Good morning. 10:15, yes? Good morning, everybody. I am Matt DiLiberto, Chief Financial Officer of SL Green. Thanks for joining us this morning. To my right, and pardon my voice, I don't typically sound like this, but a three-year-old at home has infected me with whatever she's carrying this week. To my right here, our Chief Investment Officer, Harrison Sitomer. Move over a little bit. Yeah. Far left, our Head of Leasing, Steve Durels. Because we like to make most efficient use of everyone's time and make sure that we hit the topics that are on investors' minds, rather than present, we thought a moderated panel was more appropriate. So we've brought John Kim from BMO, who was gracious enough to moderate for us. With that, I will turn it over to John. We're gonna try to make one awkward mic work. Okay. Thanks, Matt. My job is to move the mic around for answers, but why don't we start off with 2024, how that's shaping up? First of all, SL Green, largest commercial landlord in New York City, best performing REIT year to date. But when you look at the year and the goals you had for 2024, what goals are you ahead of pace? What goals are you behind pace or basically on track? Yeah, it has been a fantastic start to the year, on all fronts. You know, we reported our Q1, which was ahead on all of our metrics, leasing, earnings, and the like. We'll touch on leasing, I know more as we go through. We do at our December investor conference, lay out roughly 20 goals and objectives for the year. That's what you're asking about. And we are apace on virtually all of them. Some slightly ahead, some right in the target range. As to, you know, challenging ones, well, we'll talk about casino, I'm sure, as we get into the presentation. That process has been delayed till 2025 by the state, so we cannot accomplish that in 2024. So we'll take a, what we call a sideways thumb there 'cause we didn't cause that. Everything else, you know, tracking as we would have expected to. We do set those goals as stretch goals relative to guidance. So things like same-store NOI is well... Our goal is well in excess of where we guided same-store NOI, so that would have to be a big push to get there. There are other similar goals, but, feeling very good. Our goal is to, you know, get 75% or so of those accomplished each year. Out of 20, that's pretty good, and it's trending very well, you know, five months in. I guess two of the goals that I want to question you on is the occupancy goal by year-end, 91.6%, releasing spreads going positive, 2.5%-5%, Q1 was negative. What are some of the assets that have positive mark-to-market opportunities, and are you still on track to achieve your occupancy target? Yeah. The occupancy goal is a notable one. We closed out last year. We saw the bounce off the lows in occupancy in the Q3 last year, ended the year at 90% occupancy, 1,000 basis points better than the market, and then expected a dip in the Q1, which we saw, you know, better performance than we'd expected. Off of that, we expect to increase occupancy from the end of the Q1 through the end of the year, by over 200 basis points, to 91.6%. Sounds like a lofty goal, so you need to see a pipeline, and Steve Durels will talk about our pipeline. You need to see a pipeline that is in the buildings that drive occupancy. Park Avenue is a very tight market where tenants are competing for space, and we are pushing rents. Where you need to see a real occupancy pickup is on Sixth Avenue and Third Avenue and Lexington Avenue, and that is where we see a large portion of our 1.55 million sq ft pipeline. And so with that filling vacancy, we feel very good about achieving the 91.6% goal. As to mark-to-market, you won't see big mark-to-markets on Lex and Third and Sixth. You'll probably see negative mark-to-markets, so why do we assume positives? Because of our portfolio on Park Avenue, in particular, 245 Park, where we are marking rents significantly higher than previous ownership, and we have a significant amount of leasing pipeline there at 245 Park. Can I just ask, Steve, for more color on your pipeline? I guess it's 1.55 million sq ft. I had written down 1.6. But, how many of these leases in your pipeline address expirations for this year or vacant space currently? How much, how much of this is for redevelopment? Just more color on your leasing pipeline. Of the 1.55 million of pipeline, most notable in that, in that stat is there's over 800,000 sq ft of leases that are out in negotiation. That pipeline is not just term sheets that are likely to get a lease, but in this case, the vast majority of the pipeline or half the pipeline is actual leases that are in negotiation that, you know, have a 95% probability or better of signing. I think that 800,000 sq ft likely grows to 900,000 sq ft by the end of this week, based upon conversations that we're having with tenants. We're... You know, we have a target for the year of 2 million sq ft of leasing. We've done 700,000 sq ft year to date. So add that to the 900,000 square feet of leases out, and you can see as we're 5 months into the year, why we feel so positive about leasing prospects for the year. Financial services largely driving the market right now. Certainly for our portfolio, it's the nature of the buildings that we have. They're particularly the Park Avenue buildings, 450 Park Avenue, 280 Park Avenue, 245 Park Avenue, are all ideal financial service buildings, and that's where we've seen pricing power. We've raised rents 4 or 5 times over the past 6 months. And you know, if this next round of leases that we have out to negotiation in those buildings, I expect we'll be raising rents again on the Park Avenue assets. Sixth Avenue, similarly, is seeing some overflow benefit. That's the other submarket