Will Eglin
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Thanks, Heather. Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I’d like to start by discussing our operating results and notable highlights for the first quarter of 2016. We had a great quarter in which we completed approximately $65 million of non-core asset sales and raised cash renewal rent 6.5% on strong leasing volume of 1.7 million square feet. Company funds from operations were $0.30 per diluted share for the quarter, which represents 3.4% increase over fourth quarter 2015. The increase was primarily due to higher revenues associated with acquisitions, principally the Preferred Freezer and McGuire Woods build-to-suit projects completed in the fourth quarter of 2015 and the Fiat Chrysler Automobile acquisition in 2016, as well as operating cost savings. We just announced that we sold two additional assets, subsequent to the end of the first quarter, which includes the $37.5 million sale of one of our New York City land investment, at a 4.1% cap rate. Given the strong first quarter and our expectations for the reminder of the year, we are tightening our 2016 Company FFO guidance to a range of $1.03 to $1.08 per diluted share from a $1 to $1.10 per diluted share. Our new guidance still assumes we sell the remaining land investments as of June 30, 2016 as a sub 4.75 quarter cap rate. Turning to investments, in January, we closed on the acquisition of a newly constructed 190,000 square foot industrial facility in Detroit, Michigan for $29.7 million. Initial cash and GAAP yields for the asset are 7.4% and the property is 100% leased for a 20-year term to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. During the quarter, we invested approximately $34 million in four ongoing build-to-suit projects. Our expectations are that three of these projects will be completed in 2016 and one will be completed in the first quarter of 2017. These assets will have a weighted average lease term of almost 19 years and the 3 wholly owned properties are estimated to add annual rental revenue to the portfolio of approximately $26 million once completed. After the quarter ended, we signed an agreement to fund the construction of 165,000 square-foot industrials facility in Opelika, Alabama for a maximum commitment of $37 million at an initial cash cap rate of 7.05%. The property will be net leased for a 25-year term with 2% annual rent bumps to go Golden State Foods, one of the largest food service providers to quick service restaurants around the country. We expect the property to be completed in May of 2017. Investment opportunities remain plentiful, but there continues to be a lot of capital chasing transactions, especially in the purchase market. The build-to-suit market, which remains our most appealing investment choice due to the yield premium we can achieve versus other markets, looks more attractive than it did a year ago, with going in cap rate in some cases having moved 100 basis points in our favor. We’re interested in adding to our 2017 pipeline and believe there will be attractive opportunities in the build-to-suit area going forward. That said, we’ll continue to be very selective and believe that patients and discipline are likely to be rewarded. On our last call, we spent some time discussing our 10 million common share repurchase program. Given where our share price was at the time, we felt that buying back shares offered a compelling value, compared to other investment choices. With the upward movement in our stock price, we have not been active since early March in repurchasing shares. We may execute on share repurchases to the extent market volatility creates a more significant discount between our share price and net asset value per share, or our projected forward cash flow. For the quarter, we were able to repurchase approximately 1.2 million shares at an average price of $7.56 per share. And since we authorized the program in July of 2015, we have repurchased a total of 3.4 million shares at an average price of $8.04 per share. Our disposition plan is fully underway. During the quarter, we sold three wholly-owned properties for gross proceeds of approximately $58.2 million, at a weighted average capitalization rate of 6.5%. This included a car dealership in suburban Houston for $17.6 million and two suburban office assets in Florida and Pennsylvania for approximately $40.6 million. Consistent with our capital recycling objectives, these sales allowed us to further reduce our short-term leased office, multitenant and specialty retail exposure. The Palm Beach Gardens sale in particular represented a favorable outcome, as we were able to fully stabilize the property prior to sale and sell it for approximately $30 million. Also during the quarter, we disposed of our interest in a non-consolidated office investment located in Russellville, Arkansas, receiving $6.7 million in connection with the sale, as well as a vacant land parcel sold for $400,000. Net gains generated from the sales totaled $22.3 million. As I mentioned previously, we just sold our West 45th Street land investment for gross proceeds of $37.5 million at a 4.1% cap rate, which compares favorably to a $30.4 million purchase price. Additionally, we sold a 100,000 square-foot office building tenanted by Apria Healthcare in Lake Forest, California for $19 million at a 7.9% cap rate. Year-to-date, disposition gross proceeds total $121.8 million, which included $115.1 million of wholly-owned assets sold at an average cap rate of 5.9%. Our expectation is still to be a net seller in 2016, selling an aggregate total of approximately 600 million to 700 million of assets at an average cap rate, of 5.75% quarter percent to 6.5%. We believe we’re making good progress with our sales program, despite some changes in the credit markets, which we prepared for when creating our disposition plan. Net sales proceeds are expected to range between $300 million to $400 million, excluding transaction costs and will be used to fund our investment commitments, retire debt, acquire properties, or repurchase stock. Moving on to leasing, we were very busy this quarter, executing three new leases and six lease extensions of approximately 1.7 million square feet to end the quarter 96.7% leased. Leasing spreads were positive for the quarter, up 6.5% on a cash basis and 5.7% on a gap basis, as a result of strong rents achieved on the majority of our lease renewals. Lease extensions comprised nearly all of this leasing volume with several significant leases signed that were scheduled to expire in 2016 and 2017. This included a five-year lease extension with Kraft Heinz Foods Company for approximately 345,000 square feet in Winchester, Virginia; a 10-year lease extension with Siemens Corporation in Milford, Ohio for approximately 221,000 square feet; and a 10-year lease extension with Sears in Memphis, Tennessee for 780,000 square feet. Given healthy leasing activity in the first quarter, we have been able to address the majority of our forecasted leasing activity in our initial guidance, and we believe that leasing this year will exceed our prior expectations. As discussed on previous calls, we have approximately 745,000 square feet of space expiring in July of this year, at our Temperance, Michigan industrial property, which is currently tenanted by Michelin North America. This property has been actively marketed for lease and has generated interest from prospects looking for both partial and full building use. As of March 31, 2016, 2016 expirations totaled 1.7 million square feet, only about 2.6% of our GAAP revenue with vacant space totaling 1.5 million square feet. We are hopeful that by the end of 2016, we can address roughly 38% of expiring or vacant square footage through dispositions and leasing. We have active lease negotiations underway on 2 million square feet and are already in the process of negotiating early renewals for half a dozen leases expiring in 2017. As part of our investment strategy, we continue to manage down our shorter term leases and extend our weighted average lease term, which is approximately 12.7 years on a cash basis and 9.2 years after adjusting our New York City ground parcel’s lease term for the first purchase option. Our overall lease maturity schedule remains well staggered, providing us cash flow stability. And approximately 80% of our revenue is from leases with built in escalations which is a positive for long-term cash flow growth. Balance sheet flexibility remains a top priority, so that we may access whichever source of capital is most effective when we need it. As of March 31, 2016, our 2016 mortgage maturities total approximately $105 million and have a weighted average interest rate of 5.8%. We have a large encumbered asset base which represents 67% of net operating income and we continually look for ways to achieve cost savings through refinancing and extending out our debt maturities to better match our lease exploration. We expect lock in some long-term secured financing in 2016 with the goal of paying down our revolving credit facility, which we paid down by $30 million in the first quarter to $147 million. Before turning the call over to Pat, I’d like to summarize where we are at this point in the year and where we expect to be at year-end. To-date, we have sold approximately $122 million of assets, retired approximately $52 million of secured debt and paid down $33 million of corporate level debt. We still expect our remaining New York City land investments to be sold by the end of June subject to a $213 million mortgage assumption. Sources of capital from sales and new long-term secured financing through year-end are expected to be approximately $720 million to $820 million which we anticipate will be used to retire $325 million of mortgage debt, fund our remaining $215 million of 2016 investment commitments and pay transaction costs with the balance available to pay down our credit line, repurchase stock or invest in build-to-suit projects and other long-term lease investment opportunities. Portfolio occupancy is expected to stay healthy throughout 2016. If successfully executed, our current plan is expected to reduce our leverage to a range of 6 to 6.5 times net debt to EBITDA, generate meaningful Company FFO and Company FFO per share in relation to our dividend and share price, and further upgrade the quality of our portfolio. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Pat, who will review our financial results in more detail.