Industrial Logistics Properties Trust

Good morning and welcome to Industrial Logistics Properties Trust third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listener mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Stephen Colbert, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Joining me on today's call are Yael Duffy, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Tiffany Tsai, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Today's call includes a presentation by management followed by a question and answer session with analysts. Please note that the recording and retransmission of today's conference call is prohibited without the prior written consent of the company. Also note that today's conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on ILTT's beliefs and expectations as of today, October 26, 2023, and actual results may differ materially from those that we project. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to the four limiting statements made in today's conference call. Additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, which can be accessed from our website, ILPTREIT.com or the SEC's website. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements. In addition, We will be discussing non-GAAP financial numbers during this call, including normalized funds from operations, or normalized FFO, adjusted EBITDA, and cash basis net operating income, or cash basis NOI. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP figures to net income is available in our financial results and supplemental information presentation which can be found on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gaia.

Thank you, Stephen, and good morning. Before we begin, I would like to welcome Tiffany Tsai, who joined ILPT as our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer on October 1st. On today's call, I will begin with an update on our disposition activity and then review ILPT's operating and leasing performance before turning the call over to Tiffany to discuss our financial results. Last quarter, we reported that we had three properties, two that are encumbered, under agreement to sell for an aggregate sales price of $65.3 million. We also discussed that while dispositions are challenging in this economic environment, ILPT may face additional difficulties given the property release provisions under our debt agreements. During the diligence process, one property fell out of agreement as the buyer was unable to receive the required licensing needed to operate its business, and another terminated due to delays in the transaction timeline. The third property, which is unencumbered, continues to be under agreement to sell for $21.5 million. Turning to our operating and leasing performance. As of September 30th, 2023, our portfolio, which consists of 413 warehouse and distribution properties, achieved same property NOI and cash basis NOI growth of 5.3% and 6% respectively, compared to the third quarter of 2022. We are finally beginning to see the positive impact of the 5.2 million square feet of leasing we completed over the last year. As a point of reference, the impact of this activity is an increase of $7.4 million in annualized rental revenue, which represents 2% of ILPT's total annualized revenue. With 11.2 million square feet set to expire through 2025, we believe there is continued opportunity to generate organic cash flow growth. Turning to the quarter, we executed 12 new and renewal leases for nearly 758,000 square feet, resulting in modest gap in cash leasing spreads of 13.5% and 10.3% respectively. The impact of this activity is an increase of $841,000 of annualized rental revenues. These leases have a weighted average lease term of 4.1 years, which is strategically shorter than what we typically report. As asking rents continue to increase, we are selectively completing short-term renewals with certain tenants to take advantage of market conditions. Highlighted in our results is continued demand from ILPT's largest tenant, FedEx. We completed three renewals totaling 213,000 square feet in Texas, Georgia, and Illinois at a roll-up in rent of 15.9%. As FedEx works through its DRIVE program initiative, our leasing and asset management teams have been engaged in discussions with FedEx decision makers as they work through their long-term plans. Our leasing pipeline includes 1.6 million square feet across 14 properties that is specific to FedEx, with only two known vacates through 2024, which represents less than 40 basis points of annualized revenue. Furthermore, over 71% of our FedEx portfolio and the associated $92 million in annualized revenue is secure, given it is long-term lease with expirations in 2027 and beyond. Leasing in Hawaii was minimal this quarter, with just over 21,000 square feet. We believe this muted activity is a function of timing as our Hawaii leasing pipeline currently exceeds 3 million square feet. Lastly, as we have communicated in the past, we are focused on improving ILPT's leverage, which has declined 1.4 times since last year. However, given the ongoing uncertainty in the capital markets, any improvement in the short term will be organic. With no near-term debt maturities and a cash-flowing portfolio, ILPT will continue to focus on tenant retention, maximizing mark-to-market rent growth opportunities, and reducing operating expenses. I'll now turn the call over to Tiffany.

Thank you, Yaddle. Good morning, everyone. Starting with our consolidated financial results for the third quarter of 2023, normalized funds from operations was flat on a sequential quarter basis at $7.9 million, or 12 cents per share, and declined compared to the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA RE was $83.2 million, an increase on both the sequential quarter and year-over-year basis. Our leasing activity generated increases in cash rent on the same property basis of $7.2 million, or 7.4% year-over-year, partially offset by operating expense increases of $2.7 million, or 12.2%, which resulted in a net 6% increase in same property cash basis NOIs for the third quarter. Interest expense was $72.9 million for the quarter, an increase of $1.1 million sequentially, and reflects a full quarter's impact of the mortgage loans we refinanced in May. Our fourth quarter estimated interest expense is approximately $73 million, consisting of $56 million of cash interest expense, including the benefit from our in-the-money interest rate cap, and $7 million of non-cash amortization of financing costs. Turning to our balance sheet, IOVC ended the quarter with a net debt-to-total assets ratio of 68.5% compared to 69.9% a year ago. And our net debt coverage ratio declined to 12.3 times compared to 13.7 on a year-over-year basis. All of our debt is currently carried at a fixed rate or a fixed through interest rate cap with a total weighted average interest rate of 5.47%. Including extension options, ILPT has no debt maturities until 2027. Our first extension option on the $1.4 billion floating rate loan under our consolidated joint venture occurs in March 2024, subject to the replacement of the related interest rate cap. Based on today's pricing, the replacement cap would range from $20 to $30 million. As of September 30th, we had approximately $83 million of cash on hand and $139 million of restricted cash in our consolidated joint venture. As Gail mentioned earlier, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to reduce our leverage and build liquidity. However, we currently have no plans to market properties for sale. In closing, while the current economic environment has its challenges, our portfolio remains compelling. It's an exceptional tenant roster, near full occupancy, and rising rent across our portfolio. We expect that IOPT will continue to benefit from demand for high-quality industrial real estate like ours. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Brian Mayer with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Thank you. And good morning, Yael and Tiffany. Maybe sticking with the caps for a minute. Tiffany, did you say that was 28 to 30 million or 20 to 30 million? I didn't quite catch that.

