INDUS Realty Trust, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 11 May 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning, and welcome to INDUS Realty 2021 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. This call will be followed by a question-and-answer session. It's now my pleasure to turn the program over to Ashley Pizzo, Director of Investor Relations and Capital Markets of INDUS. Please go ahead.

[Ashley Pizzo:]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings call. In addition to regularly available earnings materials, INDUS has also published a supplemental presentation, which is available on our website at www.indusrt.com, under the Investors tab. I would also like to mention that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements under federal securities laws, including the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections, as well as management's beliefs and assumptions.

[Michael Gamzon:]

Thank you, Ashley. Good morning and thank you all for your continued interest in INDUS. I hope you and your families are safe and well. And before we discuss the business, I did want to thank the team at INDUS whose efforts have been instrumental to our success over the past year and towards the continued transformation of our company. We are fortunate to operate in a sector that remained resilient throughout the pandemic and has experienced an acceleration in demand. Specifically, the industrial market is characterized by robust leasing velocity, strong rent growth, and significantly increasing property values as cap rates drop and continually set new record lows. We have added some detail on this quarter supplement, showing our strong development margins, which demonstrate that it’s a good time to be in the industrial development business today. Additionally, we expect a strengthening economy boosted by fiscal stimulus and the post-pandemic reopening, along with the secular trends towards increasing inventory balances and the growth in e-commerce will continue to provide broad tailwind to the industrial sector. Our industrial logistics portfolio currently is 99.4% leased, and we see strong demand in rent growth in all of our markets. At the same time, strong growth in demand has created some pressures, notably in the availability and pricing for key construction inputs. The most significant of these is the availability of steel bar joist used to support our buildings roof structures. Recent pricing for steel bar joist is up materially and lead times have increased from 12 to 14 weeks to now up to 25 weeks.

[Anthony Galici:]

