Rexford Industrial Realty Inc (REXR) 2018 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Rexford Industrial Realty, Inc. First Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Steve Swett with ICR. Please proceed.

We would like to thank you for joining us for Rexford Industrial's First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday after market close, we have posted a quarterly supplemental package with additional details on our results in the Investor Relations section on our website at www.rexfordindustrial.com.

On today's call, management's remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are usually identified by the use of words, such as anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, intends, may, plans, projects, seeks, should, will, potential, predicts and variations of such words or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include those related to revenue, operating income or financial guidance. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates. Rexford Industrial assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC. In addition, certain of the financial information presented on this call represents non-GAAP financial measures, the company's earnings release and supplemental information package, which were released yesterday afternoon and are available on the company's website, present reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measure and an explanation of why the company believes such non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors.

Today's conference call is hosted by Rexford Industrial's co-Chief Executive Officers, Michael Frankel; and Howard Schwimmer; together with Chief Financial Officer, Adeel Khan. They will make some prepared remarks, and then we will open the call for your questions. Now I will turn the call over to Michael.

Thank you, and welcome to Rexford Industrial's first quarter 2018 earnings call. I will begin with a summary of our operating and financial results, Howard will then provide an overview of our recent transaction activity, Adeel will follow with more detail on our financial results and guidance, and we will then open the call for your questions.

Our target infill Southern California industrial market continues to operate with exceptionally strong fundamentals. Available product remains scarce, with less than 2% vacancy across our infill markets. Despite this extreme scarcity of available space, we continue to see more industrial product converted to other uses than can be delivered due to the extreme scarcity of available land. This extensive supply-demand imbalance, unfavorable landlord fundamentals appear entrenched with foreseeable future as the dramatic growth of e-commerce fuels additional tenant demand.

Beyond these strong market fundamentals, we believe Rexford's focused business model is also well positioned, relative to some of today's macro trends, including higher interest rates and rising tariffs. To the extent higher interest rates reflect healthy economic growth and as our tenants represent an exceptionally diversified proxy for the general economy, these factors should continue to support our ability to drive higher rental rates. Further, the fact that we principally compete for acquisitions against levered private buyers, our superior access to capital and low levered balance sheet may translate into greater competitive advantages as rates rise. Finally, almost all of our leases contain contractual 3% annual rental rate increases. And as an integral part of our business model, we focus on extensive value-add work to increase our cash flow throughout our portfolio, both of which help mitigate the impact of rising interest rates.

With regard to concerns over rising tariffs, our infill industrial space is primarily driven by regional consumption. Our markets operate differently from non-infill big-box markets, which are disproportionately driven by global trade and logistics. Conversely, demand for our product is primarily driven by local consumption, and to that end, our regional economy is not only substantially larger and more diverse than the vast majority of countries, but is driven by a combination of innovation, higher education, research, demographic and entrepreneurial growth that differentiates this region from any other in the nation.

Turning to our recent results. It was another exceptionally strong quarter for Rexford. Our team increased company share of core FFO by 42% compared to the prior year quarter. We increased core FFO per share by 17% to $0.27 per share over the prior year quarter. We increased same property NOI by 9.3% on a GAAP basis and 8.3% on a cash basis, driven by a 7.8% increase in same property portfolio rental revenue and 110 basis point increase in occupancy in our stabilized same property portfolio to 97.5%. Net of repositioning space, our stabilized same property NOI growth, was a full 7.4% on a GAAP basis and 8% on a cash basis. Our leasing activity continues to contribute strongly to our cash flow and NOI growth. During the first quarter, we signed 117 leases for approximately 850,000 square feet. Our leasing spreads were 25.3% on a GAAP basis and 14.9% on a cash basis. On new leases, GAAP spreads were a full 32%, and cash spreads were 18.1%. Further, we've had a great start to the year on the acquisition front. Year-to-date, we have acquired approximately $108 million of property, and Howard will provide additional details on these acquisitions as well as our current pipeline. As a result of the company's strong performance, we increased our common dividend by just over 10% during the first quarter, and we are now increasing our 2018 FFO and NOI guidance, which Adeel will detail shortly.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Rexford team for your exceptional focus and results, which are enabling us to build this great company.

