Good day, and welcome to the Lexington Realty Trust Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Heather Gentry, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to the Lexington Realty Trust fourth quarter 2018 conference call and webcast. The earnings release was distributed this morning, and both the release and quarterly supplemental are available on our website at www.lxp.com in the Investors Section, and will be furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K. Certain statements made during this conference call regarding future events and expected results may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Lexington believes that these statements are based on reasonable assumptions. However, certain factors and risks, including those included in today's earnings press release, and those described in the reports that Lexington files with the SEC from time-to-time could cause Lexington's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Except as required by law, Lexington does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. In the earnings press release and quarterly supplemental disclosure package, Lexington has reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. Any references in these documents to adjusted company FFO refer to adjusted company funds from operations available to all equity-holders and unit holders on a fully diluted basis. Operating performance measures of an individual investment are not intended to be viewed as presenting a numerical measure of Lexington's historical or future financial performance, financial position or cash flow. On today's call, Will Eglin, CEO; Pat Carroll, CFO; and Executive Vice Presidents, Brendan Mullinix, Lara Johnson, and James Dudley will provide commentary around our fourth quarter results. I will now turn the call over to Will.

Thanks Heather, and good morning, everyone. Lexington celebrated a memorable milestone in October marking our 25th anniversary as a public company. Our strategy has been refined and we've implemented a number of changes in recent years, all of which are extremely positive. And we believe 2018 was pivotal for us as we transition to being a single tenant industrial net least REIT. We are enthusiastic about our prospects and are looking forward to the next 25 years and beyond. Shifting gears, we were pleased with our execution across the board last year and are fully engaged in continuing our repositioning efforts. Office and other non-core dispositions exceeded $1 billion for the year and acquisitions totaled $316 million of well-located general purpose warehouse distribution centers. As a result, we increased our industrial exposure to approximately 71% of total gross book value from 49% at the end of 2017. We have concentrated on adding high quality warehouse distribution assets in both primary and secondary markets as we have grown our industrial portfolio. We have been among the most active investors in the market over the last three years, having added 17 million square feet of industrial product to the portfolio substantially all of which has been warehouse and distribution facilities. Furthermore, almost 50% of our current industrial portfolio on both the square footage and GAAP and cash revenue basis is now located within the top 25 US industrial markets. As a well-capitalized long-term real estate investor in a sector with compelling fundamentals, our appetite remains strong for high quality, single tenant industrial, real estate. We continue to find attractive opportunities in the marketplace, although the industrial landscape remains competitive. Our main emphasis is on acquiring general purpose warehouse distribution properties within industrial sub markets supported by favorable trends and demand, e-commerce, population…

Thanks, Will. We completed a successful year with the purchase of two warehouse facilities in the fourth quarter for $108 million. Including these acquisitions 2018 investment activity totaled $316 million at average GAAP and cash cap rates of 6.5% and 5.3% respectively, with the cash cap rate impacted by a free rent period on one of our recent purchases. Our 2018 purchases included fourth quarter acquisitions, are all aligned with our principal business strategy of owning well located high quality warehouse distribution facilities in both primary and secondary markets. Looking more closely at fourth quarter activity, we closed on the 540,000 square foot newly constructed Class A distribution facility we spoke about on last quarter's call. The facility is well located within one of Phoenix, Arizona's fastest growing industrial submarkets. The $41 million facility is leased for seven years to the pet food producer and distributor Blue Buffalo, which is a division of General Mills. An attractive average rental rate of $4.52 per square foot includes 2.5% annual rental growth. The property features 36 foot clear heights, handful dock doors, parking and trailer stalls, LED lighting throughout and 100% concrete truck courts. Additionally, we acquired a 1 million square foot warehouse complex in a Richmond, Virginia industrial submarket leased to Philip Morris for 12 years. We like the Richmond industrial market which is currently experiencing positive market fundamentals including low vacancy. The property consists of four Class A mission critical warehouse facilities that are situated within close proximity to the tenants US plant. This transaction appeal to us for a host of reasons including the long-term lease in credit tenancy, the general flexibility of the property for future use by other tenants and it's starting rent of $3.65 per square foot with 1.5% annual bumps. Following quarter end, we acquired…

