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Sandeep Mathrani, CEO, and Steve Douglas, vice president & CFO are presenting for General Growth Properties at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session.

2:17: Mathrani: We’ve been very active. There have been refinancing—over $2.5 billion this year alone. We said we would do $4 billion to $5 billion. We’ll get there… We’re on contract to sell $800 million in assets. We should achieve $1 billion. … No one can fault us for not being active.

2:20: Mathrani: We’ve just returned from ICSC in Vegas. … I’ve been going to those things since 1989 and it was probably my best ICSC ever. … The pleasure was to see my own people very active on the deal side. Even more pleasurable was that the retailers wanted to make deals. … The other thing that was impressive to me was the types of tenants making deals were everything from the Armanis, and YSLs and Tiffany’s to the Children’s Places. It was not just the A malls, but the B malls as well. The quality of tenants is spreading across all types of malls.

2:21: Mathrani: Our organization is complete. Our senior management team is fully staffed now. The reorganization is done. We are a strong, operating company.

2:22: Douglas: We’re continuing to see a robust large loan market. The depth of field on the 10-year market is encouraging. … We’ve also smoothed our maturity ladder by (balancing future maturities so they’re not hitting at the same time).

2:25: Mathrani: We have 125 of the top 600 malls and 25 of the top 100 malls and 90 percent of our income is from that. Most of the income is from A and B+ malls. We’re seeing across all—even B & C malls—sales inching upwards. Sales have almost reached peaked levels of 2007. Is this sustainable with unemployment at 9 percent? I think time will tell. … So far the sales across the portfolio have come back. We are lagging on occupancy at GGP and lagging at occupancy because our brethren were leasing with good balance sheets and giving tenant allowances (which GGP not do). … In 2011 we have healthy liquidity, so we are making up for lost time at a very rapid pace.

2:28: Mathrani: (In response to question about potential float of B malls.) Westfield has a bunch of assets in the market and they’ll come to the market earlier than ours. So it will be indicative, if nothing else, of our portfolio. … I’m anxiously awaiting to see the results of the Westfield offer.

2:32: Mathrani: (How much redevelopment or intensification is GGP looking at?) I’m not a big believer of putting condominiums on top of shopping centers. … We’re in the process today of figuring out how much we have. We have indicated several times and in meetings that we think it will be $1.5 billion in three-to-five year period.

2:33: Mathrani: The real question, are we increasing total occupancy? Is the total occupancy more permanent than short-term? The answer to that is, “Yes.” We think there will be a 150 basis point increase in occupancy. There may not be an increase in term just yet.

2:35: Mathrani: On the outlet business, I’m of the belief that if you were to do it on a development basis, it takes a long time to build a credible business. Will we venture into it, yes. … But it will not be the driving force of our growth. I’d be more likely to do it on a joint venture basis than to do it on my own.

2:37: Mathrani: (In response to a question about its recent swap with Macerich.) I’m a firm believer that we need to control our anchors. It gives us the most amount of flexibility. A competitor doesn’t have as much incentive to manage or develop that in a way to benefit your asset. … Of the five Mervyn’s boxes, two are vacant. … I needed to take one of them and redevelop the mall. And there was no way I could do that without owning that asset. … We can now demolish and reconfigure. … We’re not only doing that with them, but if there are anchors across our portfolio owned by department stores, we’re aggressively going to buy them.

2:43: Douglas: (In response to question about appropriate a level of unencumbered asset pool.) Philosophically we believe putting assets on a shelf for a rainy day costs equity. It leaves horsepower sitting there. … The sins of the past (cross collateralization, recourse to the parent, etc.) … ruin the benefits of having an asset-level strategy as opposed to a corporate-level strategy. … If we’re doing our debt stack properly, I think inherently we will be in a 40 to 50 percent range. … You have amortization, cap rate compression and increases in inherent NOI. … Simply keeping an unencumbered pool is something we won’t do.

2:45: Mathrani: All debt is not the same. If you put investment grade debt on an asset that is amortizing and you have a 10, 12 or 15 year maturity. Do you evaluate the LTV today or the LTV when it is due? … That qualitative analysis is something that … the industry doesn’t do.

Session ends.

Martin Stein Jr., chairman & CEO, Brian Smith, president & COO and Diane Ortolano, director of investor relations, are presenting for Regency Centers Corp. at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session.

