Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Crombie REIT 's Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 7, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kara Cameron, Chief Financial Officer of Crombie. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good day, everyone. We would like to welcome you to Crombie REIT 's Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call and Webcast. Thank you for joining us. This call is being recorded in live audio and is available on our website at www.crombie.ca. Slides to accompany today's call are available on the investors section of our website under presentations and events. Joining me on the call today are Mark Holly, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Arie Bitton, Executive Vice President, Leasing and Operations. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements. We want to caution you that such statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs. These forward-looking statements are subject to uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Please see our public filings, including our management's discussion and analysis, and annual information form for a discussion of these risk factors. Our discussion will also include expected yield on costs for capital expenditures. Please refer to the development section of our management's discussion and analysis for additional information on assumptions and risks. I will now turn the call over to Mark to discuss Crombie 's strategy and outlook. Thank you, Kara, and good morning, everyone. Crombie's second quarter results demonstrated the continued momentum and further solidified our position as an essential REIT. In a dynamic market environment, our strategy delivered exceptional performance, substantiating our disciplined approach and reinforcing the value of our coast-to-coast necessity-based retail portfolio. Our value creation is built on three pillars: own and operate, optimize, and partners. These pillars guide our approach and capital allocation, and they delivered solid results this quarter. Let me drill into our performance across each pillar. First, under own and operate, our grocery-anchored retail platform remains the foundation of our success. At the end of the second quarter, 83% of our annual minimum rent was derived from necessity-based tenants, and committed occupancy reached 97.2%, the third consecutive quarter of record highs. Our disciplined and proactive approach to operational excellence and lease management continues to underpin performance, and we remain well positioned to maintain solid occupancy levels throughout the remainder of the year. Same asset property cash NOI grew 2.8%, with year-to-date performance at 3.0% at the top end of our target range. These results were driven by embedded rent step-ups, solid renewal spreads, and new leasing activities. Our renewal spreads of 10.8%, up from 10% in the first quarter, reflect the continued demand for our properties across all markets. These operational results translate directly into our cash flow performance in the quarter, with FFO per unit growing 6.3% year-over-year and AFFO per unit growing by 7.1%. Located at the center of thriving communities across Canada, our properties generate consistent traffic and repeat visits. This steady engagement makes them highly valued by retailers, leading to sustained tenant demand and contributing to our portfolio's resilience through economic cycles. Portfolio management remains central to our ownership strategy. Through a disciplined approach to capital allocation, we continuously evaluate a portfolio to ensure our assets create unitholder value. This quarter, we acquired four grocery properties in Atlantic Canada, totaling 146,000 square feet, for a combined purchase price of CAD 21.2 million. We also sold our 140,000 sq ft Main Street office property in Moncton, New Brunswick, for CAD 8.5 million and completed a strategic land swap at our Barrington Street development site in Halifax. These transactions reflect our ongoing commitment to strategically curating a portfolio that focuses on long-term stability, sustainable growth, and value creation by recycling from underperforming into high-quality necessity-based retail properties. We are also focused on unlocking embedded value through targeted investments within our portfolio and advancing entitlements and development opportunities, which is the objective of our second value driver, Optimize. This quarter, we expanded our investments in non-major developments. We completed 11 modernizations and continued to advance projects totaling CAD 41.6 million, with an estimated CAD 12 million remaining to complete. These current initiatives are expected to deliver yields between 6% and 7% and are designed to enhance asset performance and support long-term income growth while maintaining a disciplined and efficient approach to capital allocation. Our approach to major development activities remains thoughtful and deliberate, which is particularly important in today's market. This quarter, we achieved several zoning milestones across our entitlement pipeline, including rezoning approval for Broadway & Commercial in Vancouver. In our Toronto properties, we secured zoning approval for Toronto East, submitted an application for Danforth, and continue on