Brixmor Property Group Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Bricksmoor Property Group Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Stacey Slater, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining Bricksmore's fourth quarter conference call. With me on the call today are Jim Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Brian Finnegan, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Gallagher, Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, and Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Mark Horgan, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, will also be available for Q&A. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that some of our comments today may contain forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings and actual future results may differ materially. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Also, we will refer today to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Further information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in the earnings release and supplemental disclosure on the investor relations portion of our website. Given the number of participants on the call, we kindly ask that you limit your questions to one or two per person. If you have additional questions regarding the quarter, please re-queue. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Jim Taylor.

Thanks, Stacey, and good morning, everyone. We are very pleased to report yet another strong quarter and year, reflecting not only the strength of our value-added execution, but the depth of tenant demand to be in our transformed portfolio. That transformation is evident in every observable stat, from our record occupancy to record rate to sector-leading new and renewal spreads to outperformance and growth. During the quarter, as Brian will discuss, we signed 800,000 feet of new leases at an average cash spread of 37%. bringing our total new ABR signed for the year to a record $65 million. We also achieved record retention of 86% and renewal spreads of 13.3% for the year, once again demonstrating the market opportunity within our portfolio. Our current signed but not commenced pool of leases represents another $64 million of ABR, another record that will commence over the next several quarters, as Steve will detail in a moment. For the year, we drove same-store NOI growth of 4%, despite headwinds from Bed Bath, Tuesday Morning, and others of 120 basis points. FFO per share increased from $1.95 to $2.04, or 4.1% when excluding the gain on debt extinguishment. With our all-weather strategy for growth, we once again demonstrated an ability to deliver consistent growth in an always dynamic retail industry. We have proven, given our attractive rent basis, that tenant disruption is an opportunity to create value. Speaking of value creation, during the year we stabilized $157 million of reinvestment projects at an average incremental return of 9%. Our pipeline now stands at $429 million at an average incremental return also of 9%, importantly in projects that are pre-leased and nearly half of which we expect to deliver this year. That's the power of our value-added program. It's lower risk, shorter duration, and attractive incremental returns. We have now impacted 40% of the portfolio, also creating tremendous value not only on delivery but follow-on value down the road as we benefit from higher rates and occupancy and also highly accretive future phases. I'm pleased to report, thanks to Bill Brown and the California team's effort, we moved the Davis Collection in Northern California into the active pipeline in the fourth quarter, located literally on the front step of one of the nation's fastest growing universities with 41,000 students. We will completely transform this Trader Joe's Anchorage Center with the addition of Nordstrom Rack, PetSmart, Ulta, Urban Plates, The Melt, Mendocino Farms, and more to serve this vibrant collegiate community. We continue to be opportunistic, but disciplined from a capital recycling perspective. harvesting $190 million in proceeds through the sale of lower non-growth assets. This activity provides us ample dry powder in 24 to deploy capital into external growth opportunities that fit with our value-add strategy. We also maintain a strong, flexible balance sheet in 23, ending the year with our debt EBITDA at six times and over $1.2 billion of undrawn capacity. We also received an upgrade to BBB from S&P, reflecting the transformation of our portfolio and improvements made to our balance sheet. Before turning the call over, I wanted to provide an update on our CFO search process. We are well underway in narrowing down our list of candidates and are pleased with both the quality and the interest to join our team. We expect to announce our decision by the end of March or early April. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.