STAG Industrial Inc (STAG) 2015 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the STAG Industrial, Inc. Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Matt Spenard, Vice President of Investor Relations for STAG Industrial. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you. Welcome to STAG Industrial's conference call covering the third quarter 2015 results. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, we have posted an unaudited quarterly supplemental information presentation on the Company's website at stagindustrial.com under the Investor Relations section.

On today's call, the Company's prepared remarks and answers to your questions will contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 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 statements relating to earnings trends, G&A amounts, acquisition volumes, retention rate, debt capacity, dividend rate, industry and economic trends and other matters.

We encourage all of our listeners to review the more detailed discussion related to these forward-looking statements contained in the Company's filings with the SEC and the definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures contained in the supplemental informational package available on the Company's website.

As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of today, Wednesday, October 28, 2015. STAG Industrial will strive to keep its stockholders as current as possible on Company matters, but assumes no obligations to update any forward-looking statements in the future.

On today's call, we will hear from Ben Butcher, our Chief Executive Officer; and Geoff Jervis, our Chief Financial Officer.

I will now turn the call over to Ben.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everybody and welcome to the third quarter earnings call for STAG Industrial. We're pleased to have you join us and look forward to telling you about the quarter.

Presenting today, in addition to myself, will be Geoff Jervis, our Chief Financial Officer, who will discuss the bulk of the financial and operational data. Also with me today are Steve Mecke, our Chief Operating Officer; Dave King, our Director of Real Estate Operations; and Bill Crooker, our Chief Accounting Officer. They will be available to answer questions specific to their areas of focus.

The third quarter was a strong one for STAG on almost every measure. This is readily apparent in the continuation of our robust leasing activity, healthy acquisition volumes, continued asset dispositions and resultant portfolio improvement and most importantly, strong earnings growth. Geoff will share our results with you in a moment.

Before that, I would like to share STAG's simple five-point action plan that we designed in response to the current market conditions. These steps are, one, demonstrate equity discipline. We've not issued equity since June 30 and will not issue equity at recent pricing levels.

Two, demonstrate G&A discipline. We had moderated G&A and cost in this quarter and we'll moderate the growth in coming quarters.

Three, establish liquidity. As a result of our recent actions in the debt capital markets, we now have nearly $500 million of immediately available liquidity, expect to have $650 million in the near-term. Our current debt to run rate EBITDA ratio of 5.0 times is at the low end of our promulgated leverage range, is below our BBB flat investment grade rating target and gives us lots of room to operate before needing additional capital.

Four, get back on the earnings growth path. Yesterday we reported core FFO of $0.39 per share for the third quarter, we will continue to drive for earnings growth going forward.

Five, establish alternative capital sources. As prudent managers, we'll explore capital raising alternatives including joint ventures and asset sales, if our share price remains at levels where we are unwilling to issue equity.

With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff to walk through our third quarter results.

Thank you, Ben and good morning, everyone. Starting with acquisitions. During the quarter we acquired 18 properties for a purchase price of $108 million and a weighted average cap rate of 8.2%. Year-to- date, we have acquired and/or under contract or LOI to acquire $391 million of properties. We have publicly stated that our goal is to grow our asset base 25% a year and our resultant 2015 acquisition target was $450 million. Our activities today potentially account for 87% of the target.

While we have a target in order to help the Street model our business, internally we rely on our risk assessment model to find value and our volume will ultimately be dictated by, in large part, our models' quantitative conclusions. We believe that the opportunity for STAG is large and attractive and the key to our success will be taking a long-term approach and remaining disciplined. In short, we are in no rush.

On the disposition front, we sold two properties during the quarter for net proceeds of $9.2 million. These two properties were generally under-performing our expectation and represent a calling of the herd, so to speak. On the other end of the spectrum, we sold a property subsequent to quarter end in Michigan for a fixed cap rate, which compares very favorably to our cap rate at acquisition.

We are constantly evaluating the portfolio for opportunities, where the market is willing to price an asset in excess of our internal assessment of value. All of the aforementioned dispositions represent such situations.

Turning to our portfolio. At quarter end, we own 281 buildings in 37 states with a total of 52 million square feet. Occupancy stands at 95.7% for the portfolio and our average lease term and rent are 4.1 years and $3.99 per square foot respectively.

