Stag Industrial, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Stagg Industrial first quarter 2021 earnings 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. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Matt Pinard, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Stagg Industrial. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you. Welcome to Stagg Industrial's conference call covering the first quarter 2021 results. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, we've posted an unaudited quarterly supplemental information presentation on the company's website at staggindustrial.com under the investor relations section. On today's call, the company's prepared remarks and answers to your questions will contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risk, and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include forecasts of core FFO, same-store NOI, G&A, acquisition and disposition volumes, retention rates, and other guidance, leasing prospects, rent collections, industry and economic trends, and other matters. We encourage all of our listeners to review the more detailed discussion related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC and the definitions and reconciliations and non-gap measures contained in the supplemental informational package available on the company's website. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management assessments as of today. DAG Industrial assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. On today's call, you will hear from Ben Butcher, our Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Crooker, our President and Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Ben. Thank you, Matt.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the first quarter earnings call for DAG Industrial. We are pleased to have you join us and look forward to telling you about our first quarter results. Let me first start by mentioning our recent action promoting our CFO, Bill Crooker, to the additional title of president. Bill has been an important part of Stagg's success as a public company, and this promotion reflects his ongoing maturation as a leader of our company. We are excited to have Bill as our president and CFO and look forward to the future. In today's call, Bill will discuss the bulk of the financial and operational data. Also with us today are Steve Mechie, our chief operating officer, and Dave King, our director of real estate operations. They will be available to answer questions specific to their area of focus. Ten years ago, we entered the public market with a differentiated approach to real estate. Traditional strategies relied on arbitrary decision rules that regularly influenced investment decisions. The result was a concentration of similar platforms with a narrow view of the industrial landscape. This created the opportunity for Stagg. Stagg was built with an emphasis on quantitative analysis, unconstrained by decision rules. We focus on cash flow maximization and evaluate returns using a probabilistic model. Investments in the Inland Empire of California and secondary markets in Ohio can be compared on a risk-neutral basis by using our robust probabilistic model. This allows STAG to take advantage of relative mispricing of individual assets. This approach provides the largest opportunity set available in the industrial space and one that we have successfully taken advantage of during our tenure as a public company. The execution of our investment strategy has resulted in our ownership of the third largest portfolio of industrial real estate in the public market. Our 100 million square foot portfolio is spread across almost 500 properties nationwide. Over our 10-year run, we have continually invested in the platform, broadened our use of data, and refined our processes. We have remained consistent in our search for relative value across the industrial sector. Most importantly, we have delivered great returns to our investors along the way. Without question, we are fortunate as a company to be 100% focused on industrial real estate. Consistent with the past several years, the industrial sector benefits from strong underlying fundamentals and broad-based tenant demand. The pandemic accelerated the pace of e-commerce adoption. This change in the consumer behavior is permanent and has highlighted the importance of warehouse distribution within supply chains. Companies can no longer delay or ignore e-commerce. resulting in sustained demand for functional and fungible industrial real estate. The strength of our acquisition team and the breadth of our inquiry has allowed us to continue to identify and evaluate a large number of attractive potential investments. Our improved cost of capital has allowed us to maintain our accretive return thresholds across a broader range of potential acquisitions. The large size of our acquisition pipeline reflects the continuing opportunity for Stagg. On April 20th, we participated in the closing bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange in commemoration of our 10 years as a public company. I want to thank all of our employees who helped turn what began as an investment thesis on the back of a napkin 20 years ago into the company we are today. The future for our company is bright indeed. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill, who will discuss our first quarter operational results.