James M. DeCosmo
Analyst · D.A
Thank you, Chris. And I'd also like to welcome everyone who's joining us on the call this morning. As we head towards end of the year and into 2014, the momentum we've generated in Forestar has us on the right track to deliver our Triple in FOR initiatives. Our oil and gas investment results are exceeding production expectations and targeted returns, and real estate continues to extend its trend of increasing sales in earnings. Let's review just a few of the highlights from the third quarter this year in comparison to the third quarter of last year. First, a nice step up in residential lots and track sales coupled with really good margins. Second, we're making progress in multifamily with 915 units under construction, and with 2 to 3 projects currently leasing. Third, our oil and gas production is up over 170%, and that's reflective of our acquisitions and investments in drilling and completion. Fourth, fiber sales remains strong with a higher sawlog mix and that's primarily due to timing. And last, we generated over $28 million in total segment EBITDA in the third quarter. In addition, we invested about $50 million of capital weighted towards oil and gas working interest and in development of residential lots. As you'll see, these investments are delivering additional value to Forestar and our shareholders. Let's take a closer look at the real estate segment, but first, kind of current market conditions. Texas continues to be a leader in job growth and that's the cornerstone of housing demand. As the chart at the top illustrates, when it comes to jobs, Texas is the pacesetter. And as the table at the bottom highlights, we continue be in good position relative to delivering lots and products to the expanding housing markets in Texas. In the 4 major metros, we got 41 active-selling projects with over 1,500 finished lots, 735 in development, and over 10,000 to be developed. Our pipeline of projects and desirable locations coupled with the capability and resources to develop lots is a Forestar distinctive. Now let's review the real estate segment results for the third quarter. In the third quarter of this year, real estate segment earnings were $13.2 million. That's up $500,000 compared with the same quarter last year, which included $10.2 million gain on the sale of Broadstone, which was one of our multifamily communities in Houston. As the chart illustrates, the main driver in the third quarter was the sale of 547 lots with a gross margin of 46%. That's up from 37% in the third quarter of last year. We hadn't experienced this level of lot sales since the second quarter of 2007. Also contributing to the quarter was the sale of 46 acres of residential tracts for $109,000 an acre, and 19 commercial acres for nearly $258,000 an acre. That's an indication of the strengthening real estate fundamentals in many of our core markets. Let me call your attention to residential tract sales. On occasion, I'm asked would we consider selling undeveloped lots or paper lots, and that's what these residential tract sales represent. In this case, selling 171 paper lots generated a better return than developing and selling finished lots to builders. Also note, we don't include paper lots in our sales count. Now looking more closely at our lot sales trend. Sales of 547 lots in the third quarter is up over 103% from the third quarter of last year and brings the year-to-date sales up to 1,353. The trend's headed in the right direction, but let me remind you, lot sales tend to be a little bit lumpy on a quarterly basis. Barring any significant movement in the schedule, we'd expect closings in the fourth quarter to be in the 550 to 650 range and in the 1,900 to 2,000 range for the year. And that'd be up about 40% year-over-year. Likewise, our backlog of lots under contract with builders remains healthy, a little over 1,600 lots. Shifting gears to multifamily. We're on schedule with 2 multifamily venture projects: Eleven, which is located here in Austin; and 360, which is located in the Denver Tech Center. Eleven, our 257-unit community is over 80% complete, and we hosted the grand opening about 2 weeks ago. Our plans are to reach stabilization and sale in the first half of next year. 360, our 340-unit community is roughly 50% complete. Pre-leasing is under way and we expect the first units to be delevered in the first quarter of 2014. Midtown Cedar Hill, which is located in the Dallas Metro, is under construction. And it's being built on balance sheet very similar to Promesa, which we sold in the first quarter of this year. We expect to start construction on our Nashville and Charlotte projects in 2014, plus the site in Denver that we recently closed. In line with our business plan, we're also evaluating a number of prospective sites for future projects. The team has done a nice job of focusing on planning detail and, most importantly, execution. High quality finishes, thoughtful amenities and great locations have become a trademark of our multifamily team and our brand. Going forward, we'll continue to capitalize on the housing recovery by growing lot sales and margins, generating commercial and residential tract sales, and expanding our multifamily pipeline. In the third quarter, we generated real estate segment EBITDA of $13.9 million and $43.2 million through the first 9 months of the year. The real estate team has generated momentum in the business and have us headed in the right direction. They've done a nice job driving sales and earnings. Keep in mind, this is a significant part of our Triple in FOR initiatives. Proving up the value of the potential of the assets, but more importantly, the ability of the team to deliver results. Let's shift to oil and gas. In the third quarter, oil and gas segment earnings were $8.5 million, that's up about what $1.2 million from the same quarter last year. The increase is primarily due to higher oil production. As we mentioned, that's up over 170% from a year ago, principally reflecting the results of our investments in the Bakken/Three Forks in the Lansing-Kansas City formation. We continue to see minimal activity in East Texas and Gulf Coast Basins given the predominance of gas plays and the current natural gas prices. Both leasing activity and the oil production from royalty interests are down. Nonetheless, we did execute 7,500 acres in lease agreements, principally in East Texas with deeper natural gas as the target. Below segment earnings is the EBITDAX reconciliation. EBITDAX is a non-GAAP measure with a reconciliation of segment earnings included in the appendix of the presentation. EBITDAX is a commonly used oil and gas metric that's more reflective of cash flow generated by the business before capital investments. Year-over-year, EBITDAX is up $7.4 million. Commensurate with investments, exploration and drilling has picked up as the slide indicates. At the end of the quarter, we had about 460 wells generating sales from working interest, 18 wells at total depths waiting on completion, 9 wells drilling and 28 wells scheduled to be drilled in the fourth quarter. We're encouraged by our results to date and we fully expect our oil and gas investments to drive production, reserves, earnings and value going forward. As Anna mentioned, Flavious Smith, our Chief Oil and Gas Officer, is joining us on the call this morning. I'm going to turn the call over to Flav to review a few of the operating investment highlights for the segment. Flav?