11:47: Stein: From my perspective, the positive leasing activity that we’ve experienced in the last several quarters continued and was highlighted even more so at ICSC. The key thing for ICSC is how much of that leasing activity—which included small shop spaces and bigger spaces—is going to be converted into signed leases? … Our move-outs are moving to more historically norms. If leasing activity converts to signed leases, then I think ICSC will have been a success and take a step for us getting to our objective of 93 percent leased.

11:48: Smith: We had 35 percent more meetings. … And they were less “meet and greets.” There were no talks of rent reductions. There were a few relationship meetings. … We had many meetings to figure out how we could do multiple deals. We had nine meetings like that with heads of real estate. … There was a lot of talk about development. All retailers with ambitious expansion plans are looking to development because there is none going on.

11:50: Smith: In the case of the properties we’ve developed, they’re all grocery-anchored centers in mature markets with low vacancies. … All of those have limited shop space. Going forward, that’s what you’ll see as well. … Our guidance is up to $75 million in new starts. They may not all happen this year. One may slip to next year. … The average shop leasing space is 11,000 square feet. We may have a bigger pipeline next year—up to $100 million.

11:53: Smith: (In response to competition in grocery market.) If you go back eight years ago, 90 percent of all food sales were done by the traditional grocers. It’s down to 70 percent now. … That’s gone to Walmart or Target. … It’s come from the grocers competing with Walmart on price. … Fortunately, our demographic is not one that competes with Walmart. … If anything, it’s come from the second-tier grocers and independent grocers.

11:55: Stein: (In response to question about investment sales climate.) Our investment strategy is tied to capital recycling. … We are trading properties where there is a risk of NOI going down and buying high-quality asset where prospects of NOI growth are strong. … The silver lining to the ocean of capital is that we’re seeing more shopping centers that meet our criteria in a long time. Pricing isn’t so good. … But some of capital that’s out there is making its way down to the centers we’re trying to sell.

11:57: Smith: There is a notion of capital chasing A-quality properties. But you are seeing more of it chasing the Bs. … So you’re seeing the cap rates go down on B properties as well. In Southern California, the As are trading in the low 5s.

12:00: Smith: The As are being dominated by the pension funds. What you are seeing on the Cs … you are going to have individual buyers local to that market that can focus on that market and manage it better than the institutions. There are always going to be people that think they can do a better job and get more value out of it than others can.

12:05: Smith: (In response to question about tenant sales trends.) Overall, things are much more positive. … From grocers, sales are positive, especially from Whole Foods and the higher-end grocers. … A global comment that would be appropriate is that sales are improving.

12:08: Stein: (In response to question about Internet sales.) Obviously Blockbuster has been affected by Internet sales and we have gone from over 100 Blockbusters a year-and-a-half ago to … 28 today. We’ve been very successful at replacing them with better tenants and in many cases better rents. … We have one Borders and half-a-dozen Barnes & Noble. In most of those cases, bad news would be good news for the shopping center. … If you own great real estate and have great locations, that is going to address issues like Internet sales and competition from Walmart.

12:10: Smith: (In response to question about using technology.) We’re replacing all of our leasing signs and adding to them QR codes. … It will immediately send them to our Web site and give them property-level information and notify our leasing guys that someone is interested. … We’ve optimized our Web-site so it’s compatible with mobile devices.

12:12: Stein: (In response to question about office supply stores.) Where we own really good real estate, there is a risk there, those will be stores they want to keep. But if they go totally extinct, other retailers will want that space.

Session ends.

Mark Zalatoris, president & CEO, Brett Brown, CFO, and Scott Carr, president of Inland Commercial Property Management Inc., are presenting for Inland Real Estate Corp. at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session.

11:08: Carr: (In response to question about sentiment at RECon) The annual ICSC convention in Las Vegas is really our strategic with retailers where we are meeting with the heads of real estate and looking at the rest of this year and beyond. … Retailers … have learned to be profitable in a lower sales environment. Leasing demand is much stronger for existing development. Without new development, second generation space is the only place where these retailers can open stores. … Seeing demand for large box space (10,000 sq. ft. and above). … Seeing right-sizing of retailers with the likes of Best Buy, Old Navy and Staples. … And we’re seeing new entrants into markets. … We’re seeing more of that activity and the momentum build. We’re reaching an equilibrium point and the sentiment is beginning to shift in the favor of landlords.

