This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

FRP Holdings, Inc.
5/13/2025
Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the FRP Holdings, Inc. 2025 First Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be a question-and-answer session. You can queue for a question at any time by pressing the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. Should you require operator assistance, you may press star zero. I'd now like to turn the floor over to Matt McNulty. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jamie. Good morning. I'm Matt McNulty, Chief Financial Officer of FRP Holdings, Inc. And with me today are John Baker III, our CEO, David DeVillia III, our Chief Operating Officer, David DeVillia Jr., former president, John Baker II, our chairman, John Melton, our Executive Vice President and General Counsel, and John Klopfenstein, our Chief Accounting Officer. First, let me run through a brief disclosure regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measurements used by the company. As a reminder, any statements on this call which relate to the future are by their nature subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are listed in our SEC pilings. We have no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements except as imposed by law as a result of future events or new information. To supplement the financial results presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, FRP presents certain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The non-GAAP financial measures referenced in this call are net operating income and pro rata net operating income. FRP uses these non-GAAP financial measures to analyze its operations and to monitor, assess, and identify meaningful trends in its operating and financial performance. This measure is not and should not be viewed as a substitute for GAAP financial measures. To reconcile net operating income to GAAP net income, please refer to the segment titled Non-GAAP Financial Matters in our most recent earnings release. Any reference to cap rates, asset values, per share values, or the analysis of the estimated value of our assets, net of debt, and liabilities are for illustrative purposes only as a reflection of how management views its various assets for purposes of informing management decisions. and do not necessarily reflect the price that would be obtained upon sale of the asset or the associated cost of tax liability. Now for the financial highlights following our first quarter results. Net income for the first quarter increased 31.4% to $1.7 million or $0.09 per share versus $1.3 million or $0.07 per share in the same period last year. The company's pro rata share of NOI in the first quarter increased 10% year over year to $9.4 million, mostly driven by higher contributions from our multifamily developments and mining royalty segments. Versus last year, the multifamily segment contributed an additional $141,000 of NOI, the mining segment contributed an additional $524,000 of NOI, and the development segment another $185,000 of NOI. It is worth noting that our industrial and commercial segment NOI decreased by $20,000 year over year due to the vacancy and uncollectible revenue as a result of a tenant that was evicted during the quarter. Over the last three years, we have grown ProVita NOI at a compound annual growth rate of 21.8%. We anticipate that this growth rate will continue to slow in the near term as our current pipeline of projects and development, which includes our new Chelsea project, move through their respective construction and reset phases, and then begin to generate meaningful new NOI over the next few years. Earlier today, we posted to our website a brief slideshow of financial highlights for the first quarter, which includes, for illustrative purposes, an estimated value of our real estate assets net of debt and liabilities. Again, we provide this information to reflect how management has used its various assets for the purpose of informing management decisions. and do not necessarily reflect the price that will be obtained upon sale of the asset or the associated costs or tax liability. I will now turn the call over to our COO, David DeVilliers III, for his report on operations. David.
