Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SmartCentres REIT Q2 2023 conference call. I would like to introduce Mr. Peter Slan. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good afternoon, and welcome to our second quarter 2023 results call. I am Peter Slan, Chief Financial Officer, and I'm joined on today's call by Mitchell Goldhar, SmartCentres' Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer, and by Rudy Gobin, our Executive Vice President of Portfolio Management and Investments. We will begin today's call with some comments from Mitch. Rudy will then cover some operational items, and I will review our financial results. We would then be pleased to take your questions. Just before I turn the call over to Mitch, I would like to refer you specifically to the cautionary language about forward-looking information, which can be found at the front of our MD&A materials. This also applies to comments that any of the speakers make this afternoon. Mitch, over to you. Thank you, Peter. At SmartCentres, we have three basic pillars. We are an owner and operator of Walmart, Canadian Tire, Costco, The Home Depot, Loblaws, and other grocery-anchored shopping centers strategically located across the country. Two, we are the owner of multi-res, storage, industrial, and seniors homes. Three, we are strategic real estate owners with 30 years of development expertise. Expertise we apply to the development of condos, multi-res, seniors, office, retail, storage. We do all of that on our strategically owned real estate that we already own. In terms of the first category, existing and new retailers continue to be interested in more space, building on the momentum of last year in Q1, achieving a strong 98.2% occupancy level across our portfolio at the end of the quarter. Renewal rates are up 3.4%. Same property NOI for the three months ended June 30th, 2023, increased by 3.2% compared to the same period in 2022. Collections of approximately 98% as retailers are back, stronger than ever, with their improved omnichannel platform and are well capitalized for constant change and innovation necessary to succeed in retail. In fact, we are now seeing renewed interest for new build groceries, grocers and other sub-anchor mid-box retailers in the 20,000-40,000 sq ft range, which Rudy will speak to shortly. Toronto and Premium Outlets Montreal remain fully leased, with 12 months rolling sales continuing to set new records, moving 2023 EBITDA to record levels. Well-priced luxury brands continue to be in high demand, with customers being bussed in from longer distances to take advantage of the great mix of designer names. Toronto Premium is quickly becoming one of the top three sales performers in Canada. With regard to the second and third categories, our non-retail income and our mixed-use development portfolios continue to grow and deliver strong results. Currently under construction, we have apartments, condos, industrial, self-storage, townhomes, and retirement in the GTA, Ottawa, and Montreal areas, and all scheduled for completion in the next 18 months or so, as you can see in our MD&A. Here are a few highlights: Construction of the fourth and fifth transit, Transit City Towers at SmartVMC, comprising 45 and 50 stories respectively, is on track and nearing full completion. 452 units closed in the quarter, generating $10.6 million in profits, which Peter will speak to more in a moment. Also within the SmartVMC, the Millway, our 36-story apartment building, has, is completed and turned over a number of units in the podiums of all three towers. Recall that some of the rental units are in the podiums of Transit City 4 and 5, almost all of those are already fully leased. The release of the balance of the units will come over the next two quarters, and demand is expected to remain strong given the housing supply and current interest rates. Our apartments in Mascouche, a suburb of Montreal, which opened in Q3 2022, is 77% leased with high ongoing interest. Laval's first tower was 99% leased at the end of the quarter, and the second tower is scheduled for completion in Q3 of this year, with over 70% already pre-leased. Construction of our first industrial new build, a 229,000 sq ft, 40-foot clear building on 16 acres of a 38 acre site on Highway 407 in Pickering, was completed in the quarter, with half of the space turned over to the tenant and leasing interest strong on the balance. Construction of our new seniors residence apartment, totaling 402 units at Ottawa Laurentian, was temporarily delayed due to financial challenges of our JV partner on this project. That being said, during the quarter, we were successful in coming to an agreement with our partner for SmartCentres to take over development and construction management of this profitable project until its completion date, which is now expected to be Q1, Q2, 2025. Having completed earthworks and site servicing with our 2 partners, we commenced construction of our 174 unit Vaughan Northwest Townhouse project shortly after the quarter end. With the recent opening of our 8th self-storage facility, a 138,000 sq ft project at Brampton Kings Point, just north of Brampton downtown, the trust reached a milestone of 1 million sq ft of gross floor area with our partners, SmartStop Self Storage. Two storage facilities are under construction in Markham and Whitby, and two more will commence construction in the next quarter. We intend to continue executing on this strategy as returns continue to meet exceed our expectations. Additionally, we continue to build on the stable and growing cash generating, generating platform and continue to develop on the significant and varied mixed-use permissions already in place. On land use permissions so far this year, we achieved residential rezonings in 4 projects, totaling nearly 4 million additional sq ft, 3 in Ontario and 1 in Quebec. We continue to stay focused on getting further permissions while simultaneously getting ready to launch our next phase in the VMC, consisting of 2 condo towers, and potentially a small office building, based on demand. Recall that in 2022, we achieved over 6.1 million sq ft of new mixed-use permissions in urban locations with high demand for housing. 