We continue to see robust activity in the leasing markets, as evidenced by cash and GAAP rent growth of 1.6% and 5.2% respectively, another strong quarter. Going forward, we expect to continue to see similar rent growth in the portfolio.

On the retention front, we achieved a 90.4% retention rate on the 2.1 million square feet rolling this quarter, representing the largest amount of quarterly expirations in the Company's history. In total, over the last 12 months, our retention rate has been 73% and we expect retention for 2015 to be in the 70% range.

Turning to the quarter's operations. Cash net operating income or cash NOI grew by 33.4% from the year ago period. Same-store cash NOI was down 0.4% quarter-over-quarter and up 0.6% year-to-date compared to 2014. We continue to expect to see modest same-store growth going forward due to our acquiring 100% occupied properties in a low to mid 90% occupied market.

Core funds from operations or core FFO grew by 32% compared to 2014. On a per share basis, core FFO was $0.39 per share, up 8.3% compared to last year and the previous quarter. This is the highest core FFO per share in the Company's history. As Ben mentioned, our five-point plan is anticipated to lead to continued growth in the near, medium and long-term.

On the dividend front, the Board voted to increase the monthly dividend from $1.38 per share annualized rate to $1.39 per share annualized rate. Our current dividend represents an 86% AFFO payout ratio down from over 90% in previous quarters.

Before we switch to the balance sheet, I want to spend a moment on G&A. G&A this quarter was $6.4 million, down 14% from last quarter as we moderated our expenses, primarily compensation. For the year, we expect G&A to be approximately $29 million, down from our previous forecast of $30 million. Looking to 2016, we expect G&A of approximately $32 million, down from our previous projection of $33 million.

Turning to the balance sheet. As a result of our recent actions in the debt capital markets, we now have nearly $500 million of immediately available liquidity and expect to have $650 million in the near term. While we have an abundance of liquidity, we remain committed to a low leverage balance sheet. The result of this design are very strong credit metrics with debt-to-run rate EBITDA at five times at quarter end.

We continue to strive for a defensive balance sheet and believe that we have achieved our goal to-date as evidenced by our ratings upgrade to BBB flat in May. Going forward, we anticipate continuing to run the Company at a rate between roughly five times and six times debt-to-run rate EBITDA.

Looking at our liabilities, at year-end, we had approximately $860 million of debt outstanding with a weighted average remaining term of 6.5 years and a weighted average interest rate of 4.9%. All of our debt is either fixed rate or has been swapped to fixed rate with the exception of our revolver.

On the equity front, other than a small ATM sale at the end of June that settled in July, we have not raised any equity and we will require either continued improvement in our share price or an extraordinary opportunity in order to change our posture on this front.

In summary, it was a very good quarter for STAG. The Company delivered operationally with an historic leasing quarter, continue to execute on accretive acquisitions and opportunistic dispositions and demonstrated prudent capital management. Most important, we delivered core FFO growth of nearly 8% quarter-over-quarter.

As we look forward, we are excited that we are building a best-in-class platform, not only for the opportunities presented to us today, but also for the opportunities that we foresee in the future.

And with that, I'll turn it back to Ben.

Thank you, Geoff. As Geoff has described, this quarter's results show STAG's return to growth in per share metrics reporting record earnings of $0.39 per share. The conservatism of our balance sheet, one, running leverage at the low end of our promulgated debt to run rate EBITDA range, and two, significant length into the duration of our liabilities cost us in terms of earnings growth over the prior quarters. However, it also put us in the very liquid position we're in today, as we continue to identify accretive investment opportunities.

Since our last call, we've preached and adhered to the simple message outlined earlier. We believe the resulting earnings growth and demonstrated discipline will work to get our stock back to acceptable levels. To-date, we have made great progress, although we certainly have more to do. We continue to be very excited about the future for our Company over the coming years. We thank you for your time this morning and for your continued support of our Company.

I'll now turn it back to the operator to open the floor for questions. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Sheila McGrath, Evercore.

I have a couple of quick questions. First, Geoff, I was wondering if you could clarify core FFO. Did that exclude all these termination fees for the quarter?

Yes. So core FFO is a proxy for recurring income and core FFO is in addition to our same-store numbers, our EBIDTA numbers and our AFFO numbers, do not include the benefits of termination income.

