Centerspace (CSR) 2012 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fourth-quarter fiscal 2012 earnings conference call.

All participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. (Operator Instructions) Please also note that today's event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Lindsey Anderson. Ms. Anderson, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Investors Real Estate Trust's fourth-quarter and year-end fiscal 2012 earnings conference call. IRET's earnings release and supplemental disclosure packets for the three and 12 months ended April 30, 2012, were posted to our website and also furnished on Form 8-K on June 29.

In the earnings release and supplemental disclosure package, Investors Real Estate Trust has reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with the requirements set forth in Regulation G. If you have not received a copy, these documents are available on IRET's website at IRET.com in the Investors section. Additionally, a webcast and transcript of this call will be archived on the IRET website for one year.

At this time, management would like to inform you that certain statements made during this call which are not historical may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although Investors Real Estate Trust believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, Investors Real Estate Trust can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved.

Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements are detailed in Friday's earnings release and from time to time in Investors Real Estate Trust's filings with the SEC. Investors Real Estate Trust does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statement.

With me today from management are Tim Mihalick, President and Chief Executive Officer; Diane Bryantt, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Tom Wentz, Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Tim Mihalick for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Lindsey, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you again about IRET. IRET recently completed its 42nd year in existence and I am happy with the results. We made progress over the last year, but I believe, more importantly, we have set the tone to allow IRET to expand on its history.

As I look back over my transcripts of the last two earnings calls, I notice that the theme continues to be to focus on the strategic plan we have put into operation. In line with that plan, we have closed on a number of acquisitions within our core markets. Most notably, the Villa West Apartments, a 308-unit complex located in Topeka, Kansas; Colony and Lakeside Village Apartments, 440 units, located in Lincoln, Nebraska; and the acquisition of 40 acres of land in Williston, North Dakota, which will allow for construction of up to 850 units in the housing-short city in the Bakken Shale oil formation. Additionally, as the city of Minot continues its recovery from the devastating flood of 2011, IRET was able to put 32 units of the 64-unit complex of the flooded Chateau Apartments back into operation.

Additionally, we brought back online the flooded Arrowhead Shopping Center. Also, to stay consistent with our strategic focus, I would note that we have exited the state of Michigan, subsequent to the end of our fiscal year, the sale of our property in Kentwood, Michigan.

As we move forward into fiscal year 2013 and beyond, we recognize the need to continue to reduce the age of our portfolio through dispositions of older properties and recycling those proceeds with acquisition of newer properties and development projects. We realize that, as we make our portfolio "younger" these properties require less CapEx due to their age and helps us accomplish our goal of increasing our AFFO number and the corresponding coverage as it relates to our definition of AFFO.

IRET will continue to enhance our balance sheet and income statements to better reflect the expectations of the marketplace and key industry metrics such as FFO, AFFO, and debt to EBITDA. Although fiscal year 2012 continues to see our operating results affected by a slowly recovering economy, particularly in our Commercial Office segment, we consider our commercial portfolio well placed to benefit as the economy does recover.

In line with the changes that I believed IRET needed to make, I am pleased to announce the addition of Mark Reiling to the IRET team. Mark will oversee the operation of IRET's entire real estate portfolio in the 12-state area in which we operate. Mark brings 33 years of diversified real estate experience to IRET and his extensive experience in all aspects of the real estate operations and finance. And the depth and breadth of his knowledge in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, real estate market in particular, where IRET has significant presence, will be of great value to us as we manage and expand our portfolio.

Additionally, I have reorganized my senior team by promoting to Executive Vice President Diane Bryantt to Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Mike Bosh to Executive Vice President and General Counsel; and Tom Wentz, Jr. to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Tom, who currently handles the duties which Mark Reiling will assume, concentrate more specifically on capital markets as well as asset acquisitions, dispositions, and property development. I'm excited about the changes which have occurred and look forward to seeing this group in action.

I also wanted to state that I believe IRET's unique position in the marketplace truly offers an investor an opportunity to invest in the only geographic pure-play REIT in the Midwest. We have always believed that due to our location IRET has needed to have a diversified portfolio in order to obtain the returns we expect to deliver to our investors.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on IRET's headquarters, located in Minot, North Dakota, which serves as a gateway to the Bakken oil formation. As you can see on this slide, IRET is well focused to take advantage of the real estate opportunities this energy boom has created. Since we last spoke, North Dakota's oil output has increased, allowing the state to become the second leading oil producer in the nation only behind the state of Texas. The amount of dollars being spent to develop infrastructure to produce this oil is reaching into the billions, and IRET is well-positioned to take advantage of the real estate opportunities this will offer.