2023 is off to a great start. Given that development is our long-term vision and strategy, we are committed on unlocking the tremendous value deeply embedded in the lands we already own, which, as a reminder, sits in the midst of highly populated communities in nearly every major market across Canada. From a capital recycling and risk management perspective, we are continuing discussions with potential partners and buyers of selected assets within the portfolio, which will assist in funding development, debt reduction, and diversification. While only a small part of the portfolio, we see this as an ongoing capital recycling program, which will not only strengthen our balance sheet, but de-risk future cash flow streams. On the financial side, Peter will provide a full update in a minute. Let me just emphasize a few of the more pertinent elements. Maintaining our conservative balance sheet remains a significant priority for us, along with maintaining a significant unencumbered pool of assets, which now sits at CAD 8.8 billion. Our respectable debt level remains at 43.2%, even with the CAD 300 million unsecured debentures issued in the quarter, demonstrating our significant liquidity and the strong support from our lenders and partners. As we have said before, at SmartCentres, we take the long view. It's not just what we do, but it's what we don't do. For 30 years, we have been building better, more affordable communities across Canada through enhancing access to convenient, affordable retail options. From the beginning, that meant creating lasting value for the towns and cities in which we operate, for our tenants, our neighbors, and for our unitholders. It meant always doing the right thing in each community. In the coming weeks, we will be issuing our ESG report, and you will get a first-hand look at the great number of initiatives that have been woven into the fabric of our organization, in how we oversee our business, interact with our tenants, and engage our associates and communities. Our three-year action plan is now posted on our website, and I invite you to visit it and see ESG principles applied throughout. They help shape our approach to building design, energy utilization, and social interaction with tenants and their customers. These principles apply to our core mission to facilitate cost savings and convenience to communities, all with the goal of helping Canadians live better lives. On a final note, I would like to once again offer my thanks and appreciation to our great team of associates, partners, and contractors for their commitment and dedication to delivering on our long-term vision. With that, I will pass the call over to Rudy. Thanks, Mitch, good afternoon, everyone. The second quarter continues to build momentum with strong interest from new entrants and many of our national retailers who shape the open format retail landscape. TJX, Canadian Tire banners, Loblaws, Sobeys, Dollarama, banks, liquor, pet stores, and a long list of QSRs, all very active in picking up vacant space in our high-traffic Walmart anchored centers. Given the residential all around us, we're also getting the experienced discounters, entertainment, gaming, logistics, and some light industrial users with showrooms preferring to be in a SmartCentres location and paying market rent rather than be in an industrial or design center. As Mitch mentioned, demand for new build retail is on the rise, with grocers and mid-box retailers, not only in major markets. We have signed deals or are near signing deals for places such as Carleton Place, Alliston, Bracebridge, Lachenaie, Orleans, and London. As inflation begins to ease and consumers having significant options in where they live, demand for physical retail, especially open format and value-oriented retail, continues to be in demand. Worth reminding everyone again is that for SmartCentres, the strategy is clear, and the results speak for themselves in Q2. Our occupancy at 98.2, near 99% collections, a 3.2% same property NOI, and the renewal spreads of 3.4% that Mitch mentioned earlier. While the pandemic gave retailers good reason to pause, rethink, and reshape their strategy, their path is now clearer than ever. Get physically close to your customers, offer great value, make it convenient in proximity and access so that customers have one place to do all of their shopping for their daily needs. The strongest retailers are continuing to evolve and reinvest, with Walmart, Canadian Tire, Winners HomeSense, Dollarama, and all major grocers reinvesting heavily in their store network and simultaneously growing their footprint. For SmartCentres, this means doing what we've always done, adapting to the needs of our tenants and their customers, and maintaining our strong relationships every day. As a reminder, virtually all of the SmartCentres locations across the country includes a full grocery, easy and accessible at-grade parking, and prices that consumers know they can trust and afford. With that said, here are a few operational highlights. In addition to the larger, dominant retailers, a number of smaller-sized tenants are wanting space across the country for personal care, beauty supplies, spas, hair salons, and daycares. When combined with entertainment, such as indoor golf, gaming, racket sports facilities, we see a well-rounded shopping center easily being converted to city centers as part of the utilization of our excess lands for residential and other mixed uses, land we already own within our shopping centers. Our first pre-lease industrial new build tenant took occupancy in the quarter. Given the modern design, location, and current discussions, we expect the balance of the space to be leased shortly. Our premium outlets in Toronto and Montreal continue to exceed our expectations and dominate their markets. Tenant sales in Toronto are above CAD 1,200 per sq ft and have exceeded all prior years. All in all, the second quarter's operational results clearly delivered on every metric. We fully expect a continuation of the same for the balance of the year. With that, I will turn it over to Peter. Thank you, Rudy. The financial results for the second quarter reflect strong performance in our core retail business, with a solid contribution from our mixed-use development portfolio through the continued condo closings at the Transit City 4 project and the initial closings at Transit City 5. For the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, FFO per fully diluted unit was CAD 0.55, an increase of 12% from the comparable quarter last year. These results include CAD 10.6 million, or CAD 0.06 per unit, of profits from the closing of 452 condominium suites at Transit City 4 and 5. Higher rental income was driven by increases in base rents, primarily due to contractual rental step-ups, plus further lease-ups and an increase in percentage rents and rents from self-storage and apartment