Good morning, and welcome to the Phillips Edison & Company fourth quarter and full year 2019 results presentation. My name is Sarah, and I will be your conference call operator today. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that this live conference call is being recorded and simultaneously webcast. At any time during today's presentation, you may submit a question via the webcast platform for this event by typing your question in the box provided and selecting submit. The webcast and slide presentation containing financial information can be accessed by visiting the Events and Presentations page in the Investors section of the Phillips Edison & Company website at www.phillipsedison.com or at phillipsedison.com/investors. A replay of this morning's call will be available later today on the same websites. I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Koehler with Phillips Edison & Company. Sir, please proceed.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am Michael Koehler, Vice President of Investor Relations with Phillips Edison & Company. Joining me on today's call are our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Edison, our President, Devin Murphy, and our CFO, John Caulfield. During today's presentation, Jeff will review our strategic initiatives and provide an update on our portfolio. John will discuss our financial results. Finally, Jeff will discuss our 2020 initiatives and provide commentary on liquidity. Upon the conclusion of our prepared remarks, Jeff, Devin, and John will address your questions. If you are logged into the webcast and have a question, you can submit it by typing it into the webcast text box and clicking submit question. We encourage you to submit your questions as soon as possible.
Before we begin, I would like to remind our audience that statements made during today's call may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Please refer to slide three for additional disclosure and direction on where you can find information regarding potential risks. In addition, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings release issued earlier this week, as well as in the slide presentation for this webinar, which is available for download on our website. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?
Thank you, Michael. Good morning, everyone. Before we get into our results, I would like to review our initiatives for 2019, as outlined on slide four. As we've stated in the past, we believe these initiatives will improve our future earnings and strengthen the portfolio for a full-cycle liquidity event, which is a top priority for the company. Across our organization, we are first and foremost committed to delivering solid operating results and growing our net operating income. We do this by increasing occupancy at our centers, growing revenues through rent increases, and driving foot traffic at our properties by focusing on the center's merchandising mix. Our second initiative was to execute our disposition plan to fortify the quality of our portfolio. We do this by selling assets that no longer meet our growth objectives or standards for quality. We deploy our disposition proceeds in one of three ways.
We recycle the proceeds into better quality, lower risk, and higher growth assets, or we invest in redevelopment projects with attractive yields at our existing centers, or we repay debt. We speak regularly with investment banks and institutional investors, and we watch the publicly traded shopping center companies closely. Generally, shopping center REITs have reduced their leverage over the past three years, which is why we are focused on paying down debt in order to align with market expectations. Although we are very comfortable with the leverage we have, de-leveraging will improve our options and potentially the outcome for a full-cycle liquidity event. Our third initiative was to grow our investment management business, which provides recurring income streams and allows us to grow without the need for additional capital investment.
This business can also provide meaningful proceeds through portfolio-level transactions, which will help us to de-lever more quickly and efficiently than selling at any one time. It also allows us to maintain ownership interest in these assets, to generate income to support our operating platform, and to build relationships with world-class institutional investors. Now turning to slide five. I would like to share our highlights and progress on these strategic initiatives. On our first strategic initiative, we delivered outstanding operating results and NOI growth. Our best-in-class, fully integrated operating platform delivered Same-Center NOI growth of 7.1% for the fourth quarter and 3.7% for the full year of 2019. Our FFO for the fourth quarter of 2019 fully covered our gross distributions, totaling 101% of total distributions made.
Our in-house leasing team had both a record quarter and a record year, which resulted in a meaningful improvement in our occupancy to 95.4% at December 31st, 2019. That was from 93.2% a year ago. We leased 4.6 million sq ft in 2019 compared to 3.5 million sq ft in 2018. Further driving our results were comparable new lease spreads of 11.3% and comparable renewal lease spreads of 9.1% for the fourth quarter of 2019. We also had comparable new lease spreads of 13.3% and comparable renewal spreads of 8.5% for the full year of 2019. Importantly, we were able to drive these strong results with a strict commitment to managing expenses. This is illustrated by a 3.7% decrease in general and administrative expenses for the full year of 2019 compared to the full year of 2018. Now turning to slide six.
