CT Real Estate Investment Trust

Good morning. My name is Gigi, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to CTREIT's Q3 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 11 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 11. The speakers on the call today are Kevin Salzberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of C.T. 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 Discussion and Analysis and 2023 Annual Information Form, which can be found on CTREIT's website and on CDAR+. 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 third quarter investor conference call. I am pleased to report that Q3 was once again a healthy and stable quarter for CTREIT. Leslie and Jody will provide the details, but at a high level, our occupancy, renewal spreads, payout ratio, and credit metrics were all relatively in line with our results for the past few quarters. Growth, once again, was strong with NOI increasing by 3.4% and ASFO per unit increasing by 2.3% in the quarter. In the external environment, the recent rally in REIT equities has helped to narrow the gap in terms of discounts to net asset value. In addition, the pace of rate cuts by the Bank of Canada, including the most recent outsized reduction, continues to drive interest back to the real estate sector, as the benefits of alternative yield opportunities for investors narrow on a risk-adjusted basis. Although transaction volumes remain low by historic standards, it is hoped that these recent moves will provide a catalyst for market participants to begin to reengage and seek out new investments. For CTREIT, we were pleased to announce $85 million of new investments this quarter, which will help bolster our strong pipeline of projects. Between now and the end of 2025, we intend to deliver over half a million square feet of new development projects. And as mentioned on previous conference calls, we continue to monitor the market and seek out differentiated and strategic opportunities for CTREIT, such as the $47 million acquisition of a Canadian tire and mark store property in Nanaimo, BC that closed in the quarter. We also sold an out parcel to a multi-tenant property in Orillia, Ontario post-quarter end for $4 million. To remind listeners, we bought the Orillia Square property from a third party in Q4 2017. At the time of acquisition, this roughly 320,000 square foot asset was only 61% occupied and anchored by a no-frills and a 62,000 square foot Canadian tire store. Over the last several years, we have relocated and expanded the Canadian tire store, which now occupies over 125,000 square feet of GLA, backfilled the old Canadian tire store with Marks, Sportcheck, and Dollarama stores, as well as a new shoppers drug mart that will be opening by the end of Q1 2025. We have also extended the lease with no frills and occupancy for this center now sits at approximately 90%. By selling the out parcel for double what we paid for this portion of the site, we have sold a non-strategic part of this asset and reduced our cost base in the process. This project is a great success story for the REIT and shows how we can leverage our relationship with Canadian Tire to create value in our real estate. We are fortunate to continue to benefit from our strong and stable portfolio of assets, our unique relationship with Canadian Tire, and the development pipeline that comes alongside this privileged association, and continue to seek out new acquisition opportunities that fit our strategy when market conditions allow for it. I will now turn it 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 three new investments this quarter. These new investments relate to the vending of a newly built property containing Canadian Tire, Marks and Dollarama stores in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, and a vending of a Canadian Tire store in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as an expansion of a Canadian Tire store located in Penticton, British Columbia. These new investments, totaling $85 million, are expected to earn a going-in yield of 6.2% and will add approximately 283,000 square feet of incremental GLA to our pipeline of projects and our high-quality asset portfolio. As Kevin previously noted, in Q3, CTREIT completed the previously announced third-party acquisition of a property containing Canadian tire and mark stores in Nanaimo, British Columbia for an investment of $47 million dollars adding 141,000 square feet of incremental GLA to the portfolio. Our development activities remain strong with 20 projects at various stages of development, two of which are expected to be completed this year and the remaining projects expected to be completed in 2025 and 2026. These developments represent a total committed investment of approximately $319 million upon completion 102 million of which has already been spent, and 114 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 769,000 square feet to the portfolio, nearly 95.2% of which has been pre-leased at quarter end. At the end of the quarter, CTREIT maintained its 99.4% occupancy rate representing a portfolio that is substantially fully leased, a true indication of the quality and strength of our assets. Year to date, we have completed four Canadian Tire store lease extension, and as at the end of Q3, the weighted average lease term for our portfolio was 7.8 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?