Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q1 2022 American Assets Trust, Inc. earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Adam Wyll, President and Chief Operating Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to American Assets Trust Q1 2022 earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, our earnings release and supplemental information were furnished to the SEC on our Form 8-K. Both are now available on the investor section of our website, americanassetstrust.com. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures which are reconciled to our GAAP financial results in our earnings release and supplemental information. We will also be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations, which statements are subject to risks and uncertainties discussed in our SEC filings. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as actual events could cause our results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, including due to the impact of COVID-19. With that, I'll turn it over to Ernest Rady, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, to begin discussion of our Q1 2022 results. Ernest? Thanks, Adam. Great job, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Over the past two years, I hope you have heard me say that I truly believed that American Assets Trust would come out of the pandemic as good a company, if not better. Actually, I think what I said, better than when it all started. I believe that to be the case as we have strengthened our balance sheet, continued upgrading and improving our irreplaceable properties, and we are optimistic about the buoyant leasing interest across the portfolio in all segments, including the continued recovery of our retail properties and strengthening retail rates at our multifamily properties. In Q1 2022, we made great progress, and actually, we had a 50% increase in FFO over 2021. We are pleased to see better-than-budgeted financial results in our portfolio, significantly driven by outperformance of our recently renovated Waikiki Beach Walk Embassy Suites. That performance was notwithstanding the continued lack of Asian travelers who have historically been approximately 40% of all tourists vacationing in Oahu. We are encouraged that as travel from Asia to Hawaii continues opening up later this year and beyond, that our ADRs, our average daily revenue, and occupancy at Embassy Suites will continue to climb, and we will hopefully reach and eventually surpass our pre-pandemic 2019 numbers at Embassy Suites. Meanwhile, we are cognizant of the inflationary challenges in this business environment across our portfolio. Although we are confident in the thesis of our portfolio being an effective long-term protection against inflation, we remain vigilant and focused on managing our expenses and operating margins to the best of our ability. We have the tailwind now of inflation behind us in real estate, and I'm optimistic about the outcome of that effect. In March, we purchased Bel-Spring 520, an approximately 93,000 sq ft multi-tenant office campus less than five minutes from downtown Bellevue for $45.5 million. We now sit with over 1 million sq ft in Bellevue, an office market that we remain very bullish on, and we expect long-term growth as we look to push rents, create economies of scale, and certainly upgrade our properties. I also want to mention that the board of directors has approved a quarterly dividend of $0.32 a share for the Q2, which we believe is supported by our financial results and is an expression of our board's confidence in the embedded growth of our portfolio this year and beyond. The dividend will be paid June twenty-third to shareholders of record June ninth. Finally, on the development front, both La Jolla Commons Three and One Beach Street remain on time and budget, and we remain optimistic about the leasing prospects, but we do not have any specific news to share on that front at this time. Adam, Bob, and Steve will go into more detail on our various asset segments, financial results, and guidance updates, and I will be available for any questions you may have at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. On behalf of all of us at American Assets Trust, we thank you for your confidence in allowing us to manage your company and for your continued support. We are proud to have that role. Thank you. Now going to turn the call back over to Adam. Adam, please. Thank you. As Ernest mentioned, it has always been a focus of ours to continue enhancing and improving our properties to remain a best-in-class option for our tenants and guests. That has never been more important than it is now. Over the past few years, we've made meaningful capital improvements to our properties that have been very well received by both our existing and new tenants and guests, including upgrades and beautification to our San Diego multifamily portfolio, a full room renovation of our Embassy Suites in Waikiki, and modern state-of-the-art amenities and ESG elements at our office campuses, something we know is crucial to helping our office tenants bring their employees back to the physical office. Along those lines, we currently estimate that our office tenants are at about 45%-50% physical occupancy at our office campuses, with an expectation for that to continue increasing as we reach the summer months. This is based on feedback from our tenants' management teams, who tell us how important having their employees back in the office is for their innovation, collaboration, culture, and ultimately, their financial results. Of course, we realize there is an evolution of sorts with respect to the workplace right