Whitestone REIT (NYSE:WSR) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 7, 2024 8:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Dave Holeman - CEO & Director
Scott Hogan - CFO
Christine Mastandrea - COO
David Mordy - IR
Conference Call Participants
Mitch Germain - Citizens JMP Securities
Anthony Hau - Truist Securities
Barry Oxford - Colliers Securities
John Massocca - B. Riley Securities
Michael Diana - Maxim Group
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to the Whitestone REIT Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. David Mordy, Director of Investor Relations for Whitestone REIT. Thank you. You may begin.
David Mordy
Good morning, and thank you for joining Whitestone REIT's fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. On today's call are Dave Holeman, Chief Executive Officer, Christine Mastandrea, Chief Operating Officer, and Scott Hogan, Chief Financial Officer.
Please note that some statements made during this call are not historical and may be deemed forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements due to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Please refer to the company's earnings news release and filings with the SEC, including Whitestone's most recent Form 10-Q and 10-K for a detailed discussion of these factors. Acknowledging the fact that this call may be webcast for a period of time, it is also important to note that this call includes time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date, March 7, 2024. The company undertakes no obligation to update this information. Whitestone's fourth quarter earnings news release and supplemental operating and financial data package have been filed with the SEC and are available on our website in the Investor Relations section. We published fourth quarter 2023 earnings slides on our website yesterday afternoon, which highlight topics to be discussed today.
I will now turn the call over to Dave Holeman, our Chief Executive Officer.
Dave Holeman
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I'll break my comments into three parts. First, what we've done, second, ongoing initiatives that continue to drive value, and finally, how our core strategy thinks very well with the current environment. I'll get straight into it. In terms of what we've done, this management team began in January of 2022, so we're two years into our run. Here's a high-level list of our accomplishments. Core FFO per share has grown from $0.86 in 2021 to $0.91 for 2023. This is despite higher interest costs, primarily as we renewed and extended our credit facility in the third quarter of 2022. With that in place until 2027, we anticipate a higher earnings trajectory ahead of us. I’ll have Scott cover our projections in greater detail. We've rapidly improved our balance sheet metrics, bringing our debt to EBITDAre down from 9.2x for the fourth quarter of 2021, to 7.5x for the fourth quarter of 2023. This is despite significant litigation expense impacting our numbers. We've focused and prioritized our disciplined leasing efforts on high quality tenants, resulting in record occupancy in our portfolio, up 290 basis points from 91.3% at year-end 2021, to 94.2% at year-end 2023. Breaking this down further, we've grown our small space occupancy by 320 basis points to 92.1%, and our larger space occupancy has grown by 200 basis points to 97.5%. We had same-store net operating income growth of 7.9% in 2022, followed by 2.7% in 2023. Scott and Christine will provide more detail on this important metric later in the call.