We're gonna get started everyone. Good morning. Welcome to the Annual and Special Meeting of First Capital REIT. My name is Adam Paul. I have the privilege of serving as your President and CEO. I've got some opening remarks, we'll get into the formal part of the meeting. You know, reflecting on the past year, amid new and evolving challenges and opportunities, we were able to progress many fronts of the business over the course of 2022. At this point, we're all aware of the macro events that triggered a lot of volatility in the capital markets, in the real estate sector, First Capital's unit price certainly was not immune. We stayed focused on our properties. We really focused on leasing and operations specifically.
Those efforts really yielded some meaningful results in that regard. Life, leasing is the lifeline of our business, and really even pre-pandemic, when you look at our leasing activity, it has demonstrated strength and consistency throughout, and last year was no different. Our total leasing volume of 3.6 million square feet in 2022 exceeded our 3-year pre-pandemic average, to give you some context. We achieved this volume while also increasing our rental rates on lease renewals by an average of nearly 10%, so again, very healthy. That helped to drive our average in-place rental rate per occupied square foot to yet another all-time high, closing the year at just under $23. Continued rent growth, coupled with stable occupancy drove Same-Property NOI higher by a very healthy 5.1%.
While we remained focused on leasing and operations, there was important strategy work last year that was underway and planned over the course of the year. That culminated really with some announcements halfway through the year, where we initiated and started to implement some very deliberate unitholder-focused initiatives aimed at unlocking value for all unitholders. The announcement started in May, which was our NCIB that we implemented to take advantage of the major disconnect between the intrinsic value of our trust units and their trading price. Over the course of the year, we acquired and canceled 6.2 million trust units for a total investment of just over CAD 94 million.
That equated to an average cost of CAD 15.14, you know, which compared to our IFRS NAV at year-end of nearly CAD 23.50. Importantly, this capital that we used for that investment came entirely from either retained operating cash flow or from specific property dispositions. In September, we announced the full reinstatement of our monthly distribution. This was a very straightforward decision for our board, primarily for two reasons. The first is it fulfilled the promise that we made to you, our unitholders, at the beginning of 2021. Secondly, given our tax profile, we had very little flexibility other than to do that without compromising our REIT status.
Moving to late September, we made one of the most significant announcements that we made last year, which outlined our enhanced capital allocation and portfolio optimization plan. This plan was the outcome of months of work by management and the board on really how best to unlock the value that we have created in the portfolio and the business over the last few years, particularly with our entitlements program. The plan is really centered around the monetization of over CAD 1 billion of real estate, but very specific real estate. It's real estate that is typically low or no-yielding properties where our value enhancement objectives have been achieved, and importantly, the redeployment of that capital into ways that can generate a more meaningful near-term impact for First Capital, which includes today debt reduction and unit repurchases.
Executing upon this plan will better balance FCR's portfolio to a higher proportion of income-producing properties that actually contribute to key metrics like EBITDA and FFO. It will also further strengthen our balance sheet, which remains a very important element of our plan and something that our board and management team are fully committed to. We're pleased with our progress. Our two-year plan, which extends through 2024, is now including this morning's announcement over one-third achieved. You know, I can say very comfortably that the pricing we've achieved thus far has either met or in most cases actually exceeded our expectations. We're very pleased with the progress to date. Throughout 2022, we also continued to advance our ESG priorities, further embedding environmental, social, and governance principles into our business and our culture.
We had a very active year on that front, with our many accomplishments from formalizing our carbon reduction targets, to receiving numerous awards and accolades, which really is a function of our talented and passionate team's efforts. We also advanced our ED&I objectives in a very meaningful way, which many of our employees are very passionate about and very engaged in. Finally, I'll conclude my prepared remarks by commenting on some of the planned and strategic and ongoing board refreshment that has occurred. As you know, in February of 2023, Paul Douglas assumed his role as board chair. Paul is not new to First Capital. He's been a highly valued independent trustee since he joined our board in 2019.
