John Hendrickson
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital. Please go with your questions
Thank you, Dennis. Good morning everyone. I just finished my second month at the company and now that I have visited nearly all of our shopping centers, I have got to know most of our team, I could not be more excited about the quality of the platform we have in terms of our markets, our assets and our personnel, all of which are important elements to continue to drive value for our shareholders. As Dennis mentioned, our focus remains on continuing to transform the portfolio. The changes we are implementing in the organization now and over the next few months will enhance value through smarter execution and a more streamlined business model. I will some of these initiatives we have already started to implement, but first I want to talk about this quarter's operating results. We continue to see strong tenant demand for our portfolio. This is reflected both, in the consisted number of lease transactions completed this quarter and the comparable cash flow overspreads of 9.1%. We also continue to see demand from best-in-class retailers, which are helping to transform our portfolio. Recent example of this, include additions of 100 square Saks OFF 5TH, one of only two in Michigan and DSW. At Mission Bay Plaza and Boca Raton, Florida, we are expanding LA Fitness and we are releasing an underperforming acre space to another best-in-class retailer that we will soon announce. Also in the works is a lease with a unique high-quality new to Michigan retailer at our West Oaks property. Look for announcements on both of these tenants in the next 60 days. While these property transformations may have a short-term impact on occupancy, we believe it is most important to drive a long-term value. At our current overall leased occupancy of over 95%, near-term, we are focus on driving growth through upgraded tenant quality, pushing rents to deliver rollover spread in the high single-digits and smart lease terms, which includes strong annual rent increases during the term and granting fewer tenant renewal options, which gives us a better control of our real estates. As the portfolio improves, we also continue to believe over the next several years we will be able to restore small shop occupancy back to near historical highs. Same center NOI growth year-to-date was a solid 2.8%, we expected the dip in the second quarter growth compared to the first quarter add with better visibility and due to the fact that we are not pushing an increase in occupancy over 2014 levels as we focus even more on bringing high quality tenants and rents to our centers. We are now tightening our same center growth average for the full year to 2.5% to 3%, without the impact of our redevelopment pipeline or of course the impact of new acquisitions like yesterday's purchased of the Heitman portfolio. While not included in same centers statistics in total 2016, the Heitman portfolio has significant embedded growth opportunities. Within the portfolio, there is $1.3 million of potential annual value in the current vacancy and an additional $300,000 of annual growth just from small shop tenants expiring over the next three years assuming our typical rent rollover. This $1.6 million of potential increase to the portfolio's annual NOI, does not include any contractual advancement [ph] any below market anchor leases including the Kmart at Crofton Centre are the several value-add opportunities within the portfolio. We are currently working to advance two of these opportunities, the multi-tenant add up addition at shops on Shops on Lane and 1.7 acre vacant development parcel at Peachtree Hill. Regarding value-added, these projects are an important part of our future growth and further identifying and implementing our opportunities has been a priority for me during these last couple of months. As you can see on Page 22 of our supplement, we added three active projects this quarter and we are currently implementing 72 million of value-added projects that are expected to stabilize over the next six quarters. These active projects are only a small portion of the significant pipeline identified within the entire portfolio. Nearly half of all properties in our portfolio have some form of identified value-add opportunity. In fact, many of our acquisitions during the last 18 months have redevelopments that we are close to staring, so you should expect to see more of these added to our active projects list in the next several quarters including projects at Deerfield Towne Center, Front Range Village and Woodbury Lakes. While company's value-add pipeline will evolve and many of these opportunities are subject to feasibility review and approvals, I certainly believe our platform can support more than our recent range of $50 million to $75 million of active projects. Therefore, we will work to grow activity in the near-term. Continued smarter execution will be necessary to get after these opportunities and produce measurable NOI and NAV growth. Starting this week, we have made a significant change to how we operate our properties. As part of an effort to streamline our decision-making process and further drive business, we aligned our operating platform to create two integrated portfolio teams. Each of these two teams are led by our Portfolio Manager, experienced at creating value at the property level and supported by a strong branch of leasing, property management, development, marketing and financial personnel with full ownership over the success of their teams and in property portfolios. We have built these teams largely with personnel already in place and do not expect our G&A to be outside the guidance we previously gave for the year. Each of these teams will be aligned around sheer goals and would be judged by their success in achieving growth and cash flow and net asset value. I am very excited about this restructure, because I believe that the best way to drive real estate value is to eliminate [ph] between disciplines and to push decisions close to the ground. I certainly expect that we will begin to see the benefits of this restructure in our operating results over the next year. In conclusion, I am energized by the long runway of opportunities we have here at the company to continue to drive value. Thanks partially to being such a nimble company. I am certainly will be able to move the needle in the meaningfully over the next couple of years and create significant value. That is all I have for the moment. Now, let me turn it over to Greg, who will provide more color on this quarter's numbers and discuss the balance sheet. Greg?