In 2019, we sold 21 properties and one out parcel for $223.1 million in proceeds. We reinvested $71.7 million into two properties and two out parcels. Separately, we acquired three shopping centers and an ownership interest in a joint venture through our merger with Phillips Edison Grocery Center REIT III. Additionally, we invested $37.5 million into development and redevelopment projects at our existing centers, which we believe will produce average yields between 8% and 11% annually once they are stabilized. Our current project returns are expected to yield 15%. Lastly, we reduced our leverage as we paid down $89.1 million in debt. As a result of this activity, Net Debt to Total Enterprise Value improved to 39.5% from 41.1% at December 31, 2018, and to 42.3% at September 30, 2018. This is a major improvement.
With regards to our investment management business, we had many discussions with potential partners in 2019 and are continuing discussions in 2020. Due to the complexity and size of these complex transactions and our personal relations, these initiatives often take time to materialize. As of December 31st, 2019, our investment management business provides asset and real estate management services for properties owned by several different real estate funds, including three joint ventures in which PECO has an ownership stake. At year-end, we had approximately $585 million of third-party assets under management. Altogether, these strong operating results continue the momentum we have seen over the past three years and reflects sustained healthy tenant demand for our well-located grocery-anchored shopping centers. Slide seven provides some detail on our national portfolio of grocery-anchored shopping centers. As of December 31st, 2019, our portfolio consisted of 287 wholly owned properties.
97% of those were grocery anchored, located in 31 states, totaling 32.1 million sq f t of GLA. This compares to 303 properties as of December 31st, 2018, located in 32 states, totaling 34.4 million sq ft. As of December 31st, 2019, our lease portfolio occupancy was 95.4%, which increased from 93.2% at the beginning of the year. Our in-line occupancy was 90.2%, which increased from 84.9% at the beginning of the year. These increases were the result of outstanding work by our in-house leasing team and the healthy demand for space by our grocery-anchored shopping centers. 77% of our annualized base rent came from grocers, national and regional tenants, representing a strong creditworthy tenant base. Looking at tenants another way, 76.5% of our total rent came from service and necessity-based tenants. The average remaining lease term for our portfolio was 4.7 years.
Our top five markets in terms of property count are Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Tampa-St. Pete, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. All five markets fall within the top 20 MSAs in the U.S. Slide eight provides an overview of our leading grocery anchors. Kroger and its brands are collectively our largest tenant, marking 6.9% of our ABR across 58 centers. Today, we are Kroger's largest landlord. Publix and Ahold Delhaize, which owns Giant, Stop & Shop, and Food Lion, among others, are our second and third largest tenants, making up 5.5% and 4.5% of our ABR across 47 and 25 centers, respectively. We are today Publix's second largest landlord. Albertsons, Safeway, and Walmart round out our top five. We strive to own centers anchored by the top one or two grocer in a given market, and our portfolio has excellent tenant diversification.
The scale of our relationships with our grocery anchors provides us unique advantages that we believe generate better property-level performance. As we look at our leading grocery anchor tenants, we continue to see brick and mortar as a cornerstone of their business strategies, and we remain very positive about the long-term prospects of owning and operating grocery-anchored real estate. Slide nine outlines our occupancy metrics and in-place rents or ABR and provides an overview of our necessity-based tenant base. As of December 31, 2019, our leased totally owned portfolio occupancy, as we stated earlier, totaled 95.4%, an increase from 93.2% as of December 31. Anchor occupancy increased to 98% and in-line occupancy increased to 90.2% due to our record leasing activity. Our overall ABR was $12.58 per sq ft, which was an increase of 4.9% from a year ago.
Our in-line tenant ABR was $19.94 per foot, which was an increase of 4.7% year-over-year. When we look at the makeup of our ABR, 76.5% comes from convenience and service-based businesses, like groceries, restaurants, nail salons, barber shops, healthcare, and fitness centers, which we believe offer goods, services, and experiences that are internet resistant and will continue to drive repeat foot traffic to our centers on a regular basis. Slide 10 provides some examples of leases that our first-class leasing team executed during the quarter. We remain focused on leasing our vacant space to tenants that offer necessity-based products, services, and experience as well as a high level of convenience, which we believe are and will be internet resilient. Two examples of new anchor leases include Marshalls and NAPA Auto Parts.
