Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the 2022 Federal Realty Investment Trust Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It's my pleasure now to turn the meeting over to Dave Faeder, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Faeder, the floor is yours.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody. I'm David Faeder, the Chairman of the Board, and I'd like to welcome you to our 2022 Annual Shareholders Meeting. We'll start with the business portion of the meeting, and then time permitting, we'll move right into Q&A. The company will not be making any formal presentation at today's meeting, but you can find a really good recap of the 2021 performance in our CEO shareholder letter at the front of the annual report. I encourage you to read that letter if you haven't already done so. Now I'd like to ask that the meeting come to order. All of the members of the Board of Trustees are participating in this meeting and are available later to answer questions. Also available to answer questions today are: Nishit Mehta with Grant Thornton, our independent auditor; and Justin Bintrim with Pillsbury Shaw Pittman, our corporate counsel. Our trustees for today's meetings are Dawn Becker and Daniel Guglielmone. Dawn Becker will serve as the Inspector of Elections for the Annual Meeting. And at this time, I would like to ask Dawn to present the quorum and report on the notice of the Annual Meeting.

Thank you, Dave. As Secretary of Federal Realty Investment Trust and Inspector of Elections for the annual meeting, I hereby certify that as of the record date, March 14, 2022, there were 78,687,588 common shares of beneficial interest outstanding. I further certify that on or about March 25, 2022, the Trust caused to be mailed to the shareholders of record a notice of Internet availability of proxy materials. That notice contained instructions on how to access and review the Trust's proxy statement and annual report to shareholders, which includes our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021. The notice of the annual meeting included in the proxy materials, advise shareholders of the date, time and location of the annual meeting, the record date for voting and the matters to be considered at the annual meeting. The notice was provided under my signature on behalf of the Board of Trustees. I further certify that for the Annual Meeting being held today, proxies totaling at least 71,691,632 shares, or approximately 91% of the outstanding shares as of the record date have been received and tallied.

Thank you, Dawn. Based on the report of the Inspector of Elections, I declare that a quorum is present and that the Annual Meeting was properly called and is properly constituted for the transaction of business. I'll read all of the proposals being voted on at this meeting and then answer any questions with respect to those proposals. [Operator Instructions] Please indicate in your question, what proposal it relates to. And if a question does not relate directly to any of the proposals, we will defer that question to the Q&A session, time permitting. If you are participating in today's meeting as a guest, you will not be able to ask any questions at this time. The polls are open, and you can vote now if you haven't already done so or you can change your vote by clicking the proxy voting site link on the left of your screen. The polls will be open until the proposals have been read and questions relating to those proposals have been answered. If you submitted your proxy or voting instructions prior to today's meeting and do not wish to change your vote, you don't need to do anything at this time. Let me now turn to the proposals. The Board is recommending a vote for all of these proposals. Proposal #1 is the election of 7 trustees to serve until the Trust's 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Proposal #2 is an advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers as described in the proxy statement. And proposal #3 is for the ratification of the appointment of Grant Thornton as the Trust's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. Are there any questions on the proposals?

There are no questions that have come in.

Thank you, Dawn.

Mr. Chairman, the preliminary results reflect that each of proposals 1, 2 and 3 have passed. The final vote for each proposal will be included in a Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission once our transfer agent has certified the vote results.

Thank you, Dawn. Now that the formal business of the meeting is over, I will formally adjourn the meeting, and we will open it up for questions. If you'd like to submit a question, please click on the messaging icon at the top left side of the screen, type your question into the text box and then click the send icon at the right of that text box. As a reminder, if you are participating in today's meeting as a guest, you will not be able to ask any questions.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not seeing any questions come in.

Okay. Thank you then, and that will conclude the Annual Meeting.