Earnings Labs

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (ARE)

Q2 2023 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 25, 2023

$40.60

-10.91%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.91%

1 Week

-1.37%

1 Month

-6.13%

vs S&P

-2.74%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Alexandria Real Estate Equities Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paula Schwartz with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Paula Schwartz

Analyst

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The Company's actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder. Please go ahead, Joel.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Thank you, Paula, and welcome, everybody, to our second quarter earnings call. Our one-of-a-kind company, which pioneered the lab space niche, continues to perform well in both good times and tough times, demonstrating the resiliency of our unique business model in our now post-pandemic world. In fact, COVID-19 really reaffirmed the sustained strength of our life science industry fundamentals and the need for our essential lab space infrastructure. This favorable backdrop for this nation's -- one of the nation's most mission-critical industries, which we serve, continues to underpin our business, driving demand for our world-class brand and highly differentiated assets and operations. I want to thank each and every member of the Alexandria family team for an operationally and financially excellent second quarter. A big shout out to the finance and accounting team for winning the 2023 NAREIT Gold Award awarded by NAREIT in June for the best REIT reporting and transparency, and amazingly, an unprecedented eighth award and most ever by any REIT. Alexandria is truly a best-in-class REIT, which pioneered the lab space niche and which I believe has made a metamorphic and innovative and transformational impact on our life science industry for the last 29 years. We're very proud of the stellar balance sheet we built since the days of the great financial crisis when we were a small and unrated REIT. Upon the closing of our $1 billion line of credit accordion add-on, one of the banks said of Alexandria "Congratulations on the successful expansion of your credit facility to $5 billion." This is a significant accomplishment in any environment where many real estate owners are struggling to source debt capital. It is a testament to the strength, quality and endurance of the Alexandria platform. So let me turn to some highlights of the quarter. Dean…

Jenna Foger

Analyst

Thank you so much, Joel, and good afternoon, everyone. This is Jenna Foger, Senior Vice President and Co-Lead of our Science and Technology team here at Alexandria. Today, I'm going to comment on the solid fundamentals of the secularly growing life science industry, how these fundamentals contribute to the continued vitality and health of Alexandria's best-in-class life science tenant base and innovation as a long-term driver of life science industry growth. The secularly growing life science industry, which has an estimated market value of over $5 trillion and approximately $450 billion in estimated 2023 R&D funding, fuel is continuing demand for Alexandria's essential 24/7 lab space infrastructure across our cluster markets. This industry is driven by the achievement of scientific, clinical and commercial milestones and is not significantly impacted by market cyclicality nor by some of the macro trends impacting commodity REITs today. With over 10,000 diseases known to humankind and less than 10% addressable with current therapies, the incredible innovation taking place within our lab-based facilities is and will remain a national imperative. Taking a closer look at the health of our tenant base, beginning with multinational pharma, which makes up 17% of our ARR, this segment continues to operate from a position of strength. In 2022, biopharma deployed an estimated $267 billion into R&D, representing a 57% increase in biopharma R&D spend over the past 10 years, which is expected to continue to increase. Given the immense capital firepower on the balance sheets of large-cap pharma in excess of $300 billion and the healthy pressure on pharma to continue to pad its late-stage pipelines with sources of new revenue, there's been a significant uptick in M&A, as Joel mentioned. The first half of 2023 M&A deal value has already totaled $97 billion, surpassing total M&A transaction values for…