And with that, I'm very pleased to turn the call over to Howard.

Thanks, Michael, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Fundamentals in our markets remain extremely strong. Our target infill Southern California industrial market, which excludes the Eastern Inland Empire, closed the first quarter with near-capacity occupancy of 98.2% and asking rents increased 5.9% on a weighted average basis. As Michael mentioned, demand for industrial space in our markets continues to grow, while the overall inventory continues to shrink as space is removed for other uses.

With regard to recent investment activity, year-to-date, we have completed 8 acquisitions, totaling approximately $108 million. We continued to take advantage of the vast consolidation opportunity in our markets, with our research-driven originations platform delivering a substantial advantage. Year-to-date, 75% of our transactions were off-market opportunities, where our differentiated platform continues to generate a strong volume of investments in prime infill locations at better-than-core stabilized yields.

In January, we acquired Norton Avenue, 100% leased, 103,000 square-foot building located in Chino, part of the Inland Empire West submarket, for $11.4 million. The 24-foot clear building has 16 dock positions, with current rent estimated to be more than 30% below market. The initial yield is 3.6%, and after completing cosmetic and functional renovations, we expect to achieve a 5.2% stabilized yield on total cost.

In February, we acquired Ontario Commerce Center, a 3-building multi-tenant industrial complex located in the Inland Empire West submarket, for $24.1 million. The 214,000 square-foot property is comprised of a modern, 100% occupied, 135,000 square-foot dock-high multi-tenant building and 2 adjacent flex buildings that we are in the process of selling. In-place rents are estimated to be 20% below market, and the weighted average lease term is less than 2 years. We plan to implement cosmetic and functional upgrades and expect to drive rents to market as leases roll. The initial yield is 4.7%, and we expect to achieve a 5.5% yield on cost once improvements and re-leasing are completed.

In March, we acquired Shoemaker Avenue, located in Cerritos in the Los Angeles Mid-Counties submarket for $17.2 million. The 24-foot clear building contains 116,000 square feet with 12 dock positions. The property is 100% leased to a single tenant at approximately 18% below market rent with a near-term lease expiration. After minor improvements, we expect to move the initial yield of 4.5% to a stabilized yield on cost of 5.3% upon renewal or re-tenanting of the facility.

Subsequent to quarter end, in April, we acquired Lawrence Drive, located in the Ventura County submarket, for $6.6 million. The property contains a vacant 50,000 square-foot building on just under 5 acres of land, and we are targeting a stabilized yield on cost of approximately 6% or more.

Also, we acquired North Main Street, located in Orange County -- North -- the Orange County-North submarket for $7.2 million. The 100% leased, 40,000 square-foot building is 24-foot clear with 10 dock positions, and we project a stabilized yield of just over 5%. Additionally, we acquired Calle Platino in North San Diego submarket for $20 million. The 143,000 square-foot building is 100% leased, and we expect to drive the initial 4.3% yield and a stabilized yield on cost of 6.2%.

We also acquired North Twin Oaks Valley Road in the North San Diego County submarket for $14 million. The property contains 2 buildings, with a total of 97,000 square feet, with an initial yield of 6.1%.

Finally, we acquired West Carson Street, located in the Los Angeles-South Bay submarket, for $7.5 million. The property contains a vacant 44,000 square-foot building, and we expect to achieve a stabilized yield of 5.7%.

We are extremely pleased with our pace of acquisitions so far in 2018, and we remain excited about our active go-forward pipeline. Currently, we have more than $200 million of new investments under contract or LOI, subject to completion of due diligence and satisfaction of customary closing conditions. We'll provide more details as transactions are completed.