Thanks, Brendan. Fourth quarter dispositions totaled $93 million and rounded out a robust year of consolidated disposition volume totaling $1.1 billion at average GAAP and cash cap rates of 8.9% and 8.4% respectively. The quarter sales represented approximately 11 million of annualized NOI with only approximately three years of weighted average lease term remaining and consisted of two retail properties and six office assets, including the Federal Express property in Memphis, Tennessee. We believe our 2018 disposition efforts were very successful in the context of our overall business strategy. These efforts combined with investment, purchases and leasing activity increased our industrial exposure by approximately 21%, compared to just a year ago on both a gross book value and revenue basis. Needless to say, this allows us to benefit from the stability of industrial cash flows relative to office with its generally higher capital and leasing costs. This will enhance cash flow, sustainability and growth going forward. In 2019, we will continue to significantly decrease our office exposure consistent with our repositioning efforts and we expect to execute on approximately $400 million to $500 million of sales consisting primarily of office assets. Thereafter, while all options will be considered, our current plan is to prudently sell the remaining non-core portfolio with the objective of maximizing value in a series of individual asset sales over the coming years. Our 2019 disposition plan is comprised of a mix of short, mid and long-term lease properties, and contemplates a potential fourth quarter sale of our Dow Chemical Complex in Lake Jackson, Texas, which represents a significant portion of our overall 2019 plan. The timing of this sale along with market conditions and the composition and timing of other sales will of course affect our pricing outcomes. But we expect the entirety of our 2019 disposition plan to be comparable to or more favorable than 2018 in terms of the average cap rate. As Will mentioned earlier, our principle focus remains on efficiently selling our office assets. But we remain open minded to capitalizing on unique industrial opportunities if we can benefit from increased market interest and exceptionally strong pricing. For instance, in the first quarter of 2019, we sold an industrial asset we built in 2016 to the tenant for approximately $79 million or 29% more than our investment cost basis. The majority of the assets in our 2019 plan are either currently in the market or being prepared for market. Subject to timing and compositions, the properties we are marketing this year could generate taxable gains on sale of up to $92 million. We will endeavor to complete 1031 exchange transactions to defer those gains as an alternative to a special distribution. We are ready for another busy year on the disposition front and are looking forward to moving closer to completing our portfolio transition. With that I'll turn the call over to James who can provide an update on leasing.

Thanks, Laura. We leased a little under 0.5 million square feet during the fourth quarter bringing 2018 leasing volume to approximately 2 million square feet. Our portfolio was 95.1% leased at quarter end. The decrease compared to last quarter was driven primarily by the Swiss release expiration in Overland Park, Kansas and two industrial non-renewals. We were pleased to see our weighted average lease term increase to 8.9 years from 8.5 years compared to the third quarter, primarily as a result of fourth quarter industrial purchases and the sale of some shorter lease duration assets. Also, in the quarter and more recently we saw a good deal of positive activity as we continue to proactively address upcoming lease role and portfolio vacancy. GAAP and cash rents on extensions grew by approximately 9% and 3% respectively during the quarter. This included a 4% increase in cash rent for industrial property leased to Teasdale Foods. We had discussed this recently purchased property last quarter. And in the fourth quarter, we extended the lease term to 2033. We also increased cash rent by 2% through a seven year lease extension for a 60,000 square foot office property in Knoxville, Tennessee, leased to Caremark. Following quarter end, we signed a six year lease extension with Jacobson Warehouse at our industrial property in Rockford, Illinois, for which we raised cash rents by 11%. Owens Corning also renewed their leases after quarter and at our 250,000 and 400,000 square foot properties in Hebron, Ohio, which resulted in 1% cash rental increases at both properties with no TI's, leasing or transactions costs. For our remaining 2019 expirations, we are currently working on lease extensions for sales in most cases. On the office side, we are negotiating a long-term lease extension with Quest Diagnostics, a subtenant of T-Mobile…

