David Gladstone
Analyst · Hilliard Lyons. Your line is open
All right. That’s a good report, Danielle and a good one from Bob Cutlip and also from Michael LiCalsi. We encourage all our listeners to read the press release and the annual reports filed yesterday with the SEC. It’s called Form 10-K, and there are lot of good material on those documents. You can find them on our website, www.GladstoneCommercial.com and also on the SEC website. The main news again we purchased two properties for about $41 million and placed mortgages on those properties of $18.5 million, extended to leases that were originally scheduled to expire in 2015. We finally leased that 42,000 square foot building down in Richmond, seemed like it took forever, but got that one in with the good tenant. And we are now 99. At December 31st we’re 99% occupied over the entire portfolio that may go down if we don’t find some tenants for the two or three that we have leaving our buildings this year. And then we raised close to $30 million in common equity under the ATM program, which has been working for us very well. We have continued to add quality real estate to our portfolio, shoring up existing investments and grew the asset base. We continue to grow all of our market capitalization increase and we hope to see higher trading volumes in our stock and corresponding uptick in the stock price because the distribution rate is very high for real estate investment trust. As many of you know, this company didn’t kind of monthly cash distribution during the recession, that was quite a success story what some of the good companies cut their distributions. Just want to do this one more time. As an example, this company first ex-dividend in 2008 was $1.36 per share. The distribution is now $0.60, so it’s a 56% decrease. Blank Realty dividend in 2008 was $1.17 per share, distribution is now $0.68 per share, so it’s still down by 42%. And Blank Property Trust distribution in 2008 was $1.25, distribution now is $0.20 per share and 84% decrease. And First Real Estate distribution was in $2.88, now $0.41 a share and 86% decrease. Corporate Property was another one that we looked at distributions in 2008 at $1.43, distribution is now $1.10, so not too much of a decrease, 23%, they may be back soon. Of course, our company had a distribution rate in 2008 of $1.50 and we are still at $1.50. So that tells you something about our strategy, which is to have a very strong asset base. Now these REITs that I mentioned having their distributions from hitting their low point but none have returned to their original level, and I am saying that none of the analysts have gone on and accept some of these that are comparable to us and put that story in their write-ups. I know all of you want us to increase the distributions and I do too them, like shareholder, but please give us some credit for being very steady cash payers and taking care of our shareholders. And track record is not cutting the distribution should stack up extremely well against others to have cut theirs and didn’t build back to prior levels during the last six years. Here is what we do in today. We need to increase the common market capitalization in order to increase the volume to give investors who want to buy a lot of stock at one time. So the big buyers always want to know that if they buy a number of shares outstanding, if they say buy $20 million worth of stock that there will be liquidity when they want to sell. We are still not big enough for those shareholders and we don’t have enough shares outstanding to give them that confidence. However, as we consistently build the assets and the equity base almost doubling in size in the past two years, where this growth will see larger buyers coming to the stock and that should increase the price and lower our cost of capital so that new investments will be much more accretive to our dividend payout. We have the program in place, we are executing it. And I think by the end of this year, we will be in great shape. We continue to have a promising list of potential quality properties. The team has really continued to do that very well and because of this list of properties, we hope to be able to grow the asset base in the portfolio more during 2015. With the increase in the portfolio of properties comes greater diversification for all shareholders, we believe that will also strengthen and solidify earnings. We are focusing our efforts to fund good properties and long-term financing, perhaps the long-term leases that we like and being able to lock in long-term financing will be good for the future. We are much more optimistic that things are going to be positive for this year 2015, so have a good outlook there. Much of the industrial base that rents industrial and commercial properties like the ones that we own remain steady, most of them are paying their rents. So, we see a good strength out there in the marketplace now. There is still some businesses like always that are having problems in the economy and is still not in great shape. However, we expect good growth during 2015 for this REIT. I'm optimistic that the company will find in the future. Bob Cutlip, his team and I will continue to be cautious in acquisitions as we've done in past years. We made it through last recession without cutting the dividend and having a lot of problems with tenant and they will go another one, we all know there will be another one someday. If there is recession lurking on our horizon, I think this portfolio will continue to stand the test against anything that they can throw at us. And if the Fed decided to raise interest rates, well, we're ready for that. Most of our companies are financed