Thanks Michael. Before I get into the first quarter financial results, I want to take a moment to remind you that our election to become a REIT at the start of 2021 required us to change our fiscal year end from November 30th to December 31st effective in 2021. The change in fiscal year resulted in us having a one month sub period of December 2020 for the transition between our 2020 fiscal year that ended on November 30th, 2020, and the beginning of our new calendar fiscal year, which started on January 1, 2021. The results of this one month transition period were included in our 2021 first quarter 10-Q that we filed yesterday. My comments today will mostly cover just the first quarter results, but we're happy to take questions on December 2020 at the end, if there are any. Our industrial logistics cash NOI was $5.9 million for the first quarter, up 13.6% from last year's first quarter. Industrial logistics cash NOI benefited from the lease up over the past year, a first generation space at Ambassador Drive in the Lehigh Valley and 160 International Drive in Charlotte, lease-up a vacancy at 20 International Drive in the Hartford area, and to a lesser extent increases in rental rates. With respect to our non-GAAP measures, I will begin with same-property NOI and cash same-property NOI. For the 2021 first quarter, growth and same-property NOI and cash same-property NOI was 10.2% and 8.2%, respectively versus the fiscal 2020 quarter. For the trailing 12 months ended March 31, 2021 which we think is a better proxy for long-term performance, our industrial same-property NOI and cash same-property NOI were up 8.2% and 3.4% respectively versus the prior periods. Our cash same-property NOI for the 2021 first quarter over the 2020 quarter benefited most from the leasing of a vacancy at 20 International Drive, which commenced in July of 2020 as well as leasing a first generation space at Ambassador Drive in the Lehigh Valley to two tenants we started in March 2020. Cash same-property NOI for the trailing 12 months ending March 31, 2021 over the prior year trailing 12-month period benefited from the same positive changes as the first quarter, but was offset by free rent on a little over 200,000 square feet provided to the tenant at 4270 Fritch Drive in the Lehigh Valley. We displaced the neighboring tenant in an expansion that tripled their space. Looking forward, we know the potential full month our quarterly same-property NOI metrics and expected growth rates shown this quarter to moderate somewhat over the year. Next, I want to mention core FFO. Core FFO essentially takes NAREIT FFO and adjust for a few expenses which are either non-cash or non-recurring, which includes G&A measures related to reconversion, which were $0.2 million in the 2021 first quarter, as well as the change in fair value of financial instruments, which relates to the equity warrants we issued in a private place last August and for the month of December 2020, we are also adjusting for a write-off of registration costs for when we put our 2018 shelf and ATM program in place. Normally, those costs will be netted against the proceeds received from an offering, but since we did not utilize our 2018 shelf, we needed to write them off in December when the 2018 program was terminated. Since we mentioned the change in fair value of our financial instruments, it's worth noting that this line item will not be on our income statement after the third quarter this year. The contingent value rights expire upon the one year anniversary of our private placement, which was completed in August 2020. And the liability associated with the equity warrant will be reclassified into the equity section of our balance sheet upon the one year anniversary of the private placement, and therefore, no longer adjusted to fair value each quarter going forward. Starting with our 2021 fourth quarter, these items will no longer impact our P&L. With that as background, core FFO was essentially flat in the first quarter of 2021 over 2020 at $2.5 million, as the growth in NOI was offset by changes in non-cash compensation, which I'll describe in a few moments. Before touching on non-cash compensation, I wanted to also point out that we've gone a step further in this quarter supplemental materials and reconciled to AFFO. As Michael mentioned earlier, in the medium-term, we will be considering future dividends in line with the target AFFO payout ratio. So we wanted to be able to provide some context to what that number looks like, but also warrant that we do expect it to fluctuate somewhat quarterly as a large renewal has the potential to move the needle in a portfolio of our size. To this reason, we have still kept our cash core FFO metric so that you can get a sense of the truth year-over-year cash performance of the portfolio without some of the lumpiness that we may see quarter-to-quarter in our second generation leasing and building maintenance capital expenditures. Now onto G&A, general and administrative expenses increased approximately $3 million in the fiscal 2021 first quarter from approximately $2.1 million in the fiscal 2020 quarter. Nearly all of this increase is due to an increase in non-cash compensation expense related to changes and our non-qualified deferred comp plan balances, which moves consistent with the overall stock market performance. This is an important point as the statistics mentioned in that tied to a change in what we're paying our staff this year versus last year, but rather a movement in the market value of the balances on a non-cash deferred compensation plan, which like the stock market can be volatile on a quarter-to-quarter basis. In the first quarter of 2020, the stock market declined with the onset of quote of COVID-19 resulting in a negative expense of $0.4 million related to the decline in non-cash deferred comp plan balances. While in the first quarter of 2021, we saw a significant positive stock market moving in the opposite direction as last year's first quarter. This created a non-cash expense of $0.4 million tied to our non-cash deferred comp plan, resulting in the $0.8 million increase in expense for this year's first quarter versus the prior year's first quarter. Additionally, we've also been begun capitalizing our in-house construction and development team salaries, which had less than a $100,000 impact of a reduction in G&A during the 2021 first quarter, and was offset by investment in new hires made over the past year. We also recently added a General Counsel to our team who has already made significant contributions, and we believe that he will provide a net savings on our cash legal costs. However, this hire may have a slight negative impact on reported G&A as we previously could capitalize certain legal expense to outside firms. Looking ahead, I want to mention that we are undertaking an upgrade of our accounting technology systems to better prepare us for growth in the future. We are finishing our initial review and expect to proceed with implementation later in the second quarter, and most of the work occurring in the second half of the year. We are evaluating the estimated impact this upgrade will have on our financial results and expect to provide an update and estimates with the second quarter report. Our capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2021 totaled $1.5 million with a largest portion of $0.9 million related to the initial construction costs related to the Amazon build-to-suit Charlotte and the 103,000 square foot spec building in the new Lehigh Valley. These numbers are expected to significantly ramp-up in the second and third quarters as construction progresses. The balance of our first quarter capital spending related to completion of the renovations on the Orlando building we purchased in early 2020 and for other leasing related costs. I'll now provide a bit more detail on the dispositions. Typically, our non-core asset dispositions, particularly for land contribute little or no NOI or FFO and therefore, have an immaterial impact on our income statement as until we redeploy the proceeds. As Michael mentioned, we have several flex office properties and one industrial logistics building Connecticut under agreement for sale that will impact our NOI and FFO. Our office/flex property portfolio totals approximately 393,000 square feet and making up 8.5% of our portfolio by square footage and is 71.3% leased. We have four office/flex properties under agreement for sale and adjusted for these potential dispositions, our office/flex portfolio would be down to approximately 176,000 square feet or only 4% of our portfolio and would be approximately 80% leased. Four buildings under agreement for sale, totaling approximately 217,000 square feet generated approximately $0.2 million in both cash and GAAP NOI for 2021 first quarter, and approximately $1.1 million in GAAP NOI and approximately $0.8 million in cash NOI during fiscal 2020. Two of the buildings are encumbered by a $4 million mortgage with a 4.72% interest rate, which we intend to pay off at closing on the sale of these assets. The other building Michael mentioned is the 165,000 square foot industrial logistics building in Blue Hills Avenue in Windsor, Connecticut. We have the option to set the closing date of this transaction at any time between July 14th and December 15th of this year, providing us the flexibility to time to say, I was a potential 10th under one replacement property purchase. This building generated approximately $0.3 million in both GAAP and cash NOI in 2021 first quarter, and $1.2 million in GAAP NOI and $1.3 million in cash NOI during fiscal 2020. 1985 Blue Hills Avenue is encumbered by an approximately $5.1 million mortgage with a 5.09% interest rate, which we intend to pay off at closing. I'll now turn to our balance sheet and we completed underwritten public offering of 1,927,049 shares under a Shell filing raised just under $109 million after expenses. Also in watch, we amended and increased our credit line with Webster Bank, providing us with up to $15 million of availability. And last week, we closed on the construction loan with JP Morgan to provide approximately $28 million for the construction of our Build-to-Suit facility for Amazon. This construction loan has a two-year term with a one year extension option and their initial interest rate of 1.65% over one month LIBOR, drop into 1.4% over one month LIBOR upon the commencement of rental payments by Amazon. In summary, as of March 31st, 2021, we had approximately $182 million in liquidity comprising of $132 million of cash on hand and the $50 million availability under our credit facilities that are just that I described above. A top of this amount is a $28 million in proceeds we expect to receive from the fully drawn construction loan and proceeds from our dispositions under agreement. Excluding the credit facilities, we have very limited near-term debt maturities other than the $4 million mortgage on the two office/flex buildings, which as I mentioned earlier, we intend to pay off on the sale of these properties. Lastly, I'll wrap up, just briefly touching on our leverage. Our current debt to total enterprise value is approximately 25%. Other traditional leverage metrics are impacted by the significant cash balances from the recent offering. Our current debt outstanding net of our cash balance is at a very low level approximately $29 million. We expect to deploy our cash into developments and acquisitions to help grow our EBITDA over time and may selectively add additional debt, but our goal is to grow the unencumbered asset pool over time. I'll now turn it back to Ashley.

