Tom Barrack
Analyst · Jade Rahmani with KBW
Thanks Lasse. And good morning and thank you, everyone for joining us on today's call. I first want to being by thanking Richard for his service and his tremendous dedication to Colony over the past 15 years and by applauding his many extraordinary accomplishments. Richard has been my friend and partner for almost three decades, first at Marrow [ph] where his legacy as the pioneer for public equity securitization for real estate is imprinted across many of today's most prestigious large-cap real estate investment trust and real estate operating companies.
's: The last time we spoke was on the Colony Capital fourth quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2017, which took place this last March. At that time, I stated near-term goals were shared with you, which included one; finalizing the defensive positioning of the scale, asset class selection and complexity of our balance sheet assets acquired in the merger. Two, contemporaneously, reinvigorate and realign the incentives of our athletes on the field while reducing bureaucracy and streamlining the businesses. Three, transitioning investment profile of our balance sheet assets away from a defensive yield-driven model into an offensive total return investment management-driven model, which is more appropriate to today's complicated investment. And fourth, focus on the anticipatory offense of balance sheet originated acquisitions, vehicles and platforms in which Colony's balance sheet acts as the GP alongside fee-bearing third-party capital. In the past six months, we've laid the foundation for each of these endeavors. Now let me elaborate with some specifics. On the balance sheet side, we've extensively monetized non-strategic investments and have generated almost $1.1 billion in asset sales this year and we've addressed a series of refinancings across our other balance sheet verticals. As it relates to investment management, first we raised more than $900 million in co-investment. Next, we raised $3.75 billion of outside capital alongside our $250 million GP capital commitment for our inaugural Digital Colony front. Additionally, we formed Colony Credit Real Estate, the third largest publicly listed mortgage REIT on the New York Stock Exchange and additionally, we took concrete steps to launch an emerging markets private equity platform. Last March on the earnings call, I told you that we'll get back to you with further details surrounding the Colony vision and my corresponding operational role as the assurer of our investment management lead growth. I'll now proceed to fill you in with granularity of our business plan as well as my go-forward responsibilities on the Colony team. Concurrent with the execution of our offense, we are implementing a series of near-term actions already in motion today to restore shareholder value and over time increase cash flow per share. In addition to my return as Chief Executive Officer, we've aligned our corporate management team to match the opportunity set and challenges that remain and along with that, will come revival of our legacy Colony Capital culture. These changes include Darren's promotion to the role of President with a keen focus on growth of new investment products as well as rationalization of existing owned real estate. In addition Mark Hedstrom, who was our CFO for almost 20 years and most recently served as our COO, will become the Chief Financial Officer. We will rigorously execute on a fully-identified large-scale G&A net cost reduction program made possible by our exit from certain non-core business lines, which total to $50 million to $55 million and lower expenses for 2019 alone, approximately $10 million of which will be cash savings. Further to our G&A reduction program, we remain sensitive to the reality that our results are largely dependent on empowering great people and we will have some additions as well. Simultaneously, with the net G&A reduction program, the organization will become more decentralized, delegating greater responsibility while always holding lieutenants to a rigorous standard of results, focused accountability on a more decentralized basis. We will generate substantial liquidity through the harvesting of nonstrategic assets and balance sheet heavy real estate verticals and plan to generate more than $1 billion in additional net equity proceeds from asset sales by the end of 2019 and will utilize that capital to originate and syndicate new third-party investment products on a global basis. We'll fortify the balance sheet, protect the $0.44 dividend and seek to maintain REIT status even as investment management earnings grow in 2019. This will include deleveraging and extending the duration of some remaining liabilities, locking in fixed rate debt whenever we can and reserving capital for near-term maturities and capital expenditures. The QR [ph] access is simple. It is capital allocation. We will balance the sale of the income-producing assets with the redeployment of capital, which can leverage third-party investing partnerships of acceptable duration and terms. Assets priced to perfection and our macro outlook are driving us to scour the globe for compelling value-added and opportunistic transactions, which could be paired with third-party capital targeting capital gains oriented long-term total returns. As we consummate more and more total returns to our transactions, we will slowly transition our ownership to balance sheet investments from a harvester of fully-priced and mature assets to new opportunistic themes,, driven by the anticipation of macro corrections and micro misalignments at an effort to create and build total return, without sacrificing the stability of distributable use. This transition will occur as a result of utilization of our balance sheet to originate opportunistic transactions or portfolio acquisitions, which can be subsequently syndicated to fee-bearing third-party capital. It also will occur as we utilize our balance sheet to acquire and grow operating platforms, which we can subsequently sell down to the public or private markets as you've seen that our industrial single-family rental, digital infrastructure and credit platforms. You can expect much more along these exact lines. We will use our balance sheet to acquire pre-existing complementary investment management platforms and additional growth areas such as emerging markets, which view our infant life balance sheet and global distribution capabilities as strategic and important in and of themselves. In March on our fourth quarter earnings call, we promised to deliver on the defensive portion of our path to shareholder value, while laying the seeds for offense. We've accomplished just that. As Senior Management restructuring, G&A reductions and cultural reorientation, arrest to liquidity and the corresponding transition and the total return profile of our balance sheet are all in motion today. Our successful fundraising of Digital Colony are successful syndications of a core invest. Our formation of CLNC and our creation of emerging markets platform, all demonstrate the positive direction of the growth of our alternative investment management business. Our healthcare and hospitality verticals are in rotation and we will maximize cash flows by restructuring debt, enhancing operations and transitioning lower quality assets to higher-quality assets. We'll monetize assets in both these verticals at every opportunity in which the private market describes a higher value than the public market. Digital infrastructure, light and bulk industrial and emerging markets are total return-oriented asset classes in which you can expect Colony to redeploy the massive liquidity, which we will generate from asset sales in the coming year. We've executed on the defense. We've introduced the beginning of a new offense, the results of which are starting to emerge and the newly aligned management structure will leave us positioned for more opportunistic capital allocation focus and a much condensed timeframe. Thanks very much and now I'll hand over the call to Darren Tangen.