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Thanks, Jenna. A few days ago, when reading a capital markets report, I came upon the line, uncertainty is arguably the harshest enemy of investing. It was a very concise way of describing what we have all been seeing in the broad economy over the past couple of years. It has even hit the somewhat insulated life science industry over the past few quarters, manifested by slower decision-making and the tightening of budgets by executive teams and boards. Nonetheless, progress continues in the labs, milestones are being achieved and success is being rewarded. The golden age of biology will not be stopped. The flywheel is starting to turn again, and we're excited to see the like changing innovations that inertia will bring, and Alexandria is perfectly positioned to capitalize on it. I'm going to briefly touch on our development pipeline, leasing, supply, and asset sales and then hand it over to Dean. In the first quarter, we delivered 387,076 square feet in four projects into our high barrier to entry submarkets, bringing total deliveries year-to-date to 840,587 square feet covering seven projects. Annual NOI for this quarter's deliveries totaled $58 million, bringing the year-to-date total incremental additions to NOI to $81 million. The initial weighted average stabilized yield is 6.4%, influenced by a build-to-core project in East Cambridge housing the next generation of companies from the investors who brought the world Moderna. Development and redevelopment projects saw an uptick in activity for the quarter with approximately 142,000 square feet of leases signed, covering six multi-tenant projects. As of quarter end, we have another 42,000 square feet under negotiation. During the quarter, we placed a lab conversion opportunity at 401 Park Drive and the ground-up development of neighboring 421 Park Drive, both located in the Greater Boston submarket of the Fenway…

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

All right. Thanks, Peter. Dean Shigenaga here. Good afternoon, everyone. We reported very solid operating and financial results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 2023. Total revenues for the second quarter were $713.9 million, up 10.9% over the second quarter of 2022. NOI was up 12.2% over the second quarter of 2022, driven primarily by the commencement of $58 million of annual net operating income related to the 387,000 rentable square feet of development and redevelopment projects that were placed in service in the second quarter. The significant NOI growth from completion of pipeline projects was the key driver of our outperformance this quarter in comparison to consensus. Additionally, we slightly beat other key line items relative to consensus. FFO per share diluted as adjusted was $2.24, up 6.7% over the second quarter of 2022, and we're on track to generate another solid year of growth in FFO per share growth of 6.4% at the midpoint of our guidance for the year. Now high-quality life science entities continue to appreciate our brand mega-campus strategy and operational excellence by our team. 49% of our annual rental revenue is generated from investment-grade or large-cap publicly traded tenants, and this statistic represents one of the highest quality client rosters in the REIT industry today. Our collections remain very high at 99.9%. Our adjusted EBITDA margin remains very strong at 70%. Same-property NOI growth was very solid and in line with guidance for the full year. Same property results for the second quarter were 3%, up 3% and up 4.9% on a cash basis, and for the first half of the year, up 3.4% and up 6.5% on a cash basis. As a reminder, our outlook for 2023 same-property NOI growth remains very solid at a midpoint of 3% and…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from Steve Sakwa with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa

Analyst

Dean, I was wondering if you could just provide a little bit more color on that occupancy build that you talked about. It sounds like things are flat Q2 to Q3. But to get to the midpoint, there's a pretty big uplift, I guess, from 93.6% to 95.1%. So are there a bunch of signed leases that are just not commenced yet? Or is that based on kind of incremental leasing you think you're going to do? Just kind of help us walk through that bridge, please.

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Sure, Steve. So the growth in occupancy anticipated in the fourth quarter, some of it is from signed leases. We have about 400,000 square feet of executed leases that will commence in time for the occupancy growth by the end of the year. That includes some of the spaces that I mentioned in the recently acquired vacancy. We also anticipate some leasing activity that we need to complete in order to drive that occupancy growth. And then we also have some key spaces being delivered out of our development pipeline, which by the time they're delivered should be pretty much close to 100% leased. And that doesn't have quite the same impact of delivering space to tenants out of the operating portfolio, but there is a slight benefit from that as well.

Steve Sakwa

Analyst

So just as a quick follow-up, could you just help frame maybe the spec leasing that you think you need to get done maybe as a range that the team needs to complete over the next five months to hit that target?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

I don't have that figure right at my fingertips, Steve. But look, if you look at our volume of leasing activity that we've averaged pre -- the record period of leasing in '21 and 2022, we're back to that run rate of leasing activity on a quarterly basis, which is 1.2 million, 1.3 million rentable square feet. A portion of that, as you know, comes out of the value creation pipeline development and redevelopment and previously vacant stuff. So, our run rate on renewals and re-leasing the space is probably, on average, about 1 million square feet per quarter; and only a portion of that is stuff that we need to complete related to fourth quarter deliveries. As you can imagine, most space, probably for any real estate company, sometimes it's ready for delivery immediately, but only a portion of that -- of that 1 million square feet can actually be delivered that quickly. So, it's not a big number, Steve. But to be fair, we do have to get some leasing done. And so we've got to work through that opportunity.