properties, all partially offset by higher interest expense. Net rental income for the quarter increased by CAD 4.6 million or 3.7% from the same quarter last year. Including our equity accounted investments, however, net rental income increased by CAD 17.1 million or 13.1%, largely due to contractual lease step-ups, new leasing activities, and continued strong performance at our Montreal and Toronto Premium Outlets centers. Same property NOI, including equity accounted investments, increased by CAD 4.2 million or 3.2% compared to the same period in 2022. leasing activity remained strong during the quarter, which is expected to drive continued modest growth in NOI over the balance of the year. Our occupancy level, including committed leases, was 98.2% at the end of the quarter, an increase of 20 basis points from the prior quarter and 60 basis points from a year earlier. In terms of distributions, we maintained our distributions during the quarter at an annualized rate of CAD 1.85 per unit. The payout ratio to AFFO for the three months ended June 30th, 2023, was 93.8%, an improvement from 101.2% for the same period a year earlier. Total assets, including our proportionate share of equity accounted investments, were CAD 12.2 billion at the end of Q2, a modest increase from the prior quarter. During the quarter, IFRS fair value adjustments in our investment property portfolio, including equity accounted investments, resulted in modest net gains of approximately $34.2 million, principally reflecting additional leasing activity. We did not make any portfolio-wide changes in our capitalization rate assumptions this quarter. During the quarter, we closed on the sale of 452 condominium units in our Transit City 4 and Transit City 5 developments for gross proceeds at the REIT's 25% share of $61.4 million and net profit of $11.3 million. The remaining 380 units at Transit City 4 and Five are expected to close over the balance of the year, primarily in Q3. Adjusted debt to adjusted EBITDA was 9.9x in Q2, representing continued modest improvement from 10.3x at year-end and 10x at Q1. The improvement was a result of both growth in EBITDA and the repayment of approximately CAD 345 million of debt during the quarter, including repayments under equity accounted investments. Our debt to aggregate assets ratio was 43.2% at the end of the quarter, unchanged from Q1. We expect to continue to repay debt over the coming quarters, particularly with the profits from condominium closings. However, as construction commences on some of our larger mixed-use development projects, short-term borrowings will begin to grow. Our unencumbered asset pool stood at CAD 8.8 billion at the end of Q2, a modest increase from Q1. Our unsecured debt of CAD 4.2 billion was virtually unchanged from the prior quarter and represented approximately 80% of our total debt of CAD 5.3 billion. From a liquidity perspective, during the quarter, we issued CAD 300 million of Series Z debentures with a 5-year term and a coupon of 5.35%. We also repaid the CAD 200 million of Series I debentures upon their maturity and extended the term on a CAD 170 million bilateral facility. We are very comfortable with our current liquidity position, with more than CAD 586 million of undrawn liquidity as at June 30, 2023, including our share of equity accounted investments and cash on hand, but excluding any accordion features. The weighted average terms to maturity of our debts, including debt on equity accounted investments, is 4.1 years, up from 3.9 years last quarter. Our weighted average interest rate was 4.03%, an increase of 14 basis points from the prior quarter. Our debt ladder remains conservatively structured, where the most significant aggregate maturities occur in 2025 and 2027. Approximately 83% of our debt is at fixed interest rates, which has been a significant benefit to us during this rising rate environment. Finally, I want to touch briefly on our mixed-use development projects that are underway. Beginning in Q4 of last year, we added some new disclosure in our MD&A, focusing on those development projects that are currently under construction. There are currently 10 projects under construction, unchanged from last quarter. The REIT's share of the total capital cost of these projects is approximately CAD 548 million, with the estimated cost to complete standing at a relatively modest CAD 202 million. We expect all of them to be completed by the end of 2024, with the exception of the seniors housing project in Ottawa, which Mitch mentioned, which will likely stretch into 2025 as we evaluate various options for a new partner. In the coming quarters, we expect to see Transit City 4 and 5, as well as The Millway, come off this list, and we will add other new projects, including the Leaside retail project and the ArtWalk condominium project once construction commences on those developments. This quarter, we also added new disclosure around our self-storage joint venture. As Mitch mentioned, we were excited to reach the milestone of 1 million sq ft of self-storage properties this quarter. The eight properties are all performing well. Occupancy is strong at approximately 93% for those facilities that have been open for at least one year, with gross rental revenue of approximately CAD 3.2 million year to date at our share. With that, we would be pleased to take your questions. Operator, can we have the first question on the line, please? Operator? Yes. As a reminder, if anybody would like to queue up, you can press star one on your telephone keypad, to withdraw your question, you can press star two. We'll just wait a few moments to see if anybody's queued up. Again, that's star one to queue up to ask a question. We do have a few lines that are queuing up right now. We'll just wait a few moments while we grab the names here. Questions? Our first question will come from Gaurav Mathur of IA Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. You know, just back to your prepared remarks about the strength of the national retailers, I'm wondering from a tenant perspective, is there any part of the tenant base that, you know, is, is not as strong and require some assistance going forward? I guess, first of all, I'll just say there's always in retail, even if it's the... You know, you take the strongest years of retail, there'll always be some retail casualties. Mm-hmm. So with that in mind, we don't actually have you know, really any visibility on, on something like that happening within our portfolio at the moment. I think part of the reason it