As you look at this map, note that IRET has real estate holdings in Minot, North Dakota; Bismarck, North Dakota; Rapid City, South Dakota; Billings, Montana; and Williston, North Dakota. As you can see, it appears we have it surrounded. I believe it is important to note we have holdings in these markets with people on the ground and I believe it gives IRET a distinct advantage to capitalize on the opportunities right in our own backyard.

Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Diane Bryantt, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone. Today, I will give a brief summary of highlights and results of operations in the fourth quarter and year-to-date as reported in the 8-K earnings press release which was issued on Friday, June 29.

In the fourth quarter, revenues increased to $61 million, a 2.7% increase over the prior quarter and basically unchanged from the third quarter of fiscal 2012. This quarter-over-quarter increase in revenues is primarily due to acquisitions of property.

Occupancy percentage in our stabilized segments increased in three of our five segments with Multi-Family showing continued increases and Commercial Office and Medical with lower comparative results. Tom Wentz, Jr. will discuss later more of what we see in the marketplace as far as leasing trends and expectations for these segments.

Also in the fourth quarter, we received proceeds from the insurance claim on our flooded properties for loss of rents and replacement of assets. The Arrowhead Shopping Center loss of rents was $347,000 and Chateau, $319,000, for a total loss of rents reimbursement for the fiscal year of approximately $700,000. The gain due to involuntary conversion realized as of April 30 on the Arrowhead Shopping Center was $274,000.

At this time, we're finalizing the final settlement on Arrowhead and anticipate final settlement of this recovery effort to be no later than the second quarter of fiscal 2013. At this time, we know there will be additional gain on Arrowhead but unable to estimate.

Regarding Chateau, 32 units of the Chateau Apartments that were flooded were open for occupancy on May 15 and were fully leased at that date. However, the second 32 units was completely destroyed by fire on February 22. Given the additional complications due to the fire, we again are unable to estimate at this time the potential and voluntary gain but we feel we should have this resolved in the second quarter of fiscal 2013.

Lease termination fees were $195,000 in the fourth quarter and year-to-date were $533,000 as compared to $184,000 in the prior fiscal year.

Moving on to expenses, in the quarter as compared to the prior year, we were down $3.4 million or 7.8%. It was good to see the mild winter season have a positive effect on our expense side, as the past two or three winter seasons had seen higher costs for heating, snow removal, and also with the increase in vacancy in our Commercial segment, IRET has had to absorb more of those costs as we were unable to recover those reimbursable expenses.

In the fourth quarter, we also received approximately $700,000 of proceeds from a fiscal 2009 bankruptcy claim associated with our lease with Wilson's Leather. The effect was a reduction to management expense in the Retail segment as this was applied to bad debt expense.

We also had $76,000 of acquisition expenses in the fourth quarter. Year-to-date these expenses were $542,000. These expenses are included in the Other Expense section within the consolidated statement of operations. More detailed discussion and presentation will be provided on the year-end performance by segment type in the Form 10-K annual report that will be filed on July 16. However, I will now summarize some highlights.

For the year, revenues increased $4.8 million to $242 million. The primary increase in revenue was from acquisitions of new properties of approximately $7 million. Offsetting that was a decrease in revenues from our stabilized properties of $2.2 million.

Our Multi-Family segment definitely was the highlight of the year with a $7.3 million increase in revenue but offset by lower revenue in our Commercial Office and Commercial Medical segment of $3.9 million.

Real estate expenses decreased by $3.5 million, or 3.5%, over the prior fiscal year. New acquisitions accounted for a $1.8 million increase while stabilized properties were $5.4 million less. Again, the mild seasons positively affected the expense side of our operations but a change in operation structures at our Wyoming assisted-living facilities from a taxable REIT subsidiary to a triple-net lease structure provided these variances on both the revenue and expense side. These properties are held in our Commercial Medical segment.

