INDUS Realty Trust, Inc.

Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call

5/10/2022

spk00: Good morning and welcome to Indus Realty Trust's 2022 first quarter earnings conference call. This call will be followed by a question and answer session. You may add yourself into the queue for questions during any time over the course of this call by pressing star then one on your keypad. In addition to regularly available earnings materials, Indus has also published a supplemental presentation which is available on its website at www.indisrt.com under the Investors tab. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements under federal securities laws, including statements regarding future financial results. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections, as well as management's beliefs and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance, and actual operating results may be affected by a variety of factors. For a list of those factors, please refer to the risks listed in the company's most recent 10-K filing as updated by its quarterly report on Form 10-Q in subsequent quarters. Additionally, the first quarter results, press release, and supplemental presentation contain additional financial measures such as NOI, FFO, Core FFO, and EBITDA that are non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation to those measures in accordance with Regulation G and Item 10E of Regulation S-K. The company's speakers this morning are Michael Ganzon, Indus' CEO, who will cover recent activity, market conditions, and updates in our pipelines. He will be followed by John Clark, the company's CFO, who will cover the first quarter results in detail. After the prepared remarks, the line will be opened up for your questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Michael.
spk01: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your continued interest in Indus. 2022 is off to a great start for our company. We continue to achieve strong results with our current portfolio 100% leased and our acquisition and development pipelines adding new projects that will deliver strong returns on investment and grow our cash flow. At the same time, we recognize the uncertainty that the current geopolitical climate high rates of inflation, rising interest rates, and continuing supply chain disruptions create to the United States economy and the capital markets. Despite these potential challenges, the logistics sector continues to perform extremely well, with widespread demand across our markets from a diverse group of tenants. The ongoing difficulties with the supply and availability of goods, increased fuel and labor costs, and the continued drive to reduce delivery times create broad-based, long-term tailwinds in demand for logistics space. This need is driven not just by pure play e-commerce companies, but by a diverse range of industries seeking to improve their supply chain efficiencies. Industries including industrial manufacturers and distributors, omnichannel retailers, consumer packaged good companies, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, amongst others. Our recent lease signings include an expansion in Charleston by Cummings, a major industrial manufacturer, Walgreens, which leased space in the Lehigh Valley for pharmaceutical distribution, and a major home improvement retailer taking space in Charlotte for same-day delivery of building materials to job sites. These tenants I just mentioned all are investment grade. This strong demand is coupled with low vacancies and limited supply in the markets. Tenants simply have very few options for space in any of our geographic markets. As an example, subsequent to quarter end, we addressed our largest 2022 lease expiration with a renewal in the Lehigh Valley. This lease was with a $30 billion market cap investment grade global 3PL servicing a very large investment grade multinational client in that space. This tenant was paying somewhat above our Lehigh Valley average rent as a result of a shorter term renewal they did a couple of years ago. With essentially no alternative space within the market, the renewal terms had no concessions and an initial rate nearly 40% above the in-place rent. We do not see the warehouse supply situation changing meaningfully for the next several quarters. 2021 year-end deliveries were significantly below the beginning of that year's forecast, and we expect the same to happen in 2022. In the first quarter, approximately 86 million square feet delivered according to CBRE, which annualized is well below the 2022 forecast and also is below current demand. Challenges on the delivery front include delays in receiving permits and final entitlements, as well as in the availability of key construction inputs. In response to these challenges and to take advantage of this expected supply and demand imbalance, Over the past couple of quarters, we've targeted acquisitions that had short-term leases in place or were partially leased, as well as added to our pipeline of forward purchases. We also proactively ordered materials and built in more improvements into our development to make them move-in ready upon delivery. More broadly, in thinking about Indus and the current environment, I feel really good about where we sit today. Including the acquisitions scheduled in our pipeline, we've expanded from four markets at the start of 2021 to seven by early next year. These markets have multiple drivers of demand across a broad base of industries. The Lehigh Valley and Hartford logistics markets service very large population corridors with significant economic output and spending power. These markets are advantageous locations for regional distribution with very high barriers to entry. Our southeast markets continue to benefit from tremendous population and economic growth. In our experience, population growth leads to housing starts, new business formation, and the increased need for medical, commercial, retail, and hospitality offerings. This, in turn, drives increase in demand for logistics space, last mile local and regional distribution. Additionally, the southeast benefits from the growth in manufacturing. I mentioned Cummings earlier, which has a large presence in Charleston, And I'll note in the Carolinas, there have been a series of major facilities opened or announced, including for the production of EV vehicles, batteries, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and furniture, amongst others. While we don't own these large-scale manufacturing plants, our tenants supply those nearby