Marc Holliday
Analyst · Bank of America
Okay. Thank you Heidi, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining in. Many of you listening in today also attended or heard on the webcast our December investor presentation, which for us is always an excellent form to give in-depth market color and discuss goals and objectives for 2014. So that presentation, which is always sort of a highlight for our year in terms of being able to measure performance and describe the shareholder strategies and objectives, was something as a great benefit to us. And from the feedback we got after the presentation, I think we're confident that most shareholders found it to be very useful and informative as well. So we're still happy to put the kind of effort that goes into that presentation in order to do kind of a full dissertation, if you will, on where we see ourselves in the market. So having that just recently behind that, it's probably 7 weeks fresh, I think today what we're going to focus on primarily is material events during that 7-week period since the conference. And with that, I think you can put a circle around the Citicorp deal, the Citibank lease extension deal, which for us is really a crowning achievement for the company, I think for all those who worked on it, I would say, it was a personal achievement and getting that lease concluded for the company, for our shareholders after 18 months of negotiation, structuring and documentation and everything that went along with it, we were extraordinarily happy sometime and I think right after mid-December to get that signed up and announced, which made for good holidays for us. So I can tell you that much. And it was a deal where we had to do all of what I just said, while fending off the approaches of many, many suitors who were trying to convince Citi to relocate to various other locations and buildings throughout the city. And I think it's a real affirmation and testimony to the relationship we have with that tenant, to the flexibility and ingenuity, I think, that we put into that lease in terms of structuring something that worked for us and worked for the tenant. I think it's a real affirmation of Tribeca, what has now become, I would say one of the most desirable residential and commercial submarkets in Manhattan, which won out over many other locations and buildings that were deemed less desirable. And we couldn't be more pleased to have that behind us so that we can now, with Viacom put away for term, with Citi put away for term, it just allows us to really focus very offensively on figuring out ways to maximize our opportunities, mark-to-market and income opportunities going forward with the balance of the tenant base. A little more detail, if you will, on the Citibank deal. I think that the deal is resoundingly successful for this company, both when measured against market conditions downtown and when just looked at in terms of absolute levels of investment returns that we and our partner, Ivanhoe Cambridge, will enjoy on this investment. On relative terms, I think we look primarily at the more recent deals, with GroupM and Jones Day, GroupM at 3 World Trade, Jones Day at World Financial Center. And in that respect, we have a -- we were able to negotiate for a gross rent beginning in 2021 that, depending on where OpEx and real estate taxes go, but assuming that's somewhere in the range between 3% to 4% increases over time than that gross rent is somewhere right around $80 a foot. And that compares against starting rents with the GroupM deal at $68 a foot, starting rent at Jones Day at $60 a foot, each of which has a $5 bump. So that in the one case, the Tribeca location was about 22% to 23% better than a comparable vintage building that what financial center was able to obtain and 10% better than what new construction in the trade center was able to obtain. So we feel the rent was very appropriate, if you will, given the physical plant of 388 and 390, which are exceptionally good for financial tenants, the 388 floor plate was determined through the process to be as or more efficient for new construction and a 100,000 square-foot trading floor sizes at 390 are basically irreplaceable in that downtown market today. So that combined with the location and the autonomy of control over that campus, if you will, I think, was a major factor in helping us secure this tenant on a renewal. And when you look at the concessions, I would say there too, we were on a relative basis -- fairly pleased with the outcome, if you will. Where -- I think we had TIs of about $51 a foot, which is as against roughly $80 a foot on a nonrenewal deal, let's say $80 a foot trade for a new deal, plus free rent, which based on that gross rent in 2021 was about 7 months free. And I think we've seen numbers in the market ranging from 16 to 34 months free. I think that 34 months free is on the Jones Day deal, if I'm not mistaken. So that, I think, speaks volumes also to the quality of this building, the quality of the location that Citi saw in this specific property. There were some reports additionally on some additional base building capital that we committed to this deal as part of the Citibank renewal. That's fairly standard for us. So I'm not exactly sure why in this instance it's called out as something unusual in the 1 or 2 reports we saw. I think there's about $67 a foot or so of base building capital that's going to go into the improvements of the building and the restacking of the floors to make them more efficient. And given that we had put $0 into the building over the past 5 or 6 years since acquisition, and this is the sum and substance of what we'll put into the building over the next 22 years, I think that $67 a foot amortized over 28 years of lease term is something obviously $2.50 a foot on a straight-line basis. So we put redevelopment capital into almost every big building we purchase. In some cases, a little less. In many cases, more. I guess Viacom deal being a little less and 100 Park Avenue repositioning probably being more. So we think this is completely within the level of what's appropriate to invest, not really in a form of the tenant concession per se, but improvement to the asset, which we think is ultimately a good investment for us, and those are the economics of the deal now. Measured in terms of return, which is mostly how I like to look at these deals. I think we had an average yield through 2013 of about 9.25%. And as a result of this deal, going forward through, I believe, through the option date, that's actually a double-digit yield of somewhere between 10%, 11%. And I guess, most important one in IRR basis, which I think brings it all home to roost, the IRR deal from acquisition through date of earliest option would be something in around 9.7% to 10%. Now I can tell you with certainty that our ability today to go out and find commercial space in prime Tribeca neighborhood, where we have a high-credit tenant net leased, triple-net leased and with only about 50% or 53% loan-to-value achieve 10% levered returns would be highly challenging and that may be an understatement. So the deal itself is something we look at as a real victory for the company, if you will. We -- our strategy of buying credit tenant, net-leased deals at the tops of market is filling us 2007 purchase proved to be the right strategy in so much as we were able to maintain a very high yield through the '08 and beyond downturn. And now we'll be able to enjoy a consistently high and rising level of revenue, notwithstanding our financing costs fell during the first 5 years of this deal from $60 million a year to $34 million a year. So that's, in a nutshell, I think, how we evaluated the alternative of entering into this deal, which on the one hand is a -- it's a lot of capital because it's a 2.6 million square-foot lease. So it's big building, it's a lot of return. I think our share of the return, of the net return, from inception through earliest purchase date is something like $300 million net profit. So this has been extraordinarily profitable enterprise, now we're happy to say, we'll continue to be so over time, although we will have to invest some more capital into the deal. But certainly, as it relates to, I think, downtown metrics and I think as to -- just the measures by which we have to deploy capital, then and today, it's worked out fine. We did have it as a backup to our strategy a residential conversion of the property, which we think also would have been quite exciting and quite profitable, which would have played out many, many years from now. But as it turned out, we were able to meet our objectives as Citi seems also to be able to meet their objectives with the lease renewal, and in our eyes, that was in the best interest of this company and our shareholders. So we were happy to get that done. Some additional information, not really additional, just a summary of information that we posted on our website, which contains basically the data that's been disclosed in the press release, the supplemental and the 8-K, kind of put it all in one place, so people have the right data in front of them. And we can obviously answer any other questions, if you will, towards the back half of this conversation. But other than that, I'm going to open it up for questions, I would just say that if I had to handicap the 7 weeks since our December investor meeting, we are somewhere between on or ahead of expectations with respect to some fairly aggressive stretch goals and objectives we put up on the day of the investor meeting, both in terms of leasing and [indiscernible] philosophy, we have a good pipeline of leasing as it relates, even though it's January, which is typically not the most bullish [indiscernible] of months. We have a pipeline structured finance. We're working on other new equity investment yields and the sales market is still robust. So on all levels, we still see this as a market that is very consistent with what we conveyed 7 weeks ago. I think we'll be able to execute our program this year and we made that much the better by having the Citi lease renewal in the rearview mirror. So with that, I'd like to open it up for questions.