now, but we believe the demand for premium office space like ours will remain strong, and you'll hear more about our successful office leasing activity and new office capital projects from Steve Center shortly. Regarding our multifamily portfolio in San Diego, we are seeing vacant units lease at an average of over 20% over prior rents with little to no concessions offered. Note that renewal rates are capped just below 10% based on California laws, so we are maximizing the rental rates on vacant units to the full extent of our capabilities, all the while managing expenses as Ernest alluded. At Pacific Ridge Apartments, we are expecting our occupancy to dip into the low 70% by June 30 due to the expected seasonal move-out of units primarily occupied by students. Pre-leasing for the upcoming fall season has already begun, with new lease agreements being signed for move-ins in Q3. We expect our occupancy to rebound back into the low- to mid-90% by the end of August as University of San Diego starts their fall session before Labor Day. Meanwhile, though our Hassalo on Eighth multifamily in Portland came in above our internal expectations in Q1, the Portland multifamily market remains slow relative to San Diego. However, we remain optimistic on that asset as major employers in the market have spoken to hiring campaigns in Portland in 2022 and beyond, which we hope to contribute positively along with some less extreme weather. On the retail front, as Ernest mentioned, we do sense a rising tide with renewed interest in many of our vacancies. For instance, we recently signed a lease with a regional sushi restaurant at our Waikiki Beach Walk for over 5,000 sq ft of second-floor space, certainly a sign of the optimism surrounding the pending return of our Asian customers. Meanwhile, our retail sales at Waikiki Beach Walk saw a meaningful double-digit increase over February and March, clearly demonstrating an increase in customer traffic and expenditures. We understand that airlines have started adding more flights from Japan to Oahu, and tour companies are resuming sales of packages from Japan to Hawaii after a more than two-year hiatus. All good news. Additionally, at Alamo Quarry, Whole Foods and Nordstrom have recently renewed their leases, and we are excited for Total Wine to open at Carmel Mountain Plaza in the next few weeks. Finally, in the next week or two, keep your eye out for our 2021 sustainability report, which covers our 2021 operations and highlights our initiatives and commitments across a range of topics, including environmental, social responsibility, corporate governance, and human capital. Now we are proud of our meaningful improvements and collaborative team efforts to date. We remain at the early stages of progress and know there's much more work to do. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob to discuss financial results and guidance in more detail. Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Last night, we reported Q1 2022 FFO per share of $0.57 and Q1 2022 net income attributable to common stockholders per share of $0.18. Q1 results are primarily comprised of the following. The actual FFO increased in the Q1 by approximately $0.03 to $0.57 per FFO share compared to the Q4 of 2021, primarily related to lower G&A in the Q4. The Q4 had higher G&A, mostly related to year-end compensation expense. Same-store cash NOI was strong in Q1 2022, ending at approximately 18% growth year-over-year for the Q1. What's even more important from my perspective is that if you exclude the collection of rents received in Q1 2021 related to rents that were previously billed and uncollected in 2020 of approximately $1.2 million, same-store cash NOI growth would have been approximately 21% instead of 18%, as reflected in our supplemental. Same-store cash NOI growth on a sector-by-sector basis for the Q1 of 2022 would have been as follows. Office would have decreased from approximately 12% to 10%. Retail would have increased from 2.5% to 13.4%. Multifamily would have increased from approximately 13% to 18%. Mixed use would have decreased to 18.67%. From my perspective, this data also reflects a more accurate presentation that retail growth is much stronger on a comparative year-over-year basis for the Q1, excluding the change in accounts receivable that was generally immaterial pre-COVID. Let's talk about liquidity. At the end of the Q1 of 2022, we had liquidity of approximately $474 million, comprised of approximately $74 million in cash and cash equivalents and $400 million of availability on a revolving line of credit. Our leverage, which we measure in terms of net debt to EBITDA, was 6.8 x. Our objective is to achieve and maintain a net debt to EBITDA of 5.5 x or below. Our interest coverage and fixed charge coverage ratio ended the quarter at 3.9 x. Let's talk about 2022 guidance. We are increasing our 2022 FFO per share guidance range to $2.13-$2.21 per FFO share, with a midpoint of $2.17 per FFO share. From our initial guidance issued on our Q4 2021 earnings call that had a range of $2.09-$2.17 with a midpoint of $2.13, which is approximately an 8.5% increase at the midpoint over our 2021 actual of $2 per FFO share. Let's walk through the following two items that make up the increase in our 2022 FFO guidance over our previously introduced 2022 FFO guidance. First, the Embassy Suites at Waikiki Beach Walk contributed $0.02 per FFO share of outperformance in Q1 2022 that was not previously included in our 2022 guidance. Embassy actually outperformed our team in Waikiki's internal expectations each month for the Q1. Second, Bel-Spring 520, which is our most recent office acquisition in Bellevue from