Turning to our repositioning activity, I'd like to update you on a couple of our projects. At our renovated 134,000 square-foot Figueroa project in the South Bay, we have completed all exterior renovations, are over 80% complete for interior work and are 75% leased today, achieving rent 6% higher than our original underwriting. We now project a stabilized yield of 7.4% compared to a 6.7% initial projected yield. Also, with regard to our 200,000 square-foot Nelson project in the San Gabriel Valley, we expect to complete repositioning of the existing buildings in the coming weeks and sign leases and LOIs at rates well above our underwriting. These higher lease rates have more than compensated for expansions in scope. We have made great progress in construction of 64,000 square feet of new building and have increased the overall project yield on cost from 6.4% originally to 7.4% currently.

Finally, we continue to sell properties where significant value can be harvested in order to recycle capital into new growth opportunities. Year-to-date, we sold 4 properties for aggregate proceeds of $28.5 million. In total, these dispositions generated a weighted average unlevered IRR of 16.9%, and proceeds were all efficiently reinvested through tax-deferred exchanges.

I'll now turn the call over to Adeel.

Thank you, Howard. Beginning with our operating results. For the first quarter 2018, net income attributable to common stockholders was approximately $12.2 million or $0.15 per fully diluted share. This compares to $4.2 million or $0.06 per fully diluted share for the first quarter of 2017.

For the 3 months ended March 31, 2018, company share of core FFO was $21.4 million as compared to $15.1 million for the 3-months ended March 31, 2017. On a per share basis, company share core FFO was $0.27 per fully diluted share, representing increase of 17% year-over-year. Core FFO per share increased due to our strong acquisition activity, completed in the past 12 months and same property portfolio growth, which was partially offset by higher interest expense and higher diluted share count. Same property NOI was $27.4 million in the first quarter, which compares to a -- $25.1 million for the same quarter in 2017, an increase of 9.3%. Our same property NOI was driven by a 7.8% increase in total rental revenue and a 3.7% increase in property operating expenses.

On a cash basis, same property NOI increased by 8.3% year-over-year.

Turning now to our balance sheet and financing activities. We continue to work below our cost of capital and believe our strong, flexible balance sheet results (inaudible) to support our growth line. During the first quarter, we issued approximately 2.5 million shares of common stock, through our ATM, at a weighted average price of $28.16 per share, which resulted in net proceeds to Rexford of approximately $69.3 million. At the end of the first quarter, we had $20 million of cash, $299 million of availability on our $350 million credit facility and approximately $159 million available under the $300 million ATM program.

We have no debt maturities in 2018 and just $59 million in 2019. And we remain in a very strong liquidity position. With regard to our dividend, on April 30, our Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.16 per share for the second quarter of 2018, payable in July 16, 2018, to common stock and unitholders of record on June 29, 2018. Additionally, our Board of Directors declared a [first] stock cash dividend of approximately $0.37 per share for the second quarter of 2018, payable on June 29, 2018, to our preferred stockholders as of June 15, 2018.

Finally, we are raising our full year 2018 guidance for company share core FFO from a range of $1.01 to $1.04 per share to a range of $1.02 to $1.05 per share. This was driven by changes in our expectations to our portfolio NOI growth this year, specifically when I expect same property portfolio on our growth to a range from 6.5% to 8.5%, up from our previous range of 6% to 8%. And we expect stabilized same property portfolio NOI growth within a range of 4.5% to 6%, up from our previous range of 4% to 5.5%. Please note that our guidance does not include the impact of any transactions or capital market activities that have not yet been announced nor acquisition costs or other costs I would typically eliminate when calculating this metric.

That completes our prepared remarks. With that, we'll open the line to take any questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Jamie Feldman with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Michael, I want to go to your comment about higher rates and how it might impact levered buyers in your market. Can you just talk about -- maybe give some more color around that. And have you seen it already this cycle? And if not, maybe talk about what happened in prior cycles.