Discount apparel continues to be a growing use in shopping centers, and auto parts companies continue to be in demand as more cars are staying on the road longer, which calls for increased maintenance and service. Domino's, Starbucks, and McAlister's Deli are a few examples of food and beverage national tenants that are expanding in our portfolio. Medical and health and wellness tenants continue to lease up space. America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, Anytime Fitness, The Joint Chiropractic, Workout Anytime, and Advanced Urgent Care are among the tenants that are expanding their growing businesses, and our national accounts team is offering them leasing opportunities across our portfolio. Our leasing activity was at an all-time high for the quarter as we executed a record 251 leases, including new leases, renewals, and options. This totals 1.1 million sq ft.
2019 was also a record-setting year for the company as we underwrote 1,026 leases, including new leases, renewals, and options, totaling 4.6 million sq ft. Our current leasing pipeline remains robust, and we are very positive about the future. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, John Caulfield, to review our financial results. John?
Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. Slide 11 reviews our year-to-date pro forma Same-Center NOI. For the purpose of evaluating Same-Center NOI on a comparative basis, we are presenting pro forma Same-Center NOI as if the merger with REIT II in late 2018 had occurred on January 1st, 2018. As such, our pro forma Same-Center NOI includes 276 properties that were owned and operational since January 2018. During 2019, Same-Center NOI increased 3.7% when compared to 2018. Driving our NOI growth was a $6.3 million increase in base rent, which primarily resulted from a $0.23, or 1.9% increase in average base rent per sq ft, and a 40 basis points increase in average Same-Center occupancy. This increase is in the rental income line on this slide, offset in 2019 by uncollectable tenant expense, which is presented in property operating expense in the 2018 column.
In addition to this base rent increase, our Same-Center NOI growth was driven by a higher recovery of operating costs and capital and lower operating expenses versus 2018. This change in presentation of uncollectable tenant income was driven by a change in GAAP presentation rules. Tenant-paid real estate taxes are also now excluded from tenant recovery income and real estate tax expense. This went into effect January 1st, 2019, going forward in 2020, we will have improved comparability. Slide 12 outlines our net income and FFO financial results for the year ending December 31st, 2019. The company recorded a net loss of $72.8 million compared to net income of $47 million for the same period in 2018.
Our net loss was primarily the result of $87.4 million of non-cash real estate impairment charges and non-cash impairment charges of $9.7 million of intangible and other assets related to Phillips Edison Grocery Center REIT III. As real estate companies recycle assets, both the recognition of impairment charges and gains on asset sales are regular occurrences. As we have been selling non-core assets to improve the quality of our portfolio, we have recorded these charges. We are targeting to complete this phase of our disposition program in the first half of 2020. Impairments may occur in the future as we expect core dispositions to continue as we adjust our balance sheet. Also contributing to the loss was $45.6 million of additional depreciation expense. Primarily due to the additional properties owned after our merger with REIT II when compared to the year-ago period.
When we add back these non-cash impairments and other items, the company generated Funds From Operations of $217 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, which was a 38.9% increase from $156.2 million for the same period in 2018. On a per share basis, FFO increased 1.5% to $0.66 per diluted share. This increase in total FFO is attributable to NOI growth from rent increases and higher recoveries, lower amortization of corporate intangibles, and lower general and administrative expenses. For the year ended December 31, 2019, the company generated Core FFO of $230.9 million, which is a 31.1% increase from Core FFO of $176.1 million for the same period in 2018. We are now reporting Core FFO instead of modified Funds From Operations, or MFFO, for a more appropriate comparison to our publicly traded peers.
The primary difference between Core FFO and MFFO is the inclusion of straight-line rent and lease revenue amortization. A full reconciliation of Core FFO to net income can be found in our earnings release and in the appendix of this presentation. Similar to FFO, the improvement in total Core FFO was driven by the assets acquired from the merger with REIT II, year-over-year NOI growth, and expense management, net of the impact of our asset sales to reduce our leverage. On a per share basis, Core FFO decreased by 4.1% to $0.70 per diluted share during 2019 as a result of the de-levering and disposition activity in late 2018 and 2019. Slide 13 outlines our debt profile as of December 31st, 2019. Our Net Debt to Total Enterprise Value was 39.5% as of December 31st, 2019.
