Greetings and welcome to the Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust first quarter 2009 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dawn Hendershot, Director of Investor Relations for Ramco-Gershenson. Thank you, Ms. Hendershot. You may begin.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust first quarter 2009 conference call. I’m hopeful that everyone received our press release and supplemental financial package, which are available on our website at www.rgpt.com. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although, Ramco-Gershenson believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statement are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be obtained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ from expectations are detailed in the press release and from time-to-time in the company’s filings with the SEC. Additionally, we want to let everyone know that the information and statements made during the call are made as of the date of this call. Listeners to any replay should understand that the passage of time by itself will diminish the quality of the statements made. Also the contents of the call are the property of the company and any replay or transmission of the call maybe done only with the consent of Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust. I’d now like to introduce the participants for today’s call. Here with us today are Dennis Gershenson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard Smith, Chief Financial Officer, Thomas Litzler, Executive Vice President of Development and Michael Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Asset Management. At this time I’d like to turn the call over to Dennis, for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Dawn. Good morning and welcome. There are two subjects I’d like to cover over the next 10 minutes or so, first our successes in asset management over the last 90 days and second, our plan and progress on improving the balance sheet. I’m pleased to report that we exceeded first call estimates for the quarter achieving $0.56 per share. Even more important than this one number however, are the results of our asset management team’s efforts in maintaining our occupancy ratio, their achievements in retaining existing retailers, who are renewing their leases at expiration, their progress in securing the execution of new tenant leases during these challenging times and their stewardship of our other operating metrics. Our performance in these four areas has been quite strong, not withstanding current market conditions. Our asset management goal for the quarter and the year are primarily to maintain an occupancy ratio above 90%, renew over 75% of expiring leases, aggressively fill existing vacancies both large and small with retailers that complement our tenant mix, control and reduce center operating costs, which directly benefit our tenants and advance our planned redevelopments, which will have a dramatic and positive impact on our net operating income over the next 18 months. You’ll note from our supplement that our portfolio wide occupancy rate stands at 90.9% as of March, 31. Although, we feel that even more significant statistic is a same center comparison, those analysts who cover Ramco have focused on the portfolio-wide number, which includes centers currently under redevelopment and therefore are in various stages of completion. Using this portfolio wide metric, our first quarter occupancy number remains relatively consistent with the 2008 year end figure of 91.3%. It is important to note that our March, 31 occupancy rate, includes the impact of all…

Thank you, Dennis and good morning everyone. For the quarter, our diluted FFO per share was $0.56, which was inline with our business plan and exceeded first call estimates by $0.01. This represented a $0.06 decrease compared to the $0.62 reported in 2008. As we outlined in our year end conference call, the decrease was anticipated. It was a result of contributions of assets to off balance sheet joint ventures in 2008, reductions in acquisition and development fees, restructuring costs, lost revenues due to the closing of Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things, as well as taking assets offline for redevelopment. Our 99% operating expense recovery ratio was slightly above plan due to adjustments to actual for billing accruals made in 2008. As 2009 normalizes, we expect a recovery ratio to between 97% and 98%. Our $4.1 million G&A expense included restructuring costs. The expense for the quarter was at plan and is tracking our expectations of between $14.5 million and $15 million for the year. Even in this challenging environment we feel our debt is manageable. Through December, 2010, we have only four significant debt maturities. Our $23.4 million loan secured by West Oaks II and Spring Meadows is leveraged approximately 35%. We feel we could either refinance the centers and generate approximately $15 million of net proceeds or extend the loans with Travelers. After exercising our two six month extension options, our $40 million facilities secured by Aquia project, matures in December, 2010. We expect to repay the loan by placing permanent debt on the office building and by using net proceeds generated from the sale of the project to an off balance sheet joint venture. Lastly, after exercising extension options, our $100 million term loan and $150 million revolver mature in December, 2010. As Dennis mentioned, we’re…

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Rich Moore - RBC Capital Markets.

Dennis, anyhow you look at this about and I realize you’re working hard on it, but about half of your debt comes due between now and the end of 2010 and I’m wondering, a lot of other companies have gone out and issued equity and I’m wondering if that is a potential option for you guys to, even though I realize you’re working each of the pieces and then you have ideas for each of the pieces, but just as a general sort of delevering, is equity a possibility here?

