SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Smart Center's REIT Q4 2023 conference call. I would like to introduce Mr. Peter Slan. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon and welcome to our fourth quarter and year-end 2023 results call. I'm Peter Swann, Chief Financial Officer. I'm joined on today's call by Mitch Goldhar, Smart Center's Executive Chair and CEO, and by Rudy Gobind, our Executive Vice President of Portfolio Management and Investments. We will begin today's call with some comments from Mitch. Rudy will then cover some operational items, and I will review our financial results. We would then be pleased to take your questions. Just before I turn the call over to Mitch, I would like to refer you specifically to the cautionary language, about forward-looking information which can be found at the front of our MD&A materials. This also applies to comments any of the speakers make this afternoon. Mitch, over to you.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our fourth quarter call. I'm pleased to report strong overall results for Q4, building on the momentum of the three previous quarters. Before I get into the details, a quick reminder for those who may be newer to smart centers. At 35 million square feet and 100 Walmart strong, our commitment to value and convenience has never wavered, starting from our first new build Walmart in Southbury, which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary. This store and shopping center continues to perform above expectations to this day. It was busy on opening day in a snowstorm like today, and it has been busy every day for the last 30 years with no end in sight. Portfolio occupancy was maintained at a leading 98.5% leased throughout all of Q3 and Q4 and with over 99% cash collections, a well-balanced combination of offense and defense. This portfolio is located in the midst of established residential communities across the country and in every province with a wide tenant mix, strong covenant tenants who provide essential products and services in every one of our locations. Leasing continues to strengthen with existing and new retailers continuing to demand more locations or expand in various growing markets. New build retail demand from the likes of TJX, Canadian Tire Banners, Loblaws Banners, Sobeys Banners, to name just a few, is also growing in both large and small markets. Tenant retention remains strong. The renewal rates are up just over 5% reflecting the demand of local communities and the need for well-located physical retail. More on leasing in a minute from Rudy. Built on this stable cash flow, cash generating platform, we continue to construct on the significant mixed use permissions already in place. Here are a few highlights. During the quarter, we completed the balance of the transit city four and five condos closing on the remaining 106 units for a profit of $2.7 million. We also continued our site work for our 40-story art walk project comprising 320 sold-out units right here in the VMC. Through our smart living brand, our 458-unit Millway apartment rental project here in the VMC was fully completed during Q4. And with the stage occupancy during the year, we are now at 65% leased. 60% lease at year end, which is on time and slightly ahead on budget. Construction of our 174 Vaughan Northwest townhomes with our partner is progressing well with closing scheduled to commence in Q2, 2024. In Leaside, We continue with our site work for a 224,000 square foot retail center, comprised primarily of a 200,000 square foot Canadian tire flagship lease. In Ottawa, we are progressing with our new partner on our planned seniors residential and apartment buildings, totaling 402 units. which was previously delayed as a result of a prior partner. And lastly, we are under construction on six self-storage units at various stages of completion and totals near 900,000 square feet at 100% as outlined in our MD&A. As you can see, even in this more complex market, we remain selective selectively active making use of our skills and dexterity bringing projects forward based on their merits and metrics and only when financing is available in the meantime we work actively as always seeking additional uses throughout the portfolio in 2023 we achieved over 7.8 million square feet of mixed use permissions compared to the 6.1 million achieved in 2022. We remain committed to unlocking the tremendous value embedded in the lands we already own. You can find a lot more details in the residential and other mixed use development initiatives section in our MD&A. On the financial side, Peter will provide a full update in a minute, but let me emphasize a couple pertinent items. Maintaining our conservative balance sheet remains a high priority for us, along with maintaining a significant unencumbered asset pool, which now stands at $9.2 billion. Our debt level continues to recede and liquidity remains in excess of $800 million. On a final note, my thanks and appreciation to our great team of associates and partners, and of course our tenants, for your commitment and dedication to what Smart Centers has always stood for and continues to stand for which is bringing value to Canadian communities. With that, I will pass the call over to Rudy.