Our debt had a weighted average interest rate of 3.4% and a weighted average maturity of five years. Approximately 89.4% of our debt was fixed rate. This compares to a debt to total enterprise value of 41.1% a year ago, with a weighted average interest rate of 3.5%, a weighted average maturity of 4.9 years, and approximately 90.1% fixed rate debt. In October 2019, we repriced a $175 million term loan, lowering the interest rate spread by 50 basis points, while maintaining the current maturity of October 2024. In December 2019, we closed on a 10-year, $200 million secured debt facility with a 3.35% fixed interest rate. The proceeds from this financing, in combination with our disposition proceeds, allowed us to repay our term loans that would have matured in 2020 and 2021.
As we look at our liquidity, we had $489.8 million of borrowing capacity available on our $500 million revolving credit facility. Slide 14 illustrates PECO's long history of consistent monthly distributions. The first PECO common share purchased in our initial offering has received monthly distributions totaling $6.04 per share, and the last PECO common share purchased in our initial offering has received monthly distributions totaling $3.89 per share. Further, together with REIT II, we have made distributions of over $1.2 billion to our stockholders, and our distribution on February 1st, 2019, marked our 110th consecutive month of distributions. Slide 15 outlines the history of our common stock. From the initial public offering price of $10 for PECO, we have increased our estimated value per share four times, including most recently in May of 2019, when we increased the estimated value per share to $11.10.
The current distribution rate is $0.67 per share per year, which represents a 6.7% distribution rate on the original offering price of $10 per share. On the current share price of $11.10, the distribution rate is 6%. Our distribution rate is above the current 5.6% average dividend yield of our publicly traded peers. Depending on the timing of your investment and treatment of your distributions, Phillips Edison & Company common stock has returned between 52% and 106%, which equates to between 7.5% and 8.5% compounded annual performance. For our former REIT II stockholders, your investment has returned between 18% and 37%, which equates to a compounded annual performance between 4.4% and 5.2% per year. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jeff for a closing summary and some commentary on liquidity. Jeff?
Thank you, John. As we've stated on past calls, one of the possible ways we can achieve a full-cycle liquidity event is through the listing of our shares on a national exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq. I discussed three important strategies at the beginning of this call that we feel will position the company for a successful liquidity outcome and long-term growth. We executed on these strategies during 2019, but we need to continue to execute on these initiatives and to reduce our debt to optimize a successful liquidity event. Retail shopping center REIT equities performed well in 2019, overcoming the decrease in share price they experienced in the fourth quarter of 2018. That said, we are not completely in the clear yet, as our peers still trade at an average discount to their net asset value of about 19%.
To be clear, we are encouraged with the improvement in the retail shopping center environment, and we continue to evaluate the market. We have taken meaningful steps towards a liquidity event, including the 2017 acquisition of our external manager, the 2018 acquisition of REIT II, and the sale of $220 million of real estate during 2019. We are making progress and maintain our belief that a patient approach to liquidity is prudent, and that executing on our strategic initiative will position us to achieve a full cycle liquidity event at a more attractive valuation. For 2020, our initiatives are threefold. We will continue to be focused on driving our NOI growth. We will be focused on completing our quality improvement disposition program, and we'll continue our opportunistic de-leveraging. Third, we will be focused on growing our investment management business.
In closing, we are pleased with our results for 2019, but know we must be laser focused on execution in order to achieve our goals and successfully provide liquidity for our investors. With that, I would now like to turn the call back over to Michael Koehler, our Vice President of Investor Relations. Michael?
Thank you, Jeff. This concludes our prepared remarks. Our webcast listeners are able to submit a question via the webcast portal. Simply type the question into the chat box and click Submit Question as illustrated on slide 17. Our first question comes from Rita Lamba and Jay Perday. Both are individual shareholders. They ask, "At the last meeting you discussed going public. What is your liquidity timing? You mentioned that you wanted to lower debt to improve some of your stats." John, you want to take that one?
Sure. Thank you for your question, and good morning. We continue to discuss our liquidity options internally, and you're right that we want to lower our leverage, which will increase our flexibility and potential valuation as we look at those liquidity options. We're reviewing the option of raising money through an IPO, raising money through dispositions, through joint ventures or other investments. As Jeff mentioned, our shopping center peers continue to trade at a discount to their net asset values, which makes the IPO capital expensive when you consider that discount plus an IPO discount, plus underwriters' fees. Dispositions in joint ventures, we think at this time may represent our best form and best cost of capital, but they take time to efficiently execute. That's where we're focused currently to improve our leverage.
As Jeff just said, these continue to be our key initiatives in 2020, and we hope to update you on that progress as we continue to move through the year.