11:11: Carr: The most encouraging thing we saw was in the 10,000-square-foot and below space. We’re seeing not a tremendous amount of activity, but to see them back in the playing field is encouraging. … While that’s a great source of leasing activity, it’s an area that has been quiet for the last two years. … It’s a broader indicator—especially when female apparel tenants are expanding—that Mom is shopping again and that we’re reaching some kind of recovery.

11:12: Zalatoris: Big-box occupancy is at 97 percent. Small-shop occupancy is 86 percent. We’re blended to 94.3 percent occupancy.

11:13: Carr: Haven’t seen a dramatic increase in what tenants expect in concessions. With big-box deals, you’re providing them their box. That runs in the range of $20 to $30 per foot. That’s about 20 percent of the rental revenue we would generate. That’s consistent. … The trend in small shop space is that abatements had run higher during the recession. Today we’re giving less abatement on those deals.

11:15: Carr: (In response to question of internet retail taxation.) It really puts retailers at a disadvantage when the e-retailers can sell without claiming the sales tax. We have joined with the retailers to make this case. The political climate is hindering us. Everyone acknowledges it, believes it and thinks it’s fair. … Unfortunately, the legislators view it as proposing a tax increase. … Nobody wants to introduce that. It is at the forefront of the minds of retailers and retail landlords. … That parity is critical.

11:18: Zalatoris: (On Inland’s non-traded REITs.) Those REITS have separate boards of directors and management teams. We don’t interact. We don’t share properties. We don’t share joint ventures. … The only think we have in common is that the Inland Real Estate Group of Cos. does provide services like IT, human resources. I would say that the only other benefit is that there are opportunities to forward deals on that we can’t use or vice versa. But we don’t operate anything jointly.

Session ends.

Don Wood, president & CEO, and Andrew Blocher, CFO, are reporting for Federal Realty Investment Trust at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session.

10:20: Wood: As we sit and look forward, what we’re really all about is great management and internal growth of the existing properties plus a development component. We have a couple of great development opportunities—one in Boston, Assembly Row, and one in Bethesda, Md., just outside Washington, D.C. … It’s a company that’s very careful about our risks. Development is never more than 20 percent of our activity. Acquisitions—we will only buy the best stuff. We will step up and pay up, but it’s hard to find that. … I do believe that as a country that we are over-retailed. … That does mean that you have to be really careful about the retail property you are investing in. … Much of the retail property in this country will be worth less in five years than it is today. … When you look at the impact of online and you look at the overall supply/demand dynamics, there are challenges in the retail space.

10:25: Wood: (In response to question about investment criteria and where they are willing to “pay up.”) It’s basically in the markets we’re in. … In addition, this portfolio has development and redevelopment opportunities. If you can figure out how to create value in the properties you already own, in the markets you are already in. Those opportunities are far less risky.

10:28: Wood: (In response to question why more B and C locations don’t close if U.S. is over-retailed.) If you think about, if you have a B or a C mall whose future does not look particularly bright in terms of growth, what are your choices? Those tenants have long-term leases. It’s very expensive to turn it into something else. It’s a big physical structure that has to be demolished and figuring out the new demands are not easy. … So it might just make sense to milk it and get what you can by financing, rather than selling. … In our portfolio, that’s not the case. We don’t have that stuff. A big reason for that is the high-barrier to entry markets we are in. There are many places in the country that are not over-retailed. … For outlets, there is generally more demand than there is supply. So you’re seeing everybody try and get into that. … The thing that stays constant is that the close-in suburbs of Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Los Angeles … stay strong. That’s not to say they don’t dip, but they (weather the storms better).

10:34: Wood: (In response to question about leasing strategy.) If you believe this notion of oversupply, you have to create demand. The only way we create value in real estate is competition for space. Yet it seems to me that because of the nature of some of Federal’s properties, there are at least 20 of our properties that are very close to a high-performing mall. … (Rent) is significantly higher in a regional mall. … Businesses are looking for ways to be profitable. So they are much more open-minded to doing business in different ways. … We (need to) create competition with mall space. … I don’t hear too much talk about the demand side. It’s got to be about creating as much demand as possible. … You have to have the product to make sense to do that. It’s not the grocery-anchored center that’s going to be able to pull a tenant out of the mall. It’s going to be mixed-use/town center style developments.

