First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the first Industrial Realty Trust Inc. fourth quarter results call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Art Harmon, Vice President of Investor Relations and Marketing. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Dave. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our call. Before we discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results and our initial guidance for 2023, let me remind everyone that our call may include forward-looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These statements are based on management's expectations, plans, and estimates of our prospects. Today's statements may be time-sensitive and accurate only as of today's date, February 9th, 2023. We assume no obligation to update our statements or the other information we provide. Actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements, and factors which could cause this are described in our 10-K and other SEC filings. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed in today's call in our supplemental report, and our earnings release. The supplemental report earnings release and our SEC filings are available at firstindustrial.com under the Investors tab. Our call will begin with remarks by Peter Basile, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Musil, our Chief Financial Officer, after which we'll open it up for your questions. Also on the call today are JoJo Yap, Chief Investment Officer, Peter Schultz, Executive Vice President, Chris Schneider, Senior Vice President of Operations, and Bob Walter, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Asset Management. Now let me turn the call over to Peter.

Thank you, Art, and thank you all for joining us today. The FIRST Industrial team delivered another excellent performance in 2022. We ended the year with in-service occupancy of 98.8% and achieved an annual cash rental rate increase of 26.7% on our 2022 commencement. Both are first industrial records. The end result was an FR record-setting annual increase in cash same-store NOI of 10.1% that Scott will discuss further in his remarks. Fundamentals in the industrial real estate market continue to support further market rent growth in our target markets and within our portfolio. According to CBRE-EA, industrial vacancy was 3% at year end fourth quarter completion of 113 million square feet exceeded net absorption of 91 million square feet and for the full year net absorption was 412 million square feet versus completions of 370 million given this backdrop we are off to a strong start signing leases that commence in 2023 at very healthy increases as of last night we are through 50% of this year's lease expirations at a cash rental rate increase of 33%, which is already ahead of our 2022 pace. With four of the five largest remaining lease expirations by net rent in the Inland Empire, our current outlook for cash rental rate changes for the full year 2023 is 40 to 50%. Moving to our new development activity. In Orlando, at our first loop project, we signed two leases totaling 126,000 square feet to bring that project to 49% leased. At First Park Miami, we also leased the remaining 66,000 square feet at buildings 9 and 11, bringing those two buildings totaling 333,000 square feet to 100% occupied. We continue to see good activity in both of these Florida markets. During the year, we placed in service 4.1 million square feet of developments, representing a total investment of $448 million, all 100% leased at a cash yield of 6.6%. We have one new start to announce, our first Stockton Logistics Center in the Central Valley of Northern California. the prime location for large format buildings. There we are building a 1 million square foot distribution center to serve the San Francisco and East Bay markets where the supply of large buildings is constrained. Our estimated investment is 126 million with a projected cash yield of 6.3%. Including this start, our developments in process total 3.6 million square feet with an investment of $556 million. The projected cash yield for these investments is 7.3%, which represents an expected overall development margin of 75%. With respect to dispositions, in the fourth quarter, we sold a 581,000 square foot facility in Minneapolis for $54 million at a stabilized cap rate of 5.3%. As part of our continual portfolio management efforts, our sales guidance for 2023 is $50 to $150 million. The guidance range is a bit wider than in the past, which reflects the continued price discovery dynamic in the investment sales market. Before turning it over to Scott, given our performance and outlook for growth, Our Board of Directors has declared a dividend of $0.32 per share for the first quarter of 2023. This represents an 8.5% increase from the prior rate and a payout ratio of approximately 70% based on our anticipated AFFO for 2023 as defined in our supplemental. With that, I'll turn it over to Scott to provide additional details on our performance and our 2023 guidance. Thanks, Peter.