Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Alexandria Real Estate Equity's 2022 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing 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.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. This conference call contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. 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 The different materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder. Please go ahead, Joel.

Thank you, Paula, and welcome, everybody. With me today are Hallie Kuhn, Peter Mowgli, and Dean Shigenaga. I want to thank you for joining Alexandria's fourth quarter and year-end 2022 earnings call and wishing you a safe and healthy new year. And thank you to our Alexandria family team members for their continued operational excellence across all facets of our unique business platform, a truly mission-driven, one-of-a-kind company. We have truly exceptional fourth quarter and 2022 year-end results, and by any and all metrics, we're very proud, thankful, and humbled, while many public reporting companies have really struggled mightily during this past year. I'd like to take a moment to tick off what I consider to be some of the most notable news for Alexandria. Truly amazing that Alexandria has delivered approximately 8.5% FFO for share earnings growth while continuing to strengthen our fortress balance sheet, the strongest in our history, and Dean will give you more details on that, against the backdrop of a very deleterious macro market in this 2022 year. And really, again, nothing short of operational excellence to the team. With our highly leased development pipeline and continued strong leasing, and Peter will comment on that, Alexandria is well positioned to deliver strong earnings growth again in 2023. We have continued to create long-term shareholder value with a total shareholder return from IPO through the end of the year, December 31, 2022, of 1,673%. compared to the MSCI REIT index of 684%, the S&P 500 of 628%, and NASDAQ 838%, so a wide margin of beat. Alexandria continues to produce stable, increasing long-duration cash flows and an increasing dividend. We're very proud of our approximately 1,000-client tenant base, a one-of-a-kind treasure That continues to generate remarkable demand for our Alexandria lab space, and Peter and Dean will highlight more on this. But again, 2 million square feet leased in fourth quarter, over 8 million for the year, and almost 18 million for the last two years, with rental rate increases last year of about 22% on a cash basis. Pretty amazing stats, and we're very proud of our own tenant base, which has generated by far and away the majority of that lease space. 4Q22 in year end 2022 was another strong quarter by all fundamental financial metrics and a few others, and Dean will highlight some of this. Almost 100% on collections from a very strong and durable tenant base, and very proud of almost 95% occupancy, and we put in a, I think, very strong same-store performance both for the quarter and the year. Innovation in medicine. is but must continue to be a national imperative. One in four of us will develop a neurodegenerative disease. Nearly 40% of adult men and women will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes. One in five in the nation's population suffers from mental illness. And we're continuing to see over 100,000 deaths due to overdose last year, despite all of the efforts that certainly this company has made with our Dayton project. But just literally a war out there which does not seem to be in check. And governments at the federal, state, and local level need to double down with the vast amount of resources that have been appropriated over the last few years and really focus on this mental health issue. A comment about our successful and continuing value harvesting and recycling of our precious capital. Peter will detail that, but amazingly stellar 2022 with $2.2 billion successfully harvested and then reinvested in a highly disciplined manner. And Peter and Dean will also comment on the excellent and steady progress we've made year to date, just one month in, to our 2023 business plan for value harvesting. and capital recycling, and we're very optimistic about that. And then before I pass it over to Hallie, I want to particularly call out and thank our finance team and all those who had a hand in the impressive balance sheet accomplishments set forth on page XB of our supplement, and very proud that we once again have the strongest balance sheet in the company's history. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Hallie for further comments.