Ernest M. Freedman
Analyst · BoA Merrill Lynch
Thanks, Keith. Today I will report on financial results, portfolio and redevelopment activities, balance sheet activities, and finally, I will provide a guidance update. Beginning with financial results, second quarter pro forma FFO of $0.46 per share was $0.05 per share above the midpoint of our guidance range, primarily due to $0.02 from outperformance from property operations, consisting of both higher revenues in our Affordable portfolio and lower expenses in our Conventional portfolio, and $0.03 due to a number of items, including $0.02 related to an unexpected recovery from a previous casualty loss and lower-than-anticipated insurance losses. Turning to the portfolio. During the quarter, we sold 16 properties with about 2,200 units, including 5 low-rated Conventional properties at an average NOI cap rate of 7.1%. These properties had an average revenue per unit of $825 compared to our portfolio today of $1,290. We also sold 11 Affordable properties at an average NOI cap rate of 10.1%. Sales in the second quarter were a mix of higher and lower quality Affordable assets, with the higher quality assets generating cap rates in the range of 6.75% to 8%. In June, we acquired a property located in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan for $39 million. The acquisition was funded in part by newly placed nonrecourse property debt and in part by the tax-free exchange of proceeds from the sale of lower rated properties. The acquired property consists of 42 apartment homes and 10,000 square feet of commercial space. The property's average residential revenue per unit is approximately $4,000, and its average rents are approximately 38% higher than the local market average. We intend to add value to the acquisition through significant capital upgrades in select units and operational improvements. The property debt used to help finance the acquisition is a 10-year note with a local bank at a fixed rate of 3.95%. In July, we acquired for $19.7 million a property located in downtown San Diego adjacent to the Gaslamp district. The acquisition was funded in part by the assumption of nonrecourse property debt and in part by the tax-free exchange of proceeds from the sale of lower rated properties. The acquired property consists of 84 apartment homes and 8,000 square feet of commercial space. The property's average residential revenue per unit is approximately $1,880, and its average rents are approximately 15% higher than the local market average. We intend to add value to the acquisition through operational improvements. The property debt assumed has a remaining term of 4.7 years and an interest rate of 5.51%. For the year, properties acquired had an average revenue per unit of about $1,400 compared to $740 for our properties sold, helping to further our goal of increasing overall revenues per unit for our portfolio. As to redevelopment activities, we described on our last earnings call the 10 projects we expect to have under redevelopment in 2012, which include properties located in Seattle, Northern California, Southern California, Chicago, Center City Philadelphia and South Florida. During the second quarter, our team in Chicago began the construction of 28 new townhomes on a vacant land parcel at our Elm Creek property. Current market rents for comparable products average approximately $2,950 per unit today, and first occupancy is expected in the fourth quarter of 2012. We also continued construction activity at our redevelopment in Pacific Bay Vistas in San Bruno, California, and our first residents will move in later this quarter. Phase 1 of Lincoln Place was completed in April, and 50 returning residents have moved into those completed units. Looking ahead, we are nearing completion of the common area amenity upgrades at The Palazzo in West Los Angeles and expect to deliver these improvements in early September. Additionally, we expect to begin delivering upgraded luxury penthouse units for lease ups in the fourth quarter. We are set to begin Phase 2 construction at Lincoln Place as soon as the financing is in place, which we expect to be in the third quarter. During the second half of this year, we expect to start construction at 2900 on First in Seattle, The Preserve at Marin in Marin County, California, and The Sterling and Park Towne Place, both located in Center City, Philadelphia. And we plan to invest a total of $400 million in these 10 projects, with $125 million to $150 million this year, and the balance over the next 2 to 3 years. We expect these projects to generate current returns greater than 7% and free cash flow internal rate of returns in excess of 10%. A deep pipeline of additional opportunities within our portfolio that allows for future redevelopment investment of $150 million to $200 million per year exists. Regarding the balance sheet. During the first quarter, we provided leverage targets that we expected to meet by the end of 2015. Specifically, we noted our goal to have debt and preferred equity to EBITDA of less than 7x and EBITDA coverage of interest and preferred dividends of greater than 2.5x. Since our last earnings call, Aimco has made significant progress toward these targets with the redemption of more than $300 million of preferred stock during the second quarter and redemption of an additional $300 million in July. Our current and projected coverages for this year on a pro forma basis are as follows: debt and preferred equity to EBITDA of 8.2x currently and 7.7x by year end; EBITDA coverage of interest and preferred dividends of 2.2x currently and 2.3x by year end. Most importantly, we now expect to achieve our leverage target of debt and preferred equity to EBITDA by early 2014, almost 2 years earlier than anticipated at the beginning of the year. Future leverage reduction is expected from earnings growth generated by the current portfolio and by regularly scheduled property debt amortization from retained earnings. Preferred stock redemptions were funded by 2 common stock offerings and option exercises during the second quarter and the exercise of a greenshoe in early July, which generated net proceeds to Aimco of approximately $642 million. In total, Aimco issued 24.2 million shares at an average price of $26.53. Through these transactions, we expect annual FFO and AFFO to increase by $0.04 and $0.12 per share, respectively. Our guidance revisions announced last night take into account the impact for 2012, which is a decrease of $0.01 for FFO and an increase of $0.05 for AFFO. As Terry mentioned, in keeping with its focus on growing dividends with AFFO, Aimco's board increased the quarterly dividend from $0.18 per share to $0.20, effective with our next dividend this month. In addition to the increase in FFO and AFFO from our equity offerings, we expect to further increase earnings in each of the next few years due to activity with our property debt. Each year, we amortize approximately $80 million of property debt using retained earnings. This equates to about $0.03 of increased earnings each year. In addition, we have between $200 million and $300 million of debt coming due in each of the next 3 years. Refinancing these maturities at today's interest rates equates to an average of $0.03 of additional interest savings in each of the next several years. Finally, going back to our portfolio, we have discussed our interest in potentially accelerating sales anticipated for the next couple of years into 2012. One of our identified use of proceeds, the redemption of high-cost preferred equity, no longer exists. That said, if a compelling opportunity presents itself for the sale of some or all of the contemplated assets, we'll certainly give it consideration and compare its merits to the potential use of such proceeds. Finally, as to guidance, we are increasing full year pro forma FFO guidance to a range of $1.78 to $1.86 per share and AFFO of $1.30 to $1.38 per share. Guidance assumes Conventional Same Store net operating income growth of 6% to 7%, which is unchanged at the midpoint. We have narrowed our revenue guidance to an increase in revenues of 4.75% to 5.25%, unchanged at the midpoint, and we have updated our expense guidance with expenses expected to increase 2% to 2.5%, an improvement of 25 basis points at the midpoint. Affordable Same Store net operating income guidance of 2.5% to 3.5% is a 200 basis point improvement at the midpoint. Taken together, total same-store NOI growth is now expected to be in a range from 5.5% to 6.5%. We've also increased our dispositions guidance by $50 million at the midpoint. For the third quarter, pro forma FFO is projected to be $0.43 to $0.47 per share, with year-over-year Conventional Same Store net operating income growth projected to be 6.5% to 7.5%. With that, we will now open up the call for questions. [Operator Instructions]. Operator, I'll turn it over to you for the first question.