First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (FR) Q1 2016 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning my name is Nicole and I will be your conference operator. At this time I would welcome everyone to the First Industrial First Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Art Harmon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Nicole. Hello, everybody and welcome to our call. Before we discuss our first quarter 2016 results, let me remind everyone that our call may include forward-looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These are based on management’s expectations, plans and estimates of our prospects. Today’s statements maybe time sensitive and accurate only as of today’s date, Thursday, April 28, 2016. We assume no obligation to update our statements or the other information we provide. Actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements and factors which could cause this are described in our 10-K and other SEC filings. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed in today’s call in our supplemental report, earnings release and our SEC filings are available at firstindustrial.com under the Investors tab. Our call will begin with remarks by Bruce Duncan, our Chairman, President and CEO as well as Scott Musil, our CFO. After which, we will open it up for your questions. Also on the call today are Jojo Yap, our Chief Investment Officer; Peter Schultz, Executive Vice President; Chris Schneider, Senior Vice President of Operations; and Bob Walter, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Asset Management. Now, let me turn the call over to Bruce.

Thanks, Art. And thanks to all of you for joining us today on our call. Overall 2016 is off to a great start as we continue to execute on our plan to drive current and long term cash flow growth. We ended the first quarter with occupancy at 94.8% reflecting the typical first quarter dip plus the impact of the 400,000 square foot move out in our Memphis assets we discussed on our fourth quarter call. Rest assured we are focused on the work to be done to achieve our occupancy objectives for the year. We delivered strong cash same store NOI growth of 9.6%. This is primarily driven by decrease in free rent Higher average occupancy, rental rate bumps and rental rate growth. Based on the strength of our first quarter we increased our cash same store guidance which Scott will walk through shortly. Cash rental rate were up 6.9% overall. Our ninth consecutive positive quarter, GAAP rents were up 15.2% making it 17 positive quarters in a row. Moving on to development, I refer you to page 20 of our supplemental. We have had some very good development leasing wins that far this year. In the first quarter we successful leased and placed in service the final building of our 237,000 square foot $28 million First Park at Ocean Ranch in Southern California. We also only leased 341,000 square feet at our 585,000 square foot First 33 Commerce Center in the Lehigh valley where our total investment is approximately $44 million. In the second we’re also pleased to report that we are one 100% leased at our 188,000 square foot. First San Michele logistic center in the Inland Empire that will be completed next month. At the end of the first quarter we had 1.1 million square feet of completed developments not placed in service. Comprised of the aforementioned project in the Lehigh Valley but building in Dallas and Phoenix. Our combined estimated investment on these project is $75 million and they have a targeted initial GAAP yield of 7%. They were 67% leased as of the end of the first quarter and as of today. We have 1.5 million square feet under construction at March 31 which include San Michele and our spec projects in Dallas and Chicago plus builder suits in Atlanta and Southern California. Our total investment for these developments is $94 million. They were 31% leased at quarter end and 44% leased today and they have a targeted GAAP of 7.3%. So in total at quarter end our development pipeline was 2.6 million square feet with a total estimated investment of $169 million and a combined targeted initial GAAP yield of 7.2% that pipeline is 54% leased today. With industrial fundamentals continuing to be strong we identified and closed on several attractive investment opportunities. They were the primary driver of our decision to raise $125 million of equity. Scott will discuss the offering in more detail in a moment. Let me walk you through some of these projects which are squarely aligned with our cash flow growth and portfolio objectives. Just last week we closed on the acquisition of a site in Southern New Jersey for $9.2 million, there we started development of the first Florence logistics center a 577,000 square foot state of the art facility. Total investment is estimated to be $39 million with a targeted GAAP yield of 6.9%. We expect First Florence to be completed in the first quarter of 2017. In the Inland Empire West submarkets of [indiscernible] we acquired a 50 acre site for $22.8 million. This site will be the home of the ranch by First Industrial, a six building, 936,000 square foot park with buildings ranging in size from 50,000 to 300,000 square feet. Total investment is expected to be approximately $90 million with a targeted GAAP field in the low six's. We plan to start this park later this year and we will build all six buildings at one time with an expected completion in the third quarter of 2017. Also in the Inland Empire in the riverside submarket we acquired a 13 acres site for $4.8 million, there we plan to build a 243,000 square foot First Sycamore 215 logistics center. We will break ground in the second half of the year with expected complaisant in the first quarter of 2017. Total investment will be approximately $18 million with a targeted GAAP yield of around 6%. Moving to Phoenix, we acquired a development site in the West Valley submarket for 12.9 million where we can build a total of 1.1 million square feet. We will kick off this project called First Park at PV303 by building these 600,000 square foot facility with a total investment of approximately $33 million and a targeted GAAP yield in the mid to high-seven. We anticipate starting it in the third quarter with completion in the first quarter of 2017. We also have an option to acquire additional land at this site to accommodate another 1.5 million square feet. These four projects will have a total investment of approximately $180 million with an estimated combined GAAP yield in the mid-6s. One final note on development. We also added an 11 acre site for $1.7 million in the Inland empire close to our Moreno Valley holdings. We expect to be able to build a 236,000 square foot facility on the site after we complete some entitlement work. As we've commented on previous calls the acquisition market is challenging, that said year-to-date we've successfully closed two acquisitions in the Orlando market. As previously disclosed in the first quarter we have acquired a 126,000 square foot building in Orlando that was a 100% leased. The purchase price is $9.3 million and the in place yield was 7.8% reflecting above market rental rate. In the second quarter, we acquired a recently completed 199,000 square foot facility for $14 million. The building is 100% leased on a long term basis with an in place yield of 6.6%. Regarding disposition in the first quarter, we sold five properties totaling 420,000 square feet for $16.3 million with a weighted average in place cap rate of 8.6% These include properties in Indianapolis, Detroit and Chicago as well as our sole asset in Des Moines. Thus far in the second quarter to-date we have sold five buildings comprise of 406,000 square feet for $15.4 million with properties in Detroit, Dallas and Chicago. As we discussed last call we expect to sell a $150 to $200 of properties in total in 2016 with sales weighted the second half of the year. Now let me give you a quick update on our CEO search. The process is moving forward according to plan we are pleased to have talented internal and external candidates that we are vetting and we will let you know when we have a decision. We have no specific timetable other than I plan to retire by year end. In closing the year is off to a great start. Our team's focus is squarely on driving cash flow growth now and in the future. Cash flow in turn drives our dividend which as you know we increased 49% from our prior rate to $0.19 per share in the first quarter. We're excited about the opportunities we have to deliver value for our shareholders throughout our business including the new investments I discussed. With that let me turn it over to Scott. Scott?

