Empire State Realty Trust, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to Empire State Realty Trust's first quarter 2020 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Thomas Keltner, Executive Vice President, General Counsel. Mr. Keltner, you may now begin.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for Empire State Realty Trust's first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, a quarterly supplemental package for further detail on our results, and our latest investor presentation were posted in the investors section of the company's website at EmpireStateRealtyTrust.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in applicable securities laws, including those related to market conditions, property operations, capital expenditures, income, and expense. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates. They are subject to risks and uncertainties, including ongoing developments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, which may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Empire State Realty Trust assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements in the company's filings with the SEC. Certain of our disclosures today are added specifically in response to the SEC's direction on special additional disclosure due to the changes in our business prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and are unique to this instruction. We do not expect to maintain the same level of disclosure when we resume normal business operations. Finally, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as FFO, modified and core FFO, NOI, cash NOI, and EBITDA, which we believe are meaningful in evaluating the company's performance. The definitions and reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release and supplemental package, each available on the company's website. Now, I will turn the call over to Tony Malkin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Tom, and good afternoon to everyone. Our thoughts are with all those affected by the 19, particularly our colleagues and their families who have experienced illness and loss. Our thanks go out to the frontline responders in New York City, the United States, and the world, and we honor them with the Empire State Building's nightly beating heart. The heart of New York City beats for all of us. We recognize that the situation remains fluid and continues to evolve. We will share the facts that we have at this time to the best extent possible as we navigate this environment. In the week of February 24th, we began the implementation of our crisis management plan. From the beginning, we looked at this as a marathon and not a sprint. All our actions have been driven by our theme, keep calm and carry on. Our perspective and team preparedness derived from our experience with many cycles dictated our plans and governed our actions. Our observatory remained open until we were instructed to close by the authorities. Happily, none of our observatory personnel contracted the 19 during this period. Our CapEx teams remained at work to fulfill our obligations under our assigned leases not commenced and our long-term capital plans until they too were instructed to cease work by authorities. Even today, essential work continues in our New York City portfolio as governed and limited by authorities. We have had no interruption of construction in our Connecticut portfolio. Our buildings remain open, clean, and safe for our tenants' use while we follow the guidelines from authorities. Our business continues as witnessed by the leasing activity and financing we completed towards the end of the quarter. Our leasing team has done an excellent job to advance the leases we still have underway and the new leases that certain prospects wish to continue. We have utilized a combination of work from home and smaller rotational crews at our buildings. Our transition team, led by President and COO John Kessler, has continued its timely and excellent work, with special call-outs to Greg Fijet and IR, John Hogg and FP&A, and our treasurer and acting CFO, Drew Prentice. We have maintained company spirit with extensive employee engagement activities from midday stretches to end-of-work trivia contests. From our ESRT quantum playlists to end of week quarantines. Our Culture Committee deserves special commendation for their excellent work. We have provided counseling and assistance to employees in need and tracked all incidents of confirmed and probable 19 infections amongst our salaried and union colleagues. Special call outs to our Chief Talent Officer Jackie Burns and her team, Vince Sultana, our Crisis Manager Coordinator, and Suresh Rangarajan, our chief technology officer and his team for flawless execution. Our board and I have gratitude and appreciation for the hard work of all ESRT employees during this time. I would like to take a moment and pause as we honor the memory of family of our team who have passed in this time of unprecedented challenge. For years, I have said repeatedly that we would maintain a balance sheet to execute our strategy and provide for future growth. During that period, we have been criticized for too much cash in our balance sheet, too low leverage, failure to repurchase stock, and failure to buy at what we have repeatedly said we thought was a market top. We have avoided exposure to fads like co-working and short-term leases. As of the quarter end, we held over $1 billion in cash on hand. Commenced in early March and through April 22nd, we purchased 8.5 million shares at a weighted average price of $9.37 per share, totaling $79.8 million in aggregate. We have taken advantage of volume when it was available and limited purchases during periods of lower volume through a combination of open window purchases and subsequently through an in-place 10D51 program. I have said in the past that we do not wish to use stock repurchases to inflate our share price, and we do not feel we have impacted our stock price with our purchases. We believe shareholders will benefit long-term from our purchases. As we look forward, I am pleased to announce that we have appointed a new EVP and CFO. Please watch for our press announcement and 8K which will follow today's market close. We are also very close to the announcement of our next hire, a chief investment officer, to build our external growth initiative to take advantage of our balance sheet and an environment that we feel will offer the opportunities upon which we have maintained the ability to act. While it is presently closed, the excellent, better than market performance of our observatory in the first two months of 2020, disclosed on page 19 of our investor presentation, even without the annual bump of Lunar New Year travel from China, gives us great confidence for the future. There is only one Empire State Building. Its brand is better than ever, and we look forward to the future with this in mind. Finally, a congratulations to our Director of ESG, Senior Vice President and Senior Leasing Counsel, Justine Herbades, and Dana Robbins Snyder, Senior Vice President of Energy and Sustainability, for the excellent work and the expanded actions discussed in our proxy. I will now turn the call over to John Kessler. John?