His exceptional business judgment, his leadership skills really made him an obvious choice for the position. Ira Gluskin and Richard Nesbitt have also recently joined the board. They bring decades of experience in a multitude of disciplines, including capital markets, mergers and acquisition, investment management, governance, financial services, and many other skills. We also look forward to welcoming Dana Gibbs to the board, our newest trustee nominee. Dana adds extensive real estate industry experience as well as governance, capital markets, and several other disciplines. We have two retiring trustees. Personally, on behalf of the board and management and unitholders, I would like to thank Bernard McDonell for more than 15 years of dedicated service to First Capital. Bernie contributed significantly and selflessly to the REIT through his leadership and stewardship.
He was an exceptional resource for many of us, especially myself, during his tenure over the years, mostly as lead independent trustee, but more recently as chair of the board. I also wanna thank and acknowledge Andrea Stephen, another valuable and long-serving board member who dedicated 11 years to First Capital. Andrea made valuable contributions as a trusted advisor. She also served or chaired a variety of committees for First Capital during her tenure. Bernie and Andrea, you will both be missed, and we wish you absolutely nothing but the best. I'd like to thank everyone for their time today. That concludes my remarks. I will now pass the meeting over to the Chair of the Board, Mr. Paul Douglas.
Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone. I am Paul Douglas, and I serve as the Chair of First Capital REIT Board of Trustees. Each year, we look forward to having an opportunity to speak with our unitholders at the annual general meeting. This year, we have decided to hold our meeting in a hybrid format, virtually through the Lumi platform and in person in the offices here at Stikeman Elliott in Toronto, which provides all unitholders, whether attending the meeting virtually or in person, with an opportunity to participate and engage with trustees and management of First Capital REIT. As noted in last year's annual general meeting, our intent is to hold separate standalone in-person investor events to present the trust business and operations. As such, we will not provide a presentation following a format portion of today's annual general meeting.
We hope this will expand the reach and impact of our management presentation. Of course, we're very much looking forward to seeing you in person at those times. Before we proceed with the formal official business of the meeting, I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge the significant contributions of our retiring board members, Bernie McDonell and Andrea Stephen. On behalf of the entire board and all unitholders, I wanna thank Bernie and Andrea for their stewardship, mentorship, and their assistance in management and many other important contributions to the board during their time here. Members of First Capital's board and trustee nominees, as well as the First Capital's executive leadership, are attending the meeting today, either in person or remotely. I will act as chair of the meeting, and Alison Harnick will act as secretary.
First, I'd like to discuss how voting and questions will be addressed in this hybrid format. Usually, and this year is no exception, the vast majority of unitholders submit proxies or voting instructions in advance of the meeting, with only a small number of unitholders opting to vote their trust units at the meeting. Registered unitholders or duly appointed proxy holders who wish to vote at the meeting may vote either in person or online through the online platform. Registered unitholders who submitted a valid proxy in advance of the meeting do not need to vote again. If you do not vote at the meeting, your previously submitted proxy will continue to be counted in the vote tabulation. For those voting in person, voting in person on all matters will take place by the ballot that was provided to you when you arrived today.
The ballot distributed to you includes each of the items of business being voted on today. You will be given the opportunity to vote on each business item after the presentation of all of the business items. Please do not return your ballot until told to do so. At that time, the scrutineer will come around and collect your ballot. Once the ballots are collected, we will take a short recess to allow the scrutineer to tabulate all the votes and report the results. For those voting online, for the purposes of the meeting today, voting online will be conducted by a single electronic ballot. Registered unitholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be given the opportunity to vote on each business item after the presentation of all such business items.
Registered Unitholders who choose to vote by electronic ballot at the meeting will be revoking any previously submitted proxies, and only the electronic ballot submitted at the meeting will be counted in the vote tabulation. Again, if you have previously voted, there is no need to vote again. When registered unitholders and duly appointed proxy holders are given the opportunity to vote, you will receive a message on the Lumi virtual interface requesting you to register your votes should you choose to do so. Please note that you will only have a certain amount of time to vote. Another manner in which this hybrid format will be different is with respect to questions which will be accepted from registered unitholders and proxy holders in person and through the online platform.