Thanks, John. Our next question comes from Theodore Miller, an individual investor. He asks, "Are the dividends paid from operations or from new acquired investor capital?" John?
Thank you again for that question. We are not actually raising current investor capital through our common shares. We are paying everything through operations. Actually, the disposition proceeds that we have, we're using that to de-lever, as we talked about. This is shown through the FFO and Core FFO coverage to our total distribution. In the quarter, it was FFO covered 101% of distributions. Core FFO covered 110% of distributions. For the full year, Core FFO was 105% of total distributions. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, we returned over $1.2 billion in distributions to shareholders. That's between the $3.89 and $6.04 per share. At the same time, our net asset value per share has grown to $11.10.
We understand the importance of that distribution, and that's a key thing that we've been able to do with our grocery-anchored investments, is delivering solid cash flow over a long period of time.
Thanks, John.
Yeah.
Next question is as follows: "When will you reprice the NAV, and any indication on where it will go?" I'll answer that one. As we have in the past few years, we will reprice our NAV based on our March 31st financials, and that updated NAV will come out in the first or second week of May when we report our first quarter financial results. In terms of where it will go, we can't comment on that. We do a third-party valuation, and ultimately the board selects what the NAV will be. We look forward to updating you on that in the first or second week of May later this year. Next question is on the share repurchase program as it relates to standard requests. Jeff, you want to provide some commentary on that?
Sure, Michael. Thanks. Before I answer that question, I just want to make sure that we remind all of our investors that when we put these two REITs together, our focus was a strong yield, preserving principal, growth, and then providing liquidity at the right time for our investors. Today we're in a market where our public peers are trading at a 20% discount to the net asset value. As we look at it, the SRP would be buying shares back at a premium to what we could get in the public markets, which is our most likely liquidity event at this time. As we, as management look at the long-term value of the company, we're focused on not just the shareholders getting out, but all the shareholders.
From our perspective, that's why we closed the SRP, because we believe it'd be dilutive to the shareholders who are staying in the current environment. Our plan is to keep the SRP closed at this time.
Thanks, Jeff. We've gotten a handful of questions regarding coronavirus and how that may impact our results and our tenants. Jeff, would you like to provide some commentary on that?
Sure. There's sort of two impacts for us. One's sort of a macro and one's a micro. The macro is just the general concern that the market has. As we've seen in the market reaction over the last few days. That affects a lot of different things, whether it's our lenders or the equity investors, that will continue to be an uncertainty and create volatility in the market until we have a better handle on what the real risk is there. On the more micro perspective, it is affecting specific retailers in our shopping centers who source a lot of their goods from China, where they are, I would say they're okay right now, but they're going to be under inventory while the engine in China gets restarted.
Until that happens, there's a lot of uncertainty with those particular tenants who have a strong dependence on China. They are doing a lot of things to try and find alternative sources and other options for them, but it is something that we continue to watch for select retailers.
Thanks, Jeff. Our next question is related to an investment management fee. I believe there is a misunderstanding from our advisors and investors that the REIT is paying a third party to manage its assets. John, would you provide some commentary on the investment management fee?
Sure. I think you mean the asset management fee. Originally when PECO launched, it was externally managed, and there were different fees that were paid to a manager. In 2017, that manager was acquired. At this time, PECO does not pay fees to management to a third party in terms of managing the fund or investments. We are completely and fully aligned with all of our investors. In fact, we're actually on the other side now, where that's where we're trying to get fees on our investment management business, where we're raising institutional capital in joint ventures or other investments so that we can generate fees for PECO and for our investors in the opposite direction. The idea that there were fees being paid has not been true for over two years now.
Great. Thanks, John. Our final question for the day is about Berkshire Hathaway. We saw that they purchased some stock during the fourth quarter of Kroger, our biggest tenant. What are our thoughts on that and any other macro indicators on the grocery-anchored real estate sector? John, or excuse me, Jeff, would you like to take that one?
Sure. When you've done this for a long time, you're looking at different environments over a 25, 30-year period of time that we've been operating. One of the things you're always looking for is those green shoots, the early indicators that there might be some change in the market. There are probably three or four of those that have happened now over the last three years, or we anticipate happening over the next few months, that we think are very positive for the grocery-anchored shopping center business. You raised one in the question, which is when Warren Buffett comes in and decides to invest in the bricks and mortar grocery business like a Kroger, that's a hugely positive sign for us. We're very encouraged by that.
