Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust

Good morning and welcome to Primaris REIT's third quarter 2022 results conference call. At this time, all lines have been placed on mute. After the prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Claire Mahaney-Lyon, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Emily. During this call, management of Primaris REIT maintenance statements contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable security legislation. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Primaris REITs control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Additional information about these assumptions, risks, and uncertainties are contained in Primaris REITs filings with securities regulators. These filings are also available on Primaris REIT's website at www.primarisreit.com. I'll now turn the call over to Alex Avery, Primaris REIT's Chief Executive Officer.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Primaris REIT's third quarter 2022 results. On the call with me are Patrick Sullivan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Rags DeVleur, Chief Financial Officer, Leslie Boost, Senior Vice President, Finance, and Graham Proctor, Senior Vice President, Asset Management. Our Q3 results mark nine months since we completed the spin out of Primaris REIT. As with the prior two quarters, Q3 was very strong, featuring double digit same property NOI growth, rising occupancy, above consensus FFO per unit, and a 5% upward revision to our 2022 NOI guidance. With 60 days left in the year, we are feeling pretty good about how 2022 will finish. Three weeks ago, we attended ICSC in Toronto, meeting with dozens of retailers. The mood was optimistic, with retailers rolling out expansion plans that had been delayed by pandemic circumstances in 2021 and earlier in 2022. Many retailers are benefiting from easing of supply chain issues that were common earlier this year, while acknowledging that rising interest rates may temper sales growth. With retail sales now above 2019 levels in the past two quarters, retailers are doing well. This strength among the retailers has allowed us to deliver faster than anticipated recovery in NOI, as reflected in our results and our forecast. Beyond this strong performance to date, there remains substantial further opportunity to drive NOI growth as we recapture economics on retail sales performance. Demonstrating disciplined capital allocation is a cornerstone of our strategy. We continue to actively explore both acquisitions and dispositions. As is abundantly clear, the capital markets are disorganized and dynamic. We see opportunity in this environment. Our measurement of success is growth in value per unit and cash flow per unit while maintaining the defensive integrity of our balance sheet. In 2022 to date, our primary choice for capital allocation has been our normal course issuer bid. As detailed in our disclosure, our leverage neutral NCIB purchases completed in the first nine months of 2022 have added 50 cents 57 cents per unit to our NAV and contributed more than 4 cents to our annualized FFO run rate. With this quarter's results, we have also announced our inaugural distribution increase effective with the December distribution payable in January. Our board approved the 2.5% increase or 2 cents per unit annually in the first of what we plan to be a program of regular annual distribution increases. Our plan to increase distributions every year is a direct result of our differentiated financial model. Our low leverage and low payout ratio provides substantial flexibility to grow the business with retained free cash flow. The four cents of growth in our annualized FFO run rate contributed by our NCIB activity in the first nine months fully covers the distribution increase within our target payout ratio. While per unit growth from the NCIB is very helpful, we continue to see significant internal growth potential, bringing our occupancy back to more stabilized levels in the low to mid 90s percentage range over the next few years. This is consistent with our 4.9% increase to 2022 NOI guidance. Now I'll turn the call over to Pat to discuss our platform operating and leasing results, followed by Rags, who will discuss our financing, financial results, and provide you with an update on our disclosure package.