facilities. Lastly, in the southeastern markets, land for industrial anywhere near the population center is increasingly scarce as these fast-growing metros continue to sprawl. As a result, industrial competes for sites with residential, commercial, retail, and other uses. And when people want to live and work, they don't really want industrial. So we are really pleased with our current holdings, which are difficult to replicate locations. Next, I'll touch on our internal growth. Our current in-place annual escalations average approximately 3%. Our recent leases have averaged above that, with 3.5% to 4% becoming more typical across our markets. We also have a significant mark-to-market rent in our existing portfolio, which we conservatively estimate at approximately 23% on a cash basis. We expect this mark-to-market to continue to increase due to upward pressure on rents and the quality of our portfolio. We think this is a particularly strong number, given that our portfolio has grown quickly over the last couple of years, giving us a larger percentage of leases with recent commencements. While we do not have significant tenant rollover in the near term, our development and forward purchase pipeline will continue to benefit from the rising rate environment. Speaking of our pipelines and external growth, we have 1.9 million square feet and approximately $225 million in investment in our current acquisition and development pipelines. We estimate the initial stabilized yields on this pipeline to be in the mid-5% range, which is meaningfully above current market cap rates. And this assumes a 95% occupancy on spec space, which effectively lowers the yields by about 25 basis points. More importantly, we expect these investments to deliver strong returns on investment over time, as we believe rents and yields will increase given these properties' quality and locations. For both our acquisition and development pipelines, we take a conservative view on rents. That said, we do expect meaningful rent growth due to scarcity of supply and the continued increase in replacement costs due to inflation, and growth in land prices. Completion of this pipeline will occur throughout 2022 and into 2023, with dates noted in our supplement. We typically assume 12 months of lease up upon a project's completion or closing of a value-add acquisition, with no leases in place upon the delivery of our spec developments. We are excited to add a new project to our development pipeline this quarter, a 91,000 square foot warehouse in the Lehigh Valley. The Lehigh Valley continues to perform extremely well, and this site is in a core infill established business park with excellent highway access. The site has most of its entitlements in place, and we hope to close on this land later this year upon receipt of the final approvals. In terms of our existing pipeline, we expect to receive the CFO for our two-thirds leased 103,000 square foot project in the Lehigh Valley in a few weeks. Our two-building Orlando project, Landstar Logistics, is on track to deliver later in the third quarter, and we are seeing excellent pre-leasing interest. We also expect to deliver our Hartford, Connecticut project that is two-thirds pre-leased towards the end of the third quarter. We have users expressing interest for the balance of that space now that we've commenced putting up the walls. Lastly, we've commenced the construction of our next project in the Lehigh Valley, a 206,000 square foot warehouse we expect we'll deliver in 2023. Turning to acquisitions, we're very pleased with the pipeline of building purchases we have under agreement. We believe all of these projects are amongst the best located in the respective markets, and those with near-term deliveries are attracting good tenant interest. These forward purchases provide a strong complement to our own development activities and leverage our existing capabilities and market knowledge. And importantly, our efforts to secure these properties are paying off in the current environment. With this pipeline, we do not have any risk with respect to construction cost inflation as we have a fixed purchase price, but we will continue to benefit from market rent growth. As an example, using current market rent, we expect the yield on the Charlotte acquisition in our forward pipeline to be more than 100 basis points above our initial underwriting, and there are still several quarters of potential rent growth until this property delivers. We are announcing today that we are in contract to purchase a fully leased 205,000 square foot last mile portfolio in the Orlando and Palm Beach markets. These properties are in irreplaceable locations with essentially no new development nearby, and we are particularly excited to have our first properties in the South Florida market. We believe the current in-place rents are more than 15% below the current market, and we expect to capture that rent spread as tenants roll over time. Our team continues to do an excellent job of evaluating and sourcing opportunities, many of which are off-market and lightly marketed, and we remain active in evaluating and diligencing land sites and properties to add to our pipeline. We recognize the current uncertainty due to the economic and geopolitical news, but we have used similar periods in the past to create value for our company. For example, in the spring of 2020, we put under contract the land for Landstar Logistics, after another group dropped it due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With our targeted strategy, we are prepared to seize upon select opportunities that may arise from any current uncertainty. As part of our preparation, we have the capital structure in place to support this growth. In addition to the $126 million of cash on our balance sheet, we put in place a $150 million delayed draw term loan as part of an expansion of our credit facility. None of our planned mortgage repayments With the term loan and cash, we have all the capital in place to fund our current acquisition and development pipelines with some dry powder. And for any future opportunities beyond that amount, we have substantial additional borrowing capacity under our revolving line of credit, in addition to any other capital we may source. Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank the INDIS team for their continued hard work and exceptional performance. It is through their efforts that we achieved our results, and are in a strong position for future success. With that, I'll turn it over to John for the financial review.
