Steven Roth
Analyst · Bank of America
Thank you, Cathy, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I ask for a moment of silence in honor of the lives that have been lost during this COVID-19 pandemic, including Haim's beloved father and my dear friend, Stanley Chera. We now find ourselves in almost total shutdown, a never before situation. Life as we know it is upside down, people are hurting, businesses are hurting, and the future is uncertain. At Vornado, as our first priority, we are following strict protocols and taking all measures to protect our employees, our tenants and our communities. We pray for the health and safety of all, and we commend and admire the talent and courage of our health care providers. In their honor, the Crown of 731 Lexington Avenue, our Bloomberg Tower, is now flying scrubs blue, as is our block-long Times Square sign and also the light projection on theMART. Our entire organization is working remotely and doing a remarkable job keeping the trains running and on time. They have our thanks. Our office buildings remain open, safe and sanitized with a rightsized operating staff. Building census is currently less than 5%. All but essential retail is closed, giving a lethal blow to some in an already challenged industry. We have taken the following operating steps to reduce expenses and preserve cash. We have placed 1,800 employees on temporary furlough, including 1,300 employees of BMS, our wholly owned subsidiary, which provides cleaning, security and engineering services to our properties; 400 employees at the Hotel Pennsylvania and 100 of our corporate staff. We have deferred certain capital projects to the tune of $125 million. We have closed the Hotel Pennsylvania temporarily. Effective April 1, 2020, for the remainder of the year, our executive officers waive portions of their annual base salary, beginning with my 50% reduction and scaling down from there, and each member of our Board of Trustees will forgo their annual cash retainers. Now let's talk a little about the math of this COVID-19 situation as it affects our business. I see it in 3 parts. First, we expect a $9 million average monthly income reduction from: one, the Hotel Pennsylvania being closed; 2, theMART's canceled trade shows; 3, reduced revenue from BMS cleaning services; 4, reduced income from our garages; and 5, reduced third party spot signage rentals. All of these businesses are variable depending upon economic activity as opposed to fixed price leases. They represent only 6% of our overall revenue, and all of these businesses will rebound to prior levels when life returns to normal. Second, our rental revenue stream is supported by over 1,000 office leases with an average lease term of 8 years and over 300 retail leases with an average lease term of 6.5 years. This year, total annual rent due from all tenants is over $1.7 billion or $142 million per month. As is normal, we have collected virtually all rent due from January through March. For April, we collected 90% of office rents and 53% of retail rents, or a combined 83%. Interestingly, of the unpaid office rents and coincidentally of the unpaid retail rents, almost 2/3 is due from creditworthy tenants. So in April, we have uncollected rents of almost $24 million, and that's calculated at 17% times $142 million, which will become a receivable on our balance sheet, in effect, a loan to our tenants. We have $302 million of tenant security deposits protecting bad debts, of which $51 million is from tenants who have not yet paid April's rent. As you would imagine, we are in discussion with almost every one of our tenants. We are confident that we will ultimately collect most of this receivable. By way of further information for the first 4 days of May, we have collected 53% of office and retail rents, which is very slightly ahead of the first 4 days of April. Here's the punchline of my first 2 points as they affect valuation. If April's run rate were to continue for, say, an entire 12-month year, and we surely hope it will be shorter than that, the cost or earnings [indiscernible] from the variable businesses I mentioned plus from our educated guesses to what bad debts might be is a onetime cost of around $1 per share, and that would be for a total 12 months. This does not give any credit for security deposits. And my third point is the larger issue affecting valuation. What will our world be like when COVID-19 passes? We each estimate or guesstimate what will be tenant demand, rents and building values. How many tenants will not survive and how many retail tenants will seek bankruptcy. The stock market has voted by taking the price of our stock down $25 or $5 billion. I think this is a gross exaggeration. Our current liquidity is $3.4 billion, including $1.7 billion of cash and restricted cash and almost $1.7 billion undrawn under our $2.75 billion revolving credit facilities. In addition, we are scheduled to receive $750 million from 220 Central Park South closings from May through the balance of this year. So you might say our liquidity is really over $4 billion. Interestingly, since the heat of the crisis in mid-March and through April, we closed as scheduled 5 units for net proceeds of $210 million. We remain committed to our redevelopment and capital plans for the Penn District, Farley, PENN1 and PENN2. These projects are the center point of our Penn District vision, the new epicenter of New York, where we will be delivering for tenants cutting-edge, next-generation amenities and services unmatched anywhere. Each project is progressing, albeit at a somewhat slower pace due to government-mandated construction restrictions. As we have said before, these 3 large Penn District projects are debt-free and are being funded off our balance sheet and from the aforementioned proceeds from 220 Central Park South closings. No debt, no joint ventures, and Vornado shareholders keep 100% of the upside. We have built Vornado to weather the storm and importantly to flourish as it passes. We have a cycle-tested management team. We are always laser-focused on our balance sheet and liquidity and in recent years have been aggressively selling and spending assets, aggregating over $19 billion, pushing away from top tech acquisitions and pushing away from stock buybacks. As cycles go, all of a sudden, it is now surely a better time to buy than to sell. The next few years should be great advantages for investors. So you might say I am ringing the bell. Here is a thought for you. We invest not for quarterly returns, but for 2, 3 and even 5 years, and we hope you do too. Buying right and the passage of time and patience, we get outsized rewards. I'll now turn it over to Michael Franco for our first quarter financial results.