10:39: Wood: It was the best ICSC I have been to in 10 years from Federal Realty’s perspective. … There was incredibly strong demand to do deals. … Many ICSCs are just relationship building conferences. This year there was much more traction about doing deals (in 2012 and 2013). It was a very productive period of time.

10:42: Blocher: We’ve seen a dramatic improvement in bank lending rates over the course of the year. … Today, we’re looking at LIBOR + 150 (at beginning of year was LIBOR + 200). We had a bank meeting and had 56 people show up. … Demand is strong. Syndication is going well. … With respect to the unsecured market, we are not a big secured borrower. Only about 12 percent is secured debt. That gives us flexibility to pursue acquisitions. … We are also not highly-levered. … Current market conditions are that a new 10-year inside of 5 percent. So the markets remain very attractive. … We do have a lot of options available to us and use them responsibly.

Drew Alexander, president & CEO, and, Stephen Richter, executive vice president & CFO, are reporting for Weingarten Realty Investors at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session.

8:47: Alexander: Occupancy is improving–92.3 percent in retail. Acquisitions, YTD, acquired properties worth $33 million. Looking at our full year guidance see recurring FFO in $1.72 to $1.82 per share. Retail occupancy will be 93 percent by end of year. Acquisitions we are aiming for $175 million, most of which will be by end of year. If we have one concern it is hitting that acquisitions number. … Amount of product we are seeing is reasonable, but prices are high and cap rates are quite low, so we’re choosing to bow out before the final round.

8:48: Alexander: Over the next several years we anticipate selling around $600 million, with activity picking up at the end of this year and into next year.

8:53: Alexander: One of the retail trends we saw at ICSC is a good amount of activity. … We’re seeing a lot of (activity from specialty grocers and retailers like Marshalls, Ross, Saks Off 5th, Nordstrom Rack). … In service world, we’re seeing activity from uses like cleaners and nail salons and seeing insurance coming back. Tremendous activity in quick-service restaurants. Lot of medical office. … Lot of people taking care of themselves, whether it’s a day spa, massage, hair cutting or fitness. Seeing some activity in furniture and some activity in family dining group. And it’s always pleasant to us to see the cell phone stores continuing to proliferate. … I think we have most of the problems behind us of giving space back.

8:57: Alexander: (In response to what he saw at ICSC) The general mood was absolutely positive. Frankly, ICSC is not as important to us in 2011 as it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Given the size of our company and the national platform, we had a significant number of portfolio review meetings with key retailers. We sometimes do these twice a year or once every nine months. … These give us the opportunity to a … very deep dive in their portfolio and gain an understanding of their expansion plans. … ICSC is more of a high-level touch base meeting. We met with heads of real estate of Walmart, Ross, Target, Safeway, Kroger and probably a few others. It’s nice to touch base. … There’s an open acknowledgement that they’re going to have trouble reaching their store plans. … We’re going to see a tipping point in rents where those last few boxes are taken and you have to start looking at new development. All of the big-box folks are aware of that. … As for shop tenants, there are more chains as opposed to moms & pops (at ICSC). People are absolutely looking to open more stores. They have shed their weak and underperforming stores and looking to open from here.

9:01: Alexander: (In response to question of the state of big boxes.) Best Buy is looking to shrink their footprint in a lot of cases. We are looking at that with them. In some cases they are spending money to shrink now and that will help us lease it. … In the office products world, we have leases with all three of the big office products folks. … It’s my personal belief that all of those companies remain solvent entities and will honor their contractual obligations. Office Depot represents 1 percent of our NOI. Even if they have problems, it won’t be significant to us. … One of the tragedies of the downturn was that there was no debtor-in-possession financing available. That is available today. … It is a little bit of a headwind, but my general attitude is one of cautious, moderated optimism. The economic conditions we are in now and the speed bumps now are substantially better than they were in the late 2008-2009 period. … They are really very manageable.