the Q1 and was not included in guidance. Bel-Spring 520 is expected to contribute approximately $0.02 per FFO share in 2022. These adjustments, when added together, will be approximately $0.04 per FFO share and represent the increase in 2022 over our previous 2022 guidance. While we believe the 2022 updated guidance is our best estimate as of this earnings call, we do believe that it is also possible that we could outperform this revised guidance range. In order to do that, tourism at Oahu needs to continue to return in full force, including our guests from Asia. We are cautiously optimistic that the Embassy Suites Waikiki has the potential to continue outperforming, but there are many variables to that, and we prefer to take a wait and see approach. As always, our guidance, our NOI bridge, and these prepared remarks exclude any impact from future acquisitions, dispositions, equity issuance, or repurchases, future debt refinancings or repayments other than what we have already discussed. We will do our best to be as transparent as possible and share with you our analysis and interpretations of our quarterly numbers. I'll now turn the call over to Steve Center, our Senior Vice President of Office Properties, for a brief update on our office segment. Steve? Thanks, Bob. At the end of the Q1, net of our two redevelopments, our office portfolio stood at approximately 94% leased, with approximately 7% expiring in 2022. Netting out our three recent acquisitions in Bellevue, our same store portfolio was approximately 96% leased. The momentum in our office portfolio continues. In the Q1, we executed 19 leases totaling approximately 170,000 rentable sq ft, including approximately 13,000 rentable sq ft of comparable new leases, with increases over prior rent of 30% on a straight line basis. Approximately 91,000 rentable sq ft of comparable renewal leases, with increases over prior rent of 16% on a straight line basis, including renewing Autodesk and 46,000 rentable sq ft at Landmark in San Francisco. Approximately 66,000 rentable sq ft of non-comparable new leases, with Torrey Reserve in San Diego and City Center Bellevue accounting for 52% and 27% of this activity respectively. Throughout our office portfolio, we are reaping the benefits of the multiple initiatives we have been employing to drive occupancy and rent growth, including renovating buildings with significant vacancy and/or rollover, furthering amenity packages, aggregating and white boxing larger blocks of space where there is scarcity, and improving smaller spaces to be turnkey and move-in ready. Notably, our San Diego portfolio is now approximately 94% leased, in large part due to new leases in our two recently renovated buildings at Torrey Reserve at rents that exceeded our projections. We have an additional 25,000 rentable sq ft of new leases and lease documentation. In Bellevue, we signed approximately 18,000 rentable sq ft of expansions, with another 5,000 rentable sq ft of new leases and lease documentation. City Center Bellevue is 96% leased, with an additional 1% out for signature. We have established new market rents at our recent acquisitions in Bellevue and expect our Bellevue portfolio to provide opportunities to grow NOI through renewals and new leasing activity at replacement rents that we believe to be meaningfully higher than expiring rents. For example, most recently, we entered into a 6,000 rentable sq ft expansion at Corporate Campus East Three, with an increase over the existing premises rent of 25% on a straight line basis. As mentioned, we continue to invest in our properties, which will help position us to continue to capture more than our fair share of net absorption at premium rents as office markets rebound. Specifically, we are moving forward with the following new projects, major renovations at Eastgate Office Park, a new fitness center and bike hub with showers and lockers, and a conference center at City Center Bellevue, renovations and common area enhancements at Solana Crossing, and new amenities at Corporate Campus East Three. Meanwhile, Q2 is shaping up nicely, with 12 deals totaling 172,000 rentable sq ft of new and renewal leases and lease documentation. I'll now turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks. Morning, Todd. Good morning out there. Morning. First question, I just wanted to dig in a little bit on the guidance. If we look at this quarter's result, it annualizes to $2.28 a share. You know, and some of the $0.02 of accretion that you talked about from Bel-Spring 520 doesn't really show up much in the Q1 since it was acquired in March. You know, I heard the comment about the temporary dip in occupancy at Pacific Ridge. That's anticipated. But what other offsets should we be thinking about throughout the balance of the year to get back down towards the revised $2.13-$2.21 range that we should be thinking about here? Hey, Bob, would you comment on that please? Todd, that's a good question. As it relates to the guidance, you know, we have not increased the guidance for the remainder of the year at Waikiki Beach Walk. We're hopeful that does increase. Just put it in perspective, our original budget at Waikiki Beach Walk, the mixed use or the Embassy Suites, was 54% of pre-COVID from a NOI standpoint. With the update in the Q1, that gets us to 74% of pre-COVID NOI. We think that we will exceed that, but we got to do a wait and see on that. We have not adjusted our guidance to reflect that. Like I said in the comments, we do have a fairly, you know, good shot at exceeding our current guidance. You know, there's volatility out there. You know, one of the—as long as we're talking about the Embassy