The Macerich Company (NYSE:MAC) Q4 2022 Results Conference Call February 7, 2023 1:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Samantha Greening - Director, IR

Tom O'Hern - CEO

Scott Kingsmore - Senior EVP, CFO

Doug Healey - Senior EVP, Leasing

Conference Call Participants

Derek Johnston - Deutsche Bank

Alexander Goldfarb - Piper Sandler

Craig Mailman - Citi

Craig Schmidt - Bank of America

Floris Van Dijkum - Compass Point

Greg McGinniss - Scotiabank

Ki Bin Kim - Truist

Linda Tsai - Jefferies

Mike Mueller - JP Morgan

Todd Thomas - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Ronald Kamden - Morgan Stanley

Samir Khanal - Evercore ISI

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Macerich Company Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Samantha Greening. You may begin.

Samantha Greening

Thank you for joining us on our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. During the course of this call, we will be making certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking within the meaning of the Safe Harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding projections, plans, or future expectations.

Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks and uncertainties set forth in today's press release and our SEC filings, including the adverse impact of the novel coronavirus on the U.S., regional and global economies and the financial condition and results of operations of the Company and its tenants.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release and supplemental filed on Form 8-K with the SEC, which are posted in the Investors section of the company's web site at Macerich.com.

Joining us today are Tom O'Hern, Chief Executive Officer; Scott Kingsmore, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Doug Healey, Senior Executive Vice President of Leasing.

And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Tom.

Tom O'Hern

Thank you, Samantha. We are pleased to report another strong quarter with the majority of our operating metrics continuing to trend very positively. After a solid first 3 quarters of '22, we had a very strong fourth quarter. We saw robust retailer demand. And although tenant sales were flat in the fourth quarter versus a very strong fourth quarter of '21, we were up 3% for the year.

Our average sales per square foot for tenants under 10,000 square feet was $869, a 7% increase over 2021. We continue to see traffic at about 95% of pre-COVID levels, but tenant sales are exceeding pre-pandemic levels with year-to-date sales up 13% compared to the same period in 2019. The quarter continued to reflect retailer demand that is at a level that we have not seen since before the great financial crisis.