spk08: Thanks, Michael. Just starting with some of the headline figures, core FFO for the first quarter was $4 million. That's a 66% increase over the comparable quarter of the prior year. Core FFO benefited the most from growth in NOI. NOI was 8.7 million for the first quarter. That's up nearly 30% from the prior year's first quarter. Growth was driven principally by the impact of acquisitions during 2021, including the addition of the Charlotte build-to-suit that we placed in service of October of last year, as well as increase in occupancy in the value-add acquisitions and previously delivered spec developments. As Michael noted, as of March 31st, our occupancy is 100% both in total and for our stabilized in-service portfolio. AFFO for 2022 first quarter was $3.4 million compared to $1.9 million for the first quarter of 2021. With our limited recent tenant rollovers, our second generation leasing costs were relatively low this quarter. We also had a low level of maintenance capex expenditures. We expect about $1.3 million in maintenance capex spread over the next three quarters. That includes about $600,000 for a roof replacement, with about 80% of that cost expected to be incurred in the second quarter. In March, we announced that we had commenced a process to fully exit our remaining Office Flex portfolio. These assets are reported as held for sale, and operating results are recorded as discontinued operations for all the periods that we present. As a result, our core FFO, AFFO, NOI, and other financial measures exclude these assets. The OfficeFlex portfolio is unencumbered, and once sold, the proceeds will be used for the acquisition and development pipeline that Michael spoke about. We've received good interest from prospective buyers in a rather short period of time in marketing the portfolio, and we anticipate we'll be under contract before 2Q is done and will complete a sale sometime in the second half of this year at a price that's above the gap net book value. Cash same property NOI for 2022 first quarter was up 8.9% with the comparable versus the comparable 2021 period. Cash same property NOI benefit the most from the burn off of free rent on first generation space. For the last several quarters, our same property pool is 100% leased, and we expect to have very few new leases in the same property pool during 2022. This will make for tougher comparisons over the course of this year. At the same time, the same property pool represented about 75% of our total cash NOI for the 2002 first quarter. And as our acquisition and development activity ramps up, a larger and larger percentage of our total portfolio is not going to be covered by the same store metric. Wrapping up, just a few things on the income statement. Interest expense decreased about $230,000. That principally reflects an increase in capitalized interest, which just corresponds to the increase in the development activity. G&A expenses were $2.9 million for the 2022 first quarter, which is essentially flat from the corresponding prior year quarter. excluding the non-cash mark-to-market charge related to the non-qualified deferred compensation plan. G&A expenses would have been $3.2 million. The 2022 first quarter numbers include a reversal of an accrual for capital-based state taxes that we no longer will pay because of our REIT election. That was about $170,000. And that's been mostly offset by about $175,000 in expenses related to the continued build-out of our financial systems and accounting platform. Overall, we're expecting to incur about $350,000 in costs related to the accounting system project this year. I'll next turn to the balance sheet. Our liquidity at the end of the first quarter was $226.4 million. That reflects $126.4 million in cash. plus the undrawn capacity on the credit facility. As Michael mentioned, subsequent to quarter end, we amended our credit agreement and added a $150 million delayed draw term loan to the existing $100 million revolving credit facility. Based on our current leverage, the term loan has a floating rate equal to 115 basis points over SOFR. We elected to swap to fix this to an effective rate of 4.15%. Currently, there's no amounts drawn on the term loan, but we expect to repay about $62 million in mortgages at the end of May with the first draw that we will do on the term loan. The remainder of the term loan remains available to fund acquisitions and developments, as well as repay other mortgage debt. This credit facility now has an accordion feature that enables us to increase the borrowing to up to $500 million. We're very pleased with this