Suites, Todd, you know, for the month of March, our occupancy was 80%, a paid occupancy, so that, you know, compared to the Q1, which was 73%. Our ADR seems to be consistently over 300. For the Q1, it was like $333 for the Q1 and similar for the month of March. Our RevPAR, which is what we also follow, is around 243-262. That's a number we also focus on. That's like an NOI to us. Pre-COVID, we were above 300 on that RevPAR. The other thing is that as of Monday this week, you know, from a Japan update, Japan's vaccination data was 81% of the total population. And that's for both the first and second shot. Boosters have been administered to 38% of Japan's population. So, you know, the Japanese government is speeding up the rollout of those booster shots. You know, one last comment that we've recently seen is that the eastbound air seats are on the rebound. If you compare, well, just the increase over the prior years, what we're seeing that is out there is that April's eastbound seats from Japan are 13% higher than April. 13% higher in April 2022 versus the prior year. In July, we expect them to be 74% higher than July 2021. The same thing for Korea and Oceania. I think that's telling the story that there is a very good shot at exceeding this budget, which a big portion of it comes from, the Embassy. Okay. Pray for no more Omicron variant though, so any darn thing could happen. We hate to count our nickels before they're in the bank. Okay. No, certainly. It just sounds for the mixed use asset, right? The leasing at the hotel retail, that should be recurring. Then, you know, Ernest, your comments suggested that you do expect to see higher occupancy and daily rates at the hotel throughout the balance of the year. It sounds like, you know, you're encouraged by what you're seeing on the ground. But I guess, Bob, that it sounds like that outlook's not in the guidance. Can you maybe talk a little bit more, you know, around what that translates into for occupancy and sort of daily rate assumptions that are embedded in the guidance as we look ahead for the next couple of quarters? Yeah. Bob. I don't have that data in front of me. Go ahead, Ernest. It depends how our prayers are answered. You know, if everything comes together, it's gonna be wonderful. If there's another variant, it's not gonna be. That's why I just hate to count those nickels until we make our deposit slips that's in the bank. It's a great property. It's in a great location. It's gonna come back. We're just not sure when and to what extent. Okay. Maybe we just switch gears and talk about acquisitions. You know, you've been pretty busy. More recently, you talked about some of the transactions in Bellevue, where you own 1 million sq ft today. Company's still sitting on, you know, about $75 million of cash. You know, just curious, you know, if you can talk about the investment pipeline a little bit and the company's appetite to continue deploying capital today. You know, Todd, we're finding that the market for acquisitions is so buoyant that we haven't been able to focus on anything that we could acquire that you would be proud of. There's just so much money out there. We have a great portfolio, and we have most of our money invested. Cap rates are extremely low, and interest rates are rising. I think the best thing we can do is just kinda sit and improve what we have, keep our eyes open, but we don't have any specific target at the moment. A friend of mine just sold a property, and he's got some 1031 money to invest. I sent him all the offerings that I get, and he said, "Ernest, have you had a shot at any of these? 'Cause I've tried them." He says, "I can't acquire any of them at a reasonable price." I think our strategy now is to make what we have as profitable as we can, keep our eyes open, and hopefully there'll be an opportunity. We are opportunistic, and we are going to examine opportunities that come up, but there's nothing in the pipeline now that I can talk about. Okay. Just lastly, Bob, any update on the City Center Bellevue maturity in November? Yeah, we're looking at it. I mean, obviously, that matures in November, $111 million. It's a secured mortgage. The only reason it is secured is that we try to cover the negative tax bases on some of our OP unit holders. We'll refinance that, you know, portion or all of it, and we'll probably have more news about that in the Q2. Certainly there's no issue in the financing or the availability of cash, Todd. That's a good question, and thank you. Do you expect to unencumber that asset? I don't- Well, yeah. That would be the goal is to put a secured mortgage on a smaller asset and free up the value of that asset compared to where it was when we initially bought that. What that would do is that would enhance the unsecured asset pool and assist with the combined leverage. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Our next question will come from Richard Hill with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. You have Adam Kramer on for Richard. Hey, hope you're all doing well. Look, I appreciate kinda the commentary earlier on kinda cap rates and what the market looks like in acquisitions. Wondering if you could maybe comment on, you know, kind of what are unlevered IRRs now in the market. What are you guys kinda buying at in your recent acquisitions, and how do you kinda see the unlevered IRRs in the market currently? You know, that's such a broad question. I don't know how to answer it. The cap rate in residential is somewhere between 3% and 4%, probably closer to 3%. In office, what we acquired, there's room for improvements, and the cap rates were 5%-ish, give or take, as Steve could comment on that. We