Well, one of the good things about being a public company obviously is that, you have a whole variety of arrows in your quiver, in order to advance your business plan and to delever the balance sheet. So that, equity is always a possibility, we have discussed this with the board. Obviously, we’re advancing our review of our financial and strategic alternatives and I think that, what would be important is to truly know which direction we’re headed in and based upon those conclusions then we would address, a variety of additional issues. So I can’t really give you a specific answer, because we are in the process of this review, but as you’ve seen the pending extension of the revolver and term loan as well as the asset sales, we are indeed focused on strengthening the balance sheet.

I know this sound’s like a silly question and maybe it is, but when would the process that you guys are doing with the board? When would that be complete, if you will or at a point where you think you could discuss it more openly?

I think I use the words as quickly as practical.

If I figured, it was a silly question, okay. That’s fair.

Rich, none of your questions are ever silly.

Now on the lender side, I mean you said some pretty positive things. I mean which characterize the environment with lending officers as having improved over the last six, seven months or over the last few months or how would you characterize the environment with the lenders?

It’s certainly nowhere where it’s been, but I think we’re starting to get calls, we’re starting to get interest in some properties and we put out in the marketplace. Basically all of our unencumbered assets with a number of brokers and lenders and then really looking at that and then I’ve been surprised that there’s been a lot of interest into a lot of our higher quality properties you can expect, even the properties in Michigan and I expect to proceed with negotiations on some loans there. So that’s to me very positive where if you looked at a few months ago it was hard to even get a call back so, optimistic about that.

I think just to amplify that, just a little bit. I think that we are seeing this change probably in the last 30 days. So it’s an extremely recent event.

Has there been any impact, Dennis from the slowing down of the developments. I mean any tenants who lost interest as a result or just any impact at all to the fact that you pulled back the reins on the development pipeline?

Well, what’s happened is that we have found that many of the retailers who have been interested in our development sites continue to be interested in the development sites. It’s just that any schedules that they have had that were more aggressive relative to openings in 2010 have all been pushed back. As we said in our last conference call, we will continue to work on the entitlements and we will continue to work on our relationships with the anchor tenants to mature those so that when the time is appropriate we’ll have all of the critical elements that are necessary to make a development happen, which would include a joint venture partner and financing.

Okay. Then the last thing from me in that every line, what are you hearing from potential joint venture partners either for developments or for possibly taking some of your assets and rather than selling them directly joint venturing those?

Well, we continue to talk to the same group of people that we were talking to before. Some have money; others are in the process of putting funds together. I think there’s some degree of hesitancy in the marketplace as everybody wonders, if they made a deal today, will they look brilliant or will they look foolish? So, I think that a lot of people continue to at least tread some water, but as far as where we would go in the future that’s, okay because the marketplace is still very uncertain and so, we’ll continue to be very focused on improving the core portfolio. We expect in the second quarter to be able to talk about more successes with the core portfolio with our redevelopments and then these other things will come in time.

Your next question comes from Nathan Isbee - Stifel Nicolaus.

Dennis, I have to tell you that I haven’t got much to ask about. When you. When you talk about these asset sales, the one that you have on the contract and the other ones you’re targeting, it clearly is going to free up some capital. You mentioned that it was at attractive prices. Can you just give a little more detail on what you’re seeing with that?

Yes. Our cap rates that we’re seeing are somewhere between 7.5 and 8 in a quarter. We are in contract with a number in that range, I just gave you.

Okay and when you as the acquired you talk about building, another office building there. What type of targeted hurdle rates would you look for before you started construction even if you had the pre-leasing?

Well, again understand that we wouldn’t do anything. The first time anybody would put a shovel in the ground it would be only after securing a joint venture partner and that joint venture partner would say go, but the people that we’re talking to are looking at an unlevered return of approximately 10%.

Final question, this movie deal, you just signed in Georgia, looking at your supplemental it says you’re only spending about $4 million there. Can you talk a little bit about the economics on that deal?

Well, first of all the $4 million includes money that we plan to spend on the fascia of the center. So, it’s in addition to our contribution and it’s in the form of an allowance to the movie operator. So, the $4 million will completely reface the entire shopping center and based upon this commitment because we’ve been talking to a number of ancillary tenants. There is significant new interest in retailers coming into the center, not now that we are in a position to announce another new anchor.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing comments.

Thank you all very much for your attention. We look forward to talking to you on a number of topics in the near future. Have a great day.