Thank you, Matt, and good morning to those on the call. Allow me to provide additional insight into the first quarter results of the company. Starting with our commercial and industrial segment, this segment consists of nine buildings, totaling nearly 550,000 square feet, which are mainly warehouses in the state of Maryland. The quarter end, 85.2% of the buildings were leased and occupied. Total revenues and NOI for the quarter totaled 1.3 million and 1.1 million respectively, a decrease of 7% and 2% over the same period last year. The decrease was due to a 57,000 square foot tenant, which is 10% of this business segment defaulting on its lease obligations, and subsequent eviction in Q1 2025. Moving on to the results of our mining and royalty business segment, this division consists of 16 mining locations, predominantly located in Florida and Georgia, with one mine in Virginia. Total revenues in NOI for the quarter totaled $3.2 million and $3.3 million, respectively, an increase of 9%, and 19% over the same period last year. As for our multifamily segment, this business segment consists of 1,827 apartments and over 125,000 square feet of retail located in Washington DC and South Carolina. At quarter end, the apartments were 94% occupied and the retail space was 74.8% occupied. Total revenues and NOI for the quarter were 14.3 million and 8 million respectively. FRP share of revenues and NOI for the quarter totaled 8.3 million and 4.6 million respectively. This is an increase over prior quarters due to the VERGE being included in this segment as of July 1st, 2024. The VERGE contributed 1.4 million and 753,000 in revenue and NOI this quarter. As a same-store comparison, which includes Dock, Marin, Riverside, 4A Jackson, and Bryant Street, FRP's share of revenues in NOI for the quarter totaled $6.9 million and $3.9 million, respectively, a revenue increase of 4% with NOI flat over the same period last year due primarily to higher operating expenses at Dock and Marin. As stated in previous quarters, new deliveries in the DC market will continue to put pressure on vacancies, concessions, and revenue growth in the foreseeable future. Management continues to be diligent in tenant retention and rental rates in the market. We are pleased to have renewal success rates ranging from 47% to 75% with renewal rental rates trending over 2% on average in Q1. Trade-out rates were slightly negative at our Greenville, South Carolina properties, and we saw negative trade-out rates at our D.C. properties. Now on to the development segment. In terms of our commercial industrial development pipeline, our 258,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Class A warehouse building in the Perryman Industrial Sector of Harford County, Maryland is complete and ready to accept tenants. Beginning April 1st, the asset will move from development to the industrial commercial segment. This will impact NOI negatively until it is occupied and stabilized, where after the operating expenses can be passed to the tenants and we can receive rent revenue. FRP and Altman Logistics Partners entered into a joint venture partnership where FRP is a 90% owner and a 200,000-square-foot Class A warehouse building in Lakeland, Florida. The construction loan and general contractor agreements executed in vertical construction will take place in Q2 2025. This project is estimated to cost some $141 per square foot with $9 triple net rents. FRP and Altman also partnered on a two-building industrial project totaling over 182,000 square feet in Broward County, Florida, where FRP is an 80% owner. The site is minutes from Port Everglades in the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, with frontage on I-59B5, access through the Florida Turnpike, and I-95. We are deep into the construction, drawing, and permit stage on this project. The construction loan and general contractor agreements are executed. We expect vertical construction to take place in Q2 2025. The project is estimated to cost some $327 per square foot with $20 triple net rents. In Cecil County, Maryland, along the I-95 corridor, we are in the middle of pre-development activities on 170 acres of industrial land that will support a 900,000 square foot distribution center. Offsite road improvements, reforestation codes, and obtaining offsite wetland mitigation permits delayed our entitlement process. We expect permits in early 2026. Finally, we are in the initial permitting stage for our 55-acre tract in Harford County, Maryland. The intent is to obtain permits for four buildings totaling some 635,000 square feet of industrial product. Existing land leases for the storage of trailers onsite help to offset our carrying and entitlement costs until we are ready to build. We expect to submit our initial development plan in Q2 2025, which put this on track to have vertical construction permits in 2026. Completion of these industrial commercial development projects will add over 2.1 million square feet of additional industrial commercial product to our industrial platform, growing the business segment from 550,000 square feet to over 2.7 million square feet. As stated in previous calls, permitting, constructing, and leasing the Perryman, Lakeland, Fort Lauderdale, and the initial 212,000 square foot building in Hartford County is our focus and goal over the next three years. These four buildings represent over 850,000 square feet of new industrial commercial product, with a total project cost of $146 million. When stabilized, these projects are expected to generate annual NOI between $8.7 million to $10.2 million, with FRP's share of NOI ranging from $7.9 to $9.2 million. Turning to our principal capital source strategy, or lending ventures, Aberdeen Overlook consists of 344 lots located on 110 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. We have committed 31.1 million in funding, 26.6 million was drawn out of quarter end, and over 19.1 million in preferred interest and principal payments were received to date. A national home builder is under contract to purchase all the finished building lots by Q4, 2027. 