Jerry Sweeney
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Sir, your line is now open
Right, thank you very much. Good morning everyone and thank you for participating in our first quarter 2018 earnings call. On today's call with me, are George Johnstone, our Executive Vice President of Operations; Dan Palazzo, our Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and Tom Wirth, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to beginning, certain information discussed during this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. Although we believe estimates reflected in these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we cannot give assurances that the anticipated results will be achieved. For further information on factors that could impact our anticipated results, please reference our press release as well as our most recent annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. As we normally do, we will start with a review of our quarterly activity, and then an update on our 2018 business plan, and looking at 2018, the plan is off to a great start with in line results. We are 83% done on our revenue plan, with a strong pipeline of pending lease activity, and our operating plan remains on solid footing. Our balance sheet is strong, we have ample financial capacity, we continue to pursue pre-leasing on a development and redevelopment pipeline projects, and are pleased with our success this quarter in both Austin and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. We also continue to monitor the investment market, for both sale and value add opportunities. Market activities remained in line with our business plan expectations. The tenant activity is strong, and as George will amplify, we continue to have a lengthy leasing pipeline. Our focus remains on completing our business plan, creating positive cash flow growth, executing leasing tactics that increase our net effect of rents, and pursuing growth opportunities. From an operational perspective, we ended the quarter at 92.3% occupied and 94.2% leased. That sequential decline of 60 basis points in occupancy was anticipated, due primarily to lease expiration that we had at Three Logan Square here in Philadelphia. Our mark-to-market for the quarter was a strong 10.5% on a GAAP basis, in excess of our target range of 8% to 10%. Our mark-to-market on a cash basis was at the upper end of our range, and based on forward activity, we expect the full year results to be within our target range. Speculative revenue plan at 83% done; that compares last year this time without the IBM major renewal we had done early in 2017 to 84%, so right in line with last year, and we are about 67% done, which compares to last year as well, complete on a square footage basis. Tenant retention for the quarter was below our target annual rate at 51%, but based on known activity, our annual target remains unchanged to 67%. GAAP and cash same store number for the quarter were as expected, and below our annual business plan range at minus 4.4% GAAP and minus 1.4% cash, driven by the decrease in average occupancy year-over-year. This was fully anticipated in our plan, and we expect future quarterly activity will return us to our 2018 targeted ranges. Leasing capital for the quarter came in at $2.84 per square foot per year, at the low end of our targeted range, primarily due to several as-is renewables. Based on our forward leasing activity, we are maintaining our 2018 target of 2.75 to 3.25 per square foot per lease year. We expect to be above that range in Q2 and Q3, and below in Q4. More importantly though, our mark-to-market rent growth, combined with longer lease terms, and we think good control over our capital spend has resulted in 18% increase in our same store net effect of rents over the last several years, and to amplify that, we are projecting a 4.5% increase in 2018 net effect of rents over 2017 levels. Balance sheet continues to benefit from previous year sales programs, as evidenced by following improvements in some of these metrics. We have reduced our net debt-to-EBITDA from 6.2 at year end to 6.0 with the quarter end and are comfortable staying within our target range for the year. We have reduced net debt to total assets. We also reduced our weighted average cost of debt year-over-year by 44 basis points, ended the quarter with a cash balance of $201 million and zero drawn on our $600 million line of credit. We also anticipate launching a recast of our $600 million line of credit in the next 30 days, as well as a recast of our seven year term loan to fully lock away our balance sheet for the next several years. From an investment perspective, with the exception of the previously announced sale of Evo, we do not have any dispositions or acquisitions included in our 2018 plan. As we always do however, we are continually canvassing the market for asset and land sell opportunities, as well as exploring a recapitalization of several of our joint ventures. Our clear focus is on maintaining earnings momentum and cash flow growth, and we continue to expect that proceeds from any sales activity that may occur during the year, will pre-fund our development, provide for joint venture simplification, address growth opportunities, as well as a continued focus on maintaining and reducing our leverage levels. On the development front, we made excellent progress during the quarter, and all of our development activities were detailed on pages 13 through 15 of our set. Our overall development pipeline pre-leasing levels have increased from 77% at year end to 90% at the end of the first quarter. That increase was primarily driven by 100,000 square foot full building, 12 year lease at our 500 North Gulph Road Project in King of Prussia. Our leasing team did a wonderful job working with an existing tenant. They needed expansion, and they signed a 12-year lease for us with 2% annual bumps. That tenant also has a major presence with us in King of Prussia, occupying about 250,000 square feet on a lease that goes out through July of 2028. So a great example of our building to accommodate existing tenant space needs within our targeted submarkets. We do anticipate completing the renovation work and stabilizing 500 North Gulph Road by year end 2018. The project cost moved up slightly due to some additional structured parking to $29.7 million. We generated 9.3% going in cash-on-cash return on cost, and we anticipate an average return of over 12% during the term of the lease. At Garza, down in Austin, Texas, we announced another land sale. The latest sale was for a 6.6 acre parcel that was sold to SHI, one of our existing tenants at Barton Skyway. That landfill generated a gain that we will recognize in the second quarter, and I know Tom will touch on that. While we certainly would have preferred to build our own scenario, this tenant wanted to own their own facility. We have had a great relationship with them over many years, so concurrent with the land sale, we entered into a proposal to service their development manager to construct a 250,000 square foot building. They currently occupy about 180,000 square feet at our Barton Skyway project, on a lease that will expire in May of 2020. Given the desirability of that project and the overall strength of the Austin market, we already have strong activity on that space, and we do expect between a 15% to 20% positive mark-to-market on the relay. So Garza, when you look at what we have been able to do, we have generated almost $27 million of sale proceeds, and we will continue to own the final land parcel, that zone for another office building, totaling 150,000 square feet. We are actively marketing that site from pre-lease, and as we look at it, the Garza project really demonstrates our capacity to master plan a multi-phase mix use site, work through the approval process, partner with other development companies, and harvest gains in the master plan project, and that's exactly our intention to replicate that type of success in our other multiphase development projects like Schuylkill Yards and Broadmoor. Construction does continue on budget and on schedule, at our 165,000 square foot building at Four Points in Austin. That project is 100% leased with existing tenant under a 10 year lease, and we do anticipate delivering that project in Q1 next year, with a projected 8.4% return on cost. At 906 Broadmoor in Austin, we did push the stabilization date back to Q4 2018, due to a delay in leasing of the final floor of that project. We do though have good pipeline of activity, and are still expecting our targeted rate of return of 9.8%. Construction continues on our second building for Subaru at our Knights Crossing Campus in Camden, New Jersey. That project is fully leased on a 18 year lease. We expect to deliver and stabilize that project in Q3 of 2018. That tenant does have a purchase option that they can exercise upon substantial completion, which we expect will occur later this year, when the building stabilizes in August of 2018. In March, we also made an additional investment in our Schuylkill Yards project by acquiring a parcel of ground, the leasehold interest of parcel of ground. That land parcel and an additional parcel planned for June would comprise the two building sites contemplated in our phase 1. The first building, as we have indicated in the past, would aggregate about 700,000 square feet. The land is currently being used as a surface parking lot. Phase 1 is currently in the design development process. We anticipate completing that design development process by end of 2018. Consistent with our general approach, we do not anticipate starting any construction without a substantial pre-lease, and we are also working with our development partners at Schuylkill Yards and evaluating actual product mix, that will ultimately comprise Phase 1 and exploring a range of third party financing options. The land acquisition will enable us to move forward with our site analysis engineering work, necessary to really complete the design development process. So looking at our land inventory, from a land management standpoint, the acquisitions combined with our announced and programmed sales, will bring our land inventory to about 3.2% of our asset base, which is right inside of our 3% to 4% target of land inventory level. We continue to advance planning, predevelopment and zoning efforts on several of our other development sites, including 405 Colorado and Austin, Texas Downtown, our Broadmoor Master Plan in Northwest Austin and our Metroplex project in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Just as a final note, as part of our annual review of corporate governance, our proxy this year does include several recommended changes to our bylaws and Declaration of Trust. The changes that the board is recommending to our shareholders that they approve, an amendment providing shareholders the right to amend our bylaws on a direct basis, recommending a simple majority vote to accrue certain mergers from our existing documents with specified supermajority and opting out of the Maryland Business Combination Act. In addition to that, the Board recently voted, as indicated in our proxy, to opt out of the Maryland Unsolicited Takeover Act. So there is -- all items are on the proxy for approval by shareholders. At this point, George will provide an overview of our operating performance and then turn it over to Tom, to look at our financial highlights.