Thanks, Bruce. Let me start with the overall results for the quarter. Funds from operations were $0.35 per fully diluted share compared to $0.20 per share in 1Q 2015. Funds from operations before onetime items namely our acquisition costs in one Q1 '16 and hedge costs in 1Q '15 were $0.35 and $0.31 per share respective. EPS for the quarter was $0.14 versus $0.02 one year ago. As Bruce noted, we finished the quarter with occupancy at 94.8% which was down 130 basis points from the fourth quarter but up 50 basis points year over year. Regarding leasing volume we commenced approximately 3.8 million square feet of long term leases in the first quarter. Off these a 0.5 million square feet were new, 3.1 million were renewals and 200,000 were development leases. Tenant retention by square footage was 70.6%. Same store NOI growth on a cash basis excluding termination fees was 9.6%. This was primarily driven by decrease in free rent, higher average occupancy, rental rate bumps and rental rate growth. Other items such as tax refunds and lower landlord expense contributed 110 basis points to our same store growth. Lease terminations fees totaled $128,000 in the quarter and same store cash at NOI growth including terminations fees was 9.8%. For the quarter cash rental rates were up 6.9% overall. Breaking it down renewals increased 7.1% and new leases were up 5.8%. On a GAAP basis the overall rental rates were up 15.2% with renewals increasing 14.9% and new leasing up 17.2%. As we previously disclosed we issued 5.6 million common shares on April 5th, as Bruce discussed we have been pretty active on the investment side and we thought it was prudent to raise additional capital to fund our strong development pipeline. I will discuss the impact of the equity offering on our 2016 FFO guidance shortly. Other first quarter capital market actions were the planned payoffs of our $160 million 5.75% unsecured notes and $58 million of secured debt with an interest rate of 7.75%. Recall that these payoffs were effectively pre-funded with the 3.39%, $260 million seven year term loan that we closed in the third quarter of last year. Moving on to our balance sheet metrics, at the end of 1Q our net debt plus preferred stock to EBITDA is 6.3 times. Adjusting EBITDA by normalizing G&A and excluding acquisition costs and adjusting debt by adding back loan fees. This is toward the low end of our target range of six to seven times. If you included the impact of the proceeds of the equity offering we would have been at 5.8 times. At March 31, the weighted average maturity of our unsecured notes, term loans and secured financing is 4.7 years with the weighted average interest rate of 5.1%. These figures exclude our credit facility. Our credit line balance today is $242 million and our cash position is approximately $15 million. Now reviewing our 2016 guidance for our press release last evening. Our NAREIT FFO guidance range remains unchanged at $1.41 to $1.51 per share even after the impact of the equity offering. The dilution from the equity offering would have been approximately $0.035 per share. This was primarily offset by the lease up of developments ahead of pro forma, higher capitalized interest due to the new planned construction starts as Bruce discussed, our strong first quarter same store performance, offset by sales dilution, net of acquisitions. The key assumptions are as follows. Average in service occupancy remains 95% to 96% based on quarter end results as we expect occupancy to increase throughout the balance of the year. Average quarterly same store NOI on a cash basis before terminations is expected to be 3.5% to 5.5% an increase of 50 basis points at both ends of the range reflecting our first quarter performance. Our G&A guidance range is $25 million to $26 million. As a reminder our G&A guidance reflects the costs related to our CEO search does not reflect any potential changes in CEO related compensation. Note that guidance includes the costs related to our developments under construction at March 31, as well as planned development starts in Southern California, New Jersey and Phoenix. In total for the full year 2016 we expect to capitalize about $0.03 per share of interest related to these developments which is $0.02 higher than the guidance we provided on our fourth quarter call. Guidance also includes the impact from the acquisition and sales completed in the second quarter to-date. Our guidance does not reflect the impact of any future sales or any acquisitions or developments other than those we discussed nor the impact of any future debt issuances debt repurchases or repayments, guidance also excludes any future NAREIT compliant gains or losses, or the impact of impairments, nor the potential issuance of equity. With that let me turn it back over to Bruce.