Just to summarize a bit of what that change in the Medical segment was due to the change in the Wyoming portfolio for the comparative periods, the decrease in revenue was $2.6 million with an offsetting decrease in expense of $2.2 million for the comparative period. The net operations are basically same but significant variances in the comparative revenue and expense categories exist due to this change. Going forward, the fourth-quarter operations reflect the full three months of the triple-net operation and are what do we expect going forward in this segment.

Net operating income of our real estate overall showed an $8.6 million increase, again due to primarily acquisitions and expense reductions.

Other comparative year-to-year comparative effects on net income were an increase in depreciation expense of $1.9 million, an increase in interest expense of $1.3 million. This increase in interest expense was caused primarily by increased borrowing during the year on our line of credit and interest on new acquisitions. Overall, income from continuing operations was $5.4 million greater than the prior year.

Overall, we are not yet where we want to be, but fiscal 2012 showed increase in all our operating segments except for Commercial Office and a lesser degree to our Commercial Medical segment. We know the Commercial Office segment has experienced more of the effects of the prolonged economic challenges, especially in the markets where these assets are located.

Moving on to FFO, we reported fourth-quarter FFO of $0.18 per share a unit. This is $0.02 greater than the third quarter and $0.03 greater than the prior fiscal quarter. Year-to-date FFO is $0.65 as compared to $0.63 in the prior fiscal year.

Although we had some non-reoccurring events occur in the fourth quarter, overall we have seen positive contributions to FFO from operations due to increased occupancy in most of our segments and experienced more normalized expenses affected by the seasonality in our markets. These positive outcomes are still affected on a per-share basis due to dilution as a lag effect of dilution slows FFO growth as we raise equity to fund our development projects and to close on acquisitions.

On to the balance sheet, cash on hand at the end of the year was $40 million with $21 million still available on our credit facility. We are still maintaining good liquidity and have a strong balance sheet.

The major sources and uses of cash were as follows. Regarding acquisitions, in the fourth quarter, we acquired two multi-family properties consisting of 200 units for a total purchase price of $17.2 million with a blended, underwritten cap rate of 7.45%. We also opened four -- leased two buildings of the multi-family development project in Williston, North Dakota, with a total cost of $9.7 million with a going-in cap rate of approximately 16%. We also acquired vacant land in Williston, North Dakota, for $4.6 million.

Overall, acquisitions and development projects placed in service in fiscal 2012 was $97.1 million. This compared to $45.6 million in the prior fiscal year. Currently, we have $49.8 million of development projects underway with $27.6 million already invested. These projects and locations are detailed within the supplemental information in the earnings release.

Dispositions during the year consisted of two small retail properties with a total book value of approximately $2.9 million. Also, subsequent to year end, we sold a small retail property in Kentwood, Michigan, with a net book value of $600,000, which exited our presence in the state of Michigan.

Moving on to the debt refinancing activity, in the quarter we closed $47.1 million of mortgage loans. This consisted of $11.7 million in acquisition debt, $10.2 million in construction debt, and closed $25.2 million in refinance debt. On the refinance debt, we generated $5.6 million in cash-out proceeds during the quarter and bringing total cash out for the year of $46 million.

Overall, we successfully closed 39 loans this year totaling $152 million in mortgage debt compared to last year of 26 loans and $180 million in mortgage debt. At year end, our weighted average interest rate was 5.78% versus 5.81% from the previous quarter. Our weighted average term to maturity remains at seven years.

The outstanding balance of our line of credit decreased to $39 million by quarter end. The commitment capacity remains at $60 million. Also, subsequent to year-end, we also lowered the interest rate floor on this line of credit from 5.65% to 5.15%.

We have one loan of $2.2 million maturing in the upcoming first quarter of fiscal 2013. However, subsequent again to quarter end, the loan was paid off in cash.

Equity raised during the year came primarily from the aftermarket program where we issued 2.9 million shares with net proceeds of $21.3 million. For fiscal 2012, total equity provided investment dollars increased by 7.6 million shares or $55.7 million. These proceeds, along with mortgage debt, were used to fund acquisitions and development projects, as we have discussed.

Finally, just this morning, we did pay the declared dividend to shareholders on July 2 to shareholders of record on June 15. This will be IRET's 165th consecutive quarterly distribution.

