Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust

Good morning and welcome to the Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Erin Johnston, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Choice Properties Q4 2022 conference call. I'm joined here this morning by Raelle Diamond, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mario Barifato, Chief Financial Officer, and Anna Raddick, Chief Operating Officer. Raelle will start the call by providing a brief recap of our 2022 performance and cover the highlights of the quarter. Anna will cover our operational results, followed by Mario, who will conclude the call with a review of our financial results before we open the lines for Q&A. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind you that by discussing our financial and operating performance and in responding to your questions, we may make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding choice properties objectives, strategies to achieve those objectives, as well as statements with respect to management's beliefs, plans, estimates, intentions, outlook, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance, or exceptions that are not historical facts. These statements are based on our current estimates and assumptions and are subject to the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusions in these forward-looking statements. Additional information on the material risks that can impact our financial results and estimates and the assumptions that were made in applying and making these statements can be found in the recently filed 2022 Annual Financial Statements and Management Discussion and Analysis, which are available on our website and on CR. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ralph.

Thank you, Erin, and good morning, everyone. 2022 was another year of positive momentum for our business as we significantly advanced our strategic agenda. We remain focused on our goals of preserving our capital, generating stable and growing cash flow, and achieving long-term net asset value appreciation and distribution growth over time. We delivered solid operating and financial results in 2022, driven by the strength of our grocery-anchored and necessity-based retail portfolio, the realization of embedded rent growth in our well-located generic industrial portfolio, and our growing mixed-use and residential platform. In addition to our strong results, we further enhanced our portfolio by completing over $1.2 billion in real estate transactions. we delivered 3.8% NAV growth in 2022, driven by the strength of our industrial portfolio and progress on developments. On the development front, we transferred $71 million from properties under development to income producing and achieved several key zoning milestones in 2022. We now have over 18 million square feet in our transformational development pipeline with significant near to medium-term opportunities. We took steps this year to ensure we maintained our industry-leading balance sheet despite pressures from rising inflation and rising interest rates. With ongoing economic uncertainty, we remain focused on preserving liquidity and maintaining a balanced debt maturity ladder. Both measures reduce risk and create financial flexibility. This past year, we continued to lead the way in sustainability and made significant advancements in our two pillars of fighting climate change and advancing social equity, which you will hear more about next week at our Invest Today. We are proud of our ability over the last several years to maintain our stable distribution as we focused on improving the quality of our balance sheet and our portfolio. Given the strength and stability of our business, we are pleased to announce Choice's first distribution increase since 2017. The increase reflects the confidence we have in our business to continue to deliver steady and growing cash flows, our strong financial position, and the abilities of our talented and diverse team. Turning to our fourth quarter activity, we delivered another strong, clean quarter. In terms of operations, we have sustained near full occupancy levels in our retail and industrial portfolios, with occupancy at 97.8%. Further, our business delivered strong, same-asset cash and IR growth of 3.9%. During the quarter, we continued to execute on our capital recycling program, completing 120 million of transactions, including 75 million of acquisitions and 45 million of dispositions. On the acquisition sprint, we completed the purchase of approximately a 90,000 square foot Love Law anchored retail asset in downtown Toronto for $53.3 million. We also completed the acquisition of approximately a 22,000 square foot shoppers drug mart in an established and growing node of Bourne, Ontario. As part of the transaction, we entered into a new 15-year lease with shoppers, once again highlighting the benefit of our strategic relationship with our major tenants. Subsequent to the fourth quarter, we completed the acquisition of three standalone retail assets located in Western Canada from Loblaw for $98.6 million. While we planned to maintain Bell's capital recycling program in 2023, this was an opportunity to acquire strong performing stores that Loblaw has committed to with new long-term leases executed on acquisition, ranging from 15 to 20 years, with an average 2% annual rent step over the lease term. On the disposition front, we continue to focus on exiting office as an access class, and in the quarter completed the disposition of an office property in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for $40 million. The same purchaser waives on the purchase of our last remaining Atlantic office building located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with closing scheduled by the end of the first quarter of 2023. To date, we've successfully disposed of, or under contract to dispose of, nine of our 11 non-core office properties. We continue to closely monitor the market and will sell our remaining two office assets as the opportunities present themselves. Progress on our development of the quarter was steady, and we are on track to deliver our two active residential developments, and 1.4 million square feet of industrial space in 2023. With that, I'm now going to pass the call on to Anna to discuss our operational results. Anna?