9:05: Alexander: (In response to questions about the acquisitions climate.) The market is very competitive. We are seeing an improvement in the amount of quality product coming to the market. … But it’s still probably just one-third of the volume we saw in 2006-07. … There’s just an ocean of capital out there from a tremendous number of sources. The fiercest competition is from the nontraded REITS. They raise money and place it very aggressively…. It’s pretty clear from the ads they are run and how they are oriented in terms of the number of acquisitions people vs. leasing people, that they are aiming for very big volumes. … Some large pension funds with maybe a big asset management fund advisor will buy a supermarket-anchored project, directly hire a brokerage firm and think it’s so simple that they can do it without a local partner. That hasn’t been our experience. … Occasionally we see our peer REITs. They tend to see their cost of capital like we do, so the ferociousness of their capital is not that great. When they are they are tending to partner with a pension fund, so it’s not just their money.

9:07: Alexander: It has always been a second half business. I do think we’ll do comfortably more than the $33 million we’ve done. But we’ll be selective. … So I’m not sure we’ll get to the huge numbers. … On dispositions, we can sell (lower quality) assets at attractive prices. … It’s a distinct possibility that we could be a net seller this year, because that’s where we are seeing the opportunity. … It may have short-term dilution effects, but long-term it is the right thing to do.

9:10: Alexander: As the economy is getting better and we have circumstances with a weak anchor and we can recapture a store, we are working a number of things. It’s tough to quantify and say that it will be a tremendous amount of money (on redevelopment) in one fiscal year. … We are focused on redevelopment opportunities and think there will be some, but don’t think it will be a lot. But the returns when we do will be fabulous.

9:13: Alexander: (In response to questions about mom & pops and inline tenants) Most of mom & pops are service retailers. Their cost-of-goods sold and capital investment is very different. We are definitely seeing improvements. The hole in the bucket is getting smaller. While there are some issues—Blockbuster and others—we’re optimistic about improving the occupancy through the rest of the year.

…

It’s absolutely getting better. … Everything I read leads me to believe that it is getting slowly better. I think the majority of tenants—large or small—that went out business did so because their fundamental performance was just not that good. I would think the circumstances from the capitalistic nature of a bank, if you had a line out to a merchant and they were doing pretty good. You might not increase it and let them open a new store, but it would seem pretty rare that you’d pull it and put them out of business. … I think some people got a little out over their skis with too much debt relative to their sales and profits. … As the economy turned down, sales went down and prices went down. … But really across the whole geographic footprint we’re seeing very strong improvement.

Session ends.

Edward Glickman, president & COO and Robert F. McCadden, executive vice president and CFO, are presenting for Pennsylvania REIT at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session:

3:48: Glickman: The company continues on plan. … Expecting year-end occupancy in the high 80s. Same-store NOI growth plus-or-minus 1.0 percent. … On the capital side, on the last five years decade the company spent more than $1 billion in repositioning. Much of this was financed by debt. … We found ourselves in an overlevered position. Since early 2010 the company has taken a number of steps to repair the balance sheet. … Our intermediate goal is to bring the debt-to-gross-asset-value ratio down to about 60 percent.

3:50: McCadden: For the balance of ‘11 and into ‘12, we have a large number of expirations due to doing short-term leases in the 2008-2009 period. We have 60 percent near-term expirations at malls doing less than $350 per square foot. … We’ve made an upward movement in overall portfolio occupancy and stabilized occupancy at these lower-sales assets. … There is interest from retailers to open locations in some of those lower assets, but mostly looking at 2012. … We see flattish renewal spreads in short term and sustained growth beyond that.

3:52: Glickman: One example is parent of Kay Jewelers, which has many stores with PREIT and they are looking for additional stores with the company. I use that as an example because jewelry was hurt deeply during the recession and has now staged a comeback. … The mall is a place where jewelers can do well, even if sales for the property are below the national average. … It’s a good use for malls and one we see expanding. … ICSC was interesting because after two years of pretty negative comments from retailers about their outlook, at this ICSC we saw a shift in momentum and the dialogue in past years was about protecting profits and cutting back and how to survive the recession. Now it’s all about how to get growth.

3:55: McCadden: (In response to question about turning short-term leases into long-term ones.) At end of Q1 at $357 per square foot. … As of the end of December and into first quarter, we have a fair amount of tenants in holdover. … We are keeping tenants on in month-to-month basis. … In many cases, our view is that we are negotiating for renewal terms that are more commensurate with an improving economy than one that is in a downward cycle. … We would hope we could grab part of that uplift in renewal spreads in the latter part of 2011 and into 2012.

