Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Alexandria Real Estate Equity's first quarter 2022 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paula Schwartz of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Paula Schwartz Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The company's actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And I would like to turn the call over to Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder. Please go ahead, Joel.

Thank you, Paula, and welcome everybody to today's call, April 26, 2022, previewing or highlighting our first quarter. And I want to also let everybody know with me today are Dean Shigenaga, Peter Moglia, and Steve Richardson. And I want to make a shout out happy birthday to someone very special listening here today want to welcome and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call and want to wish everyone god's blessings and just watching the war in ukraine gives us pause to appreciate everything we have the good to great author jim collins has spoken about alexandria we have achieved three outputs that define a great company superior results distinctive impact and lasting endurance. And I want to congratulate the entire Alexandria family team on a first quarter earnings performance really by all metrics exemplifying Alexandria exceptionalism at its finest. Our, in fact, as Jim Collins said, our superior performance. I want to thank the entire family team as well for What they do each and every day for this mission-driven company, profoundly committed to driving forward our distinctive impact approach to address some of society's most pressing challenges through our longstanding bedrock social responsibility pillars. As Jim said, our distinctive impact. And we have worked in these pillars, accelerating groundbreaking research, medical research, harnessing the agri-food ecosystem to combat hunger, empowering underserved students to achieve long-term success, bolstering the resilience of our military, conquering the opioid epidemic, building a model for comprehensive and sustainable solutions to address homelessness, one of our newest programs, addressing the mental health crisis with a focus on helping children cope with suicide loss, another new focus, and supporting museums to preserve our history and honor our greatest heroes, also a new focus pillar. I want to also share that next month, May 2022, we'll celebrate our 25th anniversary of Alexandria's initial public offering. Since our IPO in 1997, we've maintained the highest standards of excellence and continue to drive long-term value for our stockholders, significantly outperforming major industries and companies. with a total shareholder return through the end of the year from 97 of 2,532%, which has beat the NASDAQ average for that time of 1,291%. We beat Warren Buffett at Berkshire during that time at 953%. The MSCI REIT index, all REIT index, at 939%. The S&P 500 for that timeframe, 790%. The Russell 2,721%, and the FTSE Nareid Office Index at 552%. As Jim Collins said, Alexandria's lasting endurance. I want to move to the first quarter, characterized by Alexandria's preserving its very strong core while stimulating strong and continuing future growth. Alexandria continues to have pricing power in each of our core markets. As Dean will talk about, our very strong NOI growth in the first quarter. And out of a sense of conservatism, we raised our midpoint of our guidance two cents, given the macro environment. But on the other hand, we have very strong conviction for the coming three quarters of 2022 and the delivery of strong NOI growth, both internally and especially from our stellar external value creation pipeline. Steve will highlight our second highest leasing quarter in the company's history. And Alexandria continues to experience the strengths across each and every one of our markets here in our overall portfolio. Dean will highlight our very strong same store performance and increase guidance as we continue to see positive occupancy gains and strong rental rate growth. With our extreme tension to each and every detail of our unique and special life science real estate business, We're seeing modest increases in our development yields, as well as we're highly focused on tightly managing all aspects of our business with a tough macro environment and with rising recession risks. Today reminds me of 1979 with government policies failing the American people. Alexandria has been very focused on tenant quality, and 50% of our annual rental revenue is from investment-grade or publicly traded large-cap tenants. I think it's pretty amazing that Alexandria's tenants have made astounding progress in developing groundbreaking medicines. 48% of FDA novel therapy approvals have been granted to Alexandria tenants since 2017, almost half of all approvals. The life science industry has seen the explosion of biotech over the past decade from 2013 to 2021 with funds flows up generally five times historical averages, advancing broadly innovative pipelines for large unmet medical needs. And every one of us knows either a family member or friend who suffers from some form of disease still not treatable effectively with today's medicines. The move in inflation, starting in the first quarter of 21, now we're five quarters into it, coupled with the myriad of problematic U.S. policies, and macro threats have ended that boom, and over the last five quarters, what has emerged are the haves and have-nots. The have-nots are a range of small and mid-cap biotech companies with programs that are preclinical, as well as many are in the clinic, have seen their values drop, and the open markets of the last nine years, by and large, are closed. The haves are large biotech, as well as biotechs that have reached commercial stage together with big pharma, and are as flush with cash as ever, being estimated to be over $500 billion of available immediate cash. Alexandria's tenant selection has been a cornerstone of our unique business model and has enabled us to select and grow with the best and highest quality and most innovative tenants, one of the absolute bedrocks of our, really, our business model. And with that, let me turn it over to Steve for some details on the quarter on the growth side.