Steve Sakwa

Analyst

Okay. And just a second question. I know that you had talked about the Toast termination. But I think there's just maybe some confusion or uncertainty over kind of the dollar amount. Maybe when it hits, how it might have been in guidance or not in guidance. So could you just maybe walk through the space take back, maybe some offsets to the termination fee and maybe what flowed through in Q2 and what we should expect in Q3 from that transaction?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Sure, Steve. So this is a pretty good example of space that we opportunistically took back in the second quarter. The background for this tenant, there was an in-place lease related to an acquisition that we completed in January of 2021. Toast was at 401 Park in the Fenway submarket for reference. And during our due diligence for the acquisition, our team had identified multiple floors of this office building that will be suited for conversion to lab space through redevelopment. These floors were targeted for redevelopment. Obviously, after our successful lease-up of 201 Brookline, now if you remember, 201 Brookline that was a development site at the Fenway campus that the seller had commenced construction on, and it was only 20% pre-leased at the time we acquired it. Our team quickly leased the remainder of that project -- the construction development project at rental rates that were well exceeded our initial underwriting. And so when we had the opportunity to take back space from Toast, I think it was about 133,000 rentable square feet in total. We're going to get about 111,000 rental square feet back in 3Q here to commence our redevelopment. And the remaining 22,000 rentable square feet we get back at the end of 2024. The bottom line, the way to think about this arrangement we entered into with Toast is that net of the write-off of deferred rent, we'll earn the remaining of the revenue from Toast overtime. And this really covers the quarterly rent that was due to rent Toast about 1.59 a quarter. And so, this arrangement allows us to earn our revenue through the end of 2024. And the way to think about this is the net benefit we're going to earn is a slight pickup relative to the prior run rate rent. So for 2023, we might pick up about $2 million in FFO. And then in 2024, there's a similar expected benefit of a couple of million bucks or so. The key takeaway is that we were able to move up the timing of new lab space at 401 Park after our successful lease up of 201 Brookline. And so, we were excited to be able to get access to that earlier to start the redevelopment sooner than later.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Joshua Dennerlein with BOA. Please go ahead.

Joshua Dennerlein

Analyst

I appreciate all the color. Maybe a follow-on based on the occupancy earlier, but focused on the lease rate growth. It looks like your guidance is still assuming an acceleration in the second half of the year off of 2Q growth rates. What gives you the confidence that you'll see that reacceleration?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Can you clarify, were you asking about occupancy or rental rate growth?

Joshua Dennerlein

Analyst

Rental rate growth.

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

So, our outlook -- just to remind everybody, our outlook for rental rate growth for 2023 is a range of 28% to 30%, call it, a midpoint of 28.5%, 12% to 17% with a midpoint of 14.5% on a cash basis. Our rental rate growth for the first quarter, just to remind everybody, was pretty record at 48% and 24% on a cash basis. And most of that was driven by Greater Boston, San Francisco, Bay Area and Seattle. It's important to recognize that the second quarter was a very different subset geographically, which consisted primarily of Seattle, Maryland and Research Triangle. When you think about rental rate growth of 16% -- 16.6% on a GAAP basis, 8.3% on a cash basis, that's pretty outstanding in this type of market and when you think across the REIT sector today. So we're very pleased with the rental rate growth that we actually delivered on the quarter and feel comfortable as we look out that we're on track to hit the range of guidance that we gave. What gives us that comfort? I think you've heard us talk about we have a unique brand our mega-campus strategy and our operational excellence, I think, puts us at an advantage to capture opportunities in the marketplace.

Joshua Dennerlein

Analyst

Okay. It's not based on stuff that's already signed. It's kind of just what you're seeing in the pipeline are signed? Just kind of...

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Well, we're only 3 weeks or 3.5 weeks after quarter end. So, there's very little activity relative to what we're going to sign for the full six months as we look forward. So you'll have to stay tuned.