Thanks, Scott. Before we open it up to questions. I will wrap up our comments by saying that the industrial real estate sector remains healthy and continues to benefit from broadbased demand helped by the secular growth arising from e-commerce activity. We need to capitalize on this favorable back drop by continuing to execute on the opportunities within our portfolio and from our new investments. We are delighted that business remains good as evidenced by the development leasing wins I highlighted that have helped us to maintain our FFO guidance range for the year despite the impact of our equity offering. Driving cash flow for investors is what our business is all about and our team embraces that mission. We look forward to keeping you apprise of our progress throughout the year. We will now it open up for your questions. As a courtesy to other callers we ask you limit your questions to one plus a follow up in order to give the other participants a chance to get their questions answered. You are of course welcome to get back in the queue. So operator can we open up for questions?

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Craig Mailman with KeyBanc Capital.

Just on the development, I know you guys on the 180 it's about a mid-6 yield, but I'm just curious at least on my numbers the stock trading kind of low to mid-6 implied cap rate range how you guys think about starting new projects and what yields you kind of need for a threshold perspective apart from just kind of spread versus acquisition cap rate especially on individual basis some of the Inland Empire projects coming in kind of a low six cap rate range. So just curious kind of how you guys think about that from an [indiscernible] perspective.

As we look at it, we like development for two reasons. We think our risk adjusted return we're getting good value for it. And again it we know we own it, we got to deliver but we've got a great team, our team is executed, we've shown great progress in terms of what we've done to-date and we're very excited about the new development that Jojo can talk about. But I would also say that it also helps upgrade the portfolio and again when we’re building these projects we're putting in extra bells and whistles, we’re focusing making sure we got a lot of parking, trailer parking and we’re very excited about them and to us that also helps just the overall portfolio valuation but Jojo you want to talk -- add?