Once all motions being considered as part of the formal business portion of the meeting have been introduced and prior to the voting period, we will address any questions related to such motions. We will address any general questions that do not pertain to the formal business of the meeting during our question and answer period after the formal portion of the meeting has concluded. When prompted, registered unitholders or duly appointed proxy holders attending the meeting in person may raise questions in respect of a motion by raising their hand, and when recognized by the chair, addressing their questions or comments to the chair. When asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and confirm if you are a registered unitholder or proxy holder. If applicable, please also specify which formal business item your question pertains to.
For those attending the meeting virtually, questions in respect of a motion may be submitted by any registered unitholder or duly appointed proxy holder using the instant messaging service of the Lumi Virtual interface during the formal portion of the meeting. Please note that there will be a slight delay in the publication of the questions, and we will address any questions relating to the formal business portion of the meeting after the introduction of these business items and prior to the voting period. When asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and confirm if you are a registered unitholder or a duly appointed proxy holder. If applicable, please also specify which formal business item your question pertains to.
We will address general questions received online that do not pertain to the formal business portion of the meeting during our question and answer period following the formal portion of the meeting. To ensure fairness for all attendees, Chair will decide on the amount of time allocated to each question and may limit, consolidate, or decline questions. Questions with common themes may be grouped together for efficiency. In the unlikely event of a serious technological failure that prevents the meeting from continuing, the Chair may determine to postpone the meeting. To make the best use of our time, certain unitholders have been asked to move and second the proposals which are called for in the notice of the meeting. Before we start, I would ask Allison to provide the necessary caution regarding forward-looking statements.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of those speaking today, I would like to note that their comments may include forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, and they may refer to non-IFRS financial measures. Details regarding forward-looking statements and non-IFRS financial measures are on the screen and can be found in our various securities filings, which are available on SEDAR and our website. Actual results could differ materially from the forecasts, projections, and conclusions in the forward-looking statements made today. All of the forward-looking information and statements that we may provide, which includes all information other than statements of current and historical fact, are qualified by the cautionary statement posted on the screen.
Thank you, Allison. The meeting will now come to order. Representatives of Computershare Trust Company of Canada, the REIT's transfer agent, have been appointed to act as scrutineer for the meeting. Notice of the meeting, including the agenda for today, was mailed to unitholders on or about March 1, 2023. Scrutineer has confirmed that proxies representing over 76% of the units entitled to vote at the meeting have been properly deposited prior to the meeting and that a quorum is present. I now declare that the meeting is properly constituted for the transaction of business. First item of business is the tabling of our 2022 audited consolidated financial statements together with the auditor's report. These can be retrieved from the investor section of the First Capital website or on SEDAR.
Please note, we will address any questions respecting the financial statements in the question and answer period following the formal portion of the meeting. I will now proceed with the next item of business, the election of trustees. 10 trustees are to be elected. Detailed information regarding each of the 10 nominees is set out in the circular. Board has adopted a majority voting policy that permits unitholders to vote in favor of or withhold from voting separately for each nominee. Details concerning the policy are available in the circular and the full policy is available on our website. Based on the proxies received by the scrutineer in advance of the meeting, each trustee nominated has received votes in favor in a range from at least 95% to over 99% of the votes cast.
Pursuant to Section 6.7 of the Declaration of Trust of the REIT, trustee nominations were required to be received 30 days prior to the meeting. As the nominees put forward by the Sandpiper Group and the Artis Group were withdrawn together with their meeting requisition and no such nominations were otherwise received, no one other than management's proposed nominees, as set out in the circular, is eligible to be nominated. As mentioned, I have taken the liberty of asking certain unitholders to make the motions for the election of trustees and other motions today. Could I please have a motion for the election of trustees?
Mr. Chair, my name is Karen Hashmi. I'm a unitholder of First Capital REIT. I nominate the following persons for election as trustees of First Capital Real Estate Investment Trust to hold office as trustees of the REIT until the next annual meeting of unitholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. Paul C. Douglas, Adam E. Paul, Leonard Abramsky, Sheila Botting, Ian Clarke, Dana Ginn, Ira Gluskin, Annalisa King, Al W. Mawani, and Richard Nesbitt.
