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Getty Realty Corp. (GTY)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 4, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Getty Realty Corp. third quarter 2014 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Joshua Dicker, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Please go ahead.

Joshua Dicker

Management

Thank you. I would like to thank you all for joining us for Getty Realty's quarterly earnings conference call. Yesterday evening, the company released its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. The Form 8-K and earnings release are available in the Investor Relations section of our website at gettyrealty.com. Certain statements made in the course of this call are not based on historical information and may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to trends, events and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements may include those made by Mr. Driscoll regarding lease restructuring, future company operations, future financial performance and the company's acquisition or redevelopment opportunities. We caution you that such statements reflect our best judgment based on factors currently known to us and that actual results or events could differ materially. I refer you to the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013 as well as our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and our other filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risk and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect our view only as of the date hereof. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements that may be made in the course of this call. With that, let me turn the call over to David Driscoll, our Chief Executive Officer.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Josh. Good morning, everybody and welcome to our call for the third quarter of 2014. Our third quarter results continues to reflect our steady progress repositioning our portfolio to improve our operating results. Results this quarter showed strong advancements towards that objective as we reported significant sequential AFFO per share increasing by more than 25%. This improvement, in part, resulted from solid and broad-based reductions in our G&A, property management and other expenses that are a direct result of all the repositioning work and initiatives we put into place over the past few years. However, to be clear, approximately $0.03 per share of our improvement was the result of one time non-cash adjustments and movements in accruals for environmental obligations. Certainly, these can swing also in an adverse direction in future quarters, especially in our environmental remediation program which historically has been subject to considerable quarter-to-quarter volatility. Our repositioning work continues and even after we complete the major work, on some level asset repositioning will always be a part of what we do in a portfolio as big as ours, as we continually strive for additional incremental improvement over time. For the quarter ended September 30, our revenues were $24.8 million. On a GAAP basis, this was down 13% from the prior year period, which included $3.1 million of other revenue received as part of our settlement of the Lukoil litigation. After removing our GAAP adjustments and pass-through real estate taxes, our rental income from our properties increased by $600,000 for the quarter to $19.5 million from $18.9 million. On expenses, we continued to see broad-based reductions in rental property expenses and general overheads. Rental property costs were 20% lower at $5.7 million given the cumulative repositioning impact from re-leasing a number of sites from a triple-net basis…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Since there are no questions at this time, I would like to turn it back to management for any additional -- we do have a question from John Deysher with Pinnacle Capital.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Hi. Good morning.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, John.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Two questions. One for the two properties you acquired, I think, for a total $4 million, what was the estimated cap rate on those properties?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Generally, we are seeing cap rates that range in the 6% to high 7% range, depending on the credit quality of the particular tenant. I don't recall whether those two properties were property we acquired out of the portfolio or whether those were properties that we acquired in third-party transactions. So its hard to put a particular cap rate on it, but the specific cap rates we are seeing range from, let's say, the mid-6% to the mid-7%.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

So 6.5% to 7.5%. Okay.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Well, I think that's pretty good.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Okay. Fair enough. And secondly, we are all hearing about lower gasoline prices and I realize you are just a landlord who collects rent checks, but how does that speak to the underlying health of your tenants? Or what impact do lower gasoline prices have on their financial viability?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Generally lower gas prices are a very good thing for our tenant. There are two effects that occur. One in the short term, as prices come down, margins on the street widen so that as prices come down, our tenants tend to lower pricing less tax than (inaudible) do for them. And then in the longer-term, as prices go down, volume goes up because people use more gas, and that's also good for our tenants.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Okay. Because your tenants, I guess, mark each gallon of gasoline up on a fixed price base?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Generally, our tenants live off of margin between what they buy the gas for and what they sell the gas for. When the price of gas is going up, it's hard for them to raise the prices on the street as fast as their suppliers are rating it to them, but the opposite occurs when the prices are going down. That's a short-term effect. The longer-term effect is the volume effect. Certainly, for example, when we saw gas prices get up over $4, you began to see across-the-board volume decreases as people would not go to the shopping center. They wait, then go once a week, as opposed to two or three times a week. You are also going to see that, I suspect, in the car sales as they get announced, just because (inaudible) big auto manufacturers, you are going to see more sales of pickup trucks than SUVs which of course consume more gas per mile than some of the smaller cars.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Right. Okay. That makes sense. And then finally, is there update on the NECG lease at this point?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

No. It continues to plug along, and I think that it's stable where it is. We will restructure that lease as we move forward but I don't expect any significant change in the cash flow that we are currently recognizing from it. However, it gets restructured in the future.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

And what's the timing on the restructuring?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

That depends on the Supreme Court of the state of Connecticut.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Okay.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Which is basically unpredictable.

John Deysher - Pinnacle Capital

Management

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take a question from Kevin Oro-Hahn with Ingalls & Snyder. Kevin Oro-Hahn - Ingalls & Snyder: Good morning, David.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Kevin. Kevin Oro-Hahn - Ingalls & Snyder: I had a question regarding the dividend. As kind of operating improvements come through kind of as you are expecting, wonder if you have thoughts about a future path of dividend payouts?

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Like all companies, we would like to see dividends increase over time as our cash flow increases over time. But dividend is something that's up to the Board and not up to me. And the Board considers the dividend on a regular basis and will make the decisions based on what it sees. Beyond that, it's kind of hard for me to comment on it. Kevin Oro-Hahn - Ingalls & Snyder: Sure. Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we have no further questions. I would like to turn it back to management for any additional or closing remarks.

David Driscoll

Chief Executive Officer

Well, thank you all for joining us on the call. We appreciate your being with us and we look forward to talking to again when there is snow on the ground next in three months. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.