Whitestone REIT

Greetings and welcome to the Whitestone REIT fourth quarter 2025 earnings 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, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce David Morty, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Whitestone REIT's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on today's call are Dave Holman, Chief Executive Officer, Christine Mastandrea, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Scott Hogan, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that some statements made during this call are not historical and may be deemed forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements due to a number of risks, uncertainty, and other factors. Please refer to the company's earnings news release and filings with the SEC included in Whitestone's most recent form 10Q and 10K for a detailed discussion of these factors. Acknowledging the fact that this call may be webcast for a period of time, it is also important to note that this call includes time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date, February 26, 2026. The company undertakes no obligation to update this information. Whitestone's fourth quarter earnings news release and supplemental operating and financial data package have been filed with the SEC and are available on our website in the investor relations section. We published fourth quarter 2025 slides on our website yesterday afternoon, which highlight topics to be discussed today. I will now turn the call over to Dave Holman, our chief executive officer.

Thank you, David. Good morning, and thank you for joining Whitestone's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I'll get right into the key results and then spend a little time on our long-term focus. For 2025, we delivered $1.05 core FFO per share. This is up from 86 cents in 2021, which was the year prior to my appointment as CEO and reshaping of the leadership team. This represents a 5% CAGR, and we did that while strengthening our balance sheet, as evidenced by our debt-to-EBITDA metric, improving from 9.1 times for the full year 2021 to 7.0 times for the full year 2025. In addition, we overcame interest rate headwinds with an 11 cent per share step-up in interest expense between 2022 and 2023. Given that we have interest rates fixed on the bulk of our loans and minimal debt maturities until 2029, one of the strongest leasing environments I have ever seen is and a great team, we have very good visibility into the next three years and are very confident in our ability to generate long-term five to seven percent core FFO per share growth. Today we'll talk about some non-FFO benefits we plan on delivering for investors, primarily gaining scale and enhancing the long-term value of our real estate. But know that delivering consistent core FFO growth is our North Star. For 2025, we delivered 4% same-store NOI growth. We delivered this through a combination of strong contractual escalators in excess of 2%, leasing success with straight-line leasing spreads in excess of 19%, and targeted redevelopment with projects typically delivering double-digit yields. We're issuing same-store NOI growth guidance of 3 to 4.75% for 2026, and we expect to deliver with the same combination of drivers that allowed us to deliver in 2025. During the fourth quarter, we acquired World Cup Plaza in Plano, a highly affluent Dallas submarket, and one where we are gaining synergies from our concentration of properties there. with World Cup Plaza in close proximity to our Starwood and Lakeside properties. In addition, in the fourth quarter, we acquired Ashford Village, anchored by Houston's largest Japanese grocer, and in close proximity to the Ashford Yard development, a mixed-use project currently underway on the former Schlumberger campus. We also disposed of Kempwood Plaza, another of our legacy properties, during the fourth quarter. Kempwood Plaza is located in Houston. Whitestone's acquisition and disposition strategy is designed around identifying and then remaining cognizant of the gap between neighborhood strength and the tenant strength. We identify properties where that gap is significant and then our leasing team goes to work to close that gap. If we feel that that gap no longer exists, especially if it is the result of a neighborhood demand growth slowing, a property becomes a candidate for disposition. You may notice we've significantly increased our Green Street TAP score over the past four years, which is an indication that we're going after higher-end neighborhoods with greater discretionary spending capability. We anticipate this will serve investors well and in various economic cycles, and it's more manageable as we scale. However, the biggest value to be gained is not because of the overall level of our TAP score, but rather our ability to identify and acquire properties where we can improve a tenant base that lags that TAP score. Over the past three years, we've acquired approximately $213 million in properties, which provides our leasing team with great opportunities to generate earnings growth. We're capable of increasing that volume handled both by our acquisitions and our leasing teams, and we'll look for ways to increase that volume while achieving both our core FFO per share long-term growth target and continuing to strengthen our balance sheet, with continued improvement in our debt to EBITDA RE ratio. Our focus on shop space delivers two additional primary benefits. Shop space requires less capital spend versus the bigger boxes, allowing us to deliver same store NOI growth while being at the low end of the spectrum on capital spending. In addition, when paired with robust tenant selection and underwriting, our nearly 1,500 tenants provide greater durability of cash flow and greater risk dispersion. Supply-demand conditions within our footprint remain strong, with a limited supply of neighborhood centers coming onto the market and with demand continuing to increase. Foot traffic to our centers was up 3.9% year-over-year, and our leasing pipeline remains robust. Our team remains very engaged at looking at ways to generate shareholder value and continue to outperform the market the way we've done over the last several years. With that, I'll turn things over to Christine to share more specifics on results and our focus on increasing the value of our real estate. Christine?