might be a little bit anomalous at the moment is that some of that type of thing happened during COVID and accelerated some of the, the weaknesses that might have taken a little longer to, you know, show up. So the whole Darwinian constant, you know, process that goes on in retail was somewhat, you know, mutated. And I think right at the moment, you know, of course, famous last words, but we don't see or anticipate any significant, you know, bankruptcy or filing with our retailers in our portfolio. Okay, great. I guess that leads me to my next question. I, I take it then, that you're not seeing any material non-renewals coming up either through the rest of the year? We'll always have a little bit of that. I mean, it's not just, you know, like, related to anything, you know, you know, kind of chronic. But yeah, there are always gonna be some, some retailers that are not gonna renew in certain locations. That can just be that they're borderline, they're not doing great or, you know, part of a country, part, you know, certain, certain region, region of the country, certain retailers, you know, may not be excelling in or, you know... You know, there's a lot of reasons why that can happen, but, we don't see any, like, again, we don't see any pattern here of, you know, some, wholesale non-renewal by any, one retailer that is in our portfolio. Okay, great. Just to change gears here, you know, on the AFFO payout, we've seen the improvement, to the 96% level. I'm just wondering if there's a target in mind that, you know, you're focusing on or, one that you're willing to disclose at this point? Sorry, I'm sorry, what was the question? Sorry, just on your AFFO payout ratio, Oh. We've seen the improvement. Just wondering if there's a target range that you're thinking about? No, there's not a, there's not a target that we've communicated publicly. Okay, great. So- Thank you for the call, gentlemen. I'll turn it back. Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sam Damiani of TD Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. First question is just on the miscellaneous revenue in the quarter, which, you know, took another notable step higher. Just wondering how you think about that line item going forward. Is there an opportunity to convert some of that revenue into, into base rent, you know, more stable, revenue streams, or d o you see meaningful further upside as tenant sales grow? Just how, how you think about that line item going forward. It seems like it's reliable. I mean, it's the parking mostly here at the VMC, and percentage rents at our other centres. And they're both, you know, there's, they're, they, you know, both very strong, you know, steady in both in terms of, you know, traffic. Okay. The next question is on on ArtWalk. It's mentioned as a potential construction start in the latter half of this year. Just wondering how, I guess, the presale of the overall phase 1 is going. I know you've presold, I think, fully presold the first release of units, but just wondering how many units are in the first phase in total, and what stage you're gonna be at when you start construction. We have about 90 units left in that first building that we withheld, primarily because we wanted flexibility on design. We're not anticipating, you know, you know, any headwinds for moving those units. Last risk next to that is there might be some variation in that number, Sam, because, suite mix wise, we might... They're the higher, higher units, it's the top of the building and the lower floors. We just did that for flexibility. I'm being told that we have less than 90 to sell, it just depends on our final suite mix and some certain other design decisions. I mean, you could say based on the original design, we would have, maybe just as few as 60 units left, in, in that tower. Then there's the, the lower tower, sort of a mid-rise building actually, which we'll go to market on, shortly. We're not anticipating, again, like, we're not anticipating, any headwinds or, or challenges in, in, in, in moving those units. That was the building we were originally going to, do as a rental building when we switched it. Then there's the little office building. We're gonna start construction, but we're going to go, you know, cautiously, step by step. But we do want to get started there. It's been a while since we sold our, the release, and so, that'll start imminently. We'll be keeping an eye on all those data points, as we get further and further along in the construction before we commit, you know, each step of the way. Okay. Just, thank you. That's very helpful. Just to be clear, are you pre-selling Artwalk and Park Place now at the same time? Is that, do I understand that correctly? Yes. There are, there are... I mean, yes, they're two different projects, two different types of projects, two different locations. I mean, you know, we have 100 acres. It's, it's a long, you know, large property. Park Place is quite a way from Artwalk. Very different features. We are selling both, yeah, same time. I mean, better, better us than, you know, our competitor. Absolutely. Last question for me. You know, one of the things, we saw several things on the, the walking tour up the VMC there a couple months ago, but one, one thing I recall being mentioned was, you know, an office tower potential that could be fully pre-leased by a single tenant, if I'm not mistaken. Is there any, is there any... I don't know if I got that accurately or is there any update on, on the prospects for, a pre- a pre-let office tower, build? Yeah. There is progress. I mean, I'd say, you know, if it was... I don't know what we would have ranked it, when we did that, investment tour of, investment day. Maybe it would have been, you know, on the probability scale, maybe it would be a 5.5 or a 6. I'd say it's, you know, it's, you know, sort of a 6, 6.5, 7. It's moving forward. Not 100%, not 100% accurate what you were saying there. It's not necessarily gonna be 100% pre-leased, because, you know, we might build a little bit extra, but we also might move into it ourselves. Some of these things are, you know, part of the, you know, the process that we're in right now. We do have, we do have a couple of very real companies interested in being tenants, and it would be around them that the building would, you know, the building would, would, would get developed, and then there's us. We'd be the third, you know, third pre- pre-lease space. Okay, great. Great update. Thank you, and I'll turn it back. Thank, thank you. Again, as a reminder, if anybody else would