transaction as it significantly increases our financial flexibility while maintaining a conservative debt-to-enterprise value ratio. And with the mortgage paydowns, we will unencumber a number of assets which will increase our borrowing base. With the repayment of the $62 million mortgage debt from the first draw on the term loan, other than an outstanding $26 million construction loan on the Charlotte build-to-suit, we'll have no debt maturities for five years. I'd also just like to make a quick note on the balance sheet regarding the strength of our tenancy credit. Our collection experience is and has been excellent. Accounts receivable is less than $1.6 million and is comprised of current balances due from tenants. In this quarter's release, we provided some additional earnings guidance information for the second quarter and full year. Please note that these assumptions only include what is identified in our acquisitions and development pipeline schedules that were in our press release. and do not include the Florida portfolio acquisition that we announced today, as we're still completing our diligence. For the 2002 second quarter, we estimate GNA, excluding the mark-to-market charge for the non-qualified deferred comp plan, will be slightly higher than Q1 2022, with a slight increase in non-cash stock-based compensation versus the first quarter. Last year, we began issuing stock compensation with a three-year vesting period, and the impact of annual grants start in the second quarter of each year. We estimate interest expense will be comparable to Q1 2022, and we do not expect a significant change in our current debt outstanding. Again, we plan to make the initial $60 million drawdown on our new term loan in Q2 with the proceeds going to extinguish near-term mortgage debt maturities. And the average borrowing cost of the debt that we're going to extinguish is essentially the same as the effective rate on the term loan. Interest expense is net of capitalized interest. In the first quarter, we capitalized about $350,000 of interest. And it's fair to say with the development activity, we'll continue to capitalize about the same amount of interest next quarter. For the full year, we estimate full year NOI from continuing operations at $35 to $38 million. This narrows the range of guidance provided at year end of $34 to $38 million. NOI from continuing operations excludes the office flex portfolio, which we had put up for sale. And historically, that portfolio had generated about $1.1 million in NOI annually. We estimate G&A excluding the mark-to-mark charge for the non-qualified deferred comp plan to range between $13 million and $13.6 million. which is consistent with the G&A guidance we provided in Q4 earnings. And included in that figure is approximately $1.8 million of non-cash stock compensation. Also for the full year, we estimate interest expense of approximately $6 to $6.5 million, or I'm sorry, $6.6 million. This assumes the first drawdown on the term loan in 2Q of 2022 of $60 million, a second draw on the term loan during the fourth quarter, of $30 million, which will fund acquisition pipeline and development spend. The remaining drawdown on the term loan will likely occur in 2023, not in 2022. Based on our development activity, quarterly we expect we'll capitalize interest at a quarterly rate that is similar to Q1 2022. With that, I'll just turn it back over to Michael.
spk01: Michael Heaney Thank you, John. As I said earlier, 2022 is off to a great start, and we remain optimistic that we are well positioned to capitalize on the current environment while remaining focused on our strategy for growing cash flow, net asset value, and most importantly, shareholder value. That concludes our prepared remarks, and I'll turn it back over to Chad, our operator, to take your questions.
spk00: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're 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. And the first question will come from Dave Rogers with Baird. Please go ahead.
spk03: Good morning, everybody. Michael, I wanted to just talk about some of the growth opportunities and avenues that you have in front of you. You talked about both the acquisition pipeline, you know, as well as development. But I guess as you see that unfolding over the next couple of quarters, do you have a sense for, you know, where each one of those goes, and do you have the capacity on the development side to take on more and more? So maybe a lot in there, but I want to try to gauge the difference in the acquisition and development pipelines as you see the year progressing.
