Cousins Properties Incorporated

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cousins Properties fourth quarter conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen. At any time during this call, you require immediate assistance. Please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, February 6th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Pamela Roper, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Cousins Properties' fourth quarter earnings conference call. With me today are Colin Connolly, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard Hickson, our Executive Vice President of Operations, Greg Azema, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Kennedy Hicks, our Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. The press release and supplemental package were distributed yesterday afternoon, as well as furnished on Form 8K. In the supplemental package, the company has reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with Reg G requirements. If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available through the quarterly disclosures and supplemental SEC information link on the investor relations page of our website, cousins.com. Please be aware that certain matters discussed today may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, and actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors, including the risk factors set forth in our annual report on Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. The company does not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The full declaration regarding forward-looking statements is available in the supplemental package posted yesterday, and a detailed discussion of the potential risk is contained in our filings with the SEC. With that, I'll turn the call over to Colin Connelly.

Thank you, Pam, and good morning, everyone. We had a strong 2025 at Cousins. On the earnings front, the team delivered 71 cents a share in FFO during the fourth quarter, which is in line with consensus. In addition, we delivered $2.84 a share for the full year in 2025, which represents 5.6% growth over 2024. Importantly, leasing remained robust. We completed 700,000 square feet of leases during the quarter, which is our second highest quarterly volume over the last four years. And for the 47th consecutive quarter, we delivered a positive cash rent roll-up on second-generation leasing. Earlier this week, we acquired 300 South Tryon, a trophy lifestyle office property in Charlotte for $317 million, which strategically expands our presence in the uptown sub-market. These are remarkable results all around. Let me start with a few observations on the market. Most major companies are phasing out remote work. Home Depot here in Atlanta is the latest Fortune 500 company to end work from home entirely. Thus, office fundamentals are improving. Demand is growing as leasing hit a post-pandemic high in 2025. Vacancy is declining. With new construction starts at de minimis levels, any meaningful increase in new supply is four to five years away. The net result of these trends will be a shortage of high-quality space that will be particularly acute in 2028, 2029, and 2030. Importantly for Cousins, corporate migration to the Sunbelt has re-accelerated. As a result, our leasing pipeline is robust across all markets. We see a notable pickup in leasing interest from West Coast and New York City-based companies, particularly among financial service and select large cap technology companies. While not necessarily full corporate relocations, they are significant regional hubs and in some cases highlight growth away from high tax and high regulation states. The recent mayoral election in New York and wealth tax proposals in California only reinforce these trends. A slowing labor market is raising some concern about office leasing. However, as I said, demand is actually accelerating. I'll explain why. Office using employment growth was historically high during the pandemic. At some companies, headcounts almost doubled. Because of the pandemic, many of these new hires were remote and associated office space was never leased. Now, as returned office mandates have become widespread, many companies lack the space to accommodate their pandemic-era headcount growth, even after recent layoffs. Simply said, the tailwinds from accelerating return to office remain greater than the impact of a slower job market. This is an excellent setup for Cousins to advance our strategic plan. Our team remains sharply focused on driving earnings growth while maintaining our best-in-class balance sheet and enhancing the quality of our Sunbelt lifestyle portfolio. I will share some 2026 priorities. First, we plan to grow occupancy in 2026. At quarter end, the portfolio was 88.3% occupied and finally reflects the expiration of Bank of America's lease in Charlotte. We have modest lease expirations in 2026 and a late stage leasing pipeline that now totals over 1.1 million square feet. While the ramp will be weighted towards the back half of the year, We have a goal of achieving occupancy of 90% or higher by year end 2026. We believe this goal is achievable, but will be highly dependent on the timing of lease commencements, which are outside of our control. Simply said, though, timing, not underlying leasing demand, will be the risk in achieving this goal. Second, we hope to execute additional accretive investment opportunities. Our track record highlights our openness to a wide variety of transactions, including property acquisitions, debt, structured transactions, and joint ventures. However, our core strategy remains the same. Invest in properties that already are or can be repositioned into lifestyle office in our target Sunbelt markets. To fund any new investments, we will always evaluate all of our options. To be clear, new equity at today's stock price certainly does not make financial sense. Dispositions of non-core assets Settling shares already outstanding on our ATM and or utilizing the balance sheet are more likely options. While sometimes characterized as conservative, we view our low levered balance sheet as an offensive tool. At select times in the past, we have modestly flexed up our leverage to take advantage of compelling investment opportunities. Given improving property fundamentals and a scarcity of competitive office capital, this could be one of those moments. We will remain agile and opportunistic with any acquisitions and or dispositions. And as always, our capital allocation decisions will prioritize earnings accretion while maintaining our financial strength and enhancing our portfolio quality. Lastly, we hope to identify a new development start that could break ground in late 2026 or 2027. As I mentioned earlier, large users with 28, 29, and 2030 expirations are facing a significant shortage of large blocks of premier space and will likely need to consider new construction. We hope to capitalize on this dynamic if select development with meaningful pre-leasing has been a powerful source of long-term earnings and NAV growth for Cousins. Last night, we introduced 2026 FFO guidance of $2.92 a share at the midpoint. This guidance forecast implies 2.8% growth over 2025. This would be our third consecutive year of FFO growth and would represent a 3.7% compounded annual growth rate over this time period. This performance is simply unmatched among other traditional office REITs. Our team's ability to drive both internal and external growth is the key. We are excited about what is ahead for Cousins. As I said, demand is accelerating. New supply is at historical lows. The office market is rebalancing. We are growing earnings. Bank of America independently ranks our portfolio as the highest quality in the office REIT sector, and the balance sheet is exceptionally strong, and our G&A is highly efficient for our investors. Before turning the call over to Richard, I want to thank our dedicated Cousins employees who provide outstanding service to our customers and each other every day. Richard?