3:56: McCadden: (In breaking down the sales recovery at its malls.) You saw a lot more volatility at the higher end—steeper decreases and now greater improvements. Below $350 per square foot, they didn’t fall as much and haven’t risen as much. … Most of the volatility has been on the upper end of the portfolio.

4:01: Glickman: There have been two major portfolios that have been on the market—one by Westfield and one by GGP. PREIT has looked at a distance at both of those portfolios. We are not an immediate candidate for either portfolio, there might be assets in one or both portfolios that might be attractive to the company. … We’re more focused on organic growth and improving NOI. … The positive fact of having these portfolios trading is that it will set a benchmark and will (help improve the financing market for B and C malls)…. The more trading in these assets, the more vibrant the market is, the better it is for the company. Our thinking is that it will start help revaluing other assets and help in two ways—valuation and help us in trading assets out of our portfolio.

4:11: Glickman: The highest-concentration of sales-per-square-foot would be Apple, which is probably without peer. It might be a multiple of 30X its next competitor. Beyond that it might be jewelers, who can get (a lot out of small spaces). … We mix all sorts of products to have a merchandise mix that will make a productive, efficient, but utilitarian shopping experience. … People want to experience shopping, have a good time, but get what they need done. So we provide a panoply of services. … In many properties we are expanding to a Town Center concept to add uses that are not traditional retail. … We view it as the future of the business in all but the rarified atmosphere of the highest-productivity malls. … We view mixed-use as a future direction for some of our projects. … We’ve already put into some of our properties—and intend to do more—health care (i.e. places to get well care, not acute care) as well as wellness related things like fitness centers. Beyond that we’re talking about county or community services where you can pay a bill. … Community colleges are becoming important, so they’re looking for additional space. Think about taking an old theater and turning it into community college space. It has lecture halls and our food court becomes their dining hall.

End of session

David Simon, chairman & CEO, is presenting for Simon Property Group at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session:

3:02: Simon: Fundamentals in the business are pretty good. We just came back from several meetings with retailers, including the ICSC. General demand is picking up. Our first quarter results were excellent. … Our revenues increased 10.2 percent. Our spreads were up and our comparable property NOI was up more than 2 percent. Fundamentals are decent and getting better. There is still a lot of workout work to do. Retailers are still cautious, but feeling more comfortable in opening stores. … Our balance sheet is generally in great shape and I think things are headed in the right direction.

3:04 Simon: We expect to send $2 billion to $3 billion on the existing portfolio—redeveloping, expanding, modernizing and adding … amenities. … We started that a year-plus ago. Some of our peers are talking about starting that now, but we’re already well into that process. … Generally we still think we have a lot of upside in our leases, especially in our outlet portfolio. Including Mills and properties in construction, we have 99 dedicated to value-oriented retail. That’s a pretty good spot to be.

3:05: What are we going to do to grow? Show me in the retail real estate world who is growing more than us? … This year first quarter was 14.2 percent FFO per share growth. This year I expect to have record earnings for the company. … Most people have growth, but are not going to get back to record earnings. They may grow off ’10 or ’09, but are still off their peek. … We will have the highest FFO in our company history.

3:07: (In response to question about redevelopment and potential of mixed-use.) Simon: There are unique asset intensifications available to us. For instance, Copley Place in Boston is a unique opportunity to add some retail square footage, but also potentially a residential tower. There are going to be some residential and hotel opportunities in our portfolio as we intensify the use. But I agree that the vast majority will be to further reposition assets from a retail perspective.

3:10: (In response to question about Calloway JV.) Simon: We are excited about the Canadian opportunity. I think we are off to a good start. Hopefully we can get a commitment from an anchor that is very interesting. … A lot of the very successful outlets are in the Northern part of the U.S. So it’s not as if Canadians don’t understand it. … I think if you can end up building 15, it’s a pretty good size. It would be a good build-out considering what’s out there now.

3:13: Simon: Almost every retailer goes through the evolution of store sizes. They start small, go a little bigger, biggest, then head back in the other direction. … That’s a natural evolution. What we have to do is keep the center fresh, looking great, driving customer traffic and look to see that they don’t reach for too much space.

