Exhibit 99.1

Phillips Edison – ARC Shopping Center REIT Inc. Reports First Quarter 2012 Results

CINCINNATI – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Phillips Edison – ARC Shopping Center REIT Inc. (“Phillips Edison – ARC” or the “Company”), a public, non-traded REIT focused on the acquisition and management of well-occupied grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers, today announced its operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2012.

Highlights for the three months ended March 31, 2012:

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

As of March 31, 2012, the Company, through its joint venture with certain CBRE-advised institutional investors, owned nine properties, listed below:

The weighted-average remaining lease term of grocery anchor tenants at the properties listed above was approximately 10.4 years as of March 31, 2012.

FINANCIAL UPDATE

Funds from operations, or FFO, is a non-GAAP performance financial measure that is widely recognized as a measure of REIT operating performance. The Company uses FFO as defined by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts to be net income (loss), computed in accordance with GAAP excluding extraordinary items, as defined by GAAP, and gains (or losses) from

sales of property (including deemed sales and settlements of pre-existing relationships), plus depreciation and amortization on real estate assets and impairment charges, and after related adjustments for unconsolidated partnerships, joint ventures and subsidiaries and non-controlling interests. The Company believes that FFO is helpful to its investors and its management as a measure of operating performance because it excludes real estate-related depreciation and amortization, gains and losses from property dispositions, impairment charges, and extraordinary items, and as a result, when compared year to year, reflects the impact on operations from trends in occupancy rates, rental rates, operating costs, development activities, general and administrative expenses, and interest costs, which are not immediately apparent from net income. Historical cost accounting for real estate assets in accordance with GAAP implicitly assumes that the value of real estate and intangibles diminishes predictably over time. Since real estate values have historically risen or fallen with market conditions, many industry investors and analysts have considered the presentation of operating results for real estate companies that use historical cost accounting alone to be insufficient. As a result, the Company’s management believes that the use of FFO, together with the required GAAP presentations, is helpful for its investors in understanding the Company’s performance. In particular, because GAAP impairment charges are not allowed to be reversed if the underlying fair values improve or because the timing of impairment charges may lag the onset of certain operating consequences, the Company believes FFO provides useful supplemental information related to current consequences, benefits and sustainability related to rental rate, occupancy and other core operating fundamentals. Factors that impact FFO include start-up costs, fixed costs, delay in buying assets, lower yields on cash held in accounts, income from portfolio properties and other portfolio assets, interest rates on acquisition financing and operating expenses. In addition, FFO will be affected by the types of investments in the Company’s targeted portfolio which will consist of, but is not limited to, grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers, first- and second-priority mortgage loans, mezzanine loans, bridge and other loans, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and debt securities of real estate companies. Investors should note, however, that determinations of whether impairment charges have been incurred are based partly on anticipated operating performance, because estimated undiscounted cash flows from a property, including estimated future net rental and lease revenues, net proceeds on the sale of the property, and certain other ancillary cash flows, are taken into account in determining whether an impairment charge has been incurred. While impairment charges are excluded from the calculation of FFO as described above, as impairments are based on estimated future undiscounted cash flows, investors are cautioned that the Company may not recover any impairment charges. FFO is not a useful measure in evaluating net asset value because impairments are taken into account in determining net asset value but not in determining FFO.

Since FFO was promulgated, GAAP has expanded to include several new accounting pronouncements, such that management and many investors and analysts have considered the presentation of FFO alone to be insufficient. Accordingly, in addition to FFO, the Company uses modified funds from operations, or MFFO, as defined by the Investment Program Association (“IPA”). MFFO excludes from FFO the following items:

The Company believes that MFFO is helpful in assisting management and investors assess the sustainability of operating performance in future periods and, in particular, after the Company’s offering and acquisition stages are complete, primarily because it excludes acquisition expenses that affect property operations only in the period in which the property is acquired. Thus, MFFO provides helpful information relevant to evaluating the Company’s operating performance in periods in which there is no acquisition activity.

As explained below, management’s evaluation of the Company’s operating performance excludes the items considered in the calculation based on the following economic considerations. Many of the adjustments in arriving at MFFO are not applicable to the Company. Nevertheless, the Company explains below the reasons for each of the adjustments made in arriving at its MFFO definition.

By providing MFFO, the Company believes it is presenting useful information that also assists investors and analysts to better assess the sustainability of its operating performance after the offering and acquisition stages are completed. The Company also believes that MFFO is a recognized measure of sustainable operating performance by the non-listed REIT industry. MFFO is useful in comparing the sustainability of the Company’s operating performance after its offering and acquisition stages are completed with the sustainability of the operating performance of other real estate companies that are not as involved in acquisition activities. However, investors are cautioned that MFFO should only be used to assess the sustainability of the Company’s operating performance after its offering and acquisition stages are completed, as it excludes acquisition costs that have a negative effect on operating performance during the periods in which properties are acquired. Acquisition costs also adversely affect the Company’s book value and equity.

FFO or MFFO should not be considered as an alternative to net income (loss), nor as an indication of our liquidity, nor is either indicative of funds available to fund the Company’s cash needs, including our ability to fund distributions. In particular, as the Company currently in the acquisition phase of its life cycle, acquisition-related costs and other adjustments that are increases to MFFO are, and may continue to be, a significant use of cash. MFFO has limitations as a performance measure in an offering such as the Company’s where the price of a share of common stock is a stated value and there is no net asset value determination during the offering stage and for a period thereafter. Accordingly, both FFO and MFFO should be reviewed in connection with other GAAP measurements. The Company’s FFO and MFFO as presented may not be comparable to amounts calculated by other REITs.

The following section presents the Company’s calculation of FFO and MFFO and provides additional information related to its operations (in thousands, except per share amounts). As a result of the timing of the commencement of the Company’s public offering and its active real estate operations, FFO and MFFO are not relevant to a discussion comparing operations for the periods presented. The Company expects revenues and expenses to increase in future periods as it raises additional offering proceeds and use them to acquire additional investments.

FUNDS FROM OPERATIONS AND MODIFIED FUNDS FROM OPERATIONS

FOR THE THREE MONTHS ENDED MARCH 31, 2012 AND 2011

(Unaudited)

(Amounts in thousands)

To view complete details of the Company’s performance for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, and to find more information about the Company’s MFFO, please refer to the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

About Phillips Edison – ARC Shopping Center REIT Inc.

Phillips Edison-ARC Shopping Center REIT Inc. is a public non-traded REIT that seeks to acquire and manage well-occupied grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers having a mix of solid national and regional retailers selling necessity-based goods and services, in strong demographic markets throughout the United States. The REIT is co-sponsored by two industry leaders: Phillips Edison & Company, who has acquired over $1.8 billion in shopping centers throughout the United States, and AR Capital, LLC, a real estate investment program sponsor dedicated to governance best practices. As of May 11, 2012, Phillips Edison-ARC owned, directly or indirectly through a joint venture in which it has a controlling interest, and managed a quality retail portfolio consisting of twelve grocery-anchored shopping centers totaling 1,012,384 square feet. For more information on the company, please visit the website at www.phillipsedison-arc.com.

Contacts

DeFazio Communications, LLC

Tony DeFazio, 484-532-7783

tony@defaziocommunications.com

or

Phillips Edison – ARC Shopping Center REIT Inc.

John Bessey, President, 513-619-5037

jbessey@phillipsedison.com