Will Eglin
Analyst · Evercore
Thanks Heather. Good morning everyone. Before I get into our first quarter update, I want to provide some additional color on the Board's strategic alternatives review process. There has been quite a bit of misinformation in the market about the Board's decision on April 8th to suspend the process. We feel it is important to ensure that shareholders have a clear understanding of the facts, including the factors that went into the Board's decision. First I want to reiterate that the Board has been focused on transforming LXP over the last several years, including the announced $550 million joint venture with Davidson Kempner last December that further enhance the value of our company. Throughout this transformation, the Board has been open-minded and committed to regularly reviewing LXP's strategy against other alternatives to ensure we are pursuing the best path to maximize shareholder value. The Board has also evaluated the potential merits of running a private process, but determined to publicly announce the strategic review process in the spirit of transparency with shareholders. Since launching the review in February, we conducted a comprehensive process with three independent financial advisors incentivized to execute a transaction. We engaged and signed NDAs with a broad universe of buyers both strategic and financial. However, as the process progressed, financial markets became increasingly volatile due to rapidly changing inflation forecasts and rising interest rates. This resulted in a sharp increase in borrowing costs of over 100 basis points, which had a disproportionate near-term impact on the private market interest in our portfolio given its longer weighted average lease term. Parties cited these factors and that any proposal would be contingent on significant improvements in financing markets as the main reasons why they ultimately chose not to submit actionable indications of interest for the whole company. Therefore the Board unanimously determined that the best path forward at this time was for LXP to suspend our process and continue to execute our strategy, while completing the final stages of our portfolio transformation and capitalizing on the mark to market opportunity embedded in our portfolio. It is important to note that, while we decided to suspend the process, the Board and management remain open to all opportunities to maximize value for our shareholders and we expect there to be inherent value creation opportunities, as we execute on our development pipeline enduring 2024 to 2027 as leases roll. We hope this additional context is helpful and that it provides clarity regarding the misinformation that we've heard over the last several weeks. Beyond the information we've just provided, we do not intend to provide further details on the process and we ask that you keep your questions to our results and prospects going forward. Turning to our first quarter performance, it's clear we began 2022 with strong portfolio performance, reflecting the benefits of owning industrial real estate that is producing growing rents. With over 2.3 million square feet leased in our warehouse/distribution portfolio during the quarter, we increased base and cash base rents 28% and 18% on average, respectively, and we successfully negotiated average annual escalators of 3.3%, well above our historical results. Last quarter we began providing a forecast of the mark to market opportunity in our industrial portfolio, based on estimates provided by independent brokers. Currently the warehouse/distribution leases in our portfolio are approximately 16% below market. The mark to market opportunity, which considers our rent today compared to estimated market rent at lease expiration through 2027, is forecasted to grow to an average of approximately 42% during this time period. The weighted average lease term of our warehouse/distribution portfolio is 6.8 years and we are approaching a heavy period of lease rollover from 2024 to 2027, when 45% of our ABR expires. We believe our average annual industrial rental escalations of 2.5% should increase, as many new leases in our markets are being signed with 3% or higher annual escalators, further improving our internal growth prospects. On the investment front, we acquired approximately $72 million of industrial assets during the quarter and funded $69 million towards executing on our ongoing development pipeline. At quarter end, we had five development projects underway, comprised of eight buildings, in target markets of Phoenix, Greenville-Spartanburg, Indianapolis, Columbus and Central Florida. Deliveries are expected starting in the third quarter through the second quarter of 2023. Spec development continues to provide us the best opportunity to obtain favorable returns for new Class A industrial assets, with stabilized asset purchases used more as a vehicle to fill 1031 exchange need. As we deliver and stabilize our development pipeline, net debt to adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from 6 to 7 times, as we execute on these opportunities. Subsequent to quarter end, we sold approximately $55 million of assets, including one office property for $7.8 million and two industrial properties in Shreveport, Louisiana, which were outside of our target markets. All of our remaining office assets, apart from our Palo Alto office building, are in the market for sale. Also, subsequent to quarter end, we took two important actions in keeping with our commitment to positioning LXP to deliver enhanced shareholder value. First, following the suspension of our strategic review process on April 8, we began repurchasing shares under our existing repurchase authorization, as part of our ongoing commitment to returning capital and driving value creation for shareholders. We repurchased approximately 1.2 million shares for an average price of $13.41 per share before our earnings blackout period. There are 7.7 million shares remaining under our existing repurchase authorization and we expect to continue repurchasing shares as market conditions warrant. Second, as part of our ongoing Board refreshment process, in April we announced the appointment of Arun Gupta, who will serve as an Independent Trustee on our Board. We're pleased to welcome Arun formerly to our Board. Arun brings over two decades of Venture Capital experience with extensive investing cyber security and technology expertise, all focus skills we were interested in adding to our current Board. We will continue our ongoing Board refreshment process and expect to appoint another candidate by the end of 2022. On a personal note Lara Johnson, one of our Executive Vice Presidents has informed us of her intention to resign at the end of this month to spend more time with their family. Lara has been an important part of our transition, handling the majority of our disposition activity. I along with the rest of the management team and the Board want to thank Lara for her consistent hard work and many accomplishments during her years at LXP. We are well-staffed with a deep bench of talent to step in and fill her shoes as she transitions out of her role. Our goal is to fill her position from within the organization. In summary with our portfolio transformation substantially complete, we will continue to enhance our portfolio primarily through the acquisition of partially stabilized assets that afford us attractive leasing and releasing prospects, developing high quality warehouse distribution assets in our target markets and capitalizing on opportunities to increase rents. We are focused on maximizing value for shareholders and remain open to all opportunities to do so. With that, I will turn the call over to Brendan to discuss investments in more detail.