Bob Cutlip
Analyst · Janney. Your line is open
Thanks, Michael. Good morning everyone. During the first quarter, we acquired a 26,000 square foot property in a Philadelphia sub market, acquired a 34,800 square foot freezer-cooler industrial property in Indianapolis, renewed a 72,000 square foot tenant whose lease was scheduled to expire in 2020, renewed a 58,000 square foot tenant whose lease was also scheduled to expire in 2020, sold a non-core office property in Maitland, Florida, conduced a non-deal roadshow in Chicago and Milwaukee, and lowered our book leverage to 45.3%. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we acquired a two-building 383,000 square foot industrial portfolio in Ocala, Florida, acquired a 54,430 square foot industrial property in Columbus, Ohio, and entered due diligence for the acquisition of an industrial property in Tifton, Georgia. As noted in our year-end call, we're beginning to enjoy the benefits of our team's focused efforts to improve operating results. We invested significant equity and personnel resources from 2013 to 2018 to renew tenants and re-lease vacant space, to fund operating deficits on vacant space, to improve our balance sheet, and to acquire accretive assets. The good news is that our occupancy remained high throughout this period. We significantly lowered our book leverage from 63% in 2013, we maintained FFO per share of $1.50 to $1.54, and are now in a path of earnings growth that commenced in 2018. We also improved our cash payout ratio year-over-year. We were able to consistently improve our financial metrics because we acquired accretive assets each and every year in our target growth markets. The combination of the positive characteristics of those investments and the capital structure enhancements validate the strength of our growth trajectory and balance sheet security, and I think are worthy of some note. From 2012 to 2018, the average annual acquisition volume was just under $105 million, with lease terms ranging from seven to 10-plus years with annual lease rate escalations; the average GAAP cap rate on these assets, 8.7%, the average interest rate on fixed rate mortgage debt, 4.6%. These characteristics equate to increase cash flow year-after-year. We're also approaching the time period at which these leases' cash returns are going to be exceeding the straight line GAAP returns as the seven to 10 year leases are at or are approaching the inflection point from a straight line rent perspective. This should continue to improve the payout ratio to the benefit of shareholders and our working capital position. Our investment in asset management activities continue to generate positive momentum for our operations during the quarter. We acquired a 26,000 square foot industrial property in a Philadelphia suburb. The transaction is a 15-year sales lease back. The acquisition price, $2.7 million, the going in and GAAP cap rates are 7.6% and 8.8% respectively. And the property can be doubled in size to accommodate the tenant's expansion requirements in the future. We also acquired a 34,800 square foot freezer-cooler facility in Indianapolis for $3.6 million, which can also be expanded by approximately 50%. The unexpired lease term as [technical difficulty] acquisition and the going in and GAAP cap rates are 7% and 7.7% respectively. Our asset management team continued our renewal efforts and extended the leases for two of our tenants for five years beyond the current lease expirations in 2020. The tenant sizes are 71,880 square feet and 58,360 square feet, and the properties are located in Syracuse, New York, and Akron, Ohio respectively. No tenant improvements were required for these lease extensions. Our capital recycling efforts continued during the first quarter with the sale of a 50,000 square foot single story office property in Maitland, Florida. The sales price was $6.9 million and the realized capital gain was $3 million. This asset was not critical to our strategic holdings and the proceeds from the sale were used to fund first quarter acquisitions. Subsequent to quarter end, we acquired a two building 383,000 square foot industrial portfolio for $19.2 million in Ocala, Florida along the I75 quarter that connects Jacksonville and Orlando. The transaction is 20-year sale lease back with going in at GAAP cap rates of 7% and 7.7% respectively. We also acquired a 54,430 square foot industrial property in Columbus, Ohio for $3.1 million the unexpired lease term seven years and the property can be nearly doubled in size to accommodate the tenant expansion needs. The going in and GAAP cap rates are 7.5% and 7.9% respectively. Market conditions I think are worthy of some comment as noted in our last report, national research firms reported that overall investment sales volume for 2018 exceeded 2017 volume, a critical characteristic, however, is that large portfolio at entity transactions were in excess of 2017 level and are the major contributor to the higher volume, reports also stated that individual property sales for the last two months of 2018 were down compared to prior year and real capital analytics report that investment sales volume is down 11% for the first quarter of 2019 compared to that of the first quarter of 2018. In addition, we have noticed there is an apparent buyer, seller disconnect in the office sector as evidenced by several notable properties returning to market after being under contract and our experience with mortgage debt reflect that even with the recently reported slowdown by the Fed and raising the Federal Funds interest rate, long-term interest rate has risen approximately 50 basis points over the past 12 months. Now with that information in mind, significant capital is available on the sidelines with considerable interest in U.S. real estate. The expectation is for the 2019 investment sales volume to be similar to that of 2018 which is really still quite healthy for the industry. Our team is going to continue to monitor market conditions and actively investigate accretive opportunities that promote our measured our measured growth strategy. As it relates to our growth opportunities and strategy we have noted an increase in activity and sales listing as of late. Our current pipeline of acquisition candidate is approximately $260 million in volume representing 17 properties, 13 of which are industrial of this total $55 million is either in the letter of intent or due diligence stage and the balance is under initial review. As I mentioned during our year-end call, we are making a conscious effort to increase our industrial allocation with the heated competition for larger properties, our focus is in fully developed industrial parks, with properties that are predominantly in the size of 50,000 to 300,000 square feet, 24 feet to 28 feet clear height in the warehouse ample trailer parking and occupied by middle market non-rated tenant, a tenant profile which we believe we can underwrite with our proven credit underwriting capability. The larger property they are trading well above replacement cost in several markets and we don't believe that it's an appropriate strategy for us, to show evidence of this strategy from the last week of September through the first week of April just over six months we have acquired $74 million of properties, 75% of this volume or $56 million were industrial properties and they located in our target locations of Indianapolis, Detroit, Columbus Ohio, Philadelphia and Central Florida. The average GAAP cap rate, excuse me, GAAP cap rate is 8.3%, we believe this shift to increase in the industrial allocation of our portfolio will result in the long-term benefits of lowering tenant improvement costs for renewal and releasing efforts, reducing the intensity of our property management activity and improving operating efficiencies. So, in summary, our first quarter activities continued our acquisition and leasing success, refinance maturing loans issue equity to our ATM program and position us well to pursue growth opportunities. Now let's turn it over to Mike for a report on the financial results.