Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:PECO) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 9, 2024 12:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Kimberly Green - Head of Investor Relations

Jeff Edison - Chief Executive Officer

Bob Myers - President

John Caulfield - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Devin Murphy - Managing Director, Investment Management

Conference Call Participants

Caitlin Burrows - Goldman Sachs

Tayo Okusanya - Deutsche Bank

Lizzy Doykan - Bank of America

Todd Thomas - KeyBanc

Adam Kramer - Morgan Stanley

Juan Sanabria - BMO Capital Markets

Haendel St. Juste - Mizuho

Dori Kesten - Wells Fargo

Hong Zhang - J.P Morgan

Paulina Rojas - Green Street

Operator

Good day, and welcome to Phillips Edison & Company's Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 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'm joined on this call by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison; our President, Bob Myers; our Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield; and our Managing Director of Investment Management, Devin Murphy. 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After today's call, an archived version will be published on our website.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'll 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 to 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'd 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 in 2023 continued our track record of delivering strong growth. Same center NOI increased 4.2%, the Nareit FFO increased 6.7% and core FFO increased 5.2%. The continued strong performance of our portfolio is driven by our high occupancy, strong leasing spreads, high retention, and the many advantages of the suburban markets where we operate our neighborhood shopping centers. The operating environment remains strong with a resilient consumer. Retailers want to be located in our centers, where our grocers drive consistent and recurring foot traffic.