And then, Ben, the stock price has moved closer to where you last raised ATM capital, which I think was somewhere over $21 a share. How should we think about your ATM philosophy right now if the shares go back over towards that level during the fourth quarter, will you tap the equity markets? If you could just give us some --?

I think the most important thing is what we mentioned on the call is that we're at the low end of our leverage range. So if we -- in the process of acquiring assets, we're more normalizing our leverage into sort of more to the middle of the band, if you will, of five times to six times (inaudible). So the question of whether or not to tap the ATM market is a little premature for that reason. I think that as we move forward into 2016 those questions will get asked, but for right now, we have plenty of runway.

Last quick one on, you mentioned slowing G&A. Other than stock-based compensation accruals being lower, what are the other sources of G&A savings?

Well, we have talked about building the platform to take advantage of the opportunities and we continue to make investments in the platform. We've just slowed down the pace at which we're doing that. So it means the slowing down the pace of headcount additions -- but we are not doing anything to diminish our capacity to continue to grow accretively. So the machine is still being built, it's just being built perhaps a little less quickly.

Juan Sanabria, Bank of America.

It seems like dispositions are becoming a little bit more of a focal point although you do have the leverage capacity like you talked about. Any sense or can you help us think about how much you could actually sell or what would be considered non-core or are those for assets you could prune in? And any thoughts on cap rates of those potential sales?

Yes. I mean, as a prudent manner, obviously we're looking at our portfolio all the time and trying to assess the assets that maybe long-term don't fit into that portfolio. I think the Montreal (inaudible) we'll sell assets when they're worth more to somebody else than they are to us to hold, but it's -- I don't know what the actual percentage is, it's a fairly de minimis amount at the bottom, but we will continue to look at those opportunities and the asset that we sold following the quarter is an opportunity where, I'm not going there, right, it's more specifically an asset that we sold at a very strong cap rate because somebody else wanted to buy it and they valued it higher than we would have valued it within our portfolio. I think you'll continue to see it. We don't see it as a major source of capital, we see it more as an alignment of the portfolio to where we want to be going forward.

And I would just add that those dispositions are almost exclusively in the pre-IPO portfolio.

And then could you just comment on any movement you may or may not have seen in cap rates, given just the movement in the capital markets, particularly on the debt side? Have you guys seen anything or nothing to date on the warehouse space in the secondary market?

I think that we're seeing continuously movement of capital sort of more broadly across the markets. Our pipeline at $1.7 billion is as big as it has ever been, so we're still seeing a lot of opportunity for assets to make sense for us. We get a sense that maybe our hit rate has been missed because of the frothiness of the market, but I think some of that's also a little bit of a mix change and we're just -- we're seeing more assets broadly across the market and we're approaching or making more on solicited offers, which will always has a lower hit rate.

So I think there's a little bit of [initial] frothiness. I'll turn over to Steve Mecke to give -- who actually runs that part of our business.

Yes, I agree with Ben that we're definitely seeing the deal closes as high as it's ever been. There is some seller expectations as we go into the fourth quarter, that they are looking for some lower cap rates on their deals. The curiosity for us will be whether or not they actually end up transacting at those levels or if they fly back into the market, which we've seen before. So at this point what we're seeing is probably stable cap rates, but coming down a little bit, but not -- nothing noteworthy.

One of things that Steve said to me yesterday was that the (inaudible) expectations of lower cap rates have made -- maybe the amount of closed transactions go down, it's not necessarily they're executing there. They see some of these big portfolio trades with cap rates in the fives and all of a sudden they think their asset in suburban Cleveland should be selling at a five cap and that clearly isn't the case. And as we move through the fourth quarter, people want to get things done by the end of the year may get more realistic, that's yet to be seen.

And just one quick one for me. In terms of maintenance CapEx, what's your guidance and a rule of thumb for what we should be budgeting and is that in all-in number or are there other numbers that are kind of flowing through the cash flow statement that might not necessarily be captured in the (inaudible) number.

Our maintenance CapEx to-date is in the $0.20 range per share or closer. And we would expect to continue that, we're buying -- the buildings we're buying in general are higher quality than the existing portfolio, particularly the pre-IPO assets. So I do expect that number to moderate at about $0.20.

And is there any rough (inaudible) on what that represents on a per square foot basis?

$0.20 cents per square foot.