I said 20 to 30 million. That is based on today's pricing, but also our expectations of the strike price. So there's some range there as well.

And was that for one of the caps or was that for both of the 2024 caps? That is for one of the caps. And how does that pricing compare to the cap cost that was put on that loan back in 2022?

Well, the most recent cap that we purchased was September 22, and that was $47 million. That was at a much lower spread price, however, and it was also a two-year period. It's not necessarily apples to apples, but I will say that pricing has slightly increased since the last time we purchased.

Okay. That's helpful. And then when we think about organic deleveraging, I think you mentioned or Yael mentioned that it's come down from 13.7 times to I think 12.3 times. Should we suspect that all else being equal over the next 12 months, we should see a similar amount of organic deleveraging or do you think that moderates a little bit?

No, I think it's a good proxy for a run rate. I mean, we will continue to pay down Our mortgages, it should steadily continue to decline in that fashion.

Okay. And then just maybe for you on the asset dispositions, I caught all what you said on the three going to one and that I think you said you weren't actively marketing properties, but are you still receiving inbound inquiries into some of your properties and how are those progressing?

So we have been. I will say that I think the unsolicited offers have slowed in the last quarter or so. And so with each offer that we get, we really do review if it makes sense to sell. And I think we've talked about this on the prior last quarter's call. But it really is hard for us to sell things out of the collateral pools given the The amount to release the property from the collateral pool must be the greater of 115% of the allocated loan value or 100% of the net sale proceeds. And so, you know, on top of that, we also have to maintain required debt service coverage ratio. Really, we have to look at the value of the property today versus what we closed on the value when we closed on the loan. And I think we can all agree that there's been some shift in valuations. So it's hard to make the math work. And then, you know, if we're going to target underperforming properties for sale, it's hard to, we have to improve our debt yield when we remove it from the collateral pool, but it's hard to sell a property that's underperforming. So there's a lot that's going into it. But, you know, if the opportunity is right and it makes sense, we'll do it. But it's been far and few between.

Okay, thanks. And just maybe last for me a quick one on the dividend. I mean, when we look at the rolling four quarter, you know, trailing CAD being, I think it's 54 cents or so, and you're paying out basically four cents. Is there any thought to taking that dividend up even a little, or is the focus just solely on paying down a debt and keeping dry powder for cap costs?

It's the latter. Currently, we're focusing on reducing our leverage. You know, we'd like to get it to a lower level, I mean, at least, and then, you know, we could have a real, I think, discussion. I didn't catch that.

Did you say you want to get leveraged down to 10 before you rethink that?

Yeah, I think the board's looking at it, Brian, but I think right now, really, we need to have liquidity to make sure that we have liquidity to buy the caps and then also to run the business. You know, I mean, if we have some leasing that's coming up. And then if, you know, FedEx comes to us and wants to do a building expansion or a parking lot project, we want to make sure that we have the liquidity to partner with our tenants to meet their needs.

Right. But, you know, to the extent that, you know, 10 is the bogey before the board starts to think about it, that's helpful from our standpoint as we model out the company, you know, kind of now through 2026, you know, kind of where you hit that and where there could be thought process of a slight, you know, dividend increase, you know, nothing crazy. But anyways, food for thought and thank you for all those comments.

Thanks.

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Mitch Germain with JMP Securities. Please go ahead. Pardon me, is your phone on mute perhaps? Hello? Hello, please proceed with your question.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, please proceed with your question.

Yeah, you had mentioned that there were some FedEx moveouts in 2024. Are there any other known moveouts for the year?

So we have the one property that we had under agreement to sell in Indiana. That's a 535,000 square feet property, and that lease expires in June of 2024. So we know that tenant is moving to a built-to-suit location. We are in discussions with them potentially for a short-term renewal because I think their construction has been delayed. But that's really the major one on the mainland. And then, as we've talked about in the past, the parcel in Hawaii, the 2.2 million square feet. that was previously leased to Home Depot, that one will be coming back to us at the end of Q1.

On that, Yael, I think last quarter you had mentioned that there was some activity on that. Is there any update?

We continue to see good activity. Nothing far enough along to announce, but we do feel confident that we'll be able to lease that with minimal downtime. Okay.

And the last one from me, I think you explained the shorter term on the new leasing during the quarter. Is there anything we can attribute the new lease rental changes to? Because that has also changed quarter over quarter here.

No, I think it's just, you know, in some of the past quarters, we've had really long lease terms, which have, you know, resulted in bigger gap rent increases. And so with the shorter Walt, um, we're not seeing that same robust strike, um, increase, but I would also say we did release one property, um, which negatively impacted our results, um, at a roll down in rent because we had, um, it was previously leased to FedEx and it had amortizing TI, which was inflating their rent numbers. So without that property, kind of we excluded that, we would be at 17%, 18% roll-up. So that was part of the outlier this quarter.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Yael Duffy for any closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us. Have a good day.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.