Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust

Real Estate Investment Trust Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all listeners are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on November 12, 2021. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Eric Bowers. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Pam. Good morning and welcome to the BoardWalk Greet, 2021 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. With me here today are Sam Collius, Chief Executive Officer, Lisa Smandich, Chief Financial Officer, James Ha, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations, and Rick Anda, Head of Acquisitions. Please note that this call is being broadly disseminated by way of webcast. If you have not already done so, please visit bwalk.com slash investors where you will find a link to today's presentation, as well as PDF files of the trust financial statements, MD&A, and supplemental information package. Starting on slide two, we would like to remind our listeners that certain statements in this call and presentation may be considered forward-looking statements. Although the expectations set forth in such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, BoardWalk's future operation and its actual performance may defer materially from those in any forward-looking statements. Additional information that could cause actual results to defer materially from these statements are detailed in BoardWalk's publicly filed documents. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Sam Collius.

Thank you, Eric, and welcome everyone to our Q3 conference call. Starting on slide four, today we are in the right place at the right time. with an exciting growth trajectory. Boardwalk's existing exposure to high growth unregulated markets paired with strategic opportunistic acquisitions will deliver additional stability, high grading, diversity, and translate into continued FFO accretion and increased total shareholder return. The following macroeconomic fundamentals are key drivers. Significant discount to an increasing replacement cost of our assets. Significant organic growth as Alberta and Saskatchewan have some of the most affordable rental rates in the country. Limited supplies construction levels remain low relative to historical levels. Strong demand with increased immigration and a low cost source of capital to execute accretive acquisitions. Slide five. Our strategy to continue to create value for our stakeholders begins with our people. We are positioned with an amazing team and are so proud of everyone of our team members who innovate and deliver our places of homes for our resident members. In turn, this leads to leading earnings performance, which we believe will continue to result in strong total returns for our stakeholders. Our strategic focuses are... significant organic growth from utilizing our proven platform that focuses on operational excellence to optimize NOI growth. When we pair this with the current improvement in apartment rental market fundamentals, we are well positioned to accelerate on our organic growth trend. Accretive capital recycling focuses on opportunistic investment into acquisitions, development and investment into our high quality existing portfolio with a tactical unit buyback. These opportunistic investments combined with our operational optimization have positioned Boardwalk for increasing asset values within Boardwalk's diversified and high quality multifamily portfolio. Our solid financial foundation provides flexibility on our balance sheet with our growing free cash flow And with CMAC Insurance on 98%, our financings, which provide access to low-cost financing and reduced renewal risk. Slide 6, our strategy continues to deliver strong results with our Q3 FFO of $0.79 per unit, up 6.8% versus last year. We are increasing our full-year guidance to a range of $2.89 to $2.95 FFO per unit. This equates to a four-year compounded annual growth rate of over 8%. Slide 7 shows strong economic momentum with job and wage growth from the most recent Statistics Canada release. Alberta saw significantly improved 7.6% unemployment rate. With the national recovery of employment, BoardWalk's current mark-to-market, which includes the reduction of incentives, averages $144 per month and equates to a significant $55 million in revenue opportunity. Just a $25 adjustment in our average occupied rents across our portfolio equates to approximately $0.20 in FFO per unit on an annualized basis. Slide 8. In addition to the positive impact that higher commodity prices are providing to our Western Canadian markets, there has been a steady stream of investment and job creating announcements from the emerging technology and clean energy sectors. As of the most recent data, over 90,000 jobs are now vacant and available in Alberta which is approximately 50% growth in job vacancies since April this year. Adding vacant job numbers to current employment numbers is a record number of jobs for Alberta. Alberta leads the nation in economic GDP growth projections. Slide 9, our markets and portfolio provide some of the most affordable rents in Canada when comparing to average incomes. In addition, average projected population growth in our markets are outpacing new supply, leading to strong apartment rental and housing market fundamentals. Slide 10 shows our retention is increasing with decreasing turnovers and a steady occupancy of approximately 96%. As per our appendix, slide 41, we are seeing more move-ins from out of town as more Canadians move back to Alberta and Saskatchewan. Slide 11 show our key operational metrics with actual occupancy of approximately 96%. Incentives are dropping, occupied rent is increasing, vacancy loss is decreasing resulting in higher revenues. Slide 12 shows a strong trend of improving net rental rates for both new leases and renewals, with our total portfolio new and renewal leases moving into a positive 1.4% and 2.3% updated for this October. The positive new and renewal leasing spreads reflect the growing strength in our apartment rental fundamentals positioning us to capture our significant mark-to-market opportunity. We would like to now pass the call on to Lisa Smandich, who will provide us with an overview of our portfolio performance, operating margins, balance sheet, and repositioning results. Lisa?