Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust

STAR won a second time. Thank you. And I will now turn the conference over to Cecilia Williams, President and CEO. You may begin.

Thanks, Abby. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q4 conference, Paul. Nan and JP are with me today. We'll each make brief comments and then answer any questions you may have. We may, in the course of this conference call, make forward-looking statements about future events or future performance. These statements, by their nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially, including those risks described under the heading Risks and Uncertainties in our 2023 Annual Report and our most recent quarterly report. Material assumptions underpinning any forward-looking statements we make include those described under forward-looking statements in our most recent quarterly report. I'll start by describing sustained leasing activity. We're encouraged by the sustained leasing activity, which continued through the fourth quarter. The productivity of our portfolio also increased for the 18th consecutive quarter. and renewals were at healthy spreads to in-place rents. Considering that these spreads are on rates established in stronger markets, we're especially pleased with the results. We believe we're at an inflection point and that leasing momentum, which accelerated in the last quarter of 2023, will continue through the coming year. Our concentrated portfolio of urban workspaces and mixed-use, amenity-rich neighborhoods continues to appeal to knowledge workers. On to user experience. We focus intently on what we can control. That includes the quality of the user experience we provide, which we know from long experience is as important as the physical environments we create. We've been submitting ourselves to third-party scrutiny with respect to user experience for years to ensure that we're continuously improving. JP will elaborate on the specifics, which we're pleased with. Comprehensive team development. The Allied team continued to evolve in 2023. We continued our board renewal process, and we implemented a succession plan empowering the next generation of leadership at Allied. Perhaps most importantly, we continued our ongoing successful efforts to liberate talent and foster teamwork across the country. With strong integrated team members, everyone contributes to the business in meaningful and measurable ways. We're increasingly organizing ourselves around assets rather than areas of specialization, with city teams managing our urban portfolios across the country. This gives us the benefit of expertise from multiple disciplines in optimizing our portfolio. More importantly, it creates various avenues for our talented team members' professional development, by enabling them to contribute beyond their functional areas. Implementation of a five-year capital allocation plan placing minimal reliance on the capital markets. With the sale of the UDC portfolio, we strengthened the balance sheet and reaffirmed our commitment to distinctive urban workspace. We believe in Canada's future, and much of the economic and cultural future is concentrated in our cities. While far from perfect, our cities continue to thrive and demonstrate resiliency. We're confident they'll continue to attract a disproportionate share of global talent, which drives economic and cultural growth and evolution. The year ahead. We're heading into 2024 with a lower level of economic occupancy than we've ever had. While confident that our leasing activity will translate into improved economic occupancy over the course of 2024, the timing is difficult to predict. The one thing I'm certain of is that the entire allied team across the country is dedicated to improving economic occupancy and is entirely confident of the outcome, despite the uncertainty as to timing. In summary, our portfolio will not only hold up well in this economic environment, as it has during past downturns, it will ultimately emerge stronger than ever because of our integrated team, our operating platform, our solid financial position, and our unique and concentrated urban properties. With that, I'll pass it to Nan for a financial overview. Thank you, Cecilia.

Good morning, everyone. I'll provide a brief overview of our financial highlights. The fourth quarter was a strong quarter for Allied and the first quarter reflecting the full impact of the disposition of our UDC portfolio. Our financial results in the quarter was solid and reflect our unwavering commitment to the balance sheet. Our FFO per unit was 61.4 cents, 2.7% higher than it was in the third quarter. Our ASFO per unit for the quarter was 56.2 cents, reflecting a 3.1% increase compared to the third quarter. These metrics illustrate the contributions to income from our PUD portfolio as our existing projects continue to reach completion milestones. This will enable us to generate material amounts of EBITDA going forward. This was further enhanced by lower interest expense due to the repayment of our unsecured facility with the proceeds from the UDC portfolio. Our weighted average in-place net rent per occupied square foot was $24.10 in the fourth quarter, a 4.3% increase from Q4 2022. which reflects the increasing economic productivity of our space. Lastly, we're ending the year with our unsecured facility completely ungrown, resulting in $1.1 billion of liquidity. We have the financial strength to continue operating and executing our strategy with minimal reliance on the public capital market. Thank you, and I'll pass the call to JP now.