Obviously, that's a piece, but it does show that there is a belief by a historically very strong investor that what Kroger is doing is a long time survivor, which obviously we are Kroger's largest landlord. That's a huge positive for us. The second sort of sprout that's coming through is the rumors that Albertsons and Safeway will become public this year. We believe that will happen in the first half of the year. If that happens, again, that's another backing for the grocery business, and particularly the bricks and mortar grocery business. Two other sprouts that I think have come up recently. One is Peapod, and for those of you who don't know Peapod, they were one of the original grocery delivery companies. That's all they did.
They did it in major urban areas, and had spread across the country, but primarily in the Midwest and on the East Coast. They within the last two weeks announced that they were closing their operation in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Again, the positive sign for us is that one of our competitors would be an online-only grocery delivery system. The fact that the veteran of the business, the ones who actually have made money at it over time, are closing those because they can't make them profitable is a very large indicator that the delivery system, the grocery delivery business, has got a long way to go before it will become something that will be sustainable in the business. That, for us, is another sprout that is another indicator.
The last one, and maybe the most important, is that, as we all know, Amazon, for 10 years, has been trying to get into the grocery business. Several years ago, they basically gave up on the internet-only delivery system to a bricks and mortar when they bought Whole Foods. That was a huge plus for us, probably one of the original sprouts that were coming through of potential green grass. They admitted that they couldn't do a delivery-only online system. For us, that was probably the biggest risk to our business. They step in, they buy Whole Foods, and honestly have done a fairly mediocre job of running it. Whole Foods sales last year were down by 1%, even with the new stores that came in. They have not been able to do, in the bricks and mortar side, a substantial improvement.
Then, maybe two years ago, we started to get, or maybe it was a year ago, but we started to get inclinations that they were going to try a non-Whole Foods grocery bricks and mortar business. The first store that they are going to open is in Los Angeles. It is supposed to open, I think, within the next couple of months. The early sort of subterfuge photos that have come out of the store are, as some of the experts have said, it just looks like a Kroger. A newer Kroger, because it's all new and all that, but there's nothing revolutionary there. If that is the case, we can mark another one of the Amazon potential attack areas off of the list.
Again, a sprout that I think is going to be very important because you're always thinking that Amazon's going to come in with something really spectacular. Well, if it is as small of a change from our existing grocers as we understand it to be, that will be a tremendous relief for the rest of the industry, and probably a very positive sign for the public markets as they look at the grocery anchored shopping center business, and grocery in particular. Those are the early sprouts. You never know whether they're going to survive and thrive or they're just early hints. It's nice to have a few of them out there, and we're hopeful that those will help us, going forward.
You get things like the coronavirus, you get the market reaction to that and the other things going on politically and inside the industry, you're just trying to balance those as we look at the opportunities. The one thing that I think is important is, I'm personally the largest shareholder in the company. I couldn't be more aligned with the shareholders. It would be wonderful for me to have liquidity. We as a management team have that focus. I think the thing you'll find, and have found for a long time with us, is we're not going to be in a hurry to do something until we get the right deal at the right timing. In the interim, we're going to continue to grow the properties and the cash flow for the properties.
We're going to continue to pay a very strong dividend, and we're going to keep ourselves very alert to when there is an opportunity to create liquidity. We're not going to compromise our existing shareholders for that. It will be at the time that we think that it's right for all the shareholders, and that is our promise to you guys and what we will continue to focus on. Michael?
Thank you, Jeff. This now concludes our question and answer session. Jeff, I'll turn it back to you for some closing comments.
I just want to thank all of you for being on the call. We continue to work very hard to try and create value in this portfolio that we've built. We've built it from a very small company to where we're $6.5 billion today. For us, that's the beginning. We have strong expectations, and we will continue to be very focused on maximizing the return to the shareholders with a very strong operating platform. Then realizing for you, when the time is right, and we don't want to sound like a broken record, we just are not in a hurry to get liquidity until the timing is right for all of our shareholders. Thanks for being on the call today. Obviously, if you have questions, please call us. We appreciate your being on the call.
We also appreciate the support you've given to the company over the years. Thank you very much.
Thank you for joining us. We look forward to updating you with our first quarter 2020 results in May of this year. You may now disconnect.