[Ashley Pizzo:]

Thank you, Anthony. Before going to a question-and-answer session, I also wanted to mention that we will be participating in Nareit's REITweek Virtual Conference on June 8 through June 10. And look forward to meeting with some of you during that time. Operator, we'd now like to open the line for questions.

[Operator:]

First question comes from Tom Catherwood of BTIG. Please go ahead.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. So very strong quarter on the leasing front, congratulations on the execution there. And you'd mentioned the completion of the kind of value add work in the Orlando asset which you'd acquired in February of 2020. The Charlotte assets had come into the portfolio from development in late 2019. Were some of these assets kind of -- were you targeting specific tenants or specific uses, or is this kind of leasing bump in the first quarter, really reflective of material pickup in demand and the small to medium size space market for Charlotte, Orlando?

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yeah. Good morning, Tom. Thanks for the question and the comments. With respect to leasing, I think in both the Charlotte and Orlando properties, we really designed those and thought about those as spec buildings without particular tenants in mind. I think in Orlando, we were targeting a little bit smaller tenants in Charlotte the buildings, each were plus or minus 130,000 feet. And we thought we could go smaller to larger tenants. And so we really just designed the buildings to best meet what we felt was market demand. I think was sort of widely reported last year, and particularly in the early several months of COVID, in the onset of the pandemic, kind of the smaller tenant demand took a little bit quieter. And we saw an influx of bigger, bigger demand, as we kind of rolled through middle of last year, kind of summer into the fall, that small attendant activity started to pick up quite a bit. So we had done some good early leasing in the Charlotte buildings, as you mentioned kind of late 2019, early 2020. And then really saw an influx of demand later into the year and carrying into early this year. And same in Orlando, we sort of picked up some deals consistently sort of along the way in the second half of last year as we finished the renovations of that building. And at one space left that we're seeing good activity on it.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Got it. Thank you for that, Michael. And as we look at that leasing, obviously, it addresses all of your availability in Charlotte, most of the space in Orlando, you entered those markets in 2017 and 2019. Given that kind of new market model that you proven out, how were you thinking about expanding and to target markets outside of your current holdings?

