The Macerich Company (NYSE:MAC) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call October 31, 2023 1:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Samantha Greening - Director Investor Relations
Tom O’Hern - Chief Executive Officer
Scott Kingsmore - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Doug Healey - Senior Executive Vice President, Leasing
Conference Call Participants
Greg McGinnis - Scotiabank
Jeffrey Spector - Bank of America Securities
Samir Khanal - Evercore ISI
Floris van Dijkum - Compass Point
Alexander Goldfarb - Piper Sandler
Hongliang Zhang - JPMorgan
Caitlin Burrows - Goldman Sachs
Ronald Kamdem - Morgan Stanley
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2023 Macerich Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Samantha Greening, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Samantha Greening
Thank you for joining us on our third quarter 2023 earnings call. During the course of this call, we'll 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.
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 website 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.
With that, I turn the call over to Tom.
Tom O’Hern
Thank you, Samantha. It was another strong quarter for us. Leasing volumes continued at a record level. We had a 130 basis point gain in occupancy compared to a year ago and 80 basis points gain over the last quarter. That brings our occupancy at quarter end to 93.4% and we are getting very close to our pre-pandemic level of 94%.
We continue to see real strength in the leasing environment. On the heels of a very strong leasing result in '22, the '23 leasing environment has been robust. Store openings are accelerating. During the third quarter of '23, we opened nearly 500,000 square feet more than during the third quarter of '22. That included SCHEELS Sporting Goods at Chandler Fashion Center, Life Time at Broadway Plaza, Target at Kings Plaza and Primark at Green Acres Mall. Across many categories, leasing demand is at levels we have never seen before. So, the densification and diversification of our high quality portfolio of town centers continues.