SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the SmartStop Self-Storage REIT 4th Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the call over to David Korak, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's call, including statements about our future plans, prospects, and expectations, may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, as described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and these risks could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in our earnings release that we issued last night, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding these financial measures or use of these measures and a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure that were issued last night and are available for download on our website at investors.smartstopselfstorage.com. In addition to myself, today we have H. Michael Schwartz, founder, chairman, and CEO, as well as James Berry, our CFO. Now, I'll turn it over to Michael.

Thank you, David, and thank you for joining us today for our fourth quarter earnings call to close out the year as a New York Stock Exchange listed company. I'll start with some introductory remarks on SmartStop and the industry before I hand it over to James to discuss the quarter. After that, we'll open it up for Q&A with James, David, and myself. Before we dive into the high level remarks, a few highlights of our fourth quarter results. We posted a strong fourth quarter with same store revenue growth of 40 basis points, an average occupancy of 92.3%. This capped off a year of sector leading revenue growth of 1.6% with average occupancy of 92.5%. Operationally, We were pleased with how the quarter started, but the last six weeks of the year came in below our expectations. We saw a more competitive pricing environment paired with a higher than expected move outs in several markets, most notably Asheville. With that said, 10 of our top 15 markets posted positive same store revenue growth and other areas of the business outperformed expectations. These included our recently acquired third party management platform and property operating expenses. We reported FFO as adjusted per share of 55 cents, up 29.8% year-over-year. For the full year, we reported FFO as adjusted per share of $1.87, up 10% from 2024. We introduced our 2026 guidance, highlighted by same-store revenue growth of a negative 50 basis points to a positive 2%. NOI growth of a negative 1.8% to a positive 1%. And FFO as adjusted per share of $1.93 to $2.05, representing about a 6% growth on the midpoint. We had another robust quarter of activity. During the quarter, we acquired one Class A operating property on balance sheet in Orlando MSA and a parcel of land in Canada. that we intend to develop into a Class A storage in our Smart Centers joint venture. Our acquisitions have been Class A assets located in top markets. For the full year, our acquisitions totaled $369 million, inclusive of the Argus transaction. Our managed REITs acquired four properties during the quarter, resulting in AUM at year end of over $1 billion. That represents over $200 million of AUM growth in 2025. We also completed our first bridge capital investment structured as a preferred to a third party for approximately 5 million source through our third party platform last, but certainly not least we closed on Argus professional storage management, bringing on board over 220 managed properties and 400 employees to the smart stock team between Argus, our lending business and our on balance sheet acquisitions. we deployed about 61 million of capital during the quarter. We've stayed busy into 2026, recently completed the recast of our 500 million syndicated bank facility at an all-in cost of about 30 basis points below the previous facility. Lastly, we recently added Wayne Johnson to our board of directors. Many of you know Wayne from industry and the sell-side conferences over the years. He's a 30-year veteran of self-storage, and he and I have been working together for 20 of those years. He has been a key leader in the company's growth since its formation, and we're thrilled to welcome him to our board. Turning to the industry. On the operations front, 2025 was incrementally better than 2024, but certainly not as strong as a more normalized year in storage. We continue to believe that the recovery and storage is happening, but the choppiness in customer demand continues as evidenced by our second and fourth quarter results. However, our strategy to maintain and build occupancy is working. In the fourth quarter, we had another record-setting quarter of lead conversions, both online and through our call center. Reservations remain strong. We also posted the highest penetration rate on tenant protection in our company's history. The number of our customers on auto pay is up 250 basis points year over year. Our customers' health remains strong. Delinquencies remain at below average levels and in fact are down year over year. ECRIs remain healthy without change in attrition. Our length of stay slightly increased for the first time since the COVID era. Industry move-in rates continue to stabilize. but are still negative year over year, though significantly less negative than the previous two years. Those trends have continued into the new year. The demand is there, but it's driven by lower asking rents. Moving rents are down 8% year to date in 2026 across our same store portfolio, but we have seen healthy increases in our overall occupancy sitting at 92.8% today, even with some headwinds and hurricane markets. Our outlook for 2026 is thematically consistent with our original outlook for 2025, and improving supply picture should lead to a slightly better year than the prior year, but with continued uncertainty and choppiness around demand. We still remain optimistic on the sector's slow and steady recovery in 2026. However, our guidance does not take into account a meaningful recovery of the U.S. single-family home market, nor any material changes in the broader economies in either the United States or Canada. We also have a variety of capital deployment options at attractive returns at our disposal that we can execute on both in the near term and at an accelerated pace given an improved cost of capital. For 2026, we're targeting an overall capital deployment range of $72 to $96 million, consisting of acquisitions, bridge capital, development in our smart centers joint venture, and redevelopment and expansion projects. We are also investing in our technology platform, including our internal artificial intelligence capabilities, which have been and will continue to be a focus for us in 2026. Beyond that, we see a tremendous growth opportunity and third party management, both in the US and Canada, as well as through our multiple product offerings in the managed REITs. Lastly, our guidance does not contemplate the formation of an institutional acquisitions joint venture, which is a priority for us in 2026. Taking a step back, we have accomplished a tremendous amount in our short time as a publicly traded company. Without a doubt, We are in a choppy self-storage market with volatile capital markets and plenty of uncertainty in the broader economic environment. However, through all the choppiness, we have executed exceptionally well on the things that are within our control. With that said, our focus in 2026 is as follows. Disciplined capital allocation strategy, which includes on-balance sheet acquisitions, development in our smart centers joint venture expansions redevelopments and solar investments bridge lending to support our third-party management business technology platform including artificial intelligence and a potential acquisitions joint venture in addition a focus on growing our third-party management business the manage reits continued balance sheet optimization and last but not least, executing on our property operation strategy. SmartStop's accomplishments over the past 10 months have built a strong, solid foundation for future growth to take advantage of an improving self-storage landscape. With that, I'll turn it over to James to discuss the quarter.