Joshua Dennerlein

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then Peter, I heard you mentioned potential sales above your disposition guidance range. Just what would give you the go ahead to make those additional sales?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

We're going to market in a very targeted way so that we don't overdo it, if we don't need to. But if we end up with values that are highly attractive, we'll definitely consider selling that amount over what we need and apply that towards next year's program.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Any other question there?

Joshua Dennerlein

Analyst

I'm good.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today comes from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Paolone

Analyst

First question, I think -- Dean, I think you mentioned 19% mark-to-market across the portfolio. And I think that number was about 27% coming into the year. So just wondering, can you talk to how much of that's just from moving rents higher and the bumps closing some of that gap versus maybe what's happened in the market thus far?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Tony, it's Dean here. Yes, so 19% is our current outlook for where we are today on the mark-to-market. Last quarter, you're correct, it was 22%. The quarter before that was 24% and the quarter before that was 27%. So, we have made our way through some of the mark-to-market with leases that we've executed over the last number of quarters. So, it's primarily driven by that, maybe a slight adjustment here and there on our outlook on specific spaces. But most of the move is related to actual leases we've executed.

Anthony Paolone

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess, you talked a bit about 401 and 421 Park Drive and the reason for kind of moving forward with that. But just in general, just think about incremental development and redevelopment, so for instance, in 2024, it looks like you got another 1.5 million or so teed up coming out of expirations for that. But just what's the hurdle to start new projects, whether it's pre-leasing, returns? Just how should we think about just what's coming out in the next 12, 18 months, whether it's the stuff expiring that will go into redevelopment or just new ground up?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

So Tony, let me start with your first part of your question on the exploration front. What we're really looking at is if you look at 2024 as an example, we do have a number of spaces that are coming up for contractual exploration. And keep in mind, these are all related for the most part to recently acquired opportunities where we saw. In this case, these projects have in-place leases and from acquisition that are burning off here. Only a portion of that overall number is something that we expect to actually tackle in the near term. It's roughly -- it's about 684,000 square feet of that is actually development opportunities for the future. So 1.1 -- 1.2 million is expiring in '24 that's been targeted for future development and redevelopment, but 684,000 of that is future development. And that's not going to start immediately on vertical construction because it needs to go through entitlements, design, possibly some site work, and these are really associated with mega campus opportunities. The remainder of that, so roughly 400,000 square feet or so, 400,000 to 500,000 square feet is redevelopment opportunities. Those are more near-term speed to market, less time to build out the projects, and we'll look at those. But our current view as we sit here today would be there's potential to start those because of opportunities we can tackle. So, the number is much smaller. As far as your other question, Tony, how do we look at it? I think you're going to find that we need to remain very disciplined with our approach to new redevelopment and development projects given the macro environment. We're going to focus primarily on projects that are concentrated in our mega campuses, and we really have well-located land for future development. It's important to keep in mind we have the flexibility and not the requirement to address these expansions -- expansion needs from our clients. And maybe as you think about development opportunities on our future pipeline, it's important to recognize that we are going to continue to advance preconstruction activities on the future pipeline projects. Entitlements for large campuses -- mega campuses, it require years to fully entitled. They require design. And oftentimes, the sites are so large, they do require infrastructure before we can actually commence vertical construction. And these preconstruction activities add value to the sites ultimately reduce the time from commencement of vertical construction to delivery a Class A space to our clients. So again, just getting back to where we started with your question, Tony, we'll have to remain very disciplined in our approach, given the macro environment.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. Maybe just a little more color, Tony. We have one new mega campus that we're entitling on the West Coast and one on the East Coast. And in both cases, we have, in one case, a current tenant, in the other case, a former tenant, have approached us to take a significant portion of those campuses. So, we're actively pushing entitlements and thinking about site design and all those things. But before we would kick something off, as Dean said, and as Peter said many times, we want to make sure that our spread to our cost of capital is sufficient and long-term IRRs to be certainly positive.

Anthony Paolone

Analyst

Okay. And if I could just ask one last one. Just can you remind us just in the discussion around perhaps scientists working from home as well, just what's the split between lab and I guess, like workstation, office type space in your buildings today? And do you think that changes over time?