with long-term fixed-rate mortgage debt. So there shouldn’t be a lot of impact to our properties into our cash flow. Now, we were successful in implementing a new ATM program to raise the small amount of common stock, not dilute our shareholders too much and it makes it possible for us to put that new equity to work quickly rather than raising a huge amount of equity one-time and then having a longer time to get it to work. In January 2015, the Board voted to maintain the monthly distribution of $0.125 per common share in January, February and March, with annual rate of a $1.53 a year. This is a very attractive rate on this well-managed REIT. We now paid 125 consecutive common stock cash distribution since the inception and we went through a recent recession without having any problems in doing that. I just think that's wonderful. Because the real estate can be depreciated, we are able to shelter the income of the company in addition because of loss recognized in 2014 related to the property we returned in deed-in-lieu transaction. The common distribution in all of 2014 was 100% return of capital. We don't expect that to be the case again in 2015. We think it will return to normal spend somewhere around 80%. This is a very tax-friendly stock. In my opinion, it's the best one for your personal account and that you're receiving cash and not having to pay tax on a current basis. This return of capital is due to the depreciation of real estate assets and some other items and causes earnings to remain low after depreciation. And that's why we talk about FFO, because that’s adding back the real estate depreciation. As we all know, depreciation of a building is a bit of a fiction anyway because after the depreciation theory, the building is still standing even though you depreciated it substantially. If you own the stock in a non-retirement account as opposed to an IRA or retirement plan, you don't pay any taxes on that part, sheltered by the depreciation as that is considered a return of capital. However, return of capital does reduce the cost basis of the stock, which may result in a large capital gain tax when you sell the stock. With the stock price at about $17.40, yesterday the distribution yield on the stock is 8.6%. Many REITs are trading at much lower yields and that’s why I always bring this up every time. The REIT universe is trading at about 3.7% yield. If we ever get to that yield that means our stock will be trading at about $41 and the triple net lease REITs that are very somewhat to us are trading at 4.7% yield. So if our stock trades at that yield then the price per share would be about $31 a share. So you see there's a lot of room for expansion in the stock-based on the real estate stocks, REIT stocks that are out there today. And some of you analysts out there will say, oh yes, but you are externally managed and you are somewhat more leveraged than other REITs. But just once I would like that you see you say, this REIT has a great team. To use this analogy, the team puts the puck in the net every year, year in and year out. And even when the team is hit with a terrible body check like the recession, they still keep putting the puck in the net. Sorry, I got a little testy on this to use that puck analogy. But this team really is great and should be recognized for that. I know one more thing. There are among the REIT buyers are biased against externally managed REITs like ours as opposed to internally managed REITs like most of the very large REITs. Most people agree that it’s better to be externally managed when the REIT is small because the REIT can share the cost of compliance for all of these regulations, the IRS, the SEC and other regulatory bodies and for me, this is the best way to run. The question is what size do you have to be before you change? So, small REIT that’s externally managed can have an excellent coverage of compliance and accounting and more management power. This is how the mutual fund has managed so many mutual funds over the year. So the job of the Board of Directors is determined if the external fee is too high. Our Board goes through that and we do in depth study for the Board. We make a determination of the fee. We reach one -- when we reach $1 billion in asset that would be the time when have to really look at changing the fee schedule at that point in time. There is great confusion about the cost to run a REIT. Some internally managed REITs have low G&A cost because they farm out or don’t put in G&A. You never really know what's in that line item. They don't show you that or some of the expense items. A REIT like ours has a lot of expenses covered by the people and the management company and not farmed out to outside groups. So it’s hard to pull these figures out for our Board each year but that's what we do. We’ve told the Board, when we reach $1 billion in assets, we will be looking to see if we can reduce the management fee to be more like the internally managed REITs. And one more thing, our management fee is calculated on the equity of the company at the depreciated cost, not original cost and it's not the assets of the REIT as is common in many closing mutual fund. So, when we borrow money to buy building, it’s not increasing the management fee. And when we sell preferred stock and use that money to buy building, doesn't really raise the management fee. It's only when we sell common stock that the management fee goes up. And since we use a fair amount of mortgage borrowing and preferred stock in this company, the fee is relatively low compared with externally managed REITs. We’ve compared it to some nine or so other REITs and we are the lowest in terms of our overall fee to other