like to queue up, you can press star one on your telephone keypad and star two to remove yourself from the queue. At the moment, we have two other questions. The next one comes from Lorne Kalmar of Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you. Maybe just quickly following up on Sam's question about the office tower, can you give us maybe an idea of what type of tenant would be looking to take the space? Absolutely not. All right. I think I'll switch gears then. Just maybe going back to the capital recycling, I think, last quarter we spoke, you said sort of targeting CAD 200 million to CAD 400 million this year, but cautiously. You mentioned some, you know, some momentum. Can you maybe give us an idea of, of what type of project or what type of sites or, or, properties you'd be looking to, to dispose of? Yeah, I mean, like, you would notice that we only talked about one potential development, new. You know, we've got 10 under construction, but they're all... They're locked and loaded, those. In terms of new, you know, we mentioned ArtWalk, but we didn't talk about anything else at the moment, like starting Pickering or starting 1900 or starting Westside Mall, Westside Mall. I mean, we've got a lot of zone property out there that are, are candidates for capital raising exercises, so, you know, it would be something like that. I mean, there's a whole bunch of other ones I'm not mentioning that are, have entitlements that we could sell to a third party, and raise capital. We'd leave, obviously leave something on the table by doing that, but that's fine. So we're in discussions on that, and obviously, those are, you know, you know, those are relatively liquid. I mean, there's always, you know, there's, there's always interest in good, you know, you know, density, good condo, condo locations with entitlements. So those are the ones. We also have this ongoing interest from potential institutional partners who want to be a partner with us on some of our developments. Those are primarily institutions interested in multi-res, so a little bit harder to make work right now from a capital raising point of view or moving the needle point of view. Still, from a long-term point of view, I would say, you know, you could probably anticipate that we're gonna have a couple of like, you know, partners in multi-res that'll probably be there for many, you know, for, for multiple projects and multiple phases over a long period of time. A little bit tougher to move the needle with those. Fair enough. Since we last spoke, has buyer interest changed, either for the better or for the worse? On the, on the, on the, sales side or on the… Yeah, yeah. The buy the price? Yeah, it's sort of a, an interesting question. I mean, it's almost like it's every day. It's like you could, you know, give you an answer on, on, you know, Thursday, I could tell you that actually it seems like it's quite strong right now. You know, tomorrow may have a different feeling. It's a, it's a bit of a weird market. Overall, I think there's this inclination, you know. There's an attitude towards, you know, strong, steady interest in buying condos in our locations. There's this little under the surface, you know, sort of, you know, maybe sensitiveness that comes and goes. You know, you can induce it by, you know, offering certain things 'cause the market's really quite deep. It's there. It's really just finding kind of the, the sweet spot, between deposit structure and, you know, pricing, of course, amenities and things like that. I'd say the market's still quite strong and deep, but, you know, there is this little, little bit of. It's not euphoria, that's for sure. It's, it's, it's, it's still there. It's, I would say it's, you know, steady and somewhat, you know, cautiously optimistic there. Okay. Then maybe just last one. you've spoken now a couple times about starting to build some new retail, which is, something we haven't really seen a lot of, and, assuming it'd be on, already on land, what do you estimate the cost per square foot would be, and what kind of rents would you need to make that work? Well, I can tell you that, the retailers during the last, you know, X number of years, like, you know, kind of through the pandemic and, and to now, have become quite astute or whatnot to pricing. So they're not a step behind. They can sometimes be a step behind in terms of their rental expectations versus developers' cost realities. They are definitely pretty up to date, so, you know, whether we build for, you know, CAD 140, CAD 150, CAD 160 a foot plus, plus, it depends on where it is. It can even be higher, depending on how much landlords work there is. But the tenants we're dealing with in our typical our typical tenant in our portfolio, you know, they're quite strong, the retailers. They're long-term minded, and, they kind of, you know, they're, they're, the, the rents make sense. I mean, we would not be, we would not be, you know, entering into those contracts, we would not be building those buildings if they, if they didn't. We're not doing a deal at one rent and then going out to the market and finding out, you know, the deal doesn't really pencil. We're, we're doing it lockstep, and, they, the, all the retail we're doing from scratch that we're referring to, is, you know, is really quite interesting economically, accretive and, you know, and, you know, quite positive, economically. Okay, great. Thank you so much for all the color. I'll turn it back. Okay, thank you. Our next question comes from Tal Woolley of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hi, Tal. Wanted to start just asking rents at The Millway. Can you talk about where you went out initially at and how you're seeing rents progress over time as you're leasing up the building? We were sort of thinking originally we would be CAD 3.25. I think I'm going by memory, but it's been a while. We're seeing CAD 3.60-CAD 4, I would say, depending on the unit. Okay, perfect. In my head, we expected. I apologize. I missed, I missed, the first few minutes of, the conference call. I was on another call. Any, any change in, zoning for Westside Mall announced this quarter? Not specifically, but Westside is making progress. I mean, applications within the city of Toronto are a little bit slower. You know, when you go just through the process, you know, no MZO, no whatnot. I mean, we are making good progress there. I don't get into the nitty-gritty of the land use, instruments and tech, technical terms, but it's designated. You know, it's designated for a couple million sq