I these developments will give us a period of cash flow, gross of period cash flow profile and so we're very excited about these investments. When we look at these investments you know we're trying to achieve a 100 to 150 basis point spread over acquisition, that's kind of well we look at it. In addition to that you know we look at sub market level and we really try to build product that we think is in demand and the demand will exceed supply. In terms of spreads as you know you know there's two projects that are basically we spoke about are in California and today California in the low-4s and that we all spoke about the building in South Jersey that's in the five to low fives so there is obviously a spread. And in Phoenix, we’re talking about them mid to high fives. So again overall weighted average basis is clearly within the range that what we're trying to do.

And Craig we’re very excited about these developments.

And just on the First Florence, I had read that Amazon was looking for a 600,000 square foot warehouse in Florence. Is that related to this project? You guys have any leasing on this?

Sure, so Craig this project again as Bruce said we just closed on the land, it's right at the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Pennsylvania turnpike at exit [indiscernible] about 13 miles South of 7A. We can't comment specifically on activity in the market but certainly Amazon is looking at a lot of requirements around the country. We just broke ground last week and we expect to deliver the building. In the first quarter of 2017 and we will be sure to keep everybody updated on our progress but no leasing activity reported today. As I said we just started construction but we’re excited about the project.

Your next question comes from line of Dave Rodgers with Baird.

Maybe a follow-up on Craig's first question, I guess what I want to try to understand is with the amount of acceleration and development that you talked about, how close you're going to be maybe run through some of the math in terms of kind of getting to your capital at risk targets with the speculative construction etcetera. Will you be able to stay within those targets and how close to that limit do you expect to be good?

So our speculative development cap is $325 million. If you put in to assume that you put it in the leasing that we had in the first part Ocean Ranch in Southern California First San Michelle and First 33 Commerce Center and you include all the $180 million of development. Our total number within the cap is $286 million so that imputes to a $39 million capability under the cap.

After taking into effect all these new investments.

And then you know maybe the second part of it is can you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in Houston and Dallas and some of the markets where new supply seems to be creeping up a little bit on you and how new supply might be factoring into some of these decisions?

Sure, overall in terms of Houston the demand is leveled off in the northwest sub-market basically in the Southeast markets, the market is still driven by downstream related activity primarily refining and petroleum. As you know we have two newer assets basically, First North Commerce Center and Northwest Dallas, -- in Houston that’s about 40,000 square foot remaining vacancy there and we're focused on getting that done that’s 88% leased and last year we acquired two building new development and then at the time of acquisition it's about 13% leased and now it's 41% lease. This is the Southeast market right on the Delta way. So as you can see there's been the leasing activity there but our job is to get that all of leased. Over all in terms of our Houston portfolio we’re 98.5% leased today and year-to-date in terms of our leasing we have achieved slightly over 6% cash and cash flow rate increase. And you mentioned Dave, Dallas, yes. You know we do not have a big box development right now as we see it. What we have is a 50,000 square foot remaining vacancy at First Arlington Commerce Center, that 67% leased and we're focused to get that done, we already leased two tenants and that’s a multi-tenant building and we're still under construction with the at First Arlington Commerce Center II which is 231,000 square foot multi-tenant building, that's mid-sized. The target there is a mid-sized tenant in a Great Southwest market of Dallas which we believe is under built today and or demand will continue to exceed supply.

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from the line of Eric Frankel with Green Street Advisors.

I was hoping you could touch upon your same store NOI growth forecasts. So just look at your first quarter results and you look at your revised forecast, it looks like second quarter, fourth quarter same store NOI growth should be just over 2.5% per year that seems a little bit conservative, can you touch upon that Scott?

I would say you’ve to look into the first quarter in terms of it as we go through the rest of the year we will update that--

And Eric, we always get same store we got to look at the year because there is going to be lumpiness in there. So if you look at our midpoint same store guidance of 4.5% you get to watch an average of 2.8% say 3% for the rest on average for 2Q through 4Q. Some of the items that could maybe possibly surprise on the upside is we give a range of occupancy so that might be able to help that out if we are able to achieve on that. The other thing is bad debt expense. Eric we've modeled in 750,000 per quarter, 2Q through 4Q. We came in first quarter at 265,000 and that's been coming in well. So if we're able to do better on that as well I think you might be able to get some upside there but any follow up?

Yes are there any expense growth increases related to that? So if you had a tax refund on first quarter, are there your potential for realty tax increases just because property values are rising throughout the country and you know throughout the rest of the year?

I would say we probably have more of a surprise possibly for tax refunds as opposed to tax increases and we build in tax increases if we know that in the same store numbers, Eric. On tax refunds we had some of that in the first quarter. It's hard to determine if or when you're going to get those. So there may be some of those in the second quarter or fourth quarter as well.

And can you just remind me what's you forecast in terms of rent -- lease rollover in your same store forecast?

Overall in the rollover Eric, we're looking for the year between 5% and 7% on a cash basis, rents to increase.

Do I have time for one more question or is that--

No, please keep going you’re on a roll.

Peter, I was hoping you can touch on the First Florence project. So I took note that your cost basis on the development $16 per billable square foot but your basis is going to be about 70, so that’s a pretty hefty construction cost number, so I was hoping touch upon construction cost trends and whether that's just a unique project where there are some unique costs in there?

There is nothing that that’s unique. We have some. Site work on the property which as you know is always the biggest variable but this will be tilt wall concrete building and relatively straightforward. So we certainly like the basis we’re at particular when you look at where things are traded in New Jersey. In this sub-market which is really benefiting as you probably know from the widening of the New Jersey Turnpike all the way down to South Exit Six and 6A it's helping to drive demand further down the turnpike where exit 7A, and 8A remain pretty tight but no we’re happy with the basis we certainly have seen some cost increases and some capacity issues on things like pretax but nothing else that would really be unusual here.

[Operator Instructions]. Your next question comes from the line of John Peterson with Jefferies.

I just had more of a high level question. Maybe just a little for my curiosity but you know over the last few quarters a lot of economic indicators have been trending fairly negative, the ones that are typically good indicators for general industrial demand. But demand from you guys, from all your peers tends to be really strong right now. It's almost obvious the e-commerce is what's driving that, so I'm just curious if you could kind of walk us through like maybe the last few years like what percent of leasing are you doing now that you would classify as e-commerce related relative to you know a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, like how much of the incremental demand is driven by that?

It's difficult to quantify exactly how much of the demand in leasing is e-commerce, it's easy to see the pure play e-commerce companies like Amazon for example that was mentioned earlier. There are a lot of companies that are engaged in this whether it's logistics companies and transportation firms or third party companies providing these services or even package delivery companies and part of the occupancy maybe e-commerce and part of it may be more traditional warehousing but there's no doubt that we've been the benefit in the industrial business of e-commerce and the secular change we continue to see it as a significant driver but it's not the only driver. As we've talked about before there's pretty broad based demand across a number of industries but clearly e-commerce is helping.

Okay. And is there a certain type of business whether it's an e-commerce customer or otherwise where you're seeing you know more incremental demand. I know it's probably more market specific but different clear high heights or different sized buildings or closer to kind of CBD areas of markets?

The demand has been broad based you know on the immediate delivery or last mile we're seeing in our infill portfolio that you know some tenants are going to do omnichannel which is both bricks and mortar and direct fulfillment. But also not everybody needs a same day delivery item, so the inland empire benefiting from large process because you know again or other parts of the country because some deliveries you know customers are finding it sensible to get receive in two to three days. So the demand has been are broad based.

And you do have a follow-up question from the line of Eric Frankel with Green Street Advisors.

Quick questions are Orlando, why are you looking to expand there?

Again we've been in Orland before, but Jojo you want to talk about Orlando?

We have been in Orlando that market, they can see rates -- [indiscernible] decline. Now they're at about 6% and their continues to be net absorption. Orlando is the primary distribution market for Central Florida. So we think it's going to be staying down way for a long time, it's a decent sized market, 158 million square feet. And we found really good -- two good acquisitions we’re very happy about it, we will continue to expand there but we will maintain our discipline because you know acquisitions are pretty competitive.

[Operator Instructions]. And I show no further questions at this time. Bruce I will hand it back to you.

Great. Thank you all for joining us, if you have any questions please feel free to call Art or Scott or myself and we look forward to seeing some of you in June at NAREIT and we appreciate your support. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.