelers who have historically been approximately 40% of all tourists vacationing in Oahu. We encourage that as travel from Asia to Hawaii continues, opening up later this year and beyond, that our ADRs, our average daily revenue and occupancy at embassy suites will continue to climb. And we will hopefully reach and eventually surpass our pre-pandemic 2019 numbers at Embassy Suites. Meanwhile, we are cognizant of the inflationary challenges in this business environment across our portfolio. And although we are confident in the thesis of our portfolio being an effective long-term protection against inflation, we remain vigilant and focused on managing our expenses and operating margins to the best of our ability. We have the tailwind now of inflation behind us in real estate. I'm optimistic about the outcome of that effect. In March, we purchased Bell Spring 520, an approximately 93,000 square feet multi-tenant office campus less than five minutes from downtown Bellevue for $45.5 million. We now sit with over 1 million square feet in Bellevue. an office market that we remain very bullish on, and we expect long-term growth as we look to push rents, create economies of scale, and certainly upgrade our properties. I also want to mention that the Board of Directors has approved a quarterly dividend of $0.32 a share for the second quarter, which we believe is supported by our financial results and is an expression of our Board's confidence in the embedded growth of our portfolio this year and beyond. The dividend will be paid June 23rd to shareholders of record June 9th. Finally, on the development front, both La Jolla Commons 3 and 1 Beach Street remain on time and budget, and we remain optimistic about the leasing prospects, but we do not have any specific news to share on that front at this time. Adam, Bob, and Steve will go into more detail on our various asset segments, financial results, and guidance updates. And I will be available for any questions you may have at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. On behalf of all of us at American Trust, we thank you for your confidence in allowing us to manage your company and for your continued support. We are proud to have that role. Thank you. And now I'm going to turn the call back over to Adam.