externally managed. The analysis of internally management fees every July is one that we go through. It’s a little bit more difficult. We are about little over $200 million in book equity. We’re charging 2% of that. So as a result, as we look at these things, we try to figure it out. So, the Board asks us, since the management company is making this money, is it making too much money? And the answer is easy since the management company does not make any money that is we run this really over the last 10 years at zero. So that's not the answer. So then of course, the Board would ask, are we paying our people too much? So, we go through that comparison of our compensation of persons as compared with the industry. National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts publishes a very large number of categories of employees and what we find is that we are paying out people what the industry pays. In some cases, it might be a little high and others a little low but combined, it seemed to be just fine within the industry guidelines. So, then we say, are we paying more than other externally managed REITs and we look at the half dozen or so externally managed REITs and we see that we are actually the lowest of all the externally managed REITs. Some REITs claim to be charging only 1.5% fee, but when you look at all the other fees that they’re charging you find that our fees and percentage is the lowest of the group. And then we begin our analysis to say, how could we compare ourselves with the internally managed REITs and this is most difficult because the reports that we get from the other REIT, don’t include the various -- or don't have details of the various summary line items of expenses. So you kind of guessing where things are and trying to unbundled those costs. And here is what we do, the triple net REIT our -- we look at triple net REIT our size range and they are only a few, so we're looking at the smaller real estate investment chart. And we also need to look at REITs that do what we do and that’s very difficult and there are a lot of triple net REITs that buy building that have tenants that are rated by national rating services like Standard & Poor's and that makes it easier for them to buy those large rated tenants and their many building. We have some of those. We don't have many. We have some A rated, some BB rated by our rating agencies, but we have tenants that are not rated. This is very different from most of the real estate investment trust that are out there. And what this means is that we have to underwrite those tenants just the way we have other funds that underwrite borrowers, so we underwrite those tenants as if they were borrowing money from us and determine the probability of default. This is a big expense. It also gets us a larger income. This underwriting cost takes more time and it takes more time to find acceptable tenant and someone buying only rated tenants can do a pretty quick analysis of their tenant and go forward. So we use up much more time and energy of our people and this is really an extra expense that we have to deploy. We need to look at the length of the lease too. Some of the buyers out there are buying buildings, which have leases that are very short. We rarely do that. We look for long-term leases those leases that are in high demand. So we have to compete with many others who want those long-term leases and that’s why we move more towards those that are not rated tenant, there we have a better chance of getting a higher return. So we come to the conclusion that what we are doing to build our REIT is expensive, but while being expensive is far more secure we are 99% leased up, we don’t lose a lot of tenant, when the recession occurs, we have less problems, there are many that do not like our method of operation, this is very slow, methodical and expensive. And since it’s slow, they don’t want buy our stock, because we are not growing as faster as others. They want quick growth and if there is more risk in the portfolio, so be it. This is just not what we do and so if you are expecting us to go out and do that, we just not going to do that. We are building a long-term oriented REIT that can withstand the recession. This means our people have to work longer to achieve the same growth as other REITs and evidently this cost us more than some internally managed REITs. We charge less than externally managed REITs, but some say we charge than internally managed REITs. And let me just make one point, if we were internally managed today, with the same number of people and the same strategy of long-term secure investing than the cost would be the same today, if we were internally managed or externally managed, you are not more efficient if you are internally managed the way we are running our company today is just above this argument. And so, what you are looking at here as a higher cost REIT based on the strategy we have of making sure that we make all of our payments to our shareholders. It is true that this REIT is internally managed when -- I mean, externally managed and when you buy an internally managed you get the management company and the REIT. And so we’ve been told that if we took the management company public than people who wanted to own both could do that. So we are looking into the possibility of doing an offering for the management company. I just don’t know how we are going to do it but we should have that study done by sometime this summer. Again we thank you all for tuning in and excuse me for going off the deep end and talking about all of these items that I think is necessary. And will the operator please come on now, so our listeners and others can ask questions?