spk01: Yeah, thanks, Dave. Good to catch up with you again. We think there's opportunities in both. What I'd say is near term, we're still actively looking for land. As you know, we've done a lot of development in our history. We think that's our core mindset, even when we think about buying buildings. We're continuing to look for really good development sites in the markets that we're targeting. There's always things we're looking at, starting to do due diligence on. Um, and we think there's a lot of exciting opportunities potentially down the road there, but all that's going to take time, you know, entitlements these days are taking, depending on the market, nine months to 18 months. So in terms of having an impact on our square footage, you know, those are going to be a little bit further out. Um, but we are actively looking and we do have the capacity to take on those projects because again, they all kind of stagger a little bit between due diligence, entitlement process, and then actually developing them. And we've also bolstered our team, internal team, on the construction development side by a couple people over the last couple years, and we just hired someone about a month ago as well. So we feel really good there, but we also see there's really good acquisition opportunities. We mentioned the one in Florida that we're very excited about that we announced today, which are last mile assets, really irreplaceable locations. We think there's a good mark-to-market ramp we'll realize over time as leases roll, and are thrilled to have that. And we think there'll be increasingly some additional opportunities as we move forward through the year. I think being a well-capitalized company that controls its own capital without external committees and other things, I think puts us in a good position in maybe a little bit more of an uncertain capital market environment.
spk03: Great, that's really helpful. And then maybe on the pipeline of some of the forward deals that you've done, there's been a little bit of a pushback in some of those transactions in terms of stabilization or closing. That's just a function of construction, and have you guys thought about bringing some of those in-house to control that process a little bit better?
spk01: Yeah, so I think on the latter question, it's really a deal with kind of these other developers, so I don't think it's really an opportunity to bring in-house. And as you alluded to, I think that the timing is really driven by a series of things that I think everyone sort of experiencing in really the construction space and particularly in the industrial space, which has just been delayed. And what I comment on is, you know, a number of these forward transactions are with probably a couple of the largest industrial merchant builders in the country. And their GCs are some of the largest general contractors in the country for industrial. And they're facing some of the same delays in materials. But in all honesty, some of the delays for a couple of the projects are more on the front end. As an example, in Charleston, the developer has taken them after they've had all their approvals and submitted for a building permit. It's taken seven months to get a building permit to do the vertical construction. So the site work's been done and completed, and they've recently received the building permit. But just an example that it's many different factors that are causing these delays, and it's kind of widespread across the industry. We're managing it where we can. As I mentioned, once we're undergoing construction, we're certainly putting in a lot of the spec improvements into the building so they're ready. We've preordered equipment that if, for example, can't be used on a certain development, we can relocate it to another development, for example, dock levelers. used kind of in the loading docks. Those now have a fairly significant lead time, but they are somewhat movable. So, we've ordered those in advance so we have them ready for move-in space. So, there have been a little bit of delays. We think they're all manageable. We think some of the construction timing timelines may start to come in a little bit. We're hearing some materials have better availability, but there's other things that get pushed out as well.
spk03: Well, I guess the good news is rents go up that whole time, hopefully. So last question for me on the rent front, your 23% cash mark to market, I think is what you said in your prepared comments. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. But that's a nice improvement from where you've been. So I guess, can you talk about, is that kind of a consistent trend that we should see across the portfolio in the coming quarters and next year as you think about some of these roles or any particular outliers that we should be looking for?
spk01: Yeah, so I did say 23%. And I think it's just a factor of the market. We try to be reasonably conservative in sort of forecasting rents. The market's really dynamic and really accelerating over the last three to six to nine months in terms of rent growth. So we try to make sure we're seeing deals officially being done at the levels that we're using that we think are comparable deals as opposed to relying on kind of what indicative rents might be or asking rents might be. So we try to really focus on that. And I think we're just getting more and more data points of where rents are being, deals are being done at, and therefore we're adjusting our mark to market accordingly. I mean, some of it's based on our own deals we're doing, but obviously we don't have that many leases rolling in any particular quarter or year. So we are relying on proven deals. It's pretty much across our portfolio. We're seeing rents continue to grow. All the markets are short space, all have low vacancy. We think that's going to sustain, growth is going to sustain for the next couple quarters, as I alluded to. I think there's a big pipeline of deliveries, but I think timing of those, based on the comment you just made about even our own forward pipeline, those continue to get pushed out for certain projects. So we think the rent growth environment, Maureen, is really robust. We expect to see continued improvement in our mark-to-market, and we think that's kind of driven across markets. And as I mentioned on our forwards, as I kind of said in my prepared remarks, