William McMorrow
Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead, sir
Thanks Daven. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to report another solid quarter of results, highlighted by continued strong same property results, completion of approximately $775 million in investment transactions and the further growth of our investment management business.We’re off to an active start in the fourth quarter, including a $300 million preferred equity investment from Eldridge Industries, alongside an increased separate account platform of $1.5 billion in assets.This morning we’ll discuss our financial and property operating results for the quarter and then update you on the progress we’ve made on our key strategic initiatives as well as review our key highlights, as we celebrate our 10 year anniversary since going public in November 2009.So starting with our results, for the quarter, GAAP EPS was $0.15 per share, up from $0.09 in Q3 of 2018. Adjusted EBITDA was $143 million in the quarter compared to a $142 million in Q3 of 2018. Both GAAP EPS and adjusted EPS represented a record third quarter for Kennedy-Wilson. Adjusted net income totaled $74 million in the quarter, flat compared to Q3 of 2018.Our same property portfolio continues to perform very well with same property revenues up 4% and NOI up 5%. Our apartment portfolio continues to drive our same property results. In Q3, we saw robust growth in our same property multifamily platform portfolio in the Pacific Northwest, Mountain States, Southern California, and Dublin, Ireland, which all saw NOI grow by 7% or more.Our largest investment region, the Pacific Northwest, and in particular, the Greater Seattle area continues to perform well, with occupancies increasing by 1% and same property NOI up 7.1% in Q3. The east side of Seattle in particular continues to see significant growth.According to CBRE, there is approximately 18 million square feet of office under development in the Greater Seattle area, which 80% is pre-leased, including almost 11 million square feet on the east side, which is the primary Kennedy-Wilson investment market.Amazon, which recently surpassed 50,000 employees in the broader Seattle region, currently has over 10,000 full-time job openings and is adding over 5 million square feet to its existing 12 million square feet footprint in the Seattle and Bellevue region. Facebook also continues to grow with over 5,000 employees in the region and space for 2,000 more.There are now more than a 130 companies from around the world that have setup engineering outposts throughout the Seattle market. And so we remain very optimistic that significant new jobs will continue to fuel the growth of this market.Our second largest region in our portfolio is the Mountain States. which includes Salt Lake, Boise and Reno, which saw same store property revenues increase by 6% and NOI increase by 7% in the quarter. Our thesis here remains intact. Strong population and job growth coupled with affordable cost of living, and a much desired outdoor recreational lifestyle, is drawing residents from expensive coastal cities like San Francisco. Plus, Washington and the Mountain States both benefit from significantly lower state income taxes than California.The Greater Salt Lake area continues to grow at a robust pace across the board and Utah’s economy continues to be one of the best performing in the country. In September, the unemployment rate fell to 2.7%, the lowest in 12 years and job growth totaled 3%, more than double the national average.Utah ranks number 2 for job growth and number 1 for private sector job growth in the country. There is almost 3.8 million square feet of office under construction that is expected to be delivered by yearend 2021, 56% of which is pre-leased. Average rents at our Mountain State’s apartments stand at $1,173 dollars, which represents the lowest monthly rate in our global portfolio.Thus we are confident that there is further upside both from the positive economic activity in this region as well as completion of our value-add initiatives.Finally, in Ireland, our growing multifamily portfolio continues to perform well. Occupancy has increased by 1.6% to 98%, which resulted in quarterly NOI growth of 7%. Our high-quality rental product and unique amenity package continues to draw demand for rental housing from both local and international residents that are relocating from other parts of Europe and the U.S.Large U.S. technology companies, such as Google, Facebook, Salesforce and Microsoft, are all looking to expand their presence in Dublin, as well as growth from medical technology, pharma, financial services and IT companies. The market continues to perform very well and Mary will provide some color in just a moment.Turning to our stabilized commercial portfolio, where our various office investment platforms, through which we added a net 3 assets globally, totaling 1.7 million square feet, same property revenue from our commercial assets was up 4% and NOI up 5%. Our U.S. portfolio saw robust NOI growth of 21% as a result of the burn off of free rent from Q3 of last year.Additionally, Mary will highlight in a moment the strong leasing momentum in the U.K. post quarter end. Now, I’d like to review our 3 key strategic global initiatives that we believe will be the drivers of our growth in the future.Number 1, growing our property NOI over the next 3 years. Number 2, growing our investment management and fee business through raising additional fee-bearing capital. And, number 3, executing our capital recycling and asset sale program, where we’re producing outsized returns on our investments and recycling capital into other strategic opportunities.So, starting with number 1, in the U.S. we continue to focus on completing strategic value-add CapEx projects, which are aimed at growing our NOI organically. In total, our U.S. multifamily team completed another 268 multifamily unit renovations in the quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to approximately 650, with an average return on cost of 22%.We currently have over 1,000 units we’d like to renovate, finish renovating by end of next year, which will continue to drive our NOI organically. We also continue to make great progress on our development and leasing initiatives, which includes 4,300 market rate and affordable multifamily units, 3 million square feet of commercial properties and one hotel development.We expect all of our current construction to be stabilized by the end of 2023. And based on current market conditions, we expect these assets to add approximately $110 million of annual NOI, 40% of which is expected to be delivered in the next 2 years. Globally, we expect to invest approximately $200 million of cash by the end of next year across both our CapEx and development initiatives.In the U.S., we have over 2,000 units under development through our vintage housing joint venture, which is engaged in the management and development of senior and affordable housing. We expect to stabilize almost 600 units in the fourth quarter and another 1,500 by the end of 2021. These projects will add $6 million in estimated annual NOI.We remain on track to grow this joint venture to 10,000 units over the next 3 years, with minimal cash required from KW. 53% of our current development pipeline is in Dublin, where we were able to build cap rates that are 2% higher than where we could buy similar assets. Additionally, the permanent financing market in Ireland allows borrowing rates that are 1.5% to 2% lower than those in the United States.With that, I’d like to hand the call over to Mary Ricks to discuss greater details.