advancing planning at McAllen and Elsmere. Our approach to capital allocation remains flexible yet deliberate. We maintain a structure that enables us to invest opportunistically across acquisitions, non-major developments, and major development initiatives based on return profiles. This balanced strategy positions us to remain agile in responding to market opportunities while creating consistent long-term value for our unitholders. Looking at our third value creation pillar, Partner, the Empire relationship remains our foundational partnership and continues to be a significant advantage. We are pleased to have deepened our relationship with our acquisition in the second quarter. Additionally, our investments in modernizations with Empire improve asset quality, increase rental income, and create a halo effect that extends to other tenants at these properties. As I discussed last quarter, we've been expanding our partnerships beyond this foundation through our new joint ventures with Montez in Halifax and Wesg roup in Greater Vancouver. These programmatic partnerships deliver immediate value, stabilize cash flow through management and development fees, accretion to FFO, and the ability to unlock value from high potential assets without constraining our capacity to make core retail investments. These partnerships contributed CAD 2.4 million to revenue from management and development services in the quarter. We expect this revenue stream to contribute at similar levels each quarter over multiple years, providing a solid baseline of recurring cash flow. Last night, we announced a CAD 0.01 increase to our annual distribution. This important milestone reflects the stability of our platform, the discipline of our strategy, and the strength of our balance sheet. Over the years, Crombie has maintained steady distributions through a range of economic cycles while growing FFO and AFFO and meaningfully reducing its payout ratios. This increase signals a continued commitment to dependable long-term growth. Our prudent approach to capital allocation, investing in grocery-anchored retail, optimizing our portfolio, and deepening our existing partnerships while forming new ones continues to generate accretive growth for our unitholders, which is underpinned by our financial strength and our commitment to people and culture. With that, I'll turn the call back to Kara to walk through our financial results. Thank you, Mark. Our second quarter financial results reflect the strength of our platform and the consistency of our execution. The numbers tell a clear story. We continue to deliver on our strategic priorities while maintaining disciplined capital allocation and a strong, flexible balance sheet. Let's start with quarterly earnings. Funds from operations per unit grew by 6.3% year-over-year, and adjusted funds from operations per unit increased by 7.1%. This growth was driven by strong leasing performance, rent escalations, and recurring revenue from our strategic partnerships. We also benefited from the full-year consolidation of the Davie Street residential property this quarter versus Q2 of last year, following our acquisition of the remaining 50% interest in the fourth quarter of 2024, as well as lease termination income. Property revenue increased by 6.4% in the second quarter, supported by acquisitions, new leasing activity, and contributions from both lease terminations and the Davie Street residential consolidation, as previously mentioned. Building on Mark's comments, we continue to see healthy demand for well-located grocery-anchored retail, and our leasing team has done an excellent job at capturing that demand. Revenue from management and development services totaled CAD 3.3 million in the second quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to CAD 4.4 million. Approximately CAD 2.4 million in the quarter was directly attributable to our Montez and Wesg roup partnerships. We expect these programmatic relationships to contribute at similar levels each quarter throughout the entitlement process, with potential upside beyond this baseline as additional projects advance with our partners. Management and development service revenue over and above the amount related to these partnerships in the quarter was generated from various projects with Empire. During 2024, we recorded CAD 2.1 million in deferred revenue related to development management services provided to a third party. Our performance obligations were completed subsequent to the quarter, and the full amount will be recognized in our third quarter. Joint venture earnings were a bit softer this quarter, primarily reflecting higher operating expenses at Bronte related to suite turnover repairs and bad debt. These pressures were partially offset by lower finance costs following the CMHC financing we put in place last year. Performance at Le Duke remains strong, with stable occupancy and solid rental performance. Across the residential joint venture portfolio, rental rates had held steady, and the assets continued to perform well in their respective markets. Turning to expenses, G&A represented 5.3% of revenue, consistent with the first quarter. Excluding employee transition costs and unit-based compensation, G&A was 3.9% compared to 3.8% in the first quarter of 2025, reflecting a normalized run rate. Turning to finance costs, interest expense was higher year-over-year, primarily reflecting the net issuance of senior unsecured notes in 2024. This increase was partially offset by lower interest on our credit facilities, driven by reduced average loan balances. Overall, our financing strategy continues to support our growth while maintaining discipline on spending. Our balance sheet remains strong and flexible. Debt to EBITDA stands at 7.84 x, while our payout ratios are 66.5% for FFO and 75.1% for AFFO. We maintain ample liquidity with CAD 678 million in available capital and CAD 3.9 billion in unencumbered assets. We continue to proactively manage our debt maturity ladder, focusing on fixed-rate financing and unsecured structures to ensure stability and consistency. As of June 30th, 98% of our debt carried fixed rates, 61% of our debt was unsecured, and our weighted average term to maturity was four and a half years. During the quarter, we received a credit rating upgrade, which reflects the strength of our balance sheet and our disciplined approach to leverage and liquidity management. This upgrade enhances our long-term funding flexibility and supports our ability to access capital at attractive rates, further reinforcing our commitment to prudent financial management. This was a strategic objective we set for ourselves, and I am very pleased that our team's focused execution delivered this important milestone. As Mark mentioned, we were active on the acquisition and disposition fronts during the quarter. Let me flag a few key accounting items related to those transactions. The strategic land swap at our Barrington Street development site in Halifax resulted in a CAD 5.4 million gain, as the fair value of Barrington Street lands exceeded its cost. Main Street Office disposition in Moncton generated CAD 8.5 million in proceeds, with CAD 3.8 million provided as a zero-interest vendor takeback financing repayable over three years. This disposition had a positive impact on occupancy in the quarter of approximately 20 basis points and had minimal impact on our NOI. As announced last quarter, the milestone sale into our joint venture with Montez was completed in the second quarter. With that, I'll turn it back over to Mark for closing remarks. Thanks, Kara. Looking ahead, we remain focused on executing the fundamentals that drive long-term value, growing FFO and AFFO through operational excellence and disciplined leasing, maintaining high occupancies across our portfolio, and delivering attractive return on invested capital. We will continue advancing our entitlement pipeline, investing in non-major development initiatives, pursuing strategic acquisitions that strengthen our essential retail portfolio, and expanding partnerships that create value while preserving financial flexibility. Prior to closing, I'd like to highlight the release of our 2024 Environmental, Social, and Governance Report last night. Our latest reports reflect the depth of our commitment to sustainability and our people. With that, we'll open the lines for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you do have a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. If you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speaker phone, please lift your handset before pressing any keys. One moment for your first question. Your first question comes from Sam Damiani with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Congrats everyone on a good quarter. The leasing commentary obviously sounds very, very positive. Just wondering if there's any change in tone in your leasing discussions and your outlook since last quarter, and if there's any new retailers of concern on your watchlist. Morning, Sam. It's Arie. I would say that the general theme over the last quarter continues to be the same as it was last quarter. Demand has grown strong. Our tenant conversations indicate that there's still many tenants in growth mode and expansion mode, and we're looking to see how we can fit those into our portfolio. With respect to our tenant watchlist, as we said before, we actually see that as more of a benefit. If you think about the Landforce PV Mart disruption, that actually left us with a tenant replacement with zero rent interruption and more than a six-figure uplift in NOI on that particular one. Like we say, some of these potential tenant watchouts are great for our portfolio. There's a number of tenants that have been on our watchlist. [Claire's] announced yesterday for us that's a one-location tenancy at Avalon Mall, and we've got plenty of interest there. Should they leave, we understand it's one of their better stores. Again, we monitor these tenancies, but there's nothing of note since last quarter. Thanks, Arie. That's super helpful. Just on the lease termination fee income, CAD 2.7 million in the quarter, I didn't catch if there was some detail behind that, if it was one tenant or a bunch of smaller amounts. Hi, it's Kara. It was actually a bit of deferred revenue that we had on the balance sheet that we were actively pulling down over time in relation to the lease term. When we sold the property, we relieved the balance sheet of that deferred revenue, which led to that termination income increase. Got it, okay. Okay, last one for me, just on Broadway & Commercial. I think it's been an active