see upside as we amenitize, a new word in English language, and improve the properties we acquired. Those are really the markets we're in is retail. Cap rates seem to be 5%-ish, 4.5%-5.5%, and we're not as hopeful about acquiring too good retail with upside. We're looking for upside. Our strategy is to increase shareholder wealth. To do that, we have to buy something that we can improve. The opportunities we see now are fairly limited. We're pretty well invested with good properties, and we love what we have, and we're just gonna make the most of it. That's our thought in the short term. Hey, Adam. Go on, Todd. Yeah. Adam, this is Bob. Hey, Bob. Let me just add to Ernest's comments. So the cap rates are just one data point. In our acquisition underwriting, we underwrite also and put a lot of emphasis on our unlevered IRR. So we look at it in relation to our weighted average cost of capital. We seek the acquisitions, obviously, that meet many other criteria, but we wanna make sure that they exceed an unlevered IRR of 7% or more. Because that really points to the growth of that asset over the long term. That's been the strategy. That's a good point, Bob. Thank you. That's all really helpful, guys. Thanks for the color on that. Look, I guess kind of a related question. I want to ask kind of about the rise in interest rates and recognize kind of, you know, that you guys' balance sheet sits in a really good spot and, you know, cash on hand, et cetera, to kind of do acquisitions. Wondering kind of if the rise in rates changes your capital allocation decision making. You know, and again, you kind of mentioned, right, cap rates haven't really kind of moved yet in tandem with this rise in interest rates. Just wondering kind of how you guys view the rise in rates with regards to your capital allocation. Well, we were fortunate a year ago to, as you know, most of our debt came from private placements. When that became more expensive than public issuance, we were fortunate enough to offer half a billion dollars' worth of bond. We were 4.5 x oversubscribed, and we picked up $500 million at 3%/8% for 10 years. Those rates would not be available to us today. If we had to finance an acquisition, it would be more expensive, but we don't see the cap rate on acquisitions coming down. It's kind of out of balance in the short run. I think our strategy now is to just improve what we have. I hope that answered your question. If not, please explore further. Yeah, no, that it does. You're wondering about the kind of appetite for buybacks maybe. I think it's been addressed on past calls. Figure I'd kind of ask again about the kind of appetite for buybacks. I know, Ernest, you've, you know, it's in public filings that you're buying. Wondering about buybacks for the, you know, for the REIT. Well, you know, the board makes those decisions, but I have no plan to encourage buybacks. You know, we're a mid-size REIT, but on the smaller side. As Bob Barton pointed out in some of his prior information he's made available, we'd like to grow, but we have to grow in a way that enhances our shareholder value. We want more assets, and we don't wanna do it at the expense of growing smaller. That's my personal view. Okay. No, that's all really helpful, guys. Adam, let me add on to that. To Ernest's last comment there, yeah, we agree with everything Ernest just said, but I think in terms of allocation is that, while we're improving our assets now in terms of capital, and we always continue to do that, we still favor commercial real estate, commercial office. We think that specifically, Steve can add to this too, is that we're not looking for commodity space. There's a big difference between commodity space and newer space that either been recently built or we're building or stuff that's relevant to today's marketplace. When you look at what we're doing to One Beach on the North Waterfront, making it current and relevant to the marketplace. You look at La Jolla Commons III, and Steve will talk more about that. I think these are great assets, and we continue to see opportunities up and down, whether it's in Bellevue or following the Caltrain line from San Francisco south to San Jose, to opportunities down here in San Diego. We do love office, we love multifamily, but right now we're over 50% allocation to the office sector. Steve, do you- As Bob- Anything to add to that? Bob points out that the thing that we really love is wealth creation. We have this marketplace, as Bob pointed out geographically, and we'll only do something that enhances the value of our stock and creates wealth. That's our strategy. There's sometimes that you pass, and sometimes you punt, and sometimes you run. Right now, we're just going to improve what we have until we see a significant opportunity. I've been buying stocks, as I tell people. I can buy real estate cheaper on Wall Street than I can on Main Street. Yeah, no, that all makes a lot of sense, and appreciate the football reference with the NFL draft coming up this week. Thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you for your interest. Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Ernest Rady for any closing remarks. Okay. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for your interest. Thank goodness we're getting to the end of this pandemic, and we can see each other again. We're going to Nareit. We hope we'll have a chance to visit with you all. Thank you for your interest. We're doing the best we can for you, and we'll continue to do that. Again, have a good day. Thank you. Thank you guys in San Diego for doing such a great job on this call. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.