Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Alexandria Real Estate Equity's third quarter 2024 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, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paula Schwartz with 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 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 now I'd like to turn the call over to Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria. Please go ahead, Joel.

Thank you, Paula, and welcome everybody to Alexandria's third quarter earning call. I'm here today with Hallie, Peter, and Mark. And first of all, as I do every quarter, I want to extend a profound thank you and huge congratulations to each and every member of our Alexandria family team for bringing it this third quarter to post an impressive operating and financial performance in a continuingly stubborn economic and operating environment. To the team, you're an inspiration to me each and every day in small ways and large. Thank you. The continuingly stubborn economic backdrop for commercial real estate and risk on investments. Peter and Mark will address those, but let me just give you a couple of quick comments. Driven by the huge and unnecessary federal deficits of the last handful of years, $9 trillion plus, inflation in many areas remains sticky, stubborn, and structural, despite what the Labor Department is saying and reporting. Cost of capital is also stubbornly high across much of the equity and debt capital markets, again, despite the delayed and rather feeble responses of the Fed to date. And Main Street is hurting in the United States, it's pretty clear. Hallie will comment more in depth on life science industry, but let me say a couple of things I've said many times in the past. This is one of the few remaining crown jewel industries here in the United States and is the great bastion of true and novel innovation and the only real and effective path to solve and address over 90% of human diseases, which remained unsolved today, which bear an unbearable burden on our citizens and our healthcare system, is the translation of this innovation. Since the downward spiral of biotech began in early 2021 and kind of hit its bottom in what appears to be October of 2023, and after an almost decade of bull run from 2014 through 2021. Unfortunately, the industry attracted and almost became drug addicted to too many and too free a capital flowing in. And some of the really stupid and outrageous monies, both from the Fed and investors, which caused a rocket ship demand for X of what it normally is, and really not wanted and sustainable And since then, things have settled down. Here we are almost four years later since the XBI started to tail off in February 2021. And we're in a really a highly, I would say, and toughly disciplined funding market, but one in which I personally prefer to operate. As an example of this, markets to pity the less than half the biotech IPOs from 2013 to 2019. remain standalone companies. The majority have either seen successful exits, which is awesome, less successful exits, which is less than awesome, or disappeared altogether, which is not awesome. A couple of thoughts, my take on the third quarter, truly operationally excellent results, both operationally and financially, and a continuing strong balance sheet management with great liquidity and kudos to our team. still in a very difficult supply and demand impacted market with a challenging cost of capital. In the third quarter, we continue to deliver increasing FFO per share and dividends per share growth despite the tough environment. And I think one of my key takes is our strong year-to-date rental rate growth, which is, I think, pretty exceptional. We continue a strong continued high occupancy. Collections nearly 100%, which is sensational. And I think what truly stands out in this third quarter is the leasing activity of almost 1.5 million rentable square feet at a 48% increase quarter to quarter. Future embedded NOI growth of 510 million, which Mark will talk about, and our very successful self-funding capital recycling program this year, which Peter and Mark will talk about. Going forward and finally, as the master investor Warren Buffett has said, a truly great business must have an enduring moat. And out of the depths of this bear market, like we experienced and I feel, like the 2010 era of this market, I still remain more optimistic than ever about the promise of unprecedented human health innovation from our precious industry, assuming the government doesn't screw it up. in Alexandria, continuing at the vanguard of this industry to build the, really building the future of life-saving and life-changing innovation. And finally, let me just say a couple more words before I turn it over to Hallie. Much as predicted, as we predicted the doubling of our revenues from 2017 to 2021, which we exceeded during an unprecedented bull market on the back of our strategic Well, our, I think, long developed strategy on the back of our development pipeline created during the depths of the aftermath of the great financial crisis when we really conceived of it in the 2010 to 2013 era. In five short years, by the end of this decade, December 2029, our revenues will be overwhelmingly driven by our unique and highly competitive mega campuses Best locations, best assets, best services that also compete and clearly demonstrate superior return on investment, higher occupancy, higher rental rates, best talent recruitment or retention for our tenants, and a multiple and very convenient path for growth. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Hallie.