With that, I will turn it over to Tom Wentz, Jr., Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you, Diane. Consistent with my past presentations, this morning I will provide an overview of the fourth quarter that ended April 30, 2012, as well as provide a review of the recently-completed fiscal year covering the trailing 12 months of operations. I will briefly cover the credit markets as they pertain to IRET and then wrap up with an overview of IRET's segment operations as well as pending acquisitions, dispositions, and development.

Our fourth-quarter results continued the trend of overall improved operations. At the start of the year, we outlined a number of areas of focus in an attempt to mitigate what we expected to be generally challenging economic conditions with no meaningful improvement in the Commercial Office segment. Our primary focus has been on finalizing our internal management initiative to improve occupancy, grow rents, and decrease expenses. With the exception of Commercial Office occupancy, we made significant progress in these areas.

Second, we shifted our capital to strategically grow the strongest segments of our portfolio, Multi-Family and Medical, as well as the strongest markets in our portfolio, the Bakken energy region of North Dakota and certain multi-family markets. A review of our acquisitions confirms again solid progress in this area as well. We added quality Multi-Family and Medical assets highlighted by both Commercial and Multi-Family development in the heart of the Bakken energy fields.

Third, since the Commercial Office market has remained tangled in a very challenging environment for what is now approaching almost six years and our move to internal management is substantially behind us, going forward, we plan to commit additional staffing to focus on this segment with the goal of improving performance as well as carefully evaluating all operational and strategic options as it pertains to our Commercial portfolio.

Over the past 12 months, almost every meaningful operating and financial metric has improved for IRET, but we still have further to go in many areas and are not satisfied. We are very well-positioned to continue to execute on our plan to grow in our core markets and segments, including adding substantial Multi-Family development to capture what we see as very good revenue opportunities.

Even though revenue remains under pressure in all Commercial segments and material growth is somewhat capped in certain residential markets due to the overall economic environment, we are confident we can continue to accretively grow our operations and further effectively control expenses. Absent a significant backtrack in the US economy, our expectation is overall operations will continue to improve modestly.

In our Multi-Family segment, given our current occupancy, our focus is now on growth in revenue from existing customers and by proactive expense control as limited additional revenue can be captured by improving occupancy.

On the Commercial side, the overall slower office employment trends, along with a continued focus on cost cutting through reducing rental space, continues to stubbornly drag on across virtually our entire Commercial Office portfolio. We have made positive progress in our smaller Commercial segments of Retail and Industrial, but again, with the completion of previous initiatives, we plan to aggressively focus on our Commercial portfolio in order to create value.

Our Medical portfolio continues to perform on a very consistent basis with no real change as our on-campus assets continue to perform well in the areas of renewal and rent increases. Our off-campus portfolio, which consists of only a handful of buildings, continues to struggle as healthcare real estate needs have turned their focus to locations near established hospital campuses.

Subsequent to the election this fall, we see the removal of the overhang from the Supreme Court challenge to healthcare reform as a positive for medical space users. Hospitals, in our opinion, are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of adding millions of insured users to the system.

However, the only real solution to the problems facing our Commercial Real Estate segment will be an accelerated economic recovery that not only reduces unemployment but also creates real income growth in the United States. Until this occurs, we expect corporate real estate users will likely continue with their push towards smaller footprints and denser employee counts in smaller spaces.

Larger public companies continue to see real estate as a controllable expense line item that can be reduced. Even so, as mentioned in our last call, we continue to see improved leasing trends as compared to prior periods. Whether this will actually translate into a material amount of new leases remains to be seen. For the year-to-date, we are pleased with the improvements in occupancy in Retail and Industrial and overall increased net revenues across our entire real estate portfolio operations.

Until we can get Commercial Office back on track, we will continue to work to offset the drag by growing our strongest segments and markets. As we enter the summer months, we expect Commercial leasing overall to remain favorable with retail and industrial being the leading indicators of a sustained, modest, economic recovery. However, again, until the overall commercial market vacancy rate returns to lower teens or single digits, we expect that our policy of accepting market rate leases is likely to result in reduced revenue despite higher occupancy gains.

IRET's CFO provided the details on recently-closed debt, so I won't spend any time reviewing other than confirm that, while we would not have predicted interest rates continuing to decline, they did, which again has allowed IRET to reduce its overall weighted average interest rate. This roll-down in rates has saved IRET millions of dollars over the last several years and has provided some mitigation to the pressures created by our commercial office portfolio.

