Equity Commonwealth

Greetings and welcome to Equity Commonwealth First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on 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. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Sarah Burns, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Thank you. You may begin.

Thanks, Rob. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. We will be discussing the recently announced merger between Equity Commonwealth and Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corporation. On the call today from Equity Commonwealth are Sam Zell, our chairman, David Helfand, president and CEO, David Weinberg, COO, and Bill Griffith, CFO. Please be advised that certain matters discussed during this conference call, including relating to the pending merger, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. We refer you to the section titled Forward-Looking Statements in the press releases issued yesterday, as well as the section titled Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for subsequent quarters for a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from any forward-looking statement, including any statements regarding the overall impact of COVID-19. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements made today. We will make important filings with the FCC in connection with the pending merger. Today's call is not intended to be and is not a substitute for those filings. We urge you to read those materials carefully when they become available before making any voting or investment decisions. We also post important information on our website, including information that may be material. The portion of today's remarks on our quarterly earnings also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to yesterday's press release and supplemental containing our results for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures. With that, I will turn the call over to Sam Zell.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. We are thrilled to announce the signing of a definitive merger agreement to acquire Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corporation in an all-stock, tax-free transaction. Those of you who have followed EQC for the past seven years know that we have evaluated a broad range of sectors and businesses. We have pursued contrarian opportunities as well as searched for differentiated ways to enter more favored sectors. Our perspective after reviewing a significant number of potential deals is that the current environment is mispricing risk and therefore what would otherwise be opportunistic scenarios are priced as though the opportunity was understood in advance. In response, we have focused on sectors with strong fundamental tailwinds and businesses with high-quality cash flow from creditworthy customers. Obviously, the industrial sector meets that test, and the Monmouth portfolio in particular reflects that opportunity. Moreover, using EQC stock was a very important part of this transaction because it meant that subsequent to the merger, we would have a very powerful company with an enormous amount of dry powder able to take advantage of what is, we believe, for the next four or five years, maybe the number one growth area in real estate. So we're very excited about the process, and we believe that we can convert Equity Commonwealth into the kind of successful public companies that we previously sponsored in terms of EQR and ELS. Our culture has historically reflected open communication rigorous risk management, and shared commitment to superior performance. Before I turn it over to David Helfand, I also want to acknowledge Gene Landy and his team for their efforts the past 53 years. Guys, we'll take it from here.