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W. P. Carey Inc. (WPC)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 4, 2014

$72.90

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the W. P. Carey Third Quarter 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Peter Sands, Director of Institutional Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Peter Sands

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this conference call to review our 2014 third quarter results. Joining us today are Trevor Bond, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Katy Rice, Chief Financial Officer. An online rebroadcast of this conference call will be made available in the Investor Relations section of our website at wpcarey.com, where it will be archived for approximately 90 days. I would also like to remind everyone that some of the statements made on this call are not historic facts and may be deemed forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from W. P. Carey's expectations are provided in our SEC filings. And with that, I will hand the call over to Trevor.

Trevor P. Bond

Analyst · UBS

Thanks, Peter. Good morning, everyone. I'll first review some of the quarter's highlights and then briefly discuss our investment outlook before turning the floor over to Katy Rice, who'll talk about our third quarter financial results in more detail. Starting with some financial highlights. For the 2014 third quarter, we generated adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, of $114.4 million or $1.13 per diluted share, which compares to $1.21 for the second quarter. As we've cautioned on both the second quarter and the first quarter earnings calls, since the quadrupling each of those quarters would not have accurately represented an annual run rate, because AFFO can move around from quarter-to-quarter due to structuring revenues, which is why we provide annual guidance. To that point, for the 2014 full year, we've increased and slightly narrowed our AFFO guidance range to between $4.70 and $4.86 per diluted share. That's up from $4.62 to $4.82, which we provided back in August. And it's driven primarily by updated assumptions with respect to investment volume, which Katy will discuss along with our 2015 AFFO guidance as well. During the third quarter, we paid a dividend of $0.94 a share, up from $0.90 in the second quarter. This represented our 54th consecutive quarterly increase and raised our annualized dividend rates to $3.76 per share. We're pleased with both the investment activity and fundraising on behalf of our managed REITs during the third quarter. And in fact, for the year-to-date period, fundraising activity has outpaced all prior years in our history. Looking first at investment volume. Third quarter purchases totaled approximately $286 million. The majority of this amount, approximately $163 million was for W. P. Carey Inc.'s owned real estate portfolio. The balance, $123 million was structured on behalf of the managed REITs. Investment volume during the…

Catherine D. Rice

Analyst · Capital One

Thanks, Trevor, and good morning to everyone on the call. First, I'll briefly review our third quarter results and AFFO guidance, followed by a brief discussion of our investment management business and an update on our balance sheet and capital structure, and then I'll turn it back to the operator for questions. Starting with our financial results and guidance. For the third quarter, we reported AFFO of $1.13 per diluted share, and this compares to AFFO of $1.21 per diluted share for the second quarter. Second quarter benefited from higher structuring revenues due to higher levels of investment activity on behalf of the managed REITs. Also, the third quarter includes summer vacation period, which tends to slow deal closings, particularly in Europe. As we've mentioned in the past, acquisitions in the managed REITs generate one-time structuring revenues and the timing of deal closings can generate some quarter-to-quarter AFFO of variability. Accordingly, the timing of deal closings around year end also affects our annual AFFO guidance for both 2014 and 2016. And for that reason, they have fairly wide ranges. Trevor touched on our updated 2014 AFFO guidance, but let me take you through some of the specifics as well as our guidance for 2015. For the full year 2014, we expect to generate AFFO of between $4.70 and $4.86 per diluted share, up from our previous guidance range of $4.62 to $4.82. This updated guidance range assumes total 2014 acquisition volume of approximately $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion, with approximately $1 billion of that going into the W. P. Carey owned real estate portfolio, and approximately $1.9 billion to $2.2 billion of acquisitions on behalf of the managed REITs. Not surprisingly, the primary driver of our increased guidance range is the increase in our assumptions for acquisition volume on behalf…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jon Woloshin from UBS.

Jonathan Woloshin

Analyst · UBS

Could you expand a little bit on this new business development company that you're forming. Is it a, is it going to be publicly traded; b, how much you think you'll raise; and c, what's the target markets for it?

Trevor P. Bond

Analyst · UBS

Thanks for the question, Jon. This is a business development company. It will be a new vertical on the Investment Management platform. And for those unfamiliar with the business, it is a middle market lender. The thinking was that as much of our business and much of our brand franchise in the investment management space is related to our credit underwriting capabilities, there was a natural evolution for us to enter that space. That is a joint venture with Guggenheim Partners, which would be responsible for the origination for the most part. They're deeply experienced in that sector. That said, we also -- it also occurred to us that many of our customers for sale-leaseback transactions worldwide are the same types of companies that are targets in the middle market lending business in many of them see sale-leaseback, in fact, as an alternative to middle market borrowing. And so there's some natural synergies there. It will have no impact on the REIT itself. Obviously, none of those assets would ever be brought unto W.P. Carey's balance sheet. It's just simply a way for us to continue to enhance the value of the Investment Management platform.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Vineet Khanna from Capital One.

Vineet Khanna - Capital One Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Capital One

Just 2 quick ones for me. First, for 2015, can you give any color on sort of what fundraising expectations are there?

Trevor P. Bond

Analyst · Capital One

Sure. Well, as I mentioned, I think what we'll be watching for a couple of factors. Generally, we do expect some slowing of sales in the fourth quarter and going into 2015. But I think that our expectation that we've vocalized on this call and in other venues is that, we're likely to end up with a larger share of a smaller market. We can't guarantee that. And I'd also like to reiterate that for us, the actual volume of sales, while it's a useful metric in terms of some parts of our business, is less relevant than the equilibrium we're maintaining between those dollars that we raised and the investment opportunities that we're seeing. And so from my point of view, I think we will see some decline in sales because of the factors that I mentioned in my remarks. But that -- because of the dry powder we currently have, and the money that we anticipate raising, we think we'll be in pretty good shape.

Vineet Khanna - Capital One Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Capital One

Sure. Sure. And then just turning to the balance sheet, any sort of major thoughts on potential bond issuance for the maturities that are coming out?

Catherine D. Rice

Analyst · Capital One

Yes. Actually, we are contemplating accessing the capital markets over in Europe. And that will probably be our next capital markets transaction. It's not -- it is related somewhat to some of our maturing debt. But there's not a lot matured debt, but it really relates more to the on-balance sheet acquisition pipeline, which has grown as we mentioned, quite a bit over the past 6 months. And we have a pretty robust pipeline that we think will be closing in the next quarter or -- 1 to 3 quarters. So we're looking forward to accessing the capital markets in Europe, which are very favorable from an interest rate perspective.

Vineet Khanna - Capital One Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Capital One

Sure. And I guess, 2 questions off of that. What do you think spread-wise, for the euro issuances. And then could you kind of give a breakdown of what the acquisition pipeline is Europe versus U.S.?

Catherine D. Rice

Analyst · Capital One

Sure. What we've been talking with bankers about is for sort of 8- to 10-year euro issuance, we're in the sort of 2.25% to 2.50% coupon range on the debt side. And with respect to the WPC pipeline, I would say it's -- in the past couple of quarters, it's been skewed more towards Europe. And much of the pipeline that we're anticipating over the coming quarters is European based. So that will match fairly nicely with the euro bond issuance when we do one.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I'm showing no additional questions. I'd like to turn the conference call back over for any closing remarks.

Trevor P. Bond

Analyst · UBS

Thank you. That concludes our call today. Thank you for your interest in W.P. Carey.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference today. We do thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your telephone lines.