Jenna Foger

Analyst

Tony, it's Jenna Foger over here. So, I guess a comment on that. So again, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, in our lab space assets, of course, the lab training on technical space cannot be decoupled. It -- historically, we've seen about a 50-50 split between the lab and the nontechnical space. In some cases, we're seeing it kind of go up a bit to 55% or 60% lab that's mostly attributable to platform companies kind of prosecuting multiple platforms and pipeline programs at once. But yes, I guess that's probably a high level thing.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. And remember, Tony, too, and as we've pointed out before, COVID certainly enabled and caused a lot of companies to repatriate certain overseas processes back into the kind of the home lab and also with the much more sophisticated new modalities, cell therapy, gene therapy, et cetera. The enhancements and the complication of work environments have been expanded as well. So those are two kind of big macro forces that have made a big difference, say, over the last three to five years.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Michael Griffin with Citi. Please go ahead.

Nick Joseph

Analyst

It's Nick Joseph here with Griff. Maybe just starting up a follow-up, I guess, on the lease termination with Toast. Just want to clarify, was the $16 million in guidance initially or is that new and incremental?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

So Nick, the way to think about the arrangement with Toast is that what was -- the total consideration was something in that $15 million range. The deferred rent number was written down to take that down. I don't have it right in front of me, but $5 million to $6 million or something in that range. The net number is earned out over time effectively replaces rent or cash flows that were in place prior to that arrangement with Toast. And so net-net, at least through 2024, there's very little upside. Like I mentioned, it's a couple million bucks in each year. So, it's not really changing net FFO in any big way. So, in response to your specific question, was the revenue that we're going to generate from the lease with Toast in guidance? It was because it was already a lease in our business. Remember this building was acquired with the lease in place back in 2021. What did change for 2023, a couple of million dollar pickup to FFO.

Nick Joseph

Analyst

Got it. And then just on the capital plan. Obviously, the pivot, I guess, from selling more JVs to wholly-owned asset sales, can you just expand on that? Is that more of a pricing decision? Was it more strategic in terms of improving the portfolio by maybe selling some that's noncore? But how do you think about that broadly?

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. I'm going to have -- this is Joel. I'll have Peter kind of respond to that. But I think about -- the Company has -- was a garage startup back in '94. So over many years as it kind of grew, grew its regions, we've had a variety of assets. We did not start a mega-campus strategy. We didn't start even a campus strategy. We couldn't even afford to go into Cambridge in those days. So the nature of a set of our assets really very, very solid workhorse assets in solid locations with solid tenants and with solid cash flows. Now as we move to this or as we've been moving over the last couple of years to this mega-campus strategy in core really high barrier to entry markets has enabled us to let go of those noncore assets. So that's kind of the fundamental frame. But Peter?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes. Nick, it was very tempting to bring somebody in to complete the funding of that JV development just like we did at Necco. But at the end of the day, it is part of a mega campus. It is one of the best assets in likely in the world as far as long duration of value. And then reexamining our portfolio and seeing that we still had a number of assets that we could substitute and do just as well as far as getting the proceeds needed to fund our pipeline and just made it, much better story for us to keep 100% of that other development asset, sell the non-cores and really continue to improve our overall asset base towards concentrating it into mega campuses and lessening the one-off assets.

Michael Griffin

Analyst

This is Michael Griffin on here with Nick. Just one question around VC funding, I saw there was a report recently that showed some incremental positivity in VC funding in Boston. Is Joel's expectation for this to translate to your other markets? And kind of where do you need to see VC capital pick up in order to see incremental demand?

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Well, I think I'll have Jenna kind of give you her take on venture capital. But remember, we've returned to kind of the high run rates pre-COVID. So it still is healthy. What you've seen is a slower allocation and greater reserves just given the macro market. But Jenna, maybe some numbers.

