Thomas E. O'Hern - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Analyst · Banc Of America Securities. Please go ahead
Thanks, Jean. Today, I will be discussing the second quarter results, recent financing activity, status of our redevelopments, upcoming opportunities and our outlook for the balance of 2008. Focusing first on operating metrics, the operating metrics remained strong in the second quarter, the continued high occupancy levels, and strong releasing spreads. Total mall sales per square foot for the trailing 12 months were 468 that’s up 2% from the 458 reported a year ago. In fact our top 25 properties are now averaging over $625 per square foot. Occupancy remained strong with the occupancy coming in just slightly below 93%, we came in at 92.9% at June 30th down slightly from 93.2% a year ago. Leasing activity continue to be robust both in terms of volumes and spreads. We signed 370,000 square feet of mall store leases in the second quarter that was up 8% from a year ago. The spread was very strong with new rent starting at 45.51 per square foot. We had a positive releasing spread of 26.5% in the quarter. Our average rent per square foot in the portfolio was up almost 7% to 41.13 a foot compared to $38.44 a year ago. FFO per diluted share was up almost 12% compared to the second quarter of last year. FFO per share was $1.16 for the quarter, and that compared to $1.04 for the quarter ended June 30, 2007. Midpoint of our guidance was $1.12 and the Street consensus was $1.15 the quarter exceeded both. Earnings per share for the quarter were $0.25 and that compared to $0.15 for the first quarter… excuse me, the second quarter of last year. Impacting the quarter we had same center NOI excluding lease termination revenue, and SFAS 141 we're up approximately 3.35% compared to the second quarter of last year. Lease termination revenue including JVs at pro rata was 2.3 million for the quarter that was down about 900,000 compared to 3.2 million in the second quarter of last year. Rents recovery rate was 93.4% that was down from 94.7% in the second quarter of last year. CPI rent increases were 1.7 million higher than in the second quarter of last year. Straight line rents were at 2.6 million and that was down from 3.1 million in the second quarter of 2007. SFAS 141 income was 3.9 million up from 3.5 million in the second quarter of last year. The gain on sale of un-depreciated assets during the quarter of approximately 2 million and that compared to $200,000 loss in second quarter of last year. Looking down to balance sheet, we've had a tremendous amount of financing activity in the past 90 days. I'll be discussing some of those transactions in more detail in a few moments. Our average interest rate is 5.31, the average interest rate on our fixed rate debt is 5.95 and the average remaining maturity on the fixed rate debt was 4.25 years. Our debt-to-market capital at quarter-end was 59% and the interest coverage ratio is a very healthy 2.15 times. At quarter end, we had a total of 7.8 billion of debt outstanding including JVs at pro rata. As of today we have only three loans totaling 88 million at our remaining 2008 maturities and two of those loans have already received the take out commitments. We'll be closing our notes later this year. Taking a look now at the transactions we completed since the last earnings call. We closed on six separate financings in the past 90 days. Generally these loans were done with lenders where we have a long relationship. The deal terms ranged on the short side from three years with an extension to five years up to seven years. Total amount of the financings were 1.45 billion and the excess proceeds above the old loan amounts came in at 600 million. The details of the individual deals are in the press release, so I'm not going to repeat them here. Suffice it to say it was a very busy quarter, we generated a significant amount of liquidity and we now have a substantial amount of capacity available under our line of credit. An outline of credit by the way which… the schedule the maturities of 2010 is extendable to 2011. If you look at the 2009 maturities in the supplement, we have an extension option beyond 2009 on six of those loans totaling 258 million. That leaves us with a very manageable maturity schedule of 689 million for 2009. Those loans are on some of our very best malls, which is Queens Center, Northridge Mall, Biltmore Fashion Square, Village at Corte Madera and Washington Square. The average sales per square foot in those centers with maturities next year $586 per foot. All the centers where we have maturing loans, the average sales per foot is nearly $600 a foot. The average leverage level on those loans is approximately 35%. So we have our loans maturing in 2009, very high-quality malls, very low leverage. We are currently in discussions with lenders for many of those 2009 maturities and we feel confident that we will generate a significant amount for the excess proceeds, just as we have recently done with the 2008 maturities. Looking now at guidance, we are reaffirming our previous FFO range for the year of $5 to $5.15 which at the mid-point reflects a 9.85% increase from 2007. Reminding you all we do have seasonality in our earnings and we allocate approximately 24% of the annual earnings to the third quarter and then the balance of what is remaining would follow through in the fourth quarter. That guidance is based on our current view of the current market conditions in our business. At this point, I will turn it over to Art.