Earnings Labs

Cousins Properties Incorporated (CUZ)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Mon, Apr 14, 2008

$25.02

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Cousins Properties Inc.’s Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Today’s call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introduction, I would like to turn the call over to Tom Bell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Tom Bell

Chairman

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I’m Tom Bell, Chairman and CEO of Cousins Properties, and with me today are Dan DuPree, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Fleming, our CFO and Craig Jones, our Chief Investment Officer. Welcome to our Fourth Quarter Conference Call and at this time, I’ll call on Jim Fleming to review the financial results for the quarter. Jim?

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Tom, and thanks everyone for your interest in Cousins. The matters we’ll be discussing today are forward-looking statements within the meanings of federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from these statements. Please refer to our filings with the SEC including our annual report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2006 for a discussion of factors that may cause such material differences. Also, certain items we may refer to today are considered non-GAAP financial measures with the meaning that G is propagated by the SEC. These items, the comparable GAAP measures and their related reconciliations may be found in the quarterly disclosures and supplemental information links on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.cousinsproperties.com. This quarter we reported FFO of $0.14 per share which is consistent with our first year FFO last quarter. Our results did not change because our lot sales continue to mirror the overall downturn of the residential market and we did not have significant track sales. In addition, capitalized interest decreased as some of our recently developed properties became operational, and development activities were slower on some of our residential projects. You will recall last quarter that we reported an adjustment to reverse previously recognized revenue on our 50 Biscayne project. We continue to close units through the fourth quarter and end of this year. We closed 280 units in 2007 and we have closed an additional 40 units in 2008 for a total of 320 to date. As a result of these sales, we have completely paid off the construction on them. We also have another 53 units scheduled to close in the next few weeks which will bring our total to 373 of the 529 units. This will allow us to return all invested capital with…

Tom Bell

Chairman

Thank you, Jim. Well as we’ve been expecting for a while now, the economy has cooled off considerably in recent months. Residential housing markets continue to show extreme weakness and the debt problems that started in the residential area are now beginning to affect commercial real estate markets, consumer spending and the broader economy. These factors will almost certainly make it more challenging for us and others to start new developments in the near future. Partially, because of the actions we have taken over the last few years, CUZ is in a good position to deal with the current economic situation. Let me first review where we are currently and then I’ll discuss our plans for the year. I’ll start with residential. The residential markets continued to weaken in 2007 as it became clear there was an over supply of developed lots and unsold homes even in the high growth, low appreciation markets like Georgia and Texas. At this point, we don’t see any significant improvement in the residential picture in the near term and we will continue to live in our development of new lots as we wait for supply and demand to come back into balance. Out lot sales were down significantly in 2007 and we don’t expect them to improve in 2008. So far, we don’t see a long-term reduction in the value of our residential business, but obviously the slowdown is having an impact on our current earnings. Now onto retail. During the fourth quarter, the deteriorating economic conditions began to affect the willingness and ability of consumers to spend through the holidays and a number of our retailers, especially those in women's fashion had disappointing results in December. We anticipate this will negatively affect retailer demand for new stores. Accordingly, we are redoubling our efforts…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Question-and-Answer session. As a reminder, if you have a question please press * followed by the 1 on your touch tone phone. If you’d like to withdraw your question, press the * followed by the 2. If you are using a speaker phone, you will have to lift your handset before making your selection. David Cohen – Morgan Stanley:

Tom Bell

Chairman

David Cohen – Morgan Stanley:

Tom Bell

Chairman

David Cohen – Morgan Stanley:

Tom Bell

Chairman

David Cohen – Morgan Stanley:

Tom Bell

Chairman

David Cohen – Morgan Stanley:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Operator

Operator

Shlomo/Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Shlomo/Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Shlomo/Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Shlomo/Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Shlomo/Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Operator

Operator

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Dan DuPree

Management

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Ian Weissman – Merrill Lynch:

Operator

Operator

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Tom Bell

Chairman

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Dan DuPree

Management

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to remind the audience that if they have a question, please press * followed by the 1. If you are using a speaker phone, please lift your handset before pressing the numbers. Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Cedrik, the time frame is—I think the project pro forma goes out for 10 or 12 years. It's a very long-term project. The next two years, as I understand it, are basically focused on completing the development plans and negotiating with the Army as to exactly how they're going to make the land available to the joint venture because they have various alternatives. Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Dan DuPree

Management

Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Dan DuPree

Management

Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Dan DuPree

Management

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Operator

Operator

Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs: Hey, good morning. It's actually Jay. I joined from another call, but just a question on the downtown leasing market, downtown Atlanta, and just sort of comparing that with Buckhead, it sounds like you have pretty good interest in both but getting a sense of what you’re seeing in terms of changes, maybe in demand and net effective rents or any other changes, concession packages or free rent, etc?

Tom Bell

Chairman

Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Jay Haveman – Goldman Sachs s:

Operator

Operator

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Tom Bell

Chairman

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Jim Fleming

Chief Operating Officer

Chris Haley – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC:

Operator

Operator

Tom Bell

Chairman

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the Cousins Properties Inc., Fourth Quarter Conference Call. You may now disconnect and we thank you for using AT&T conferencing.