Gaurav Mehta, Cantor Fitzgerald.

Going back to your five-point plan, and I think you mentioned alternative sources including JV and asset sales. Can you also discuss the attractiveness of issuing OP units today?

Yes. Obviously OP unit issuance is equity issuance and we've been reluctant to issue equity at the current pricing levels, the pricing levels we've seen over recent months. So OP units is still an arrow in our quiver, but it's not an arrow that we're particularly anxious to use at this time. I think over the longer term, OP units will continue to be an advantage that we and the other (inaudible) have and I would expect that the aging population, et cetera, et cetera, that it may become more popular vehicle for people to attribute their assets, if you will into a large and diverse portfolio with a good dividend payout.

And going to your under contract acquisitions, can you provide some details on what's in there in terms of cap rate and occupancy level?

Cap rates -- this is the portfolio where it is under agreement. Cap rate is still in the low to mid 8s. There is one vacancy in that building, in that portfolio in a rather strong market that we're looking at. So aside from one asset, everything else is occupied.

And then lastly a question on your overall strategy over, let's say next few quarters, if your stock price there remains under pressure and you are running at, let's say at the high end of your leverage levels, would you be looking to cut back on the acquisitions or would you be open to taking on more leverage?

I think that we actually would look at a different plan, which would be to access private equity, if we were at a point where we weren't comfortable taking on more leverage, and we don't intend to run leverage up outside our promulgated band, we would look at most likely at some form of joint venture to bring private equity into the transaction. As has been observed by many, private equity has a very aggressive bid for US industrial assets these days as evidenced by some of the big portfolio trades that have made the headlines, KBR and Core et cetera.

Blaine Heck, Wells Fargo.

So just following up on Sheila's question. You guys upsized your credit facility, initiated the term loan recently, so it looks as though you guys have good liquidity for deals, but Geoff, the debt-to-EBITDA, I think it's five times now. You target closer to the mid five, so how much capacity do you think you have to acquire using that debt without thinking about either slowing down or issuing equity?

In rough numbers, somewhere between $300 million and $400 million of capacity, if you think about. And it's larger than you might think, because obviously as you add asset, you're adding EBITDA, so that number starts to move up. But yes, $300 million to $400 million is a good number.

And Ben, a couple times now you mentioned JVs as a capital source going forward. Can you just talk a little bit more about what you think that would look like? Would it be a JV on a large portfolio or a long-term partner, and kind of a fund or what other opportunities arise, just give a little color around that?

Yes, and obviously this is in prospect, as prudent managers, we will investigate further what it could mean for us, but we think that there is a pretty good chance that we may be able to continue to execute the way we always have using public equity et cetera. Having said that, the joint ventures that we would look at would have a healthy co-investment from a Company, probably 25% to 50% or so. The Company would earn fees from doing it. The question is to whether it was a [sealed] joint venture, i.e., weather assets were contributing, it probably would be a to be determined at this point. It may could either be a -- it would not likely be a static portfolio. So simply we identify assets and somebody buys into a partial ownership of that, it would likely be a situation where if we contributed assets that will be the base on which a larger portfolio was grown. Does that answer?

And then one more from me, lease term on renewals seemed a little low this quarter. Is there anything to read through with that? Are tenants making more short-term decisions, giving any uncertainty going forward or do you think that's just kind of an aberration for the quarter?

I think quarter-to-quarter statistics are hard to look at and (inaudible) conclusions. Our retention of 90% will hold (inaudible) so I think the anomaly for this quarter is unlikely to be repeated.

Michael Carroll, RBC Capital Markets.

Do you guys had any advanced discussions with any JV partners yet?

People have lobbed in calls to us, and we've had discussions with bankers who want to introduce us to people, but at this point we're just really contemplating and looking to investigate what the possibilities might be.

Then how long are you willing to, I guess, wait in the current market before you proceed with JV or access the capital markets?

Well, I think as prudent managers, we are going to investigate so we understand what that looks like. We have quite a bit of runway, as we've discussed before, to continue to operate the way we have because of all the -- because of our low leverage and low liquidity that has been established. So again, as I keep saying, as prudent managers, we're going to investigate and take steps that we can access that market if we need to, it's not our preferred plan and hopefully will not be our plan. But again, we're going to figure out what's there and figure out who the good counterparties might be.

