Ernest Freedman
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead
Thank you, Charles. Today, I will cover the following topics: portfolio activity for the fourth quarter, balance sheet and capital markets activity, financial results for the fourth quarter and 2018 guidance. Total home count at the end of 2017 was 82,570 homes. Home count increased by 34,670 due to our merger with Starwood Waypoint. In addition, we continued to recycle capital in the fourth quarter, buying 290 homes for an estimated $80 million and selling 257 homes for $58 million. Our average acquisition basis was $278,000 versus our average disposition price of $225,000. I'll now turn to an update on our balance sheet and capital markets activity. As we communicated previously, both companies were committed to working toward investment-grade balance sheets prior to our merger, and that remains the case. Debt markets remain highly favorable for issuance, and we were able to take advantage with favorable pricing on two new securitizations that allowed us to refinance and extend maturities. In November, we closed the industry's first 7-year securitization loan with a principal amount of $865 million at a total cost of funds of LIBOR plus 150. We used net proceeds to repay in full two of our 2019 maturities. In February, we closed another 7-year securitization with a principal amount of $917 million at total cost of funds of LIBOR plus 124. We used net proceeds to repay in full all of our remaining 2019 secured debt maturities. As a result, we have pushed our nearest term maturity to the first quarter of 2020, with the exception of $230 million of convertible notes maturing in the third quarter of 2019. In addition, our November and February refinancings are expected to decrease interest expense by approximately $9 million annually and increased our unencumbered home pool by over 5,600 homes. Approximately 80% of our debt remains fixed or swapped to fixed rate. We also had over $1.1 billion of liquidity at year-end through a combination of unrestricted cash and undrawn capacity on our credit facility. I'll now touch briefly on our fourth quarter 2017 financial results. Core FFO and AFFO for the fourth quarter increased to $0.29 and $0.24 per share, respectively, each exceeding our expectations, due in large part to better-than-expected same-store NOI growth as well as the accretive impact of our merger. Included in our fourth quarter GAAP financials, but not included in core FFO and AFFO, is an incremental $5.5 million accrual for additional homes identified in the fourth quarter that experienced hurricane damage and revised repair estimates. Supplemental Schedule 1 provides a reconciliation from GAAP net loss to our reported FFO, core FFO and AFFO. The next thing I will cover is guidance for the full-year 2018. As Fred and Charles discussed, we believe that we continue to have strong fundamental tailwinds at our back. As such, we expect to grow same-store NOI by 5% to 6% in 2018, with same-store core revenue growth of 4% to 5% and same-store core expense growth of 2% to 3%. Full-year 2018 core FFO is expected to be $1.13 to $1.21 per share, up 13% at the midpoint from 2017. AFFO is expected to be $0.94 to $1.02 per share, up 12% at the midpoint from 2017. This forecast for continued strong growth prompted our board to increase our quarterly dividend 38% to $0.11 per share per quarter. The expected increases in core FFO and AFFO per share are primarily attributable to expected higher NOI, lower interest expense and synergy earn-in, as detailed on the bridge in the full year 2018 guidance section of our earnings release. In line with our initial expectations, we have identified $45 million to $50 million of total cost synergies, of which we expect to realize 75% on a run rate basis by the end of 2018. The majority of this synergies in 2018 and especially those impacting NOI, are expected to be realized later in the year after the implementation of an enhanced operating platform for our field and corporate teams that combines the best of both legacy organizations. As a result, we expect synergy realization to be more impactful to earnings growth in 2019 than in 2018. In 2018, we expect synergies to add $0.03 to $0.04 per share to core FFO and AFFO and for these synergies to be almost entirely related to property management and G&A. As of today, we have earned an approximately $20 million of synergies which includes $9 million of share-based compensation expense, mainly due to headcount synergies. Because there are some moving parts in the 2018 as a result of the merger, I'd like to call attention to a handful of modeling items. First, in 2018, we will no longer provide legacy Starwood Waypoint same-store results. In order to provide what we believe to be the most relevant indicator of comparable performance year-over-year, we have modified our definition of same-store to allow us to include homes that came to Invitation Homes through the merger. As of January 1, 2018, our same-store pool consisted of approximately 72,000 homes or 88% of our total portfolio. Second, while there are minor tweaks to accounting geography to marry the two companies' reporting practices, we do not expect the organization of our financial statements or the definitions of key non-GAAP measures like NOI to change materially from the way Invitation Homes has treated them historically. Third, we will incur a number of non-recurring costs related to our integration efforts in 2018, such as severance and retention, consulting fees and system migration costs. These costs will be recorded in GAAP G&A and property management expense and removed from core FFO and AFFO on the merger and transaction-related expenses line of our reconciliation, with the exception of severance expense, which will continue to be reflected on the severance expense line of our reconciliation. Fourth, the utility billing program that Starwood Waypoint used will be the model for Invitation Homes going forward. Residents will continue to be responsible for costs associated with their water and sewer usage and trash removal. Local providers will invoice Invitation Homes directly instead of our residents. For the next couple of years, this will result in a materially higher year-over-year utility expense in our financial statements as this rolls out across our portfolio as residents move out, offset by corresponding resident reimbursements. In presenting core revenue and core expenses results in our supplemental statements and for the basis of our guidance, we'll remove the impact of this gross-up. Before turning it over to Q&A, I'd like to reiterate how excited we are about 2018. We're off to a great start and our teams are working enthusiastically together to keep the momentum going and further solidify Invitation Homes as the preeminent leader in the single-family rental sector. With that, operator, would you please open up the line for questions?