Thanks, James. For the fourth quarter, gross revenues totaled $87 million compared with gross revenues of $102 million for the same time period in 2017. The decrease was related mostly to property sales, most notably the joint venture office sale, slightly offset by property acquisitions. For calendar year 2018, gross revenues increased a $395 million from $392 million at the end of 2017. The slight increase was a result of acquisition activity, new leases and acceleration of below market lease accretion for certain properties in which the tenants renewal option expired, all of which will offset by sales. Net income attributable to common shareholders for the fourth quarter was $24 million or $0.10 per diluted common share, compared to net income attributable to common shareholders of approximately $29 million or $0.12 per diluted common share for the same time period in 2017. The decrease was attributable to investment and disposition activities. Net income attributable to common shareholders for the full year was $221 million or $0.93 per diluted common share compared to $79 million or $0.33 per diluted common share for the full year 2017. The primary driver of this increase was gains on sale. We provided an expected net income attributable to common shareholder guidance range this morning of $1.36 to $1.40 per diluted common share. This range is always subject to change. Adjusted company FFO for the fourth quarter was $54 million or $0.22 per diluted common share, compared to $63 million or $0.26 per diluted common share for the same time period in 2017. The decrease was primarily related to asset sales and lower leverage. Full year 2018 adjusted company FFO totaled $236 million or $0.96 per diluted common share, compared to $239 million or $0.97 per diluted common share for 2017. We also announced today initial…

Thanks, Pat. Before opening the call for Q&A, I would be remiss not to mention that Robert Roskind, our longtime Chairman retired as an employee last month. Robert started our franchise in 1973 and we're not for his talent and courage in doing so, none of us would be here this morning. Further, it's largely due to his generosity, tolerance and personal interest in people and professional development that we have so much management talent and depth in our organization, which positions us for success going forward. For this and so many other reasons, all interested parties inside and outside of Lexington, owe Robert, a hearty and sincere thank you. With that operator, we are ready for you to conduct the question-and-answer portion of the call.

Thank you. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Barry Oxford at D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks guys. Will, when you think about share buyback versus buying assets here in 2019, I know your stock price set at least you know small run in here, but it's still from my calculations looks pretty attractive. So share buybacks still even at this price beyond the table, how do you kind of think about that when you're sitting around kind of making those decisions?

Yeah, I mean buyback last year for us was a very good use of our capital. There was quite a bit of volatility in the market and there were several times during the year where the share price was very meaningfully disconnected from NAV and we felt like we were active at what proved to be the bottom of the market in each time, so we have over 10 million shares of authorization. We do think that the shares are good value, but our philosophy about buyback is, if we're going to decapitalize the company, we want to try to be patient and keep our powder dry for those times when the share price is very meaningfully disconnected from NAV.

Great, great, thanks. And then a more I guess, micro question, an accounting question, the joint venture not controlling interest adjustment, how should we think about that line item going forward?

Well, the main item on that obviously, is the joint venture we have with NNM. So this quarter was a full quarter of it. So I think it's a very good run rate to use, obviously, to the extent that the joint venture sells properties it obviously could change because of that, but from a run rate I think you could use this quarter.

Great, thanks so much. I'll yield the floor. Thanks, guys.

Thanks Barry.

Our next question comes from Sheila McGrath of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning. I was wondering if you could talk about how much cash you expect to retain this year with the new dividend policy and how the outlook for capital expenditures is shaping up this year versus prior years, now, with the industrial focus?

Hey, Sheila, from a standpoint of the cash if you take a look at our AFO guidance - excuse me our FFO guidance, straight line rents were about - going to be about $13 million of that and the CapEx this year of $20 million, 17 million to 18 million of it are office properties and that's going to tail off greatly going forward as we transition more to industrial assets. So I would expect that number to drop drastically even from the 20 million down going forward in the future years anywhere $8 million and $12 million in the out years going forward, setting the dividend at the taxable income of $0.41 and because of that drop in TI commitments that will enable us to retain a significant amount of cash flow over a five year period.

Okay, great. And then I was wondering if you could talk about the cap rates for industrial acquisition in the market today. There's so much capital targeting industrial deals and how much mix will be straight acquisition versus kind of forward delta suit or development?

