Life Storage, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Life Storage Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in 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. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Brent Maddell. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call of Life Storage. Leading today's discussion will be Joe Sapphire, Chief Executive Officer of Life Storage, and Alex Gress, Chief Financial Officer. Following prepared remarks, management will accept questions from registered financial analysts. As a reminder, the following discussion and answers to your questions contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk uncertainties and represent management estimates as of today, February 24, 2023. The company assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement because of the changing market conditions or other circumstances after the date of this conference call. Additional information regarding these factors can be found in the company's public SEC filings. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, This morning, we published an investor presentation regarding the unsolicited acquisition proposal received from Public Storage on February 5, 2023. We have also furnished our supplemental package with additional detail on our financial results. These materials have been filed with the SEC and may be found on the Investor Relations section on our website at lifestorage.com. As a reminder, during today's question and answer session, we ask that you please limit yourself to two questions to allow time for everyone who wishes to participate. Please re-queue with any follow-up questions thereafter. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Joe.

Thanks, Brent, and good morning, everyone. Following our discussion of our fourth quarter and full year 2020 results and financial outlook, I'll spend some time walking you through the presentation we filed with the SEC this morning and the rationale behind our board's unanimous decision to reject Public Storage's unsolicited acquisition proposal. But first, I'm excited to announce that Life Storage crossed the threshold of $1 billion in total consolidated revenue in 2022. This is an incredible accomplishment, as we now have nearly doubled the revenue we reported only five years ago in 2017. I am confident in our ability to continue to build on our momentum and deliver outstanding results. I am also pleased to announce that Newsweek has awarded us the best customer service award in America for storage center category for the sixth year in a row. This award is a testament to the best-in-class brand and team we have here at Life Storage and to our commitment to delivering exceptional, seamless experience for our customers. Turning to our quarterly results, I am pleased to report we have delivered another quarter of outstanding performance across all segments of our business. While we continue to see a return to more normal seasonal trends, our operating fundamentals and business trends were very strong and remain above pre-pandemic levels. This positions us well for the year ahead. I'd like to highlight a few notable results and trends. For the quarter, we achieved same-store revenue growth of 11.8% versus the prior year period. Our strong performance was broad-based, with 85% of our major markets achieving 7% or greater revenue growth. For the year, 32 of our top 33 markets achieved greater than 10% revenue growth. These results underscore the benefits of our disciplined portfolio strategy to expand in key growth markets that allow us to benefit from regional income and population trends. In addition to this outstanding operating performance, we also completed another strong year on the acquisitions front, completing over $1 billion in wholly owned and JV acquisitions totaling 75 properties. Of this amount, 974 million and 49 stores were wholly owned acquisitions, representing nearly 7% growth in our wholly owned portfolio. We continue to expand in markets such as Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, St. Louis, and New York City. Today, we own and or operate nearly 1,200 storage facilities across 37 states and the District of Columbia. With regards to third-party management, we added 40 stores gross, net 39 stores in the fourth quarter, and 107 stores for the year for a total of 440 stores at the end of 2022. Our third-party management platform had an excellent year as both our existing relationships and new relationships continue to add more facilities to our platform. During the quarter, we transitioned 29 operating facilities from other REIT platforms. further evidence that more and more owners are choosing the Life Storage brand and platform to manage their assets. This portfolio of managed stores continues to provide a strong pipeline of acquisitions. We acquired 11 managed stores during the year, representing nearly one-fourth of our wholly owned acquisition volume. Our operating trends thus far in 2023 demonstrate that we are continuing our strong momentum as we achieved January month-end occupancy of 91.2%, which is 150 basis points higher than pre-COVID January 2019. In fact, we had record move-ins in January. Demand remains strong. Our excellent performance in 2022 reflects the strength of our operating model and the significant progress we have made to build our portfolio with high-quality properties in attractive growth markets. In 2023, we will continue to focus on executing on our strategy to expand our portfolio and deliver best-in-class service. By doing so, we will build on our track record of strong, profitable growth to continue to enhance value for our life storage shareholders. And with that, I will hand the call over to Alex, who will provide additional color on our performance for the quarter and the year and walk you through our 2023 financial guidance.