133, of the 344 lots were closed upon, and we expect to generate interest and profits of some 11.2 million, resulting in a 36% profit on funds drawn. In closing, uncertainty around trade policy, the economy, and financial markets has caused leasing activity to slow. However, rental rates remain strong, industrial space under construction has fallen below pre-pandemic norms, and we expect market vacancies to top out in 2025, which should go well for demand and rent growth as we deliver our new industrial projects. In 2025, with the delivery of our 258,000 square foot Perryman warehouse, we will have over 430,000 square feet of vacant or rolling over space in our industrial commercial segment, all located in Maryland. This has the potential to impact NOI in the short term, but will allow us to re-tenant these spaces under current market rates bolstering NOI upon lease up and occupancy. The average rental rate of the expiring industrial leases was $6.55 triple net, and we are hopeful most of our new rental rates start in the sevens or greater. We expect short-term SOFA rates to remain stable for most of the year, with a slight chance of a potential rate cut deep into Q4. We were able to take advantage of the Treasury dip in March and lock in a 10-year permanent loan at a fixed 6.4% interest rate on our two office buildings. At Bryant Street, we will continue to watch the 10-year Treasury and debt spreads to see if a more permanent and favorable debt structure is viable and accretive to our cash flow. It is our plan to continue to monitor these data points, assess the impact tariffs may have on steel, lumber, gypsum, and other construction products, and make careful, calculated, and informed decisions moving forward. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call over to John Baker III, our CEO. Thank you, David, and good morning to those on the call. Last quarter, we used this call to caution investors to temper their expectations for NOI growth in 2025. We've been on a remarkable run fueled by new industrial projects, as well as the lease up of three multifamily projects that's resulted in a 21% compound annual growth rate for NOI since 2021. Despite the positive first quarter results, i.e., a 32% increase in net income versus Q1 2024, and a 10% increase in NOI compared to the same period last year, the same factors that led us to caution our investors are evident in our first quarter results. Most of the income in NOI growth came from increases in mining royalties, interest income from our lending ventures, and improved occupancy at The Verge, a project that was not yet stabilized in the first quarter last year. Industrial NOI is down compared to last year from vacancies at our Cranberry Business Park, and we'll take a further temporary hit when our newest spec industrial building is added to this segment in the second quarter. These buildings have real operating expenses that will negatively impact NOI until we get those spaces leased and occupied. Starting in the second quarter, all our multifamily assets will have been stabilized for a full year So the NOI bump we experienced this quarter from the final bit of lease up at The Verge will be difficult to achieve through organic same-store growth, particularly as we compete with a number of new projects coming online in the Anacostia submarket of D.C. We are pleased with this quarter's results, but I continue to caution our shareholders to expect flat to slightly negative NOI results overall in 2025, since the temporary headwinds we're up against may be too heavy a lift for mining royalties to offset. Our focus in 2025 is to set the company up for our next stage of NOI growth. We will do that in part by getting Cranberry and Chelsea fully occupied, but mostly it means putting money to work in new projects. As David mentioned, we have closed on the construction loans for both our industrial JVs with BBX and anticipate breaking ground in the second quarter. We will continue entitlement work on our industrial pipeline in Maryland in order to be shovel ready in 2026 and we anticipate bolstering that pipeline with an additional land purchase and or JV this year. We remain on track to deliver three new industrial assets every two years with the goal of doubling the size of our industrial segment over the next five years. As mentioned last quarter, we anticipate getting construction this year on two multifamily projects, the first in Greenville and the second outside Fort Myers, Florida. These two projects will add 810 units and estimated $6 million in NOI upon stabilization. No CEO wants to pour water on a positive quarter, but we have never been a quarter-to-quarter company. Our focus is and has always been growing the value of the company over the long term. Our shift in strategy is essential to that, and we expect 2025 to be the year of growing pains in that shift. We count ourselves extremely fortunate to have an investor base with the same long-term view capital appreciation that we do, but we certainly don't take it for granted. We'll now turn the call over to any questions that you might have.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to signal and star 2 to remove yourself. And I'll pause for just a moment to allow questions to queue. And once again, that is star one to signal. It appears that we have no questions at this time. We'll turn the floor back over to management for any additional or closing comments.
We appreciate your interest and investment in the company and this concludes the call.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful rest of your day.