3:16: Simon: Where we envision being able to communicate to our customer is that they know they’re in a Simon mall. We want to communicate with them and we’ll give our best retailers the ability to communicate with them. … We’re going to try and do it in a coordinated fashion where they have the best that we have to offer and the best the retailers have to offer. We want to treat our best customers specially. … We’ve never done that. But we want to treat our best mall customers better than just any other guy that shows up.

3:24: Simon: (On question about Internet sales taxation.) We need federal legislation to change what we consider one of the most unfair taxation situations. Pure Internet retailers do not have to collect sales tax. But Gap has to collect sales tax on online sales, even in the same states. … It’s not a new tax. It’s just a tax that the online guys ignore and do not collect. … We are hoping that logic prevails and it levels the playing field and leave it up to the states to decide what to do. … We need Congress to act. … It’s not an ideological issue. It’s going to take an act of Congress and I’m going to work my tail off to make it happen. … There’s no reason to treat a mom & pop shop different from an Amazon. … Why does Amazon get the benefit over the mom & pop?

3:30: Simon: (In response to a question about new concepts and weaker players.) The weaker retailers evolve. Some get better. Some get worse. There always seem to be a new class of retailers to take up the slack. … Some are going through tough times. At the same time, we’re seeing some others take the market share. … Let’s face it, there is a lot of retail real estate. There will be some obsolescence. … That obsolescence now comes pretty quick. I think long run, it is good, let’s clean out the excess capacity and get to where we need to be.

End of session.

Arthur Coppola, chairman & CEO; Ed Coppola, president and Thomas E. O’Hern, senior executive vice president, CFO and treasurer are presenting for Macerich at NAREIT’s REIT Week.

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Below are notes from the session:

2:18: Art Coppola: For our business, the consumer is OK. The consumer is not feeling tremendously healthy. They don’t feel different from what they felt 10 days ago or three months ago. Those that are unemployed or underemployed are not feeling so robust. But at the high end, the consumer is active again. At the necessity level, they have remained active. … All of that tends to reflect itself in the sales at the shopping centers and the rents we can get. … Retailers are looking to expand and they are willing to pay higher rents. In the last 10 days, there have been stats about employment, foreclosures, housing, but that doesn’t have that much impact on discretionary spending.

2:20: Art Coppola: Retailers almost across the board are looking to expand. It’s hard to imagine a more universal situation of retailers being more in expansion mode. … One of the reasons they talk so much about expanding is that they have put a certain quality collar on where they will expand. … Two or three years ago retailers found that they opened locations in ill-conceived lifestyle centers and those are where they’ve had the most problems.

2:22: Art Coppola: On the ground-up side, we are leasing and will open three years from now a new mall in Goodyear, Ariz., … called Estrella Falls. … We are building a fashion outlet center in North Scottsdale and anticipate it will open two years from now. There will mostly likely another outlet center we are looking to build in the U.S. over the next two or three years. (Also work ongoing at Tyson’s Corner.)

2:24: Art Coppola: Also some redevelopment opportunities. Looking at Walnut Creek. Have a great department store lineup, but really don’t have enough small shop space. We only have about 120,000 square feet of shop space and the market could support a lot more than that. … It could be as dramatic as tearing down buildings and building new ones. … When you add it all up, it’s all very healthy in markets of L.A., San Francisco, New York and D.C. area. … We’re pretty bullish on the opportunities.

2:34: O’Hern: (Responding to question about re-leasing spreads) Looking over trailing 12-month period. In 12 months ending March 31, up 9.5 percent. That’s consistent with the guidance we gave for 2011 where we projected a 10 percent increase in leasing for the year. … At ICSC, leasing team was very positive on the conversations they had the convention. All indications are that it will continue to be a strong year on the leasing front.

2:36: Art Coppola: (Responding to question about retailer trend of shrinking average store sizes.) We are talking to JC Penney about their urban initiative, which could include having stores as small as 30,000 to 70,000 square feet. We did a deal with Walmart for a 60,000 or 70,000-square-foot store. We are trying to help them serve markets they are not presently serving. … The good thing about retailers is that it generally means a new location, which creates a backfill opportunity on the old space.

2:41: Art Coppola: The goal is not so much to sell the bottom 20 percent of your portfolio. The goal is to have 95 percent of your income coming from high-barrier-to-entry or fortress real estate. … That’s really the overriding goal. Dispositions are a tool to get us to that goal.

End of session.