Veris Residential, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Welles Presidential Inc second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in the listen only mode. A brief 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. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Taryn Fielder General Counsel. Thank you, Ms. Fielder. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Barris Residential's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I would like to remind everyone that certain information discussed on this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. Although we believe the estimates reflected in these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we cannot give assurance that the anticipated results will be achieved. We refer you to the company's press release and annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC for risk factors that impact the company. With that, I would like to hand the call over to Mahbub Nia, Veris Residential's Chief Executive Officer, who is joined by Amanda Lombard, Chief Financial Officer. Mahbub.

Thank you, Taryn, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter marked another period of strong operational and financial results for Veris, reflecting continued progress across a number of initiatives aligned with our three-pronged value creation plan. This is reflected in our decision to raise guidance once again, which Amanda will discuss in further detail. As of June 30th, the portfolio was 95.1% occupied and continues to perform well, with 5% blended net rental growth and 5.9% NOI growth in the first half of this year. In an effort to further optimize our balance sheet, we secured a new $500 million credit facility and term loan in April and reduced our overall debt outstanding by $168 million during the quarter, primarily utilizing proceeds from non-strategic asset sales. Looking more closely at our operational performance, same-store occupancy was 100 basis points above March 31 at 95.1%, as we continue to seek the optimal balance between occupancy and revenue growth. Our Class A portfolio realized 5% blended net rental growth in the first half of the year, continued to build on two consecutive years of strong growth. Net blended rental growth increased from 4.6% in the first quarter to 5.4% in the second quarter, driven by increases of 6.4% in renewals and 4.2% in new leases. Today, our properties continue to command a significant rent premium of approximately 40% compared to our industry peers. with an average revenue per home of over $3,900, an increase of 22% over the last two years, reflecting the quality of our highly immunized, comparatively young vintage of approximately eight years and well-located Class A portfolio. Affordability remained healthy, with an average rent-to-income ratio of around 12% in the second quarter. Our Port Imperial and Jersey City waterfront properties continue to outperform the broader portfolio benefiting from their proximity to Manhattan, as well as limited new supply in these sub-markets. We've also seen significant improvement in new lease rental growth rates across our East Boston properties, which represent a compelling relative value proposition compared to downtown Boston and the Seaport. We remain focused on our ongoing pursuit of operational excellence, leveraging innovative solutions, including new technologies, operational enhancements, and changes to our organizational structure and processes, as we seek to identify additional efficiency and further enhance our platform. These operational efforts have contributed to a steady increase in our operating margin, which now stands at 66%, up from 57% three years ago. Our AI-based leasing assistant, Quint, continues to be highly effective in capturing demand at the top of our leasing funnel, effectively converting leads while allowing us to realize payroll efficiencies. In the second quarter, Quinn converted over 34% of these into tours, more than double the industry average, answering over 60,000 messages and saving over 5,000 staff hours. In addition, we have leveraged our AI capabilities to continue enhancing the resident experience at Veris. Quinn is now available to all residents 24-7 and is capable of answering a wide range of inquiries as well as managing maintenance requests. In June, we introduced a new portfolio-wide rent payment platform, BILT, which allows residents to earn reward points that can be spent on hotels, flights, restaurants, and more with every rent payment. On the capital allocation front, earlier in the quarter, we closed the sale of 107 Morgan Street, as well as two land sites, 6 Becker and 85 Livingston in suburban New Jersey, releasing approximately $78 million of net proceeds, which was used to repay debt. With our transformation complete, we continue to look for optimization opportunities through capital reallocation within the company. To that end, our $187 million land bank and interest in unconsolidated multifamily joint ventures remain a considerable source of inefficient equity. The ability to unlock and reallocate some or all of this capital over time has the potential to significantly enhance the company's earnings and leverage profile. One of these land parcels, Harborside 9, recently gained approval for future development from the Jersey City Planning Board as part of our pre-development efforts to enhance the valuation of our land bank. I'd like to address our decision to withdraw the company's recent public offering of common stock and proposed acquisition of 55 River Walk Place. While this strategic and accretive transaction would have strengthened our position in one of our core markets, Port Imperial, and further de-leveled our balance sheet, we decided not to proceed given the unintended signaling that the board and management team may seek to prioritize external growth at the expense of, rather than parallel with, a comprehensive spectrum of strategic and organic value creation opportunities. The primary focus of the management team is the creation of value through the three-pronged approach we announced at the beginning of the year. In parallel, and consistent with past practice, the Board and Strategic Review Committee will continue to evaluate all credible opportunities to maximize value on behalf of shareholders. Before I hand over to Amanda, I'm pleased to show our progress in reducing emissions and earning green certifications. Our Scope 1 and 2 emissions were 66% below our 2019 baseline. We are one of the few companies to measure almost all of our operational Scope 3 emissions, which have decreased by 22% from 2022. Simultaneously, we increased the share of green-certified buildings in our portfolio to 78%. Our new credit facilities include sustainability KPI provisions, which the company successfully met in July and will result in a five basis point margin saving on the facility. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Amanda, who will discuss our financial performance and provide an update on guidance.