Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning and welcome to the Vornado Realty Trust second quarter 2023 earnings call. My name is Gary and I will be your operator for today's call. This call is being recorded for replay purposes. All lines are in a listen only mode. Our speakers will address your questions at the end of the presentation during the question and answer session. At that time, please press star then one on your touch tone phone. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Borenstein Senior Vice President and Corporation Counsel. Please go ahead.

Welcome to Vernado Realty Trust's second quarter earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our second quarter earnings relief and filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents, as well as our supplemental financial information packages, are available on our website, www.dno.com, under the Investor Relations section. In these documents and during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, Form 10-Q, and financial supplements. Please be aware that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, for more information regarding these risks and uncertainties. The call may include time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date. The company does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. On the call today from management for opening comments are Steven Ross, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Franco, President and Chief Financial Officer. Our senior team is also present and available for questions. I will now turn the call over to Steven Ross.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. It seems to me there's a very close parallel between what happened to malls and what is now happening to office. Five years or so ago, there was universal certainty that malls and brick-and-mortar retail were dead forever, the victim of ubiquitous and explosively growing e-commerce. Capital markets shut down. No-no malls were built. But behold, today, five years later, malls are booming. Sound familiar? It seems to me that CBD office in all our cities, New York included, has fallen victim to the same emotional and short-sighted view in the investment community. Work from home is to office what the internet was to retail. We believe in-office work is the better bet and a little time, frozen capital markets, and no new supply will restore value and glory to office. Walls in office and the center cities of America are not going away. Our business is continuing to perform well and on plan in this environment. Michael will cover the math and give color in a moment. The principal difference in our numbers this year to last year is the rise in interest rates. Overall, the economy has been more resilient than we expected in the face of the Fed's historic interest rate hikes. Real estate capital markets remain challenged, even for us. Highlights of our immediate business plan are to conserve cash and protect our balance sheet, and even to raise cash by accretively selling select assets. To reduce debt and buy back stock, And for us, the Penn District continues to be the main event. As Farley, Penn 1, and Penn 2 come online, they will create significant growth and shareholder value with much more to come. Over the last few months, we've brought back 2,025,000 shares for $29 million at an average price of $1,440. Sam Zell passed away on May 18th. There was a memorial service in his honor in Chicago three weeks ago. Over a thousand people attended. I gave a eulogy. It could be said that Sam was the father of the publicly traded beef market. He called it liquid real estate. I wish us all to be as smart and accomplished and live life as large as Sam did. I apologize in advance, but Glenn and I must leave at 1115 for a tenant meeting. Now over to Michael to cover our financials and the market.