Well, the market still remains highly competitive, as you pointed out, there's there is a lot of capital chasing the sector. I think that our expectation at the same time is that cap rates will stay fairly steady with where they were last year. So we would expect to continue to invest - our cap rates as we did in 2018. And so that would put us anywhere in the range of between five and six and probably most active between five and a half and six.

Okay, great. And last question, at year-end I think you mentioned Will that you were 71% of gross assets in industrial. What do you think that mix looks like by the end of 2019.

I mean, it's hard to peg a specific number for year-end Sheila, because so much of that outcome is derivative of acquisition volume this year. I think as we make our way through the year, we'll be able to have a little bit more clarity around that, but we're focused on continuing to transition more and more into industrial as fast as we can. Where we are at year-end will, as I said, be a function of how many good acquisitions we can find. And as Lara mentioned there, there will be some opportunity to perhaps sell some industrial properties that what we think are eye popping prices that may slow things down a little bit. But as we make this transition, we don't want to be closed minded about capitalizing on those sorts of opportunities.

Okay, great, thank you.

Our next question comes from Craig Mailman of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey guys apologies I missed this, but the 400 million to 500 million have disposed for '19, kind of what do you think the timing is or how do you guys have a kind of layered into guidance?

We'll roll those throughout the year. This is Lara Johnson, by the way Craig and we have a heavy weight scheduled for the fourth quarter, as I mentioned with our Dow Chemical property, a candidate for the fourth quarter, but for the remainder of the pipeline of dispositions, we expect to complete those - we've already completed one and will continue to roll those throughout the year.

That's helpful. And then just on the dividend reset here. I mean, how much cushion does that give you guys to continue to sell maybe into 2020 without running into too many issues as you guys kind of recycle out of maybe some higher cap rate assets into some lower cap rate industrial kind of how does that balancing act kind of look here?

We can absorb all the dilution from all sales associated with repositioning the portfolio and still have ample coverage.

Okay. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from John Guinee of Stifel. Please go ahead.

Great, hey Pat, nice quarter by the way. Give us a little more color on guidance. Does '21, '20, '19, '18 sound right, quarter by quarter or do you think this is trending the other way?

Guidance is from - we don't give quarterly guidance and it's all dependent upon the timing of sales and how we roll those out. We've never given quarterly guidance. I don't expect any real spikes, but that's not what we - we don't give that John.

Great, thank you.

Our next question comes from Jon Petersen of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. So on the 2019 dispositions, I think Lara said you guys expect cap rates to be a little bit lower in 2019 versus 2018, I think the Dow Chemical sale is probably what's driving that down. So I don't know if you guys can help us kind of break out what the cap rates might look like with and without the Dow Chemical building and maybe just some framework around what sort of cap rate are you thinking to get on the Dow Chemical building?

Sure. So we don't want to give guidance on where we think Dow will trade because we don't want to impact the marketing efforts there. But we do think and of course, this depends on the timing and composition, the sales we ultimately complete, but we do think that we will be in line or better than 2018 both with and without Dow.

Okay, so do we should be expecting, I guess the answer is we should be expecting higher cap rates over the next three quarters and then a low cap rate disposition by the way to think about it.

Yes, that's correct.

And then Pat, on the G&A, you're talking about it trending lower throughout 2019, I guess if we think longer term, by the time you get to the fourth quarter is that kind of a run rate into 2020? And does that imply, there's probably a little bit more downside into 2020 and then we hit a floor or is 2019 the floor in G&A?

Well, I mean, there's always cost of living and professional fees always go up, but I wouldn't say it's a floor but it might be a plateau and with a slight increase, but I think it's - I think it should be indicative of going forward. I mean, when you transition into a more industrial, it just takes - it's a less costly way to operate the business.

Right. Okay. Thank you very much.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Will Eglin for any closing remarks.

Thanks, operator. We appreciate everyone joining us this morning. Please visit our website or contact Heather Gentry if you would like to receive our quarterly materials. And in addition, as always, you may contact me or the other members of senior management with any questions. Thanks again and have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.