CubeSmart

Good morning and afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CubeSmart second quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for an operator. Also note that the call is being recorded on Friday, August 4th, 2023. And I would like to turn the conference over to Josh Schutzer, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sylvie. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CubeSmart's second quarter 2023 earnings call. Participants on today's call include Chris Marr, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Martin, Chief Financial Officer. Our prepared remarks will be followed by a Q&A session. In addition to our earnings release, which was issued yesterday evening, Supplemental operating and financial data is available under the investor relations section of the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. The company's remarks will include certain forward-looking statements regarding earnings and strategy that involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The risks and factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements are provided in documents the company furnishes to or files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Form 8K we filed this morning together with our earnings release filed with the Form 8K, and the risk factor section of the company's annual report on Form 10K. In addition, the company's remarks include reference to non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in the second quarter financial supplement posted on the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Thank you, Josh, and good morning to everyone. Thanks for joining the call. We remain confident that CubeSmart is well positioned to continue to grow our position as a leader in the self-storage market. We believe in the power of our scale within top demographic markets, our high-quality portfolio, and our differentiated platform. Over the past decade, we have executed on our disciplined investment strategy, which positions us to drive superior long-term cash flow growth. This strategy is rooted in growing our leading market positions in the top 40 MSAs, enhancing our state-of-the-art technology, and continuing to strengthen our unwavering commitment to customer service. We also believe the excellent demographics inherent in our portfolio will continue to provide a strong demand backdrop into the future. Our second quarter results highlight the value of our differentiated platform. Our urban and close-in suburban lower beta portfolio provided growth and stability during the quarter. As expected, our high beta markets that were reliant upon household movement came down off of their COVID-induced population inflow and were impacted by a significant slowdown in the existing home sale market, largely due to rapidly rising mortgage rates. In the boroughs of New York, which is our dominant market, overall demand trends and elongated lengths of stay should continue to support modestly positive pricing for new customers relative to 2022 levels this favorable pricing environment in combination with physical occupancies remaining slightly above 2022 levels has helped us drive same store revenue growth in our most important market supporting these trends is a more favorable supply environment as the headwinds from stores and lease up especially in brooklyn have been less impactful than anticipated We expect our New York market will continue to benefit from these trends for the balance of the year. We continue to be disciplined in our approach to evaluating growth opportunities. Currently, many of the acquisition opportunities available in the market are of inferior quality and would be dilutive to our current portfolio quality. As a result, we are being patient and disciplined, waiting to deploy capital until we are confident in the ability to realize attractive risk-adjusted returns. As buyer and seller expectations adjust, there will be attractive opportunities to deploy capital, and we will be ready. In the meantime, we continue to grow in other ways, adding new stores to our platform. During the first half of 2023, we added 83 new stores to our management platform, and we continue to have a robust pipeline of future new stores. Owners of self-storage facilities seeking a third-party manager have many brands from which to choose. Our operational expertise, differentiated platform, and winning culture make us a preferred third-party management provider. At CubeSmart, we have always put our customer first, and we attribute our outside success in the 3PM business to our unwavering commitment to that customer service. For example, during the quarter, we rolled out our latest version of our state of the art data portal, which gives our owners access to every key performance indicator relevant to their property at a click of a button. Turning to guidance for the year, as noted in our earnings release, demand during the rental season has been very price sensitive. We have adopted what we believe is a prudent and realistic posture on guidance for the balance of the year. Looking further out into next year, There are several encouraging signs for a positive backdrop for self-storage in 2024. A stabilization in mortgage rates along with continued household formation could lead to an increase in existing home sales. Continued relief in the supply chain and cost of raw materials may accelerate the delivery of new homes. And the ongoing decline in openings of new self-storage facilities will be a positive contributor. We believe CubeSmart's balance sheet, portfolio, and operating platform are well-positioned to navigate through these dynamic market conditions, just as we have done historically. We are excited to continue delivering differentiated performance from our uniquely focused and well-positioned assets and to extend our track record of superior value creation. Thanks for that. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Tim Martin, our Chief Financial Officer.