Debt markets continue to operate very well for IRET as we have multiple options to leverage our existing portfolio as well as acquisitions and developments. These historically-low interest rates will continue to provide IRET with the ability to lower our interest expense costs on maturing debt as current rates for the most part are below the rates on maturing debt. The primary negative to lower rates is the increased costs associated with early debt retirement or prepayment, which can create an obstacle to sale or assessing built-up equity in our long-hold assets.

The amount of maturing debt over the next several years is low compared to prior years. However, we will continuously review all loans for refinance opportunities as this provides IRET with the least expensive source of capital for acquisitions, funding of operations, and capital improvements.

We do not anticipate any material change to our leverage policy of fixing most debt long, but we are evaluating an increased number of assets with maturing debt for refinance options with more flexibility on the prepayment as we expect this to be something that will afford us the opportunity to consider more options as we turn our focus to finding positive solutions for our commercial operations.

Moving on to dispositions, acquisitions, and development. As Diane discussed, year-to-date we have been very active with acquisitions, increasing our portfolio in two of our stronger segments, residential and senior housing, in the Medical portfolio. We closed on all previously-disclosed Multi-Family acquisitions and are actively working on additional apartment acquisitions in our core markets.

The development projects are all detailed in our filings with Quarry Ridge II in Rochester, Minnesota, at 159 units set to open next week and Williston Garden Apartments scheduled to be fully open at the end of this month. Quarry Ridge in Rochester, Minnesota, is currently pre-leased at approximately 80% and, of course, Williston will open 100% occupied.

We're seeing a number of additional development opportunities on the commercial and residential side, which we hope to finalize for construction during the coming fiscal year with potential delivery in the second half of fiscal 2013 or early fiscal 2014. Our acquisition and development cap rates range from approximately 7% on the Multi-Family side to as high as the mid-teens and to as high as 10.5% on the Commercial developments with an expected average on all projects to be approximately 8% to 8.5%. Of course subject to lease-up on the under construction multi-family and senior housing expansions.

However, it appears that much higher cap rates are achievable for development in the energy-impacted markets of North Dakota and Montana.

Even as IRET completed all currently available opportunities, the overall scale in many of these communities is limited due to infrastructure constraints, contractor capacity, and, in many cases, the availability of suitable debt capital.

As for dispositions, we have listed for sale a number of smaller, non-core assets we expect to sell over the next several months with the proceeds to be deployed into new development and general corporate purposes. As mentioned by Tim, we expect to dispose of mature assets on a more consistent basis.

Over the last several years, we have averaged on an annual basis approximately $100 million in acquisitions and developments while averaging about $20 million in dispositions. We expect this level of activity to remain stable going forward with perhaps a slight increase in the level of dispositions.

Thank you, and I will now turn the call back over to the moderator for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Mike Salinsky, RBC Capital Markets.

Been pretty active on the Multi-Family front there in the Bakken. Any plans on the industrial or office front there?

I think, Mike -- this is Tom -- yes, we're certainly looking at those opportunities. As you're probably aware, we leased our former corporate headquarters to Hess Oil and we're currently engaged in industrial build to suit for a subsidiary of Superior Energy which is an NYSE company.

But I guess, to answer your question, yes, we're looking at all available development opportunities that would be energy-related, including industrial and commercial office.

Okay, that's helpful. A second question, just given we are a couple of months now into peak leasing season on the Multi-Family side and the results were as of the end of April, can you give us just an update what you are seeing on the Multi-Family side in May and June?

Well, really, no change to the trend. I guess I haven't looked at the detailed numbers yet, but we're not seeing any material deviation really from the trends we've seen over the last year. I think, as I mentioned during my comments, at approximately 95% effectively leased, at that point, really our focus is on growing rents with our existing customers and controlling expenses. There's really not much more upside in occupancy on a portfolio basis and so that is really where our focuses are going to be.

But as you've been pushing rents you haven't seen any material drop-off in occupancy?

No, our apartment portfolio continues to function very well. I guess we don't expect to see any change in the trends that we've identified, that we've reported over the last 12 months.