in Midtown that's seeing a lot of velocity, but it's also where you've seen landlords do a lot of big redevelopments and spend a lot of capital over the past 3 or 4 years. So, we're seeing our fair share of tenant demand for our 1185 Sixth and 810 Seventh, which sort of feeds off that Sixth Avenue Quarter. And it's similarly, it's financial services, a little bit of law firm, and then balance of our pipeline is a mixed bag, a little bit of government, a little bit of healthcare, a little bit of technology even. Tenant demand beyond that, a lot of law firms in the market right now. Thankfully, technology firms are back in the market. There's 5.5 million sq ft of known tech tenant demand right now. That's twice what it was a year ago, so it's great to see that sector come back to life. Some driven by big brand names that everybody would know, looking for some big requirements in the 300,000-600,000 sq ft range, and then the balance, a little bit of AI driven, and the balance, sort of that 30,000-50,000 sq ft type tenant that's out searching for space. So it's all good news about for the overall Midtown and Midtown South market. Can I just follow up on, on the tech demand? Because there was the big drivers back pre-pandemic. Any more that you could share as far as the tenants looking for space, and how much of that is AI, and also what submarkets they're most attracted to today? Well, you know, tech, I think, still prefers that Midtown South corridor, you know, from East Side to West Side, along the 23rd Street spine. You'll see a little of it come into Midtown. I don't see any of them searching Downtown. Downtown is still a very tough submarket. You know, for the overall leasing marketplace, Midtown is really where the vast majority of leasing demand has been. There's been moderate pickup in Midtown South, but sort of in the smaller to mid-size type tenant. Some of the big names that are out there right now, Amazon's looking for space, Apple's looking for space, Intuit's looking for space. You know, and there's OpenAI, who's finally searching the market. There's been a rumor that they were out in the market earlier this year, which wasn't true, but over the last couple of months, they've come into the market. So these are all, you know, big names, and a lot of the requirements, I think, have an AI component that's helping drive this demand as well. Why do you, why do you think they're more active in New York than they are in the, in the West Coast markets? Well, I think, you know, that's a lot of their clients are here. They all made beachheads, and a lot of their-- for the technology guys, a lot of it is about their workforce, where does their workforce wanna live? And New York City is still the preferred destination for the quality of life, what it has to offer, the commutability of it. No, it's not affordable, but, you know, these are well-paid people, and these people are coming out of school and searching for jobs. They have power in the marketplace to sort of dictate where they want to live and work. And New York City, without a doubt, is the driver of these tech firms looking for talent. Switching gears a little bit to capital raising activity that's online for you, SL Green, this year. Any update on the billion-dollar debt fund that you're looking to raise? And how much of that can you deploy this year in 2025? Let's see if I can speak loud enough. There we go. So we launched our fundraising process for our credit vehicle in mid-February, right after earnings call, around earnings call. We've been on the road for the past three months in the fundraising process. We have about 10 or 11 groups right now that we're in fairly advanced negotiations or discussions with, through our, you know, fundraising documents. We're expecting a first close of that, which won't be the full $1 billion, but a portion of that sometime this summer, and then a final close of that fund through the end of the year. And our expectations now, based on investor demand, is that we should be out surpassing that billion-dollar goal that we set for ourselves. So I wouldn't be surprised to see that number be higher than $1 billion, just based on the feedback we've received. In terms of, you know, investor demand and what we're seeing for this vehicle, you know, I've personally been on the road for 6-7 years, meeting with our LPs, meeting with co-investors. I think right now is the most optimistic I've heard from investors about New York City specifically, and the differentiation of New York to the rest of the office markets throughout the country. And that demand has really led investors to looking at New York as a safe haven and a place to invest, and we're pretty optimistic about the feedback that we're receiving, so far. What about deployment of capital? Like, how quickly can you deploy capital? ...Yeah, so right now, can people hear me if I don't have a mic? No. Okay. Right now we have about $300 million-$400 million of pipeline. I mean, really, where this fund is targeting is investing at that intersection between fundamental performance, all of those assets that you're hearing Steve talk about earlier that have leasing demand, have pipeline, can get back to full stabilization, and underlying credit dislocation. So we're just trying to find that intersection. We're not making bets on assets that are outside our core, core markets, outside of our core competency. It's really targeting assets that we know are going to stabilize again and we know have leasing pipeline, and finding lenders and creditors today that want to remove some of those positions from their books, don't want to put additional capital into the assets to stabilize the assets, and really investing at that intersection. You know, our pipeline today