Jenna Foger

Analyst

Yes, that's absolutely true. So as I mentioned in my comments, we've seen in 1H '23 so far about $17.7 billion. So this is right on -- in line, if not slightly above 2018, 2019 levels, and this is really across our market, obviously, with Greater Boston being kind of the center of life science activity. So kind of leading the chart, but we are kind of seeing this across our ecosystem. And again, as Joel mentioned, I mean, there's been a disciplined allocation of capital as we see a potential opening maybe a little bit towards the end of the year but into next year in the IPO window and then kind of a rationalization of follow-on financings on the public side. We're seeing also that kind of trickle down to a venture in terms of the pace increasing, but certainly no dearth of investment opportunities to be had. And like I mentioned in my comments, with '21, '22 and even kind of early '23 life science center fundraising, really being at all-time highs, there continues to be dry powder to deploy.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. And remember the comment that I made, Series A, $60 million this year, all-time high, that's pretty astounding when you think about it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Michael Carroll of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Michael Carroll

Analyst

I wanted to jump on, I guess, Peter, in your prepared remarks, you did mention that the biotech flywheel is starting to turn again. Can you provide some additional color on that? Did the flywheel slow down in the past year or so and now it's improving? Or were you mentioning that like tenants were just delaying decisions and now are just being more active? I mean, what -- can you provide some color around that comment?

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. So Mike, I'll ask Peter to answer that in fact. But just keep in mind, the central thesis is the industry has been on a bull market tariff since maybe 2013, 2014 through early 2021. It was the longest biotech bull market that I've seen in -- since the days of Amgen and Genentech and Biogen when they were started late '70s, early '80s. So that says something. And then remember, the rocket ship years with the huge amount of funding and just activity of '21 and -- 2021 and into '22, and remember kind of the first quarter of '21, you saw the biotech index start to move. Now remember, biotech is a sub-segment of all of the life science, but it started to move as a leading indicator of the macro. But Peter?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes. So Michael, last quarter, in my prepared remarks, I had mentioned that we had seen a weakening in demand. And one of the positives that I pointed out in this quarter's comments is that we actually have had, I would call, a significant uptick, 15% to 20% in demand in our top three markets. That, coupled with some knowing financings that are happening, as companies have been getting good news, to me, it just feels like the wheel starting to turn again momentum is building, and I'm confident it's going to continue.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. And I would say as a footnote, I know personally that there are a number of companies preparing for an IPO in 2024 and that just has not been possible over the last, say, except for extraordinarily rare exceptions on the public markets for the sector. That's a really good sign. I think people are looking at the Fed action maybe today or tomorrow. I forgot what day that is where they think it's kind of going to peak and obviously, the strength of activity, M&A and partnering has all had significant upticks. So that means pretty darn good activity. And I think Peter said or Jenna said, there's always clinical failures in all -- across all modalities and therapeutic classifications. But there's been some awfully good news these days in the diabetes and obesity area and the neurodegenerative area, ALS, which is one of our former directors had a young daughter who died of that disease. We're seeing some remarkable advancements here.

Michael Carroll

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then like what is driving, I guess, that uptick in tenant activity, I guess, today? Is it just people are more comfortable with the overall market and are willing to make decisions? Are they more comfortable and are actually trying to execute and get financing, allowing them to kind of expand their research process? I guess what is driving that right now? And do you think that will cause incremental demand growth over the next few quarters? I mean can we read that into your comments?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes. I mean what's happening is -- and I touched on the theme of my comments, I think that uncertainty has really held back the entire economy. It has held back the life science industry, and that uncertainty is starting to go away and people are starting to realize that there's a lot of dry powder they need to put to work. So that -- we think that the investing of things that were not investing before, new company formation is going to occur, the science continues to move forward. When clinical milestones are met, we're seeing companies be able to raise a lot of money. And on top of that, we're seeing big pharma and biotech position themselves in our markets to grow. So that is what is giving us the positive outlook.

Michael Carroll

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then last question for me. On the supply front, have you seen a slowdown of some of those non-dedicated life science developers stop-breaking around the new projects? Has that occurred over the past quarter or so?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

With a couple of exceptions that are inexplicable, yes. We're not seeing much of anything new breaking ground, but there are some folks that have decided to move forward, which will be in the numbers for next quarter's update on '25.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Vikram Malhotra with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Vikram Malhotra

Analyst

I just want to go back and get some more color. You talked about the 15% to 20% increase in the top markets. But in your comments, you also mentioned specifically 100,000 square foot deals, I guess, are back in the market and smaller ones picking up. Can you just give us more color? Are these new requirements for expansion in those top three markets? And then if you look into the second half as we think about the sustainability of the 1.3 million leasing, can you just give us color on the pipeline in terms of maybe qualitative and quantitative comments around kind of how the pipeline of deals are developing in the second half??