ft. I guess I would say, and maybe even sort of emphasize, that even when it takes a little longer, these areas, like Westside, I mean, those areas are changing without us doing anything. They just keep getting better, by virtue of the things that are happening around us, including, of course, the Crosstown that, you know, never-ending, eternal mass transit project, that we've all come to live with. The GO Transit. You know, if you go by, they just look... You know, it's not terrible. Not the-- When real estate, good real- When real estate works, you have good locations, and it gets better with what's going on around us, and that would be true with a lot of our locations. Yeah, the final zoning approval there, is not done, but there are other things along the way between the designation and the zoning that are done, and we're not worried about it at all. It's, it's just a winner. That, that, that property, that location is an absolute, you know, an absolute, home run for, for the REIT. Okay. Just on the retail tenant side, I think you still have 8 Lowe's and RONA left. Can you just talk about what you're hearing with respect to how the new management team is taking or, or dealing with the footprint? Do you happen to know how many stores you have in Quebec versus the rest of Canada? Well, I'll start with the first. For a while, if you'd asked this question three months ago, I think we would say, "We're not sure exactly," because, and not in a bad way, not, not, not implying anything bad, but I think that the two entities are obviously we're, we're working through lots of things, so, we have good relations with both. Right now it's sort of becoming more and more clear or it's becoming a little more clear, with respect to how this is gonna shape up. More probably next quarter, I would say, but suffice to say that we're, we're fine. Like, we're, we're pleased, with how things are going to, how we think things are going to end up with, with us as it relates to Lowe's and RONA. I mean, I'm sorry, I can't be, I, I can't be more specific at this time. With respect to how many do we have in our portfolio in Quebec? I'll check that and get back. I, I didn't know you might have, stumped us at least temporarily. I wish I could probably get that answer. I think we only have 1 or 2. 1 in the, in Laval that I can recall. I think at most we would have 2, but 1 for sure. Okay. Most of it would probably be in Ontario, though, would be the- Oh, absolutely. Out west. We've got a couple out- We got Regina. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's mostly Ontario. Okay. The total return swap, it's, you know, acts as a pretty big, you know, drag on your FFO progression. Is there any thought to unwinding that? Is there, you know, like I believe it was a four year term originally or something like that, that has been in place. Like, is the intention to keep that going? If maybe you can just talk about what was the original idea going into this with the total return swap, and now that we're kind of in this position, how are you looking at it? I'm going to turn it to Peter. I'll just say the original was, you know, it's, it's de facto, you know, our confidence in our, you know, in our company, and, you know, investing in a sense in our own company. Obviously, we're, we're sort of alone on that one. Our unit price is, you know, almost unexplainably down and discounted. Of course, that's the reason why the return swap looks the way it does. Peter, go ahead. Yeah, it's, it's essentially, it's a synthetic share buyback. There's, there's about 5.1 million units that were notionally purchased under the swap. They were purchased at an average price of about CAD 27.50, and of course, the stock today is trading around CAD 25. You know, there's this mark-to-market adjustment. That's what you're seeing going through the FFO line this quarter, and that's simply a reflection, as Mitch suggests, a reflection of, you know, the, the stock is not where we think it should be, and we think it's very cheap. That's why we undertook this synthetic buyback in the first place. That having been said, it does have a maturity date in December of 2024. Our expectation, though, is that, you know, we're not gonna realize on that mark-to-market. It's a non-cash item, of course, that, that, that you see in the FSL item. It's, it's unrealized and non-cash. Should we get to the maturity date and the stock is where it is today, then, you know, we will, in all likelihood, extend that out. We've, we've had discussions with the counterparty on the swap, and we don't expect that to be an issue at all. We don't expect to ever realize on that mark-to-market adjustment. And we do think that it is, you know, an inexpensive stock. Okay. And I guess my last question is just maybe if you can give a broader sense of the chatter with your retail tenants right now. Like, we just had Canadian Tire report today. They're pulling their, you know, annual targets for the year. The stock's down 5%. You know, they're sort of signaling, you know, times are getting a little bit tighter for the consumer. What's sort of the latest kind of chatter you're hearing from some of your larger, your larger retailers right now? I mean, the, the only thing better for us than, you know, good times are bad times. You know, we are the go-to when, you know, people are tightening, tightening their belt. Yeah, I mean, there will be lots of analysis on what people are cutting back on and, and what they're spending on, but at the end of the day, you know, we'll, we'll probably see increased traffic at our place, and how it gets distributed exactly between the retailers may vary. I mean, we're a company, you know, populated with the largest value-oriented discounters. You know, Canadian Tire is part of that. Yeah, I mean, they've had an unbelievable run, you know, especially during, you know, some of this COVID, you know, the ones that were, were, were, were, were, were open. You know, coming off some pretty big numbers and, you know, maybe there's a bit of an oversteer on what happened today with Canadian Tire. They're an unbelievably sound company in each one of their categories, so, you know, it might be a little bit of one of those things we see sometimes. I wouldn't count out Canadian Tire. They are very, very much a part of it. Yeah, there would probably be a little bit of cutting back on some discretionary things and maybe some certain high margin thing, items. But we're very poised to, you know, be there for the increased traffic and, you know, spending conscientiousness. We