CT Real Estate Investment Trust

Good morning. My name is Gigi, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to CTREIT's Q2 2024 Earnings Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star 1-1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1. The speakers on the call today are Kevin Salzberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of CT REIT, Jody Spiegel, Senior Vice President, Real Estate, and Leslie Gibson, Chief Financial Officer. Today's discussions may include forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs. These forward-looking statements are subject to uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Please see CTREIT's public filings for a discussion of these risk factors, which are included in their 2023 Management's Discussion and Analysis and 2023 Annual Information Form, which can be found on CTREIT's website and on CDER+. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Salzberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of CTREIT. Kevin?

Thank you, Gigi. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to CTREIT's second quarter investor conference call. Despite a challenging economic backdrop, CTREIT continues to perform well, and I am pleased with our results again this quarter, as NOI and AFFO per unit increased by 4.4% and 3.6% respectively. Our track record and ability to grow cash flow on a per unit basis has allowed us to raise our distributions 11 times since our IPO in 2013, with the most recent increase in distribution payments being enjoyed by our investors starting last month. Including this latest increase, our compound annual growth rate in distributions over the last five years is 4.1%, and we have achieved this growth while managing to improve our payout ratio to its current level at just over 70%. I am also pleased that notwithstanding a very slow property transaction market, we continue to be able to source strategic opportunities to grow our portfolio of net lease assets. We were happy to announce in our Q2 release that we acquired a Canadian Tire anchored property in a very strong market with high barriers to entry on the island of Vancouver in the province of British Columbia. Additionally, we sold a former Canadian Tire anchored property in Chilliwack, BC in Q2 to an end user at a price well above our IFRS value for the asset. Although our hope is that the recent moves by the Bank of Canada to continue to lower interest rates will spur additional market activity and deal velocity, we continue to manage our portfolio for the future and prudently seek out avenues for growth. As it relates to our balance sheet, we completed the previously announced rate reset on our Series 4 Class C LT units with Canadian Tire in the quarter. and continued to buy back units under our NCIB program, taking advantage of the fact that we were trading well below net asset value. Finally, I am pleased to share that we recently released our third annual ESG report, detailing our efforts and achievements from 2023. The report is available for download on our website, and I encourage you to take a read as we are proud of the progress that we continue to make along our ESG journey. I will now turn the call over to Jody and Leslie, to provide some additional details on the quarter, our results, and our investment, leasing, and development activities. Jody?

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. As highlighted in our press release yesterday, we were pleased to announce one new investment this quarter. This new investment relates to the acquisition of a property with a Canadian tire store and a mark store in Nanaimo, British Columbia. This investment of $45.2 million, with a going-in yield of 6%, will add 141,000 square feet of incremental GLA to the portfolio. As Kevin has already highlighted in Q2, C.T. Reid has also sold a former Canadian tire property in Chilliwack, B.C. for $19 million and completed the previously announced intensification of a Canadian tire store in Granby, Quebec. The total investment required for the Canadian tire store expansion, with $7.6 million, and this project added 27,000 square feet of incremental GLA to the portfolio. Building on the progress made in 2023, the REIT currently has 19 projects at various stages of development, with two of these expected to be completed this year and with the remaining projects expected to be completed in 2025 and 2026. These developments represent a total committed investment of approximately $283 million upon completion, 98 million of which has already been spent, and 85 million of which we anticipate will be spent in the next 12 months. Once built, these projects will add a total incremental GLA of approximately 715,000 square feet to the portfolio, nearly 94% of which has been pre-leased at quarter end. During the quarter, we extended three Canadian tire store leases, as well as approximately 98,000 square feet of non-Canadian tire tenancies, and our occupancy rate is now at 99.4%. As at the end of Q2, the weighted average lease term for our portfolio was 8.0 years, which remains one of the longest in the sector. With that, I will turn it over to Leslie to discuss our financial results. Leslie?