And then last question, Geoff. Did you mention the cap rate on the second quarter or the third quarter asset sale?

We did not give a cap rates on the third quarter asset sales. The only cap rate we gave was the 6 cap on the one transaction post quarter end.

Can you give us the cap rate on those Q3 sales?

Yes. It's is more of a -- those sales were more sort of selling assets that were underperforming, some of them having entire or degrees of vacancies. So Dave, what's the --?

Yes. We sold two largely empty buildings, one to a user at a price that we liked a lot and the other to a -- somebody who's going to redevelop the building. Again, both were at prices above what we would have valued those assets.

Dave Rodgers, Robert W. Baird.

Hey, it's Stephen Dye here with Dave. I just have a more high level question. Is the goal still to grow assets by about 25% on an annual basis or has that come down slightly as the model becomes more selective to make sure you're getting the right assets into the portfolio?

So I think that a point that Geoff made during his portion of our call was very apt, 25% is not necessarily a goal so much as an expectation that our model will allow us -- our inquiries, our investigations, our depth of exposure into the market will allow us to grow at 25% a year. That's sort of observation that if we do what we do, we will grow that fast. But it's not a -- we're not seeing in late November volume, gee, we're going to need to find some more assets so we can get to 25% growth. We're buying assets that meet or exceed our threshold return requirement. It is again, is our expectation that that will result in 25% growth for 2015, for 2016 and probably for a number of years beyond that. So again, it's not necessarily a goal, so much as an expectation.

And then -- so how much has the assessment model expanded in terms of the total number of assets considered as pricing has been driven up with competition, more sellers come into market, more bidders thinks -- I guess the buying and selling dynamics and how is that fitting into model?

Well, I think you've seen over the last couple of years as our pipeline has dramatically expanded, that we are by virtue of our deploying more outward facing acquisition, people going from basically the IPO about 2.5 to 7. We are more deeply exposed to the market, we have more people out there, if you will, turning over stones to see -- to find deals and digging in through the pile of potential transactions and find to make sense for us.

So we're seeing more transactions. We are seeing somewhat more competition in the markets that we're most active in, but again one of our advantages is as we look broadly like about 90 different markets, no other organized capital is looking as broadly as we are. So we have a big advantage in the terms of the number of transactions that we will see and therefore the number of transactions we may be able to accretively buy. Steve, you have anything more to add?

Yes, I agree with Ben, definitely the deal flow and the transaction volumes is high as we've ever seen it. But we're -- once again as I said before, we're being disciplined, we're being very careful at what we're buying. So the hit rate through the whole process is probably a little bit lower than we've been historically. However, the model is telling us what we're going to do and we're very positive as we go forward and there is a lot of product on the market.

And one of the things we've touched on earlier is a lot of product in the market, a lot of people looking at that product, we don't have great sense as to whether or not there's any more assets being closed away from us than we have in the past. There is a lot of activity, but we've seen over the prior number of years as people are now thinking of moving into secondary markets and they announced that and -- but they don't actually transact. It's easier to talk about doing things than it is actually to do things.

And are sellers pushing assets with greater credit risk than you've seen in some time?

I don't think there's any market change. Actually, I'd say generally the landscape of corporate credit with low debt rates and all the weaker economy having been scoured out seven years ago by the global financial crisis. I think you have a pretty healthy general corporate climate there. So I don't know that we're seeing any particular pushing out of weaker credits or anything like that. Steve, you've seen anything?

No, we're definitely seeing a few more sale, lease (inaudible) coming our way, which historically in the last year or two years has been the case, but the mix is still the mix, it's been pretty consistent.

Tom Lesnick, Capital One.

Obviously, you've talked a lot about debt EBITDA as being one of the primary metrics you look at with regards to your leverage levels, but as common shareholders, I think you've got to look at it including all levels of capital above you, including preferred. So with relatively high cost preferred being callable here in 2016, what are your thoughts about using debt to refinance that or is that something you're considering using equity for?

I think that we would certainly look to call the 9% coupon preferred, it would be very rash if we think about calling that one when it was available. I think that we look at it as a general part of our capital structure and we would use both debt and equity potentially to retire.

Dan Donlan, Ladenburg Thalmann.

Just wanted to go back to Juan's question on maintenance CapEx, you quoted a $0.20 per square foot number. Is that included in your total cost from a leasing perspective? I think for the year you're at $1.50 or $1 per square foot on total cost in leasing commissions and TIs?

