Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:PECO) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call November 1, 2023 12:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Kimberly Green - Head, IR

Jeff Edison - Chairman and CEO

Devin Murphy - President

John Caulfield - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Caitlin Burrows - Goldman Sachs

Jeff Spector - Bank of America

Mike Mueller - JP Morgan

Haendel St. Juste - Mizuho

Juan Sanabria - BMO Capital Markets

Todd Thomas - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Floris van Dijkum - Compass Point Research and Trading

Ron Kamdem - Morgan Stanley

Dori Kesten - Wells Fargo

Paulina Rojas - Green Street

Operator

Good day, and welcome to Phillips Edison & Company’s Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to Kimberly Green, Head of Investor Relations. Kimberly, you may begin.

Kimberly Green

Thank you, operator. I am joined on this call by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison; our President, Devin Murphy; and our Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield. Once we conclude our prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A. After today’s call, an archived version will be published on our website.

As a reminder, today’s discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the Company’s view of future business and financial performance, including forward earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on management’s current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, specifically in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q.

In our discussion today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings press release and supplemental information packet, which have been posted on our website. Please note that we have also posted a presentation with additional information. Our caution on forward-looking statements also applies to these materials.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?

Jeff Edison

Thank you, Kim, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today.

The PECO team delivered another solid quarter of growth with same-center NOI increasing by 3.2% and continued strength in portfolio occupancy and rent spreads. This performance has allowed us to reaffirm the midpoint and tighten the range of our 2023 core FFO guidance. The midpoint represents year-over-year growth of 2.6 %, despite interest expense headwinds of $0.10 per share. We believe we will continue to deliver positive earnings growth despite interest expense and other macro headwinds. The continued strength of our operating performance is attributable to our differentiated and focused strategy of exclusively owning grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers anchored by the number one or two grocer by sales in a market, and our ability to drive results at the property level through our integrated and cycle-tested operating platform.