file this year. Anything new or, you know, in terms of your plans and what you plan to do with that particular project? Hey, Sam. It's Mark. Hey, Mark. Hi. We are pretty proud that we were able to get it zoning approved. That happened in the quarter. We still got a little ways to go, though, to get it enacted. As we called out, we have about, you know, six months plus to go to get it enacted. We continue to work with our partner. The good news is the asset continues to generate revenue for us as it's on the Crombie books. It has an active grocery store on it. At this point, we're evaluating. We're working on some underwriting, but we're definitely not shovel-ready at any point in the near future because we still have a bit of ways to go here. We're still working through it. Super. Thanks very much. I'll turn it back. Thanks, Sam. Your next question comes from Lorne Kalmar with Desjardins. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning. Maybe just on the development fee side, obviously great to see it bump up this quarter, and based on your commentary, it sounds like it's going to stay there for a little while. I think last quarter you talked about the development fee increases being offset by G&A in 2025. Is that still the case, or now with the higher revenues, that's no longer the case? Hey, Lorne. It's Mark. We did talk about it last quarter that we were taking an increase in the G&A, and Kara talked about it on the prepared remarks that, you know, we've reached the spot where we're running in around just above 5%, and that is reflective of the extra expenses we're taking on. As those employees were once being capitalized for the project, I no longer will be able to because they're within the joint ventures, and we're performing services for those joint ventures. What you're seeing now is probably a good run rate to carry for the rest of the year. Okay, perfect. Thank you for that. You guys had a little bit of an uptick in rent growth on the leasing side this quarter. Obviously, one quarter's a big trend, but you guys think you can keep pushing higher? Is sort of the, you know, 10%, 11% levels where you think you're tapped out? Hi, Lorne. Obviously, for us, the last number of years, historically, we've been more in the mid to high single digits. Very proud of what the team's been able to push through. I would say that it's one of the current signals as to how the market's doing. We believe that just given today's discussions, we can sustain that for some time. How long that lasts, we don't know. Like I said, right now, all indicators are that tenants have a healthy appetite for our space. Okay, that's very helpful. Just last one for me. On the acquisition side, you guys managed to tuck in a couple this quarter. What's the outlook for the balance of the year in 2026? We were able to acquire four grocery properties, all with an Empire banner on it, which we're pretty proud of. It made an acquisition of about CAD 20 million to that sort of allocation of capital. Where we can invest in core inline, we're going to. As we look back into the rest of 2025 and look forward to 2026, we'd like to acquire more grocery-anchored. There's a lot of other folks that would like to continue to acquire grocery-anchored. We're being selective, making sure it fits into the portfolio effectively, making sure that there's a potential further upside once we acquire it through modernizations and intensification. The acquisition team is out there and trying to uncover opportunities for us. We continue to work on it. It's a focus for us. We'd like to do more. Okay, that was very helpful. I will turn it back. Your next question comes from Brad Sturges with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning. Just following on the line of questioning there, just on acquisitions, with what got completed in the quarter with the four assets in Lincoln, any more color in terms of the going in cap rate or comments around lease term and rents versus in-place rents versus market would be helpful. Good morning, Brad. To give you a bit of color, all were bought, and they all had market rental rates attached to them based on our analysis of our other properties and where they sat in the rental ladder. In terms of cap rates, we don't disclose individual cap rates, but if you look within the MVNA and our ROC cap rates, that's generally reflective of where these landed. We're pretty proud of what we were able to get there. They'll be accretive to FFO right away. They support our strategy of grocery-anchored. As we've called out, these locations are only one building, and they're only occupied by a grocer. Our view is we're agnostic to where that is in the country because of the relationship that we have with Empire and some of the insights that we're able to do through modernizations and intensification. We think there's further upside on all four. Over time, we'll be able to reinvest through modernizations. In terms of contractual rent step-ups, they're fairly consistent with the rest of our portfolio. Term commitments are fairly consistent with our WALT. They have renewal options. We're pretty happy that we're able to tuck these in. Okay. My other question relates to the distribution increase decision. Good to see. Just wanted to maybe get a little bit of extra color in terms of the Board's