Easterly Government Properties, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Easterly Government Properties second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session between the company's research analysts and Easterly's management team. To ask a question during the session, analysts will need to press star 11 on their telephone. They will then hear an automated message advising their hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Lindsey Winterhalter, head of investor relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Before the call begins, please note that certain statements made during this conference call may include statements that are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that its expectations as reflected in any forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will be attained or achieved. Furthermore, actual results may differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements and will be affected by a variety of risks and factors that are beyond the company's control, including, without limitation, those contained in the company's most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC and in its other SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements. Additionally, on this conference call, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as funds from operations, core funds from operations, funds from operations as adjusted, and cash available for distribution. You can find a tabular reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable current GAAP numbers in the company's earnings release and supplemental information package on the investor relations page of the company's website at ir.easterlyrete.com. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Darrell Crate, Chairman of Easterly Government Properties.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this second quarter conference call. Today, in addition to Lindsay, I'm also joined by Bill Trimble, the company's CEO, and Megan Bevere, the company's CFO and COO. I'm pleased with the activities at Easterly Government Properties as we work to create value for our shareholders. We're seeing our pipeline of opportunities grow, sellers are adjusting to the current interest rate environment, and accordingly, we're expecting transactions to clear at higher cap rates than we've seen in recent years. In addition, our team has been doing good work over the last year to identify property segments that are adjacent to our portfolio that improve our financial profile and add value to shareholders. We're seeking adjacencies where we find property profiles that are consistent with our thesis and where we continue to have a definable edge to create value. One adjacency that meets these objectives is state and local government leased properties with very strong credit. Bill will talk more about the specifics. However, I observe this area meaningfully increases our pipeline opportunity set. to complement our already improving federal pipeline. We'll continue to look for other similar adjacencies, but we believe state and local government lease properties can allow us to target elevated growth objectives for FFO in 2024. Further, with both the consistency of cash flow from our existing portfolio and the current growth prospects, we look forward to delivering consistent and growing dividends over time to our shareholders. Exciting events are happening at Easterly, and we look forward to keeping our shareholders and partners updated in the coming months. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bill to give you further insights into our existing portfolio as well as the future growth opportunities.