Will Eglin
Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead
Thanks, Heather. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. We delivered solid performance during the second quarter as we continued to remain very active in all areas of our business, particularly with our sales program and leasing activity. Net income for the quarter was $0.20 per diluted share and Adjusted Company FFO was $0.29 per diluted share for the quarter, representing a more than 7% increase year-over-year. We sold approximately $107 million of assets at an average cap rate of 6.2% and leased 1.4 million square feet of which more than 500,000 square feet was attributable to 2016 and 2017 explorations. We have signed a contract to sell the remaining New York City land parcels and we are currently working through closing conditions including mortgage assumptions. Our projections assume the sale closes sometime late in the third quarter at a sub four and three quarter cap rate. Primarily, as a result of the timing of the sale, we are increasing our 2016 Adjusted Company FFO guidance to a range of $1.07 to $1.10 per diluted share from a $1.03 to $1.08 per diluted share. Please keep in mind that the closing of this transaction is subject to certain conditions and we can’t guarantee that the transaction will close or that it will close on the terms or by the time period I have given. During the quarter, we were able to enhance our balance sheet flexibility as we retired approximately $80 million of mortgage debt and received an upgrade in our long term issuer rating to BBB- from BB+ by Standard & Poor’s. Finally, following the end of the quarter, we closed on $197 million long-term non-recourse mortgage loan at a 4.04% fixed interest rate secured by $166.2 million build-to-suit project with Dow Chemical in Lake Jackson, Texas. This financing is a good example of how we can selectively use secured financing to monetize assets, lock-in gains and replace shorter term with longer-term debt. Moving onto investments, during the quarter we completed a previously announced 1.3 million square foot industrial build-to-suit project in Anderson South Carolina for an initial basis of approximately $61 million. Initial GAAP and cash yields for the asset are 7.2% and 6% respectively and the property is 100% leased to One World Technologies, Inc. for a 20-eyar term. We also signed an agreement to fund construction on a 165,000 square foot industrial 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 to Golden State Foods for a 25-year term with 2% annual rent bumps. During the quarter, we invested approximately $40 million in our four ongoing built-to-suit projects, which include the Opelika industrial asset. Consistent with our long-term lease investment strategy these assets will have a weighted average lease term of approximately 20 years. The last of these projects should be completed by the second quarter of 2017. As of June 30, 2016 we had investment commitments of $179.5 million. More detail on built-to-suit funding projections can be found on page 15 of the supplement. We are focussed on adding to our 2017 pipeline and have currently committed to about $100 million in build-to-suit projects to be completed in 2017. There is no shortage of build-to-suit opportunities in the market place and while pricing is competitive, in most cases pricing still remains better relative to acquisitions of comparable quality in our view. We continue to be very active in looking for the right opportunities but are mindful of over paying for assets in this low cap rate, low interest rate environment. Our intent is to remain selective and disciplined, but nevertheless our cost of capital has improved in recent months which would allow us to be more flexible on the investment front should we choose to be. Our disposition plan is moving along well. We sold six properties during the quarter including the New York City 45th Street Land Investment for gross proceeds of roughly $107 million at a weighted average capitalization rate of 6.2%. In addition to the land investment, which we sold for gross proceeds of $37.5million at a 4.1% cap rate, we sold two office buildings and three industrial assets. Gains generated from the sales totalled $25.3 million. Year-to-date gross disposition proceeds totalled $178 million, which includes $171.3 million of wholly owned assets at an average cap rate of 5.9%. These sales in addition to the sale of the remaining New York City land parcels would bring us close to achieving our disposition plan target of $600 million to $700 million and an average cap rate range of 5.5% to 6.25%. This range has been lowered from our previous cap rate guidance range of 5.75% to 6.5%. Turning to leasing, overall in the first half of the year we have completed approximately 3.1 million square feet of new leases and lease extensions raising GAAP rents by 2.3% and cash rents by 1.5% on renewals. Leasing for the quarter totalled 1.4 million square feet, approximately 813,000 square feet of this related to a one year lease extension with Bell Sports, Inc. whose original lease expires in 2033. We executed one new lease and 12 lease extensions to end the quarter at 96.2% leased. Our occupancy declined 50 basis points versus last quarter as a result of recent asset sales and two 2016 lease explorations. While this number may shift quarter to quarter depending on leasing activity and the timing of sales, we expect occupancy to be around 96% at year-end. Leasing spreads were down 1.7% on a GAAP basis and 3.4% on a cash basis during the quarter. The decline is primarily attributable to a 10-year lease extension we signed with Time in Tampa Florida. And while there was a reduction overall rent on the lease renewal, the full occupancy and longer lease term provides for a better outcome as we look to sell the property. We have worked through the majority of our 2016 lease expirations and currently have about 1.2 million square feet of single tenant expirations in 2016 with our Temperance [ph] Michigan industrial property being the bulk of this number. This properties lease expired at the end of July and we are currently in preliminary discussions with a new user to fill approximately half of the 745,000 square foot space. Overall, our remaining 2016 expirations only represent approximately 1.7% of our GAAP revenue. We also have approximately 1.8 million square feet of vacant space to lease or sell. While we don’t anticipate much more leasing volume for our remaining 2016 expirations, we have active lease negotiations in process on 1.1 million square feet and we continue to successfully complete early renewals for leases expiring in 2017 and beyond. Our weighted average lease term at the end of the quarter was approximately 12.5 years on a cash basis and 9.3 years on a cash basis after adjusting for our New York City ground investments lease terms to their first portfolio of purchase option date. We remain very focussed on managing down our shorter term leases and our overall lease maturity schedule continues to be well staggered with about 80% of our revenue from leases with built-in escalations. In summary, we are very pleased with our progress to date. We believe, we are on target to complete our disposition program at an attractive average cap rate, leasing volume remained strong and we have been able to retire much of our near term mortgage debt with additional mortgage debt leaving the balance sheet in connection with the New York City land sale later this year. We remain active on the investment front but remain disciplined and focussed on achieving attractive returns. Our 2016 business plan contemplated adding $175 million to $200 million of long-term debt, which was accomplished with the attractive financing of the Dow Chemical build-to-suit. By obtaining financing that was $31 million over our maximum construction cost, we created substantial immediate value for our shareholders while successfully executing our build-to-suit strategy. As a result of our sales program, we expect to have ample cash on our balance sheet and net debt to EBTIDA of under six times and a higher quality portfolio at year-end. We believe this will position us to further grow our portfolio both organically and through investments and generate meaningful Adjusted Company FFO per share in relation to our dividend and share price. Now I’ll turn the call over to Pat who will review our financial results in more detail.