Okay, that's helpful. Third question; I think in the prepared comments there there was a mention of about reallocating some resources to the Commercial side to focus in on some opportunities. Where do you see the opportunities on the Commercial side, given the resource, your decision to reallocate some resources towards that? Should we expect any kind of repositioning similar to what we have seen on the Multi-Family side over the last 18 months?

I think -- Mike, this is Tim speaking -- as we continue to take a look at our commercial office and the suburban office, as we take a look at both the Twin Cities and the Omaha market, and as we look at both of those I think the push is going to be to lease up and to find occupancy increases there to potentially position those assets for either refinance or to move into potential sales. I think those are maybe where we see the opportunity on the Commercial side in both of those markets.

Okay, and then finally, in terms of the development there, funding, how would you -- for the Williston project, would that be funded with recycling proceeds, additional debt, ATM issuance? What would --?

Yes, I think a combination of all those. I think we obviously see the opportunities in front of us. As Tom touched on, when you take a look at the returns in the Bakken play those are opportunities that we want to take advantage of, and so we will use all sources of equity as we look to move forward.

Okay. That's all for me, guys. Thanks.

(Operator Instructions) Carol Kemple.

On the property management expense, what would be a good run rate going forward? I know it dropped a lot and I know there was a $700,000 benefit you all mentioned. Where would you expect it to be next year?

Well, in Multi-Family expense, that's difficult to predict. If you look in some of the detail, obviously there's pressure on real estate taxes in a number of our jurisdictions or markets just because of the states and local municipal government pressures. But I think we still have a little bit of room there due to our internal management.

This past year, we brought in the last significant piece of our portfolio in Topeka, Kansas. And so I'm optimistic that we have a little bit more room there even though we're coming out of a year where we had some favorable trends, but I think where we're at can be improved slightly.

Again, apartments, from an expense standpoint, can get away from you if you have spikes in vacancy or other unforeseen pressures that require a little bit more money on maintenance and turn. But I think we're pretty comfortable that we've got a little bit more room to go there.

Carol, this is Tim. I think you can take a look at that fourth quarter, what is exhibited there as the run rate would be a good indicator as you look to move forward.

Okay. Then it was about a year ago that you all made the change to your dividend policy I think. Where are you all at now with what you are thinking on the dividend going forward?

As we continue to look at that, that's something that we will analyze on a quarterly basis. I think, as we talked a year ago, we set the dividend with the expectation to continue with that $0.13. That's something the Board will decide on, but we certainly want to see an increase in earnings as we move forward as we make those decisions.

Okay, thank you.

(Operator Instructions) James Bellessa, D.A. Davidson.

Two questions; maybe because I got on just a little before or after you started, where do you find the presentation slides that you referred to?

They should have came up on the call, right, as I understand it?

On the webcast.

On the webcast.

Okay. They'll be posted on the replay or something like that, evidently.

Yes, they will be.

And then this settlement claim that you received for a claim against the bankruptcy estate of a former tenant, how much was that?

A little bit over $700,000.

Now, from an outsider's point of view, that wasn't a predictable event, is that correct?

That would be correct. It was a claim back in 2009, yes. Nothing was on the books as expectations for payment.

Okay. Do you have any other events like this possible in the coming quarters?

This is Tom, Jim. That's difficult to predict. At any given time, we've got credit events with tenants. We've always aggressively pursued those and filed the proofs of claim to the fullest extent, but that's just something that is really speculative to look at.

I guess the only guidance would really be to go look at bad debt over the years and try and come up with some guesstimate. But very difficult to estimate and I would say there's nothing really material out there that is pending.

What was the explanation of why these proceeds reduced property management expenses?

That would be because it would be a recovery of bad -- of debt written off or of rents written off. So bad debt expense is a function within property management expenses overall. That's where those entries to the allowances are made. So that's the category it would fall into.

Thank you.

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

Thank you. This is Tim Mihalick again. I just again want to offer my thanks for your attention this morning.

With the realization that we at IRET expect to continue to grow in our core markets -- obviously, the ten that we've identified -- and work hard to improve earnings for the benefit of our shareholders, we certainly look forward to those of you that we have been out and seen on the road. Hope to see more of you as we have the opportunity to get out and tell the IRET story as we move forward.

Thanks again for your interest.

Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for joining today's conference call. It has now concluded. You may now disconnect your telephone lines.