David Karp
Analyst · Blaine Heck of Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. For the first quarter, we reported core FFO of $59.3 million with $0.20 per diluted share. Cash NOI was $82.4 million essentially unchanged from the prior year period. Tom just walked us through our new disclosure on Page 9 of our supplemental. In addition, within the supplemental, we have included the weighted average free rent on leases signed in the quarter on Page 7. We've extended the quarterly break out on lease expirations on pages 11 to 13. We've provided a schedule on the anticipated timing of development of space to be vacated in 2018 on Page 15. We've broken out the 102 floor observatory revenue from total observatory revenue on Page 16. And we've broken out from other income and separately report lease these terminations fees on Page 18. We hope this added disclosure is helpful to you and we will continue to look to enhance our disclosure as we move forward. Turning to our observatory operations which are highlighted on Page 16 of our supplemental. In spite of loss views of the 102 floor for the first quarter, revenue for the first quarter of 2018 increased 1.5% to $21.2 million from the prior year period. NOI was $13.9 million up 1.7% from the first quarter of 2017 and our visitor count was up. A combination of higher visitor count previously announced price increases, dynamic pricing and mix improvement along with expense management drove the year-over-year improvement in NOI. The observatory hosted approximately 660,000 visitors in the first quarter 2018, an increase of 3.8% compared to the first quarter 2017. This year, the Easter holiday was split between the first and second quarters whereas in the prior year Easter holiday fell entirely within the second quarter. We estimate that this shift in the Easter holiday resulted in approximately 35,500 more visitors in the first quarter of 2018 as compared to the first quarter of 2017. While we had a lower number of bad weather days in the first quarter of 2018 than the prior year period. They fell on days of typically higher visitor count and had a more adverse impact. For the first quarter, we estimate that bad weather resulted in approximately 14,000 net fewer visitors than in the prior year period. We define a bad weather day as one in which top of the Empire State Building is obscured for more than 50% of the day. The 102 floor observatory is again opened following the planned replacement for the machinery and a new glass cap for the elevator which serves it. The glass cap is part of a component of the observatory experience upgrade which will be more fully developed in 2019. To produce a normalized comparison, one could remove the $1.9 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2017 related to the 102 observatory is identified on Page 16 of the supplemental. And on that basis revenues in the first quarter 2018 would have increased 11.4% overall and visitor per capita spend would have increased 6.1%. We're pleased with the work of our team in ensuring that the planned work was completed on time such that we were able to reopen the 102 floor prior to Easter. As noted previously, we have more work to do on the 102 floor component of our observatory upgrade program in 2019. We anticipate we will close 102 in early 2019 for as long as nine months. We will communicate final work plans as they become available. Moving to our balance sheet, our low leverage joint venture free and flexible balance sheet including significant cash on hand remains a differentiating and competitive advantage for us in any market environment. During the quarter, we issued and sold $335 million of senior unsecured notes, which were the final tranches of the $450 million private placement of unsecured notes announced in December 2017. Proceeds from the notes were used to repay the mortgage indebtedness on 111 west 3rd Street and 1350 Broadway and build our cash balances. As discussed during last quarter's call, we refinanced the maturing mortgage on 1333 Broadway and used a portion of the proceeds to remove the mortgage on 1400 Broadway. Unencumbered assets now represent 79% of our portfolio square footage versus less than 1% at the time of the IPO. We have transitioned to a more unsecured borrowing model and successfully demonstrated our ability to access a variety of capital sources. As a note, new debt financing and related hedging activities completed during 2017 and year-to-date 2018 will result in approximately $12 million or $0.04 per fully diluted share of incremental interest expense for our full year 2018 results as compared with 2017. As of March 31, 2018, the company had total debt outstanding of approximately $1.9 billion. The debt has a weighted average interest rate of 3.84% and weighted average term to maturity of 8.8 years. Our debt maturities are well-laddered with only a single $250 million issue maturing before 2022. None of our outstanding debt has variable rates. As of March 31, 2018, the company's consolidated net debt to total market capitalization was approximately 19.5% and consolidated net debt to EBITDA was 3.5x. And we had cash and cash equivalents of $690 million. With that, I would like to open the call for your questions. Operator?