don't hear anybody like Canadian Tire with, with their, you know, details today. We don't see Canadian Tire pausing on the number of deals that we're doing with them. They're also very much long-term minded. They see beyond this particular moment in time, and so we don't really think, like, you know, nobody's out there taking 10... Okay, you know, walking in here saying, "We want these 10, we want those 10." I mean, we're doing it deal by deal, but it's adding up. I don't think that's, you know, I don't think that's gonna change. These deals we're doing have been around for, for whatever, three to 12 months, and they're very thoughtful. They've everybody's considered the world that we're going into when they've made these decisions. I don't think it's gonna... If you're asking ultimately how is it gonna affect us, I don't think we're gonna see any kind of, you know, closures or, you know, as I said earlier. I don't think it's gonna stop the deals that we've talked about that we're doing. I anticipate, to be honest, that we'll continue to do new deals with the likes of Canadian Tire over the next, you know, next, next year or two. Yeah, my, my intention was not to suggest that there was some issue with Canadian Tire. I think it was just more to understand, like, what you were hearing about, you know, consumer se- you know, consumer sentiment sort of more lately, you know, given that this is the, you know, this is the kind of thing some of these, some of these larger retailers, retailers are talking about, and I just didn't know if you'd had any good commentary from other tenants that you're working with, too, just around what... Yeah, yeah. I. Yep. Yep. There's a little bit of, you know, concern about consumers cutting back on certain discretionary items. We're not that discretionary, like, you know, so at SmartCentres. Yeah, you know, I don't want to single anything out, but, you know, we're 98.2% occupied with very strong and even stronger tenant mix, like, as in covenants than ever. You know, so there is a little bit, yeah. I mean, there's some, there's some, you know, people concerned about, you know, higher markets and stuff and, you know, some of the vanity shops and so on. There is, but it's sort of I, I don't think it's, you know, I've heard worse in my career. This is, there is a little bit of chatter about, about tweaking, merchandising mixes around some changing, consumer, you know, behavior around some of the recessionary discussion and higher interest rates and stuff like that, which is pretty much common sense. These are the retailers. Our retailers are the ones that are... I mean, they're, they're, they're designed for this. I mean, they're made for it. They're the go-tos when people start thinking that way. I think we're in pretty good position for it, but I think you're right. I think you will see some cutting back. You know, we're not gonna be the major-- our retailers are not gonna be the major ones. I think you're gonna see some cutting back in, in, in, in some of the other, higher margin type concepts. Maybe I, I don't want to single out, but I think you can figure it out. Okay, thanks very much. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. At the moment, we do have two more questions in the queue, and the next one comes from Mario Saric of Scotiabank Capital. Please go ahead. Thank you, good afternoon. Mitch, just on the back of your last comment in terms of merchandising mix, not, not that, not that has the ability to shift things around given your high occupancy, but on the margin, if you were able to kind of add here and maybe deduct there, like, how, how would you like to see the merchandising mix shift at SmartCentres over time, if at all? Oh, our own portfolio mix? I mean, I'm pretty, I think we're pretty happy with it. I mean, it's a good question. I guess, it's kind of organic, right? Like, we're in the probably, you know, the busy, you know, we're in the we're in the most successful locations and, you know, the healthiest markets, and we are, you know, at grade. We can accommodate almost any interest. Like, when we get a call for something, it's pretty hard to imagine that we're not gonna figure out how to accommodate you. We are kind of the organic expression of the market, and pretty quickly, because we can build pretty quickly. We are really just a function of, I mean, you know, the retailers don't create retail concepts, the people do. So they're just responding to what the people want, and we're probably the quickest responders to them. If I had a magic wand, I mean, you know, what would we love to add? Yeah, I'd have to single out some stuff. I'd probably, like, I, I'm all about, you know, things that people need. So I guess wherever we've got a little bit more, you know, you know, discretionary purchases and, and maybe, you know, a little bit, little bit more, you know, you know, less necessities, I, I'd probably love to replace those with, you know, with necessities. But we don't have a lot of that, so I, I don't know. I would say we can never have too many Walmarts. We can never have too many Shoppers and Loblaws's and Home Depots and Canadian Tires, and so I guess if we could have more of those, you know. Kind of remember, we're also getting into the city center sort of thing, so our retail format is changing a little bit. It's kind of cool because we're now addressing what does that look like and, you know, who is that compatible with? You know, that, that's gonna be interesting, but I don't want to turn, you know, take this, make this call any longer. That's a subject for another day. Otherwise, I think we're pretty, generally pretty, pretty pleased with our, our tenant mix. Okay. My last one, just coming back to capital cycling, and if you were able to execute on some of that CAD 200 million-CAD 400 million in terms of, you know, potential partial stake positions in some of the developments that you're referring to, how would you rank the relative attractiveness of the redeployment of those proceeds today between putting it into the development pipeline, paying down debt? I know you have the TRS structure in place, maybe repurchasing the unit hold part of that in terms of reducing the unit count and driving the pre-growth higher that way. Just curious in terms of, on a risk-adjusted basis, where you see the best place to put your money today? Lowering debt is just, you know, everything's lowering debt because it doesn't matter, it's always debt. If we bring in CAD 200 million, you know, if you put it towards development, then de facto, it's just lowering debt. We apply it to the highest interest rate debts that we have, that we can pay off. You know, if we had more capital than we needed for lowering debt purposes, well, we would love to have that situation. We, we might apply it to our units in one way, directly, in this way we're doing it now, or maybe some other way. We're not in that situation, at the moment, so, you know, I wouldn't, you know, factor that into your, in your, in your calculations. I mean, that's, that would be the answer, I think. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our last question in the queue comes from Jenny Ma of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. On the, on the, on the, on a continuation of the topic of debt, you're sitting in the high teens in terms of floating rate debt, which you've been carrying for a few quarters. Hopefully, we're at the end of this interest rate hike cycle, hike cycle. How do you think about where it's sitting at right now? Are you comfortable leaving it in the high teens to see where things may settle out, or is this a number that you want to bring down? Jenny, it's Peter. I think it is appropriate for us to have a mix, and so right now, you're right, we're at 17% floating. 83% is fixed. I think there's, there is some value to the optionality of having some floating rate debt. Also, remember, you know, we're, we're a big development business, and so we do use floating rate debt for construction financing. You know, that's just because of the nature of that financing. It's typically sort of 12-36 month terms on it, and so it tends to be floating rate facilities. We think it's appropriate to be a majority fixed, but, but maintain some optionality through a, a floating rate piece. Okay, you'd be fairly comfortable leaving it close to where it is then? Yes. Okay, great. With regards to industrial development, that seemed to have happened very quickly, but we've been hearing a lot about increasing construction costs. What would you be looking for to launch phase II of the Le Vistoria development? Would you need to have a tenant, pre-leased in place, or would you be comfortable building on spec? What would need to happen for phase two to commence? I mean, we'd have to lease up our the other half of the building that we just finished, meaning the other half just finished. Thank you very much for stating how fast that goes went up. We're quite, quite proud of that. We will not start. Well, I'm not- I'll say less absolutely, but it's unlikely we will start a spec building on the balance of the land. I mean, we do have interest from some companies to build them a custom, you know, building there. That's what we anticipate will happen with these TRIP lands. We, we certainly don't have any plans at the moment or appetite right at the moment to spec a building there. It's great land. Area's only going to get better. We hope to land a tenant and build a building for them. Okay. Between where rents are now and, you know, higher costs, do you think you could build to a similar yield as you got to phase I? No, because mainly because just there, like, there's a little bit of an edge coming off rates, a little bit, Year rates, rental rates, a little bit, and interest rates. Construction prices may have sort of stopped increasing. I don't even know if I could say that they're decreasing, because you'd have to go out right now and do it and find out, but they might have stopped increasing. No, I don't know. I don't think it would be, but I wouldn't factor that in, because I think by the time we do one, it'll probably be a slightly different market, because the market's changing quite, quite rapidly. I would anticipate by the time we do a deal, you know, prices on construction will probably come down a little bit. We're not going to do it if it isn't a strong company, and they're going to want it, and we're not going to do it if the yield isn't decent. You know, there's a couple things right at this moment, answering your question, that, you know, that would take it down a little bit from the yield we got on this one. Okay. Then lastly, the self-storage assets you have, I know it's a very small part of the portfolio right now, but one of the upsides, I guess, of it is the ability to raise rents, at a fairly frequent or a high level clip. What have you seen from some of the, the older self-storage, older meaning by you, right? Self-storage facilities you have, or are we getting ahead of ourselves? It seems like you've been able to lease them up fairly quickly. Have you been able to pass through any rent increases yet? No. First of all, we don't manage them right, we're not directly, you know, quoting rents to tenants or prospective tenants, but ours are pretty, pretty new, Jenny. I mean, we're not necessarily increasing rents appreciatively on the ones that we built, but we did get better rents than we thought, than we originally pro forma-ed on the ones that we have done. In, in a sense, you know, I guess we got-- our timing was pretty good. The operator are, you know, they're really quite good. They specialize in storage, and they have found ways to come up with different types of offerings that, in a sense, you know, raise the rent because they give certain other services. They're, they're quite, you know, they're quite innovative in that respect. There are some new offerings that, that they are offering the market, and the market, you know, the market is responding, so probably getting a little bit of an uptick there. I think we're pretty happy with the rents we're getting, and maybe in a year or 2, you know, we'll see if we get any, you know, any meaningful bumps from our very healthy initial rents that we're experiencing so far. Okay. The, the revenue that you're getting from self-storage, is that in the miscellaneous revenue bucket on the income statement? No, no, it's not. It's not- In the net rental income. Not that insignificant. I mean, well- Okay. Our miscellaneous income is actually becoming quite, quite significant, but, but no, it's, it's in there. It's, it's part of our main, you know, our... Okay, gotcha. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Okay. That was the last question in the queue. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you for participating in our Q2 analyst call. Please reach out to any of us for further, any further questions. Have a great day. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the SmartCentres REIT Q2 2023 conference call. Thank you for your participation, and have a nice day.