Mr. Chair, my name is Sandeep Talwar, and I'm a unitholder of a First Capital REIT. I second the motion.
Thank you, Karen and Sandeep. As mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, voting today will be conducted by a single ballot for those in person or on an electronic ballot for those voting online. We will therefore continue with the next item of business, which is the appointment of the company's auditors. You will be prompted to vote on the election of each trustee after the presentation for all business items for this meeting. We'll now move to the appointment of the auditors and authorization of the trustees to fix their remuneration. Based on the proxies received by the scrutineer in advance of the meeting, the auditors have received votes in favor representing at least 99% of the votes cast. May I have a motion to appoint the auditors and authorize the trustees to fix their remuneration?
Mr. Chair, I move that Ernst & Young LLP be reappointed auditors of First Capital REIT to hold office until the next annual meeting of unitholders or until their successors are appointed and to authorize the trustees to fix their remuneration.
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Thank you. Again, you will be prompted to vote on the appointment of the auditors after presentation of all the business items for the meeting. The next item of business is the advisory resolution regarding First Capital's approach to executive compensation, which is disclosed in detail in the circular. A copy of the resolution is set out in the circular. Based on the proxies received by the scrutineer in advance of the meeting, the say on pay advisory vote has received votes in favor representing at least 67% of the votes cast. May I have a motion to approve on a non-binding advisory basis First Capital's approach to executive compensation?
Mr. Chair, I move that the non-binding advisory resolution on the REIT's approach to executive compensation in the form set out in the circular be approved.
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Thank you both. You will be prompted to vote on a non-binding advisory basis on First Capital's approach to executive compensation after the presentation of all business items for this meeting. The next item of business is to consider a resolution reconfirming and approving First Capital REIT's amended and restated unitholder rights plan agreement. A copy of the resolution is set out as Schedule A to the circular. Over 92% of the votes cast in advance of this meeting are in favor of the resolution to reconfirm and approve First Capital REIT's unitholder rights plan agreement. May I have a motion that the resolution in the form attached as Schedule A to the circular reconfirming and approving First Capital REIT's amended and restated unitholder rights plan agreement be approved.
Mr. Chair, I move that the resolution in the form attached as Schedule A to the circular reconfirming and approving First Capital REIT's amended restated unitholder plan, unitholder rights plan agreement be approved.
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Thank you. This is the last item of business to be voted on. Allison, were there any questions or comments submitted online in respect of today's business items?
No, there weren't.
Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from in-person attendees in respect of today's business items? Thank you. You will now be prompted to register your vote in respect of each of today's business items. For those of you attending the meeting in person, please complete the ballot that was provided to you when you arrived today. Once voting is complete, the scrutineer will collect your ballot. For those of you attending the meeting online, please register your votes by accessing the voting page when prompted and make your selections in respect of each of today's business items. Once the electronic balloting closes, the voting page will disappear and your votes will automatically be submitted. We will wait a few moments for the completion of the ballots and then move on with the remainder of the meeting.
We will provide registered unitholders and duly appointed proxy holders approximately 2 minutes to complete the ballot. Once voting is completed, I would ask that the scrutineers compile a report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. We will reconvene in a few moments with the scrutineers report and the voting results. Following this formal portion of the meeting, there will be a question and answer period. I'm pleased to report that we've now received the preliminary voting results from the scrutineer on the 4 items of business. The formal voting results will be made available on SEDAR following the meeting. On the election of trustees, the voting results show that each trustee nominee has received the required number of votes in favor of his or her election.
Accordingly, I declare that the proposed trustee nominees have been duly elected as trustees of First Capital REIT to hold office until the next annual general meeting of unitholders or until they resign or their successors are duly elected or appointed. On the election of auditors, the voting results show that the required number of votes cast were in favor of the reappointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the auditors of First Capital REIT. I declare that Ernst & Young LLP are reappointed auditors of First Capital REIT and that the trustees are authorized to fix the auditors remuneration. On the advisory vote on First Capital's approach to executive compensation, the required number of votes cast were voted in favor of the First Capital's approach to executive compensation. The motion is carried and the resolution is approved.