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yeah. As we’ve discussed one four markets today, our goal is to kind of expand that several more markets over the next couple years. So we're really looking and identifying opportunities in several other markets, discussed in the past, the southeast and various markets on there, as well as the Mid Atlantic are all within what we're targeting. And our approach sort of remains consistent, as you described, in Charlotte, and then Orlando, where we can look to buy the range of product from un-entitled raw land up to stabilized buildings, and everything in between, and we recognize there's some strategic benefit to picking up a stabilized building. While the markets are all competitive today, we believe we can find buildings that have the potential for significant rent growth over the long-term. Again, that's why we're targeting those particular markets. It's not for what we think brands are today or tomorrow, but where we think they're going in five to 10 years. And we'd like to be able to find opportunities where we have a nice mixture of that stabilized building value add and land, and create the portfolios as we've done in Orlando, where we now have the lands that we purchased and will commence development in the next couple month time to complement the stabilized building we bought and some of the value added things we did there. So, eagerly looking for additional markets, and hopefully we'll have something in the not too distant future, but we'll see.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Understood, understood and then, Michael appreciated your comments on the 2021 expirations. Obviously, it's late in the industrial portfolio. But if we look at the 2022, it's a pretty decent size year. You've got almost 14% of annual revenue expiring. I know it's early to be thinking about some of those 2022 leases, but when you think of kind of the breakdown in markets where those aspirations are located. On a per square foot basis, it seems like it's probably Connecticut and Lehigh Valley. But can you provide some more color on where those are located, and kind of how you're feeling as far as where those rents are compared to market right now?

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yes, sure. So, as you said, the most of those vacancies come up in Connecticut and then in the Lehigh Valley. Sorry, Lehigh Valley first, the biggest piece in the 228,000 square foot building where the tenants been in the building since we purchased it. It's a 3PL doing business for a large multinational, healthcare and consumer product company. So, it's early days where we are. That lease was -- is sort of a shorter-term renewal we disclose last year. So we think there's good mark-to-market in that opportunity if that tenant going to leave and that's towards the back half of the year, I believe September. I think in general, if you're talking about our Lehigh Valley portfolio, I believe in the supplement we show a little over $6 average rent. Today, you're asking rents for buildings of our size are pushing above the $7 range. So, we think there's definitely some mark-to-market in the portfolio and some in that one lease. The other bulk of the renewals are a series of different properties in Connecticut. I think ranging throughout the year start in February, and if you get to that to the back half of the year, you actually hit the one tenant that's expanding in our portfolio and doubling their space, at some point towards the end of next year though apart relinquish this space they're in. We feel good about that market. There's been very strong demand and very good absorption in that market. Several ports of tenants struggling that have either been lost their space or need more space and struggling to find good Class A space in the Connecticut Hartford market. So we feel a good there, and again, we think there's overall in our portfolio without getting to the specifically leases, there is a good mark-to-market there with again, market rents trending towards that mid to high sixes for new Class A space.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Got it. Appreciate that, Michael. And then just last one for me. Anthony, just want to square some things off on the sale of 1985 Blue Hills Avenue. I believe you that tenant had a purchase option where it was at the greater of fair market value or something like $11.5 million. Did that -- if I'm correct with that recollection, did the purchase option also include the two additional land parcels that are under contract? And if it didn't, how is that kind of $18 million split between the land and the asset itself?

[Anthony Galici:]

Well, first of all, the purchase option did not include the land, which could be just to the building. And as you know, it expired. It already expired. So the essentially the building -- the sale that we have on the table now, between the building and the additional positive land was a negotiated -- the negotiation with us and the tenant.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Got it. Got it. And so that the option expired, but the $11.5 million price had been put on that option, which obviously said expired. When was that struck? What I'm getting at it, it’s seems like even if we kind of run a general price per acre on the land, that there's been a substantial increase in the value of that asset over that original option price of $11.5 million, was that a 10 years ago, price on the value is that a more reset kind of expectation of market value?

[Anthony Galici:]

It was -- I don't know, it was a long time ago, I don't remember exactly what it -- it was a while ago. Mike, I don’t know…

[Michael Gamzon:]

I think it was actually part of the original lease or close to…

[Anthony Galici:]

…the original lease right now, something like 2000…

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yes, its well more than 10 years ago, Tom. So it's an old number that was which is sort of kicked as a floor price, somewhat based on construction costs and other things and some estimate of inflation, as you got to that number. Obviously, buildings have appreciated much more than that, fortunately for us.

[Tom Catherwood:]

Got it. I appreciate all the color. Thanks, everyone.

[Michael Gamzon:]

Thanks, Tom.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Dave Rodgers of Baird. Please go ahead.

[Dave Rodgers:]

Michael, Anthony, good morning. Thanks for all the color. You obviously have a really good problem, which is that your 99.4% lease. So Michael, I was wondering if you can give us a little bit more color on the thought process, and potentially the acquisition pipeline about bringing on some nearer term vacancy. Are you comfortable doing that more aggressively, or are you continuing to focus maybe more on the longer-term development story, just given the fact that your occupancy today is so high?