decision-making in terms of what factors were at play at landing at the new distribution rate and ultimately deciding now is the time to increase the distribution. Yeah, we're pretty happy we were able to put that out last night. Definitely, distributions have been a part of our consideration over the last couple of years. What I would say is the strategy, if you step back, what are we strategically focused on? We're focused on growing FFO. Over the last few years, we've really pushed that. We're giving healthy numbers. We see good growth in that. Our payout ratio is now in the mid-60% for FFO. We're at a really healthy level that allowed us to increase the distribution, to do a distribution increase. When we step back and look at our allocation of capital, we think this is a good use of capital to return that to unitholders. We also look at other parts of how we deploy the capital. Buying for grocery-anchored locations is also part of that strategy. That was some of the thinking that went into it. It definitely is a part of our view as we consider our allocation of capital. In terms of just the distribution policy going forward, is it the plan as you continue to grow FFO to become more of an annual distribution increase? Is that FFO payout of mid-60% the target you have in mind going forward? There's no internal policy on distribution increases, Brad, but what I can say is based on the trends that we've been seeing with our FFO growth and the payout ratios, distribution increases are absolutely a part of the consideration each year. Great. Thank you. Your next question comes from Michael Markidis with BMO. Please go ahead. Thanks, operator. Good morning, everybody. Just wanted to circle back. I know this is last quarter's news, but just, you know, the strategic partnerships that you've got both in Montez and Wesgroup. It's quite clear what the benefits are in the near term to Crombie, just with respect to earning development fees and sharing of the capital expenses. Maybe if you could just circle back and give us some more color in terms of the longer-term opportunity costs and what the partner is gaining that you're sort of kitting up in exchange for those benefits in the near term. Thank you. Hey, Michael. Look, to your point, we're proud that we were able to stand up those two partnerships. We've talked about partnerships as one of our strategic pillars. They're in Atlantic Canada with Montez. They're three. We were able to sell 50% of an active development construction site, and from that, you know, we're able to take some proceeds in. We're able to clip some fees today, and then they'll share, obviously, in the upside as we lease it up and get it stabilized. For Barrington and Brunswick, we're going to lead those development initiatives. We're going to get paid, as you've called out, through fees. The upside for them is that they'll be able to participate if we decide to pull the trigger and advance into the development. The advancement for Montez is now they've got interest in three core retail assets, our residential assets in and around our retail platform. For Wesgroup, we've always talked about our grocery locations in Vancouver as some of the best real estate in Vancouver. They are all active sites with grocery on it. When we look at that, we look at it from finding a partner that can come in with some expertise to help us in that market, come in with a balance sheet to help us soften the blow. The upside for them is now they've got optionality to participate in a development that they otherwise would not have been able to get access to. For us, it's all the benefits we've talked about in the past. These are providing flexibility, optionality, bringing higher invest use value to these properties while we continue to hold them on our balance sheet, collect rental income. We're being mindful of our strategic partner with Empire and making sure that we do the right things in terms of when they're going to redevelop the site. There's a lot of benefits near term and long term. Okay, thanks for that. Let's say you don't build and you decide to monetize, does that mean the partner benefits from 50% of the density value? There's formulas in the contracts that if we decide to pause on putting a shovel in the ground, maybe because market conditions are not right, or if one party would like to advance versus the other. I can't go into the details of it, Michael, but there are mechanisms that the partner or either partner can walk away. It is not at the fair value of what it is going to be entitled at or the value that is created at it. There is some formula in it that protects Crombie. Okay, thanks for that. I appreciate it. Thanks. Your next question comes from Tal Woolley with CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon, or good morning, sorry. I just, again, on the partnerships, what sort of due diligence are you doing on the prospective partners, particularly financially, before you sign these things? Morning, Tal. Extensive due diligence. We have a very robust process that has oversights, controls, risk profiles. It involves all aspects within our business, from the marketing team to the people and culture team to our leasing and ops team, finance team. We also retained support from financial institutions outside that helped us validate who