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Well, yes, this is Joel. Vikram, let me say maybe this regarding your first question. I think we probably don't want to say given just the proprietary nature of what we do and how we do it, talk too much about requirements. Some are sole-sourced RFPs. Some are broader RFPs. Some are existing tenants that come from our own tenant base that aren't in the markets. I don't think we want to make any comments, particularly about that. I think when it comes to leasing, we can only give you the best judgment we have based on Dean's affirmation of guidance both on -- when it comes to the issue of rental rates, occupancy, et cetera. We haven't given our view of 2024 yet. We will do that toward year-end. But I think it's fair to say that, remember, we've got a long history, and Peter cited some of the numbers of quarterly leasing. The vast majority of that comes from our own tenants. And so we have -- I think we have our finger on the pulse and ear to the ground in a way that very few people or groups could have. And I think that gives us the confidence that we can achieve our business plan for this year that by the way we articulated last November, and we'll do the same. I think beyond that, I'm not sure we can or want to give any further color.

Vikram Malhotra

Analyst

Okay. I was just talking about like the second half of '23 in terms of the pipeline to hit the second half run rate of 1 million or whatever, 1.2 million feet in leasing. But I'm happy to clarify that off-line. I guess just, Dean, on the quarter, you mentioned there was a very modest pickup from Toast, but you did beat Street estimates. And I'm wondering if you can just clarify, a, from your vantage point, the source of that beat and then why that beat did not translate into an uptick in the guide? Is there something offsetting in the second half that kind of reduces the magnitude of the beat in 2Q?

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Not as it relates to NOI, Vikram. I think that was just a timing difference. I can't speak to the various sell-side models on what drove the timing differences. But from our view of the world, our deliveries were, by and large, on track with our expectations. So that doesn't translate to upside there. And there were -- that wasn't the only line item that there was a variance on. If you look across consensus, there were some other line items. I think the G&A is an example. We are lower on G&A than consensus across coverage. But the key driver was that the NOI line item.

Vikram Malhotra

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And then just last one. Specifically, I think one of your top tenants, maybe I'm pronouncing them wrong, Illumina, they called out reduction of real estate as a part of their cost reduction plan overall into the next year or so, call out, one or two specific projects on their call. And I'm wondering you have any update in terms of your exposure with them?

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. So I'll make a comment. Remember, Illumina still is a pioneer and a leader in their category. They did have an activist attack from icon regarding some management strategies kind of weirdly enough a lot to do about GRAIL, the EU and the FTC took issue with or Illumina acquiring GRAIL. Well, the weird thing is GRAIL was started and spun out of Illumina, and it made no sense, but yet here's an ideological kind of a thing going on. Illumina is as strong as ever. They have a -- they've got a lot of their market that they can still left to penetrate, but I'll ask Dan Ryan, who run San Diego and who's been very involved in Illumina that maybe give you a kind of a broad view of what's going on in their campus.

Dan Ryan

Analyst

Yes. So the -- what you saw in the headlines is they are currently subleasing. They leased about 300,000 square feet in -- not on our campus, but in the UTC area for pure office space. They have put that on the sublease market. They continue to advance with us discussions about adding a building or two to the campus, which would be more of their laboratory life science and manufacturing space, they look that they're kind of in desperate need to continue to innovate. So that's really what we're seeing from them. And then they -- I think they've had bits and pieces of real estate up in the Bay Area that they no longer deem as critical. So, we expect a pullback to San Diego, and I do expect to engage with them later in the year on additional laboratory office space on campus.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. The two sites that they announced, they were retrenching from were not owned by and operated by us.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Tom Catherwood with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Tom Catherwood

Analyst

Just one for me. Peter, I appreciate all your commentary about continuing to focus on mega campuses and allocate capital there. In the past, you've talked about how these campuses garner rental rate premiums. Do you have a sense of kind of the level of premium you're getting compared to market? And then maybe a little bit more broadly, do you have a sense of how your 19% mark-to-market is split between your mega campuses and the noncore assets that you're bringing to market?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes. As far as the premium goes, Tom, our study indicates that it's about 20% more in net effective rent that you're going to get versus a one-off project. Companies are going to pay for the amenities and pay for the scalability and the desirability of the asset. What else did I not cover on your question there?