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yeah, it's a good question. I guess it's a good problem to have higher vacancy than lower. So again, we feel good about our current portfolio. I think it just speaks to the strength of the markets we're in and to be honest and clear that obviously, many industrial markets are experiencing great demand. So given that as a backdrop, I think we're comfortable taking on some vacancy in an acquisition as a value add opportunity. As I earlier mentioned, potentially looking at some forward sale opportunities as well, where we contract with a developer who has a land site approved or under construction and effectively agreed on price today to buyback building vacant. They're building a spec building six or nine months from today, which kind of fits our model pretty well, given history as a spec developer, so we've always sort of taken all of these universal because we feel we're in good markets and building good quality properties and we believe will lease up well over time. And by doing it as a forward, you know, we're not – we're paying less them buying a stabilized building today, a premium if we developed it ourselves, but we're obviously not using our development resources or having to fund that over time. We can fund or he purchase that at completion much closer to generating cash. So that's – that's one opportunity. But as you said, some value add opportunities of vacant buildings that might be out there on partial lease is definitely on the table for us. Again, we're going to look at the range of acquisitions and you realize you have a good amount of capital that we can put to work both in our development pipeline and into acquisition. So tied our list. We have, as I mentioned, with Tom's question earlier, several markets, we continue to look at as well as opportunities within our own markets to find the right buildings. And hopefully, the vacancy, if we buy something is vacant temporary, because we saw strongly about the direction of the market, the absorption and our ability to kind of stabilize that asset.

[Dave Rodgers:]

Great, thanks for that. The asset that is in Lehigh Valley was existing tenant, it sounded the way you described it that the tenant may not want to leave. And if that's the case, are you able to get to any of the land improvements or do you expect to building addition there? Does that all need to assume that the existing tenant leaves to kind of get to all of that?

[Michael Gamzon:]

Yeah, not necessarily, you know, there's a potential for example, that the existing tenant because they have a fairly significant investment in their processes, in the space, mainly some additional storage for example, so that could be an additional standalone building on the site or a potential addition. But likely, a major realization of value likely would be tied more to that tenant probably leaving, just again, the way they're using the facility, they may not need all those improvements. And as we say, we felt great having a great credit, paying us a good rent, with starting, if they renew at the end of next year, which, given their investment, we sort of think is likely, we got a 3.5% clip starting here, sort of, in 2023, we think, as we say, kind of a good downside to an investment, if that's our downside. And at some point, if they leave, and they decide they need to do different things with the facility, there's lots of optionality with the excess land, as we described, whether it's outdoor storage, additional parking, or building addition or separate small building that we could obviously charge additional rent for.

[Dave Rodgers:]

Okay. Appreciate that. Last, it sounded like you were detailing really a 5% to 10% increase in your construction costs related to just deal alone, is the way I took your comments. I guess, from an overall construction cost standpoint, what other major changes are you seeing? I guess, labor comes to mind. So any comments on maybe labor specifically, and overall construction cost increases, if the $6 to $8 that you mentioned wasn't inclusive of kind of all the components?

[Anthony Galici:]

Yes. Actually, the $6 to $8 was including sort of our latest budget estimates, which was including all the costs. Steel is the biggest piece of that. But it included some of the estimates, for example, PVC piping for sort of water lines and things like that, the overhead doors, I mentioned, roofing products. So that was all inclusive as of today. Labor is a piece of the contractors bid. We haven't -- based on what our construction have you seen, that hasn't -- it's gone up a little bit, but hasn't been a huge driver of the cost increase. So far, it's really been -- steel by far is the biggest piece of it. These others have some different and smaller impacts. But if you remember, if you think about a cost of a building, just kind of the building shell, there's the site work, which is really just machines pushing dirt around and the paving, which is then related, obviously, land costs and other things that all have their own pieces that go into the cost. So steel is a big increase, but it's not -- it's not like it's 30% of our overall building costs. So that’s a fairly small piece, it's just gone up a lot.

[Dave Rodgers:]

Got you. All right. Thank you.

[Operator:]

With no more questions, this concludes INDUS Realty Trust first quarter 2021 earnings call. I’d like to return the call back to Ms. Ashley Pizzo for any closing remarks.

[Ashley Pizzo:]

Thank you, everyone, for joining and we appreciate the time. Always feel free to reach out with any follow up questions. And we'll look forward to seeing many of you at NAREIT in the coming month.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's presentation. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.