these partners are. As we've called out, we use Scotiabank for Atlantic Canada and BMO for Western Canada. We went through a very rigorous process looking at who's out there, what activities have they been in, the longevity of their platform, the people behind it, their strategic intents, do they line up with our cultures and our values. What I'm trying to illustrate is it was exceptionally extensive, which took some time. We weren't in a rush, so we want to be very selective on who we picked. We landed on Montez and Wesgroup, and we're really excited that we're forming partnerships with them because we think they're best in class. Okay. I appreciate you giving, you know, sort of a little bit of outlook there on fees going forward. I guess one of the things that I'm just interested in is exactly like what are the triggers for fees being earned? Are these, you know, like milestone payments? Is it just an ongoing, you know, monthly payment, or is it billable hours? How do sort of these fees get recognized? What are the triggers? Hi, it's Kara. These are ongoing paid-for performance arrangements. As we actively work through the entitlement process or the construction process, in the case of the milestone, it is more of a continuous payment plan. Would that be based on invested capital or just? Paid for performance. No, paid for service. Yes. Okay. Got it. Just on the credit rating upgrade, do you have an estimate of what you think the savings are that you can achieve now? Do you think it opens up a material that makes a difference in terms of debt availability for Crombie? Yeah, good question. I think we were already achieving some of the benefits of the upgrade when we were going out to the market for our debenture raises. There may be some tightening there that we will be privileged by. It is about achieving unsecured pricing on our bank lines. That upgrade allowed us to have pricing more similar to what we were getting from a secured basis pre-upgrade. What is the amount? I mean, we've kind of said within the 25 basis point spread differential on some of that. That ebbs and flows, obviously. The additional thing I think that you asked too is we really have a low amount of floating rate debt. We're at the 2% mark right now. The upside will be more in the future. We don't have a locked draw right now. Okay. Lastly, I guess this is probably a question for Mark. Are you interested in pushing the board towards a distribution policy? Not to push them towards a distribution policy, Tal, but you know, we're happy that we were able to get the approval to proceed with one last evening. We're happy where we are on the capital allocation strategy between acquisitions, between non-major investments, major investments. Our FFO payout ratios are in a great spot, healthy. It is definitely part of the considerations each year. Okay. I just add, you know, I think investors appreciate there being sort of a spelled out, you know, something that they can expect. That tends to be more when the stock price gets rewarded for it. Yeah, fair comment, Tal. Definitely something we'll take into consideration. Okay, thanks very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you do have any questions, please press star one. Your next question comes from Pammi Bir with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning. Just looking at some of the changes in the joint venture asset, the fair value change from Q1, can you maybe just comment on what the components of that increase were? I think some of that might be just from the additional assets transferred into the JV, but I'm also curious if there were any increases tied to the rezoning approvals at Broadway & Commercial and Toronto East. Yeah, thanks for the question. It's Kara. You're bang on. It was the movement of the milestone, as well as some right to develop payments were in there as well. The recognition of entitlement was nominal to the overall fair value change. Okay, I think with Broadway & Commercial, you mentioned I think it was early 2026 in terms of the enactment of the bylaws. Is that sort of the expectation as to when there could be a bigger mark there, or is that just not really being contemplated at the moment? We recognize entitlement value on stages, and each time we hit a specific milestone, we take a fair value upgrade. Each one of those stages, there's not big jumps, so it's fairly moderated throughout the process. We're not anticipating a large movement in fair value overall. Okay. Last one, just coming back to those two projects again. Is it, you know, as they get, I guess, in the final stages of rezoning here, are these now perhaps more likely candidates to monetize, or not really, or still too early in the process? Too early in the process, Pammi. We've got to get it through enactment. Market conditions are part of that assessment, where we are on our investment profiles. Too early to tell at this point. Okay, thanks very much. I'll turn it back. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Kara Cameron for any closing remarks. Thank you, Pam, and thank you, everyone, for joining our second quarter financial results conference call. We look forward to speaking to you all on our third quarter financial results conference call in November. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your line.