Hey, Jamie. Thanks for your question. I appreciate you joining us today. We have seen similar scenarios in prior cycles. And a lot of these private buyers are typically -- would be incurring more leverage. And so, number one, higher interest rates, just from a percentage of their capital stack, are going to have a disproportionate impact. And also, they have a tougher time controlling their overall rate exposure. So from the business model perspective, whereas we're more embroiled with swaps and longer-term debt structures, that's a little less common with a typical private buyer that we'll be competing with.

Jamie, I might add to that, too. This is Howard. Typically, sellers with -- I think Rexford's done a good job of training the brokers and everyone to ask for all-cash investor closes. So it's not that right now we've got a lot of private buyers that have been out competing us. It's just that, sometimes, they drive pricing if we wind up competing with them a little bit because of the lower interest rate. So with interest rates increasing, the offers that the sellers still aren't going to accept because they can't close quickly are going to wind up coming in to lower pricing, and that's really what's going to help us, also.

Have you seen that at all so far this cycle?

We -- With interest rates have gone up nominally as far -- from a historical perspective, and in our markets, we haven't yet seen any impacts so far on the transaction side.

By the way, Jamie, don't forget, we were a private company for over 10 years before we took the company public. So we've lived that life intimately, and so we have a pretty good sense for how rising rate environments impact those types of buyers.

Okay. And then can you just talk about rent growth? I mean, what are you seeing? What do you expect to see across your major submarkets?

Well, as I pointed out in the prepared comments, rent growth was, I think I said...

5.9%.

5.9% in our infill markets in aggregate over the -- year-over-year for the first quarter. If you look and drill down, the largest market in Southern California is Greater Los Angeles, representing about half the square footage in our market. And year-over-year, through the last quarter, we saw rent growth of about 7%. And if you drill down even further, the strongest of the markets in that central market was the South Bay, that had 10.4% rent growth year-over-year, followed by Mid-Counties with 8% year-over-year rent growth. So the markets are still functioning at extraordinarily high levels of demand. And what we're also seeing is, from an e-commerce standpoint and less mile delivery, people are really trying to solve more for transportation costs, which are growing significantly faster than rent, and represent, typically, a larger impact on people's income statements. So really feeding into our strategy of focusing on those infill markets, where we're seeing it -- more and more demand, which enables them to be closer and closer to the ports to lower those transportation costs.

Hey, Jamie, one more thought on rental rate growth. And you -- one thing that statistics don't drill down into is how rental rate growth varies across product quality in a specific location. And these are extremely large and deep markets and diverse markets, with a tremendous amount of product that is highly functional and also a tremendous amount of product that is not well located, is not functional. And when you drill down and look at product quality, our mandate is to own the best product in the market in the best locations. And if it's not that way when we buy it, we proactively make it so. And so our ability to command premium rents, driven by our higher-quality product and locations, is one of the key attributes to our business model, where we look to outcompete -- not -- look, it's easy when the market's as strong as it is today, but we strive to outcompete when the market is not as strong. And I think that's something -- it's really important to think about with respect to these very large diverse markets.

Our next question comes from the line of Manny Korchman with Citigroup.

Howard, can you talk a little bit more about the $200 million of assets that you spoke about having under contract or expectations of closing, more specifically timing and if there are any portfolio deals within that mix?

Sure, Manny. Nice to hear your voice. Yes, we did over $200 million, and it's really representative of what you see us continuing to buy. It's a combination of core and -- core-plus and value-add assets. As far as closing, we'll continue to close assets in the near term. And some of the deals have some rights for extensions with the sellers so that we can allow for their combination for a temporary when it trades well. But as usual, we'll continue to keep everyone abreast of the closings as they occur and we work through the stages of diligence on a lot of the properties.

Great. And Adeel, a couple for you. You mentioned that you don't have any forward activity in your guidance, which is typical. How much of the closings are in guidance? So are the, I guess, so the April deals included in the guidance figures as is?

Hey, Manny. Yes. So essentially, the last press release that we sent out, everything included up to that point is included in the guidance. And naturally, any ATM activity that took place in Q1 and that we already have reported is included. So typically, the guidance includes up to -- everything up to the earnings date, which is today -- or yesterday. So everything is included in there.

And just from a modeling perspective, you gave some of the initial yields and some of the stabilized yields. I don't know if this call is the right venue, but maybe could you provide the initial yields for all of the acquisition activity, or maybe you could provide that on a go-forward basis, just to aid in modeling.

Yes, Manny, it's Howard. I believe we really gave most all of the yields. If you saw what we missed, we're happy to catch up with you offline and make sure that it's clear.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of John Benda with National Securities.

So quickly, on the new and renewal leases where you saw the nice increases, can you speak to which tenant -- which industry they're operating in that you're getting the highest renewal rates from? Or is it really across all industries in your portfolio?

This is Howard. It's really across all industries. We have a very deep market, very diversified in terms of the tenancies and uses. And no one particular large lease drove those spreads this quarter. This year was really a year of just blocking and tackling. We didn't have any large leases that were coming up, and most all of everything's been handled at this point. In fact, our largest lease remaining for the year expiring is only 111,000 feet. And after that particular lease, it drops down to about 50,000 feet. So it's really, I think, evidence of the strength of our overall portfolio, these leasing spreads, and not any one particular market or as -- or property.

Okay. And then on the repositioning portfolio, can you talk about common themes that you guys initiate in repositioning? I mean, is there a standard across the properties? Is it unique to each property? Or are there things that you put in place across all of them to bring them up to your standards?

Well, as Michael mentioned, when we buy a property, if it's not the best quality and most functional in its particular submarket, we're practically benefiting it to make it so. And sometimes, there's a lease encumbering it so we're not able to do that work right away. But typically -- I'll give you an example. When I mentioned the few buildings we bought this quarter that had significant dock-high loading and were 24-foot clear and so forth, so what you typically see us doing is going in and upgrading the sprinkler calibrations to make sure that we're able to utilize the full cubic capacity of the space, modernizing offices and really rebranding the product on the outside in terms of consistency to paint, landscape, signage and so forth. And then the projects, they range -- they have a pretty wide range. The Nelson Avenue project I updated on, that's a very involved project, where we're demising down the smaller increment to space and adding some new buildings. And it's really all about getting to the same place though. It's delivering that consistent quality of low finish industrial product that we can move tenants in and out of, with very low frictional costs.

Hey, John, it's Michael. I'll just add to that a little bit to give you another sense for what that repositioning capacity does for us. And again, if you take that Nelson property as an example, when we were competing for that product, the other buyers were actually looking at that property with the idea of removing all the existing buildings, about -- almost 140,000 square feet of improvements and building a brand-new building on the site. And they were probably going to solve to something in the order of a sub-5 cap on their total development costs. We looked at that property, and we saw about $140,000 of existing improvements that we could completely reinvent and reposition, and then we were going to remove a little -- small structure and build a brand-new 64,000 square-foot building, which we're in process on. And not only are we solving for substantially better yields, so our yield -- our -- we're solving to about a 7.4% unlevered yield on total cost, which is pretty dramatic compared to the competitors that were going to solve to somewhere probably below 5-cap -- 5% yield. So not only are we driving better economics for the company and for shareholders, but it also enables us to outcompete in the market. So the repositioning activity is just key to activity -- key to our business model, and we couldn't be more excited about what we continue to see in the market.

John, I'm going to add one last point to what Howard and Michael added. This is the deal. This quarter, we added a little additional disclosure on the CapEx page. So besides the repositioning page that we've talked about just now, we also have other smaller repositioning that takes place across our portfolio, which is very important and meaningful. It doesn't meet the definition of the downtime that we have defined in the supplemental, but it's very meaningful and very accretive to the company. So take a look at that disclosure where we have bifurcated those costs, and that will give you some more perspective in terms of how we think about the stuff.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Mueller with JPMorgan.

Just have a question. Looking at the stabilized same property portfolio and Ventura County, it looks like, sequentially, from the fourth quarter, there's about a 400 basis point occupancy dip. And I know repositionings are out of it, so I was just curious what drove that.

Hi, Mike, it's Howard. I think, again, it was just blocking and tackling. We had a space that vacated at the end of the year. There was 80,000 feet. We were able to lease 57,000 feet of it. We had a couple other spaces that were 20,000, plus or minus 1,000 square feet here and there, that were leased up. That market's actually performing very well right now. We had another tenant in our Mission Oaks project, that was in 37,000 feet, that had ran into financial problems. We negotiated an exit for them and were able to actually release the space. I think it was either in the quarter, or it was in the same quarter. So the market is performing real well right now for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo.

So you talked a little bit about the impact of rising interest rates on the market, which was helpful, but I also wanted to ask if you've seen any impact from the tax reform on your markets or tenants.

Hey, Blaine. Good to hear from you. We really haven't seen any noticeable impact, and we haven't really heard any anecdotal comments from tenants, whether new tenants or renewals.

Okay. That's fair. And then a quick one for Adeel. Was the increase in same-store NOI guidance driven entirely by maybe a Q1 that was a little above your expectations? Or is it a higher expectation for the entire year?

It was a little bit of both, Blaine. I think -- and typically, what you saw us do last year, right, as we get more perspective as to how the year is trending, right, with each day that passes, right, we have a little bit more of a visibility in terms of how the upcoming renewals or the expirations that are coming up, how they're going to perform and behave, right? We can be a little bit more specific. So it's a little bit of both. Clearly, we're seeing very strong trends, which are witnessed by what we reported in Q1, right? So that trajectory is certainly something we're looking to follow forward. So it's a combination of both in terms of that. Just to give a little bit more perspective, 1.1 million of expiring square footage that we have in the supplemental is due to the same-store. So that also puts some color in terms of what we've got coming up on April 1, all the way just to December. So putting that in perspective, that's essentially what's been renewed, and so far, it's just the combination of both of those factors that allows us to kind of raise that up by 50 bps. But at the same time, just to fill in the last bit of piece of color is that you still have 3 quarters of the year left, so you do have that little bit of an area that we still need to kind of sort for.

Blaine, just to add to that, when you think about our business, it's not just that the market's performing well, it's that this team is extremely focused and working very, very hard. Because we run a very tenant-intensive business, so it doesn't -- a lot has to go right for us to drive these kind of numbers, and that's well beyond just the market, what the market delivers to us. And just to give you a sense for how sensitive things are, overall, 45,000 square feet equates, on average, to $0.005 of FFO. And so that's not a lot of square footage. You could easily have a change -- I don't expect a change in 1 or 2 tenants to easily get you to those levels. And so this team is staying extremely focused and not just on the renewals but the overall customer service and experience for our tenants. And if you drill down to the same-store pool, that impact is that much met -- more magnified. So we just look forward, and we're going to stay focused and try the best we can. And I think that gives a little more color to a deal's perspective.

Our next question is a follow-up from John Benda with National Securities.

Just real quick guys. In the K, you had disclosed that, in 2019, there's another 15% of rentable square feet coming up for renewal. And given that we're almost halfway into '18, have you started having any of those conversations yet, and would you expect some of the performance on the '19 renewals that you're getting on the core renewals?

Yes. We're always trying to stay ahead of things as much as we can, John. And because -- if you look at the expirations, I'll give you an example, that we have the range of this year, 1.1 million feet, and as I mentioned, the largest is 100,000 feet and then it drops to 50,000 and then it really stops -- starts dropping even quicker. Those tenants don't have a lot of visibility in terms of whether they're staying or leaving until it gets a lot closer to their expiration dates. So 2019, there's a lot of those type tenants. Some of the larger ones, we do get in front of and have those early conversations. And frankly, we are real successful at doing a lot of those renewals early for 2018 and -- during the first quarter. So we do, as a philosophy of the company, try and push on early renewals. It's the right time in terms of the cycle to do that as well.

That completes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

We want to thank everybody for joining us today and your support, and we look forward to reconnecting in about 3 months.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.