EastGroup Properties, Inc.

Good morning, and thanks for calling in for our second quarter 2020 conference call. As always, we appreciate your interest. Brent Wood, our CFO, is also participating on the call. And since we'll make forward-looking statements, we ask that you listen to the following disclaimer.

Please note that our conference call today will contain financial measures such as PNOI and FFO that are non-GAAP measures as defined in Regulation G. Please refer to our most recent financial supplement and to our earnings press release, both available on the investor page of our website and to our periodic reports furnished or filed with the SEC for definitions and further information regarding our use of these non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of them to our GAAP results. Please also note that some statements during this call are forward-looking statements as defined in and within the Safe Harbors under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements in the earnings press release along with our remarks are made as of today and we undertake no duty to update them whether as a result of new information, future or actual events or otherwise. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including those directly and indirectly related to the outbreak of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that may cause actual results to differ materially. We refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filing.

Thanks, Kena. Good morning and thank you for your time. We hope everyone and their families remain well and out of harm's way. I'll start by thanking our team. They've done a great job transitioning our operating strategy quickly and doing so while working remotely. Our second quarter results were strong and demonstrate the resiliency of our portfolio and of the industrial market. The team had a solid quarter producing such stats as funds from operations came in above guidance of 9% compared to second quarter last year. This marks 29 consecutive quarters of higher FFO per share as compared to the prior year quarter, truly a long-term trend. And for the year, FFO per share is up 9.5%. Our quarterly occupancy was high, averaging 96.6%, leaving us 97.5% least and 97% occupied at quarter end ahead of our projections. Our occupancy is benefiting from a healthy market with accelerating e-commerce and last mile delivery trends. Also benefiting our occupancy is a high year-to-date retention rate of 84%. Releasing spreads were strong for the quarter at 13.8% gap and 7.9% cash. Year-to-date leasing spreads are higher at 20.1% gap and 11.5% cash. Finally, same-store NOI was up 4.1% for the quarter and 3.9% year-to-date. And some, during an extremely choppy environment, are proud of our team's results. Our strategy remains one of maintaining occupancy and cash flow with an eye on liquidity. I'm hopeful our strategy will shift again later in 2020 to focus on growth. In terms of liquidity, I'll thank Brent and our finance team as at quarter end we had the highest availability on our line in the company's history and one of the lowest percentages drawn on our line in decades. Brent will give you color commentary, but our upcoming debt placement further improves our liquidity while lowering our cost of capital. I'm grateful we ended the quarter generally full at 97.5% least. While Houston, our largest market at 13.8% of rents, is 97.9% leased, has roughly a 4% square footage roll through year-end, and a five-month average collection rate on rents of over 99%. My five months used being the length of this pandemic to date. Company-level rent collections remain resilient. For July thus far, we've collected 95% of rents. The unknown is when the economy truly reopens, how fast it will reopen, in which cities, and are there any shutdowns remaining? We and everyone else simply have less clarity than normal even several months into this. Brent will speak to our budget assumptions, but I'm pleased that with our second quarter results and a realistic plan, we can reach 528 per share in FFO, or only two cents shy of our original pre-pandemic expectations. Towards that end, we thankfully also have the most diversified rent roll in our sector, with our top 10 tenants only accounting for 7.5% of rents, down almost 200 basis points over the past few years. As we've stated before, our development starts are pulled by market demand. With the shutdown, we reduced projected 2020 starts to reflect first quarter actual starts as well as some level of pre-lease conversations underway. In other words, we're not forecasting new spec developments at this time. We're also looking at acquisitions and value-add investments in the same light. Given the positive long-term distribution trends we foresee, we're working on several land sites which we view as valuable development parcels when the economy stabilizes. And in the meantime, we view operations, working with our tenants, and maximizing liquidity is the key goals until we reach the next market phase. And now Brent will review a variety of financial topics, including our updated 2020 guidance.