Howard Schwimmer
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please state your question
Thank you, Michael. And thank you everyone for joining us today. As on past calls I'll update you on our markets, and review our recent transaction activity. By virtually any measure our core infill markets remain strong with availability running at or near historic levels. The overall Southern California vacancy rate reported by CBRE, excluding the Eastern Inland Empire ended the fourth quarter at 1.8% dropping 10 basis points from the last quarter. I'll provide additional perspective on our markets primarily utilizing market data provided by CBRE. Los Angeles County ended strong, generating 915,000 square feet of positive net absorption in the fourth quarter and 5.8 million square feet overall in 2015. The overall vacancy rate in the region dropped 10 basis points since last quarter and finished the year at 1.3%. Rexford's LA portfolio finished the year at 97% occupancy excluding our repositioning assets. Construction deliveries already lag far behind absorption with only 2.8 million square feet under construction at the end of the fourth quarter representing just 0.2% of the market base and accounting for space removed from the market to be converted to alternative usage, net supply growth remains negative. Asking lease rates jumped 6.1% quarter-over-quarter and 9.4% over the prior year. Over the next 12 months CBRE expects asking rents to further increase by 5.8%. Activity in Orange County showed a dramatic improvement over the last year. The market generated 2.7 million square feet of positive net absorption for the year compared to 1 million square feet in 2014. The overall vacancy rate in the region was unchanged over the prior quarter and ended at 1.9%. Rexford's Orange County portfolio was 97.8% occupied at year end excluding our repositioning assets. The rates continue their upward trend and increased by 2.7% over the prior quarter and 7% over the prior year. CBRE expects lease rates to improve by further 6% over the next 12 months. The San Diego market experienced a historical year with net absorption of 3.5 million square feet, the highest figures since 2006. More than 80% of the year's net absorption occurred in low-finish product that is Rexford's focus. In fact our San Diego portfolio finished the year at 94.5% occupancy excluding one recently purchased repositioning asset. Vacancies hit the lowest ever recorded in the region at 4.3%, a drop of 10 basis points over the last quarter. Asking rates across all product types remained flat quarter-over-quarter and were up 11% over the prior year. However asking rents for low-finish industrial products such as ours increased 14% for the year. The industrial market in Ventura County had 222,000 square feet and a positive net absorption in the quarter and the vacancy rate dropped another 50 basis points to end at 3.1%. The average asking lease rate stayed unchanged since the last quarter and increased about 2% over the prior year. The Inland Empire generated 23.2 million square feet of positive net absorption for the full year, the vacancy rate dropped by 50 basis points since the last quarter and finished the year at 3.3%. The average asking lease rate rose by 7.1% since last quarter, the smallest on spaces experiencing the largest growth. CBRE expect asking rates to increase by 11% over the next 12 months. However there may be a risk on the horizon related to consumers for global growth and over supply as the pipeline of about 90 million square feet is in various stages of development primarily within the Eastern Inland Empire which we did not focus on. We entered 2016 in a strong position within our markets. Rexford's high quality infill portfolio is well positioned despite growing global and domestic economic uncertainty. We continue to see strong demand for space with competing offers and a turnover within our portfolio realizes quickly. As an example of that 75% of the space vacated in fourth quarter has already been released, a testament of the high demand nature of our product and to the lease type of available space going forward. Now moving onto our transaction activity; during the fourth quarter and throughout 2015, we continue to drive external growth with accretive acquisition. In the fourth quarter we acquired six industrial properties for an aggregate cost of $78.5 million. For the full year we recorded 21 properties close to $250 million. As in previous quarters, our earnings release has details of these transactions but I will provide some brief highlights. The majority of these transactions were off market or lightly marketed sales, as our deep local market knowledge continues to provide a competitive advantage as we source acquisitions. As a result we continue to achieve stabilized returns that are 150 basis points to 250 basis points or more above the prevailing market yield of 4% to 5%. In October we purchased Arrow Highway, a three-building, 64,000 square foot industrial complex located in the San Gabriel Valley for $8.1 million. The 100% leased building is occupied by a single tenant and the initial return is approximately 7.4%. Additionally in October we purchased Midway, two prominent buildings totaling 374,000 square feet in the severely supply constraint Central San Diego submarket for $19.3 million. We are repositioning the asset in two phases and creating a high quality industrial complex. Phase 1 delivers 229,000 square feet in 10,000 to 35,000 square foot spaces and at stabilization yield on cost is projected to be 6.5%. Upon stabilization of Phase 2 the return on total cost is expected to increase to approximately 8.6% or more. In December the company acquired Milliken Avenue, for $13 million which is a three-building, a 178,000 square foot industrial complex in Ontario. We are executing a value add capital improvement plan to maximize revenue as the low market leases grow and anticipate a stabilized return on -- from cost of 6.1%. Also in December we acquired Walnut Street and Lakeland Road. Walnut Street is the 172,000 square foot cold storage industrial building located in Carson in the Los Angeles South Bay market. The property is a 100% leased with two tenants with long-term leases and was purchased for $16.7 million. The low cost base in some of the assets provides the opportunity for future renovation and potential re-tenanting into a single tenant dockside distribution facility. The in place yield on costs is approximately 8.9%. Lakeland Road is a vacant 25,000 square foot building with 50,000 square feet of excess land located in Santa Fe Springs in the LA Mid-Counties submarket. We purchased the property for $4.3 million which of course is the land value alone. After addressing deferred maintenance, the quality industrial space with dockside loading and excess land will be highly desirable in this low vacancy market. We expect to stabilize return on cost of 5.9%. Finally at the close of the year we acquired Nichols Lane, a 115,000 square foot industrial building in Huntington Beach in the West Orange County submarket for $17.1 million. The high quality building is a 100% leased with a single aerospace tenant. We have invested significantly in the space and has eight years remaining on its lease. We anticipate an initial return of 5.1%. In closing we added in excess of 2 million square feet to our portfolio in 2015 in our core Southern California infill market. These properties are in prime locations and offer very strong relative yields both initially and on a stabilized basis. As we look forward we have a significant pipeline of value-add and stabilized opportunities and we continue to work on potential transactions that fit our return objectives. At this time we have more than $38 million under contract or 11%. We also have about $90 million of dispositions under contract, letter of intent or subject depending letter of intent. These opportunistic sales with more than 60% of the square footage either vacant or facing near term lease expiration allow us to recycle proceeds at values that substantially exceed industrial market cap rate valuation. These sales are subject to contingency period but there's no guarantee if or when they will close. I'll now turn the call over to Adeel.