The $0.20 reflects tenant improvements, leasing commissions and building improvements, which would generally be group expenses.

But you've done $1 this year year-to-date and then you did about $0.78 last year. So just kind of curious, what's the delta between the $0.20 maintenance number and then what you've done over the past few years?

Sorry, the dollar is per square foot of deals done, and that's spread across the portfolio in terms in the $0.20 on an aggregated basis.

Obviously, yes. CapEx, okay. And is there anything that's driving the higher leasing cost per square foot number this year versus last year, so just maybe a higher amount of office influx that you've had coming through, what's delta there?

It's really driven by one deal that had some retrofitting in the space, which could just finally be qualified as a building improvement, but it's in the tenant improvement number.

And then as you look at acquisitions into next year, you talked about the 25% asset growth, but kind of given what we've seen in the economy, there seems to be some softness, how do you think about that your leverage level and everything else, do you start to just peter back ahead of time or how should we think about your pace?

And also from that standpoint, how do we think about your leasing going forward, as you start to maybe get more concerned or whatever may be about the economy, do you start to kind of push for longer lease terms and maybe not try to push rents as much? How do you think about that in regards that economy could potentially be slowing?

I think one of the things to look at is all the industrial demand generally tracks pretty closely to GDP growth. And I think most of the things that you're hearing in the market now are talking about next recession three years, four years, five years away, we're not having a very robust recovery, but we're having a very persistent recovery. And so since demand seems to be again not outstanding, but pretty persistent going forward, and supply, by most people's metrics is not going to catch up with demand or if it does it just barely catches up demand during that timeframe, you're looking at a very, very healthy fundamental industrial real estate market in United States for some time to come. We are not a macro investor, so we're looking at every asset within the context of the market and submarket that it's in, in context of the tenants' industry, et cetera. So we believe that we can continue to identify accretive acquisitions through all market conditions. Obviously, there are some market conditions where it's tougher than others, but from all things we have been able to see and read, we have a pretty benign backdrop with which we're executing our investment thesis against for some time to come.

And then I guess, I know you're an industrial operator, but how do you think about the leasing and trying to -- is your weighted average lease term something that you guys try to -- there is something that you think about as you're managing the portfolio or it's really you're pretty much agnostic towards that or is there any thoughts to --?

I think we're not agnostic as to projected returns. We will -- every lease deals negotiation with a tenant, that tenant has certain things that are hot buns for them and we have things that are hot buns for us, but the best long-term deal given the expectations for renewal at the end, the TI cost et cetera, all gets boiled down into making an assessment of what's the best long-term deal for the benefit of our shareholders and that building with that tenant for the benefit of shareholders. Again, the tenants come to those negotiations with things that are important to them. And if you -- to the extent that you can satisfy those things, you can get a better economic deal for the benefit of shareholders. So I think to some extent it's certainly a reaction to what the tenant's hot buns are, but it is always an analysis by us of what we can do that is best for the building long-term.

Mitch Germain, JMP Securities.

Good morning, guys. Just a quick one from me with regards to the lease expiration schedule. Anything noteworthy with regards to over the next few months, anything, move-outs that are scheduled?

We have a move out related to the termination fee we just received this quarter. There are no really sizable needle moving known events.

That's the previously discussed Bank of America deal, we've talked about than in prior quarters.

Other than that, there aren't really any sizable move outs that we're certain of today.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our time for questions. I'd like to turn the floor back to Mr. Butcher for any final closing remarks.

Thank you very much. Obviously, a very strong quarter, which is we believe actually keeping in trend with our other quarters, but we've been doing things and perhaps hit the growth. Going forward, I think you're going to see -- we certainly expect to see continued growth in our per share metrics. We're very confident about the fundamentals and the support that comes from the strong fundamentals in the U.S. industrial economy and very confident that our -- pursuit of our described five-point plan of showing discipline in our equity issuance, discipline in the growth and our G&A and future growth in G&A, making sure that we understand the opportunities that exist for alternative equity should that equity not be available from the public market. All those things are very important to us as we make sure we're going to deliver the returns to our shareholders going forward. We have a great degree of confidence that both our model and our Company are going to have very good days ahead. And we thank you again for your time and that concludes the call.

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