Tom Catherwood

Analyst

Just trying to see if you have a breakdown with what you're selling as you're looking at that 19% mark-to-market that Dean had referenced is what you're selling 5%, 0% and what you're holding in the mega campuses is, is that 25%, 30% when it comes to mark-to-market? Or is it more consistent kind of across your portfolio?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes, I don't have the breakdown of each and every asset we're selling and what the mark-to-market is. But by and large, the best mark-to-market opportunities are in the mega campuses, and we are holding onto those assets. So what we are selling would be the one-offs that would not garner those types of premiums.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. And I think we've historically said on a number of the asset sales we've had to date, a typical mark-to-market has been 15% to high 20%, somewhere in that range, which is pretty good.

Operator

Operator

And our next question today comes from Dylan Burzinski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Burzinski

Analyst

And appreciate the comments on sort of net effective rent for the operating portfolio. But just curious, we're hearing that concessions are higher today for new leases, particularly on the development side. So you guys expect that you might start to feel pressure in terms of net effective rents impacting development yields moving forward?

Peter Moglia

Analyst

Yes, you are correct. On the development side, new leases, tenants are conserving cash. They are looking to the landlord to provide more tenant improvement. So that is creeping into the ether there. We will be, in some instances, able to push the rents to make up for that -- some of that or all of that. The good news is on the operating side because the spaces are built out because they're built out generically. We have very few concessions and TIs. We need to put out in order to lease or renew that space.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes. I would also say if you look at the bigger the credit and the bigger the Company, the landlord contribution to build out is not as essential. And in fact, the -- one of the big pharma buildouts that we're working on in one of the top markets, the contribution by the pharma is about $750 a foot. So, oftentimes, the configuration or triangulation or architecture of a deal oftentimes is based, to some extent, on credit and need to put in unusual situations, unusual features that only that tenant would want and that's -- that would be on the tenant's bill not something we would do. So that's something else you have to keep in mind.

Dylan Burzinski

Analyst

That's helpful. And I just one more, going back to sort of occupancy and realizing that you guys are still targeting, call it, low 95% in terms of occupancy at year-end. Just as we think about the trajectory over the intermediate term, I mean, do you guys think that you can continue to grow on this front? Or should we sort of view this as you guys approaching structural vacancy?

Joel Marcus

Analyst

No, I don't think so. I think look historically at how we've grown, I'll ask Dean to comment, but then also think about over time, we have an asset base where we can almost double the size of the Company. So, I don't think we've reached any plateau in any way, shape or form.

Dean Shigenaga

Analyst

Yes, it's Dean here, Dylan. I agree. You've seen occupancy in our asset base the way we manage our business have really strong relationships with our tenants and really deliver a level of excellence in operating our buildings. Our occupancy can grow to 300 basis points from or more than that above our bogey -- 200 or 300 above our midpoint bogey for the end of '23. So at 95.1% is the midpoint you referenced. I mean we've been in the 98% occupancy range. So there's plenty of room to grow there. And as Joel had also mentioned and as you guys are well aware, our pipeline is set to bring on a tremendous amount of NOI and that gives you visibility all the way into '25 and a little bit going up to '26 now.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Yes, remember, a number of our acquisitions that happened over the last couple of years in Greater Boston involved and one was mentioned the whole Fenway area, existing vacancy that as part of, say, a conversion to first-time lab space and those give, I think, great opportunities for occupancy gains.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Joel Marcus for any closing remarks.

Joel Marcus

Analyst

Just want to say thank you, everybody, wishing you a great summer and look forward to our third quarter call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.