On the reconfirmation and approval of First Capital REIT's amended and restated unitholder rights plan set out in the resolution attached to Schedule A to the circular. The required number of votes cast were voted in favor of the resolution. The motion is carried and the resolution is approved. As we have come to the end of the formal portion of the meeting, we will terminate the meeting now. May I have a motion to terminate the meeting?
Mr. Chair, I move that the meeting terminate.
Mr. Chair, I second the motion.
Thank you. I declare that the meeting is now terminated. We'll now move on to the question and answer period of the meeting.
Hi, everyone. For those in the room, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. We'll continue to monitor online for questions from virtual participants.
Hi, I'm Paul Durnin from Burlington. Three Pauls, count them. Okay, the hostile takeover or hostile whatever is defeated, and that's good. At the same time, according to page 62, this REIT is an underperformer since 2020 against the TSX and the REIT index. I'd like you to discuss that. I would like you also to discuss why there was such a big loss in 2022. I'm not blaming management for the COVID, not for a minute. I have another question too, but I'll let someone else go.
Sure. Thank you very much, Mr. Durnin. Nice to see you in person again. On the first point, with respect to performance since 2020, if you look at our stock chart since then, it's clear we have not fully recovered from COVID. We have said before, our belief is that we were disproportionately impacted from COVID for a variety of reasons, which we're happy to discuss. Management and the board have done a lot of work on this particular issue, and a thorough review and examination of the available options. At this point, that's culminated with the plan that we put out in September that we are very aggressively executing. We believe it leads to good things.
We believe it makes the company more attractive to a number of stakeholders. I can, you know, I can speak, and Paul, I'm sure, may have something to add. The board is very open to all in any way that we can to deliver the value that's been created in the business intrinsically to unitholders.
I would just add that, you know, if you look at the value of the units, it underperformed for several years prior to last year. Since then, the units have done quite well compared to our peers.
The board is fully supportive of management and the plan, the optimization plan that's been discussed. We believe that as we execute on that, we'll see better results from the market.
All right. Is there anything more you wanna say about the very large loss for accounting 2022? What is obviously front and center for all REITs these days is rising rates and your debt and how your rates will be affected going forward and the timing of that debt and all of the, like, the fixed and variable rate mortgages, trigger rates, all of this kind of thing. Some, I believe a couple of REITs on Bay Street have already cut their distribution to preserve capital because of this debt. Talk about your debt and say something more about the large accounting loss of 2022.
Yes. I apologize, I should have addressed the accounting loss in round one. Look, I'll touch on it, but Neil Downey, our CFO, is probably the best person to speak of it. You're referring to a loss that impacted net income, not FFO. You know, my belief is net income has actually very little value for a real estate company like ours. The earnings measure we look to judge performance or the key one is FFO. You know, you get these swings with respect to property values where, and a variety of other things, some, you know, the way we hedge our debt at times and they impact net income.
I do believe it's a bit misleading, and we say that when it goes the other way too, where we have big write-ups in the value of the portfolio and, you know, we don't focus on that for the same reasons. You know, with the rise in rates, we were proactive amongst our peers in taking down the value of a number of our properties. Data points were limited, but we felt that there had been enough change that I believe we wrote down our asset base by roughly 4% last year, and that's the main item that would've taken net income down. That being said, our earnings measure, our FFO, was up in 2022 quite meaningfully.
Some contributions from things that I would describe are one-off, but the core operations, the NOI, Same-Property NOI, those were up as well. With respect to our debt, you know, we continue to manage it the best we can. We've continued to pay off debt instead of terming it out, which has been helpful, and you should expect to see more of that certainly in the current environment. We've tried to manage our interest rate risk the best we can as well, by fixing the vast majority of our debt today. Neil can give you the exact number after the meeting, but we're definitely less than 10% variable or floating rate debt today. Over 90% of the in-place debt today is fixed rate debt.
Thank you very much for the questions.
Would anyone else in the room like to ask a question? Okay. Seeing none, we'll just double-check online. There are no questions online. That will conclude the question and answer portion of the meeting.
Okay. That actually concludes the meeting.
Thank you all for attending.