is about $300 million-$400 million, and hopefully close out a large portion of that through this year into the first half of next. Okay, so first half closing summer this year. What about 245 Park Avenue joint venture sale and the One Vanderbilt stake? Are you still on track to do that in the upcoming months? Yeah, so to break those into two pieces, One Vanderbilt, we are very actively negotiating on right now. You know, hopefully some more to come, but, you know, right now there's a clear path to the economic deal. We're working through some of the joint venture rights that partners are looking for. But, you know, we see a clear path to hitting our goal for this year. In terms of 245 Park, we've always slated that as a second-half execution after getting some of our leasing done. That leasing is in pipeline. As soon as that's executed, we'll be out in the market speaking with, you know, many of our institutional partners, for that asset. The 245 Park sale was the sale of the century so far. That's how we labeled it. But how would you say the valuation has changed since the original 50% stake, or 49% stake? Yeah, we see some increase. I mean, we think they made a great deal. You know, on a long-term basis, that's a very long-term investor. They're not a short-term, interest-rate-focused investor. The debt was fixed through 2027, which gave them the flexibility to not have to worry about short-term rates. And we see price appreciation as we go out and think about that additional 25% interest. We haven't tested the market yet. That's our view of the asset. We're definitely outperforming underwrite on the leasing so far, and so we're optimistic about that. Obviously, rates, you know, as we get closer to that debt maturity, will have a say in where valuations sit, but long term, we think asset appreciation will be there, and we see price appreciation for that 25% interest. Matt, I have to ask you a question because the microphone just seems so painful to move around. So, you are on target to have a billion-dollar debt reduction plan. Where does the leverage go to? And also, what are the best use of proceeds on the sales? Sure. My favorite topic, leverage. Where does it go? Lower. So, you know, we've taken our debt load down from roughly $12 billion, that's consolidated, plus our share of joint ventures, to by the end of this year, we'll be $9 billion if you include our alternative strategy portfolio assets and, $8 billion if you take those out. That's about as dramatic a debt reduction program as I've ever seen. And that puts us in a great spot. So where does it go to? Significantly lower. From our perspective, and I won't debate the debt-to-EBITDA or LTV, whatever metric people want to use, we tend to use LTV. We've always said 50%-ish is a very comfortable place for us to be. Depending on your math, we're either slightly below that or slightly above that, after we close out the program this year. And more importantly, it puts us in a position to go back on offense. So as you talk about, you know, capital deployment, the focus has been much more defensive for the last couple of years by design in the interest rate environment and what had happened to the balance sheet from a leverage perspective. We were just focused on every nickel going towards debt reduction. We had shut down the share buyback program, hadn't done any DPE investing, hadn't done any real new real estate investing of any material nature except, you know, our ongoing development and redevelopment projects. This is the year we pivot, and you're already starting to see that pivot. Well, there'll be opportunities to invest in the fund. You know, $100 million will go there. You know, if we can find incremental liquidity above our program, the stock still looks very attractive. It's, you know, had a great run over the last 12 months, but is still deeply discounted. We still have an active share buyback program that we haven't utilized in a couple of years, but there'd be an opportunity there. We have our own projects that are still ongoing. We're gonna invest in 245 Park. We're finishing out 760 Madison, which is going exceedingly well, and we'll start to get proceeds in from the condo sales later this year. And, you know, we are looking at other new opportunities that are out there. Um- The DPOs. Yeah, the DPOs is another... That's a good one. The discounted debt extinguishment, we've executed just short of $200 million worth of gains. You know, those are something less than a par repayment of debt. Our most recent at 280 Park Avenue was 50 cents on the dollar. There are still other opportunities for that. That's an accretive use of capital as well. So said, opportunities will present themselves once we get through the billion-dollar debt repayment. We are going back on offense. ... I was going to ask you how many of those opportunities are available, whether it's, you know, joint venture equity stakes or some kind of opportunistic pricing on assets. And I also wanted to follow up on the share repurchase program, because you've done a lot of it so far. I think you've proven your point on share repurchases. Why is that on the table going forward, just given how much you've already done? I'll let Harrison answer the first part of your question. Just on share repurchases, we did $3.4 billion of share repurchases. We took our, you know, equity base down by roughly a third. Every nickel of that was accretive because it was asset sales done at market and buying into a discounted share price. Whatever the share price was, it was discounted relative to the asset that we sold to fund the share buyback. That's money made. If that arbitrage is still there, we can sell an asset and invest accretively into the stock. You should take that opportunity. It's investing in the assets that we know perfectly 'cause we own and operate them every single day. There is no, call it, easier investment opportunity for us. But it does need to be taken into consideration relative to the other things that are out there. We are a real estate company. We're real estate investors. There are debt opportunities, there are equity opportunities, there are DPO opportunities, there's the fund. There are other things we can use the money for, but that share price at this discount is still a very attractive opportunity. Yeah, I would add to that. I think we're at a very interesting point in the cycle where we're seeing equity interest in getting into this market right now and riding the upside at the same time that we're seeing credit retrenching and lenders retrenching. I think that presents a very interesting situation for us, where we can raise equity around existing assets, as you'll continue to see us do and as we've done over the past few years, and also use proceeds to deploy into taking a real advantage of the opportunity that's in front of us in the credit space. Whether that be deploying capital through the credit fund, restructuring existing secured property debt, or DPO-ing or discount purchases of existing property debt. So it's a great opportunity for us in this market. We're extremely active. Our team is mining for opportunities in every aspect of that spectrum, and we're going to keep trying to bring deals to the table. I wanted to ask about another goal that you mentioned for 2024, that caught our eye, was the expansion of Summit, making that a global entity, negotiating potentially a couple targets in international cities. Can you just tell us or update us on the progress of this and if it's still in the cards for 2024? It is definitely still in the cards for 2024. Working towards, you know, something... You know, we're very close on something internationally. We set a goal for two. So I think, you know, one is obviously leading the other and, you know, progressing very well. The second one would be later in the year if we can get there. But, we're exploring multiple geographies. That's international, that's also some domestic, and on varying scales. So for those who haven't seen Summit, I'll start with a promo. Go see it. You'll love it. What we're talking about doing internationally is not necessarily just a replica of what we do here. The concept is similar. We can do it in a larger scale, we can do it in a smaller scale, we can do it in a differentiated scale, depending on the geography we're talking about. So we're looking at large, you know, global cities: Paris, Tokyo, London, as well as some smaller installations. The response has been fantastic, certainly from sponsors and developers in each of those areas, and definitely feel good about getting 2 done this year. Does it have to be in a One Vanderbilt type asset in these other cities, new development? It doesn't. It suits best for that, and most of the traction that we've gotten, in particular, a couple of those cities I referenced, has been in new development. 'Cause you can create whatever you want at the top, you know, within reason, of course. But, you know, you have a blank slate. But it's not exclusive to new development as we go throughout all of the geographies we're talking to people about. Just one more on that, the EBITDA target. You had $70 million-$80 million at One Vanderbilt was the target this year. Are we on track for that? What do you need to do to accomplish that goal? Yeah, Summit has actually been, you know, outperforming expectations this year. The Q1 was very strong, and that's actually our slowest quarter of the year. It's the only time of the year where we actually close the facility for two weeks just for, for maintenance purposes. It's a high, high, high-touch facility that we keep open, you know, all year round, but for those two weeks to service, mirrors and infrastructure. It did outperform our expectations and has continued to since. We are at capacity in terms of attendance, self-imposed capacity. So it's really about, you know, tickets. That, that's how we're generating incremental revenue. So on target for our goal for this year, and, you know, the growth internationally, is where we see, you know, the next leg of the real monumental growth in Summit. Matt, you talked earlier or you referenced Caesars Palace Times Square. From the outside, it's just a black box as far as the process, like, how long it's going to take, or where we go from here. What can you share with us as far as next steps from here and, you know, the ultimate end goal of getting the license? Yeah, you know, we, we've kind of been ready to, to submit our initial application, round one, for probably a year, 'cause we thought it was going to go in sometime, you know, Q2, early summer of 2023. That got delayed till 2024. We came out in December and said, "I would expect that we'll submit the application late 2023, early 2024, for a decision in 2024." And then the state said, it was probably 60 days ago or so, that the process is a 2025 process. It's a big revenue generator for the state, will be, both through the upfront fees and the revenue share over time. It's just not part of their, their, program right now. So, you know, for us, the, the process, it doesn't really do anything but delay the process. Doesn't change our strategy. We continue to be out there drumming up additional support. We have incredible support from all of the theaters and restaurants and hotels and everybody in the area that want to see another revitalization of Times Square, which is desperately needed. You know, we're first to market. We are the, you know, I call it the greater good bid, because we are bringing jobs and restaurant meals, and nights, hotel nights, to Times Square and Midtown that we can't service ourselves, versus other bids that are, you know, bringing everything into that one location and kind of taking away from the surrounding areas. You know, we're getting a lot of traction as a result of that, and we'll continue to drum up that support until such time as the state says, "Submit your Round One application. What's the feedback been from local officials and people who are ultimately the decision makers for this license? You know, it's definitely more positive than negative. There's. As with everything, there's resistance. But I'd say the resistance that we've seen is, you know, much more limited than others, other bids, which is what gives us the, you know, conviction, feel good about our bid. But, you know, this is New York at the end of the day, and there are a lot of voices in the room. But I think we're doing better than average. Any questions from the audience? If you don't mind, getting a microphone to ask. You want to use this one? Here. I can just repeat it and pass it around. Yeah. Can you just give an update on Worldwide Plaza? And just a question on, you know, you've got a variety of different percent ownerships and structures for different buildings. How do you, when you're in charge of leasing, how do you kind of handle that conflict of interest? Can you repeat the question? Yeah, I think the question was two parts. One was, regarding an update on Worldwide Plaza. The second, I think, is how do we handle, conflicts, with respect to leasing? I'll let Steve speak to that. But, on the first piece, which is, an update, you know, it's an ongoing, litigation right now with a, with a partner. That partner is, I think, a publicly traded, REIT as well. We own 25% of that asset, and not much to discuss, given the ongoing litigation. I would say just from a corporate perspective, it's in our ASP portfolio, gives us the flexibility to figure out the best deal and continue to execute on a strategy to, you know, create value there. In terms of conflicts, that's a broader question about leasing. I'll let Steve speak to that. It's a simple answer. The governance of our JV agreements requires that if one of the JV partners is entertaining a negotiation for one of their other assets, then they have to recuse themselves from negotiating with any of the tenants or prospective tenants at Worldwide Plaza. So we see that right now. We're in discussion with Nomura. They're out searching the markets. One of our partners is speaking to them about one of their other buildings. They've recused themselves. That leaves it to SL Green to solely negotiate prospective terms with Nomura or, you know, or. And then similarly, if another tenant came along with similar facts, the same thing would happen. Any other questions? I wanted to ask about multifamily conversions. At 750 Third Avenue, you have an opportunity, or, or you've identified this as a conversion play. What are the returns and the potential costs of this, and do you plan to do more conversions within your portfolio? It's great. I think it's the most important topic of the day, in the sense that how seismic residential conversion bill that just passed the state is to the New York City office market. And I You know, we're seeing it on the private side in terms of the number of investors that are appreciating how seismic it is to the office space. Not sure we've seen it yet in the public markets. You know, based on our estimates and what we're sort of widely hearing now in the market, it could be nearly 40 million sq ft of office space converted to residential. Right now, I think the latest figure is 10 million sq ft of buildings have already either pulled permits or have filed for permits, so we're nearly 25% of that 40-million-sq-ft estimate. That's seismic. I mean, that's 40 million sq ft coming out of the denominator when calculating vacancy in this market, and it will drive significant, you know, demand changes to this market. So, just think, people should spend more time learning about it. We're happy to discuss it after this as well. In terms of 750, you know, that's the asset that we've identified as the most attractive candidate for this bill. We have no debt on the asset. We have no partners on the asset. It gives us extreme flexibility in terms of how to capitalize that deal, how to bring in partners. We're just started the process of capitalizing that for potential for the resi conversion, and I think more to come in terms of numbers and what the projections look like. But it's a very exciting prospect, and as we'll see there, that bill is gonna have a tremendous impact on the market as a whole in terms of conversion of office assets to resi. I think we're basically out of time, but I will ask one final question, Matt. We're all gonna be sitting in a lot of meetings today. What's the number one thing you want investors to take away from NAREIT regarding SL Green? The corner has turned. You know, we, we feel in New York, we've, we've been progressively more encouraged by everything we're seeing, whether that be leasing, investment opportunities, either as with us as investors or people investing in us. We are feeling, you know, like the, the corner has been turned as a market. And you know, now we're, we're ready to really take advantage of it. So, I said it earlier, say it again: we are, we're gonna pivot, and you'll see us pivot from defensive to offensive over the course of 2024 and into 2025. And, I think there is a ton of opportunity for us to, to invest and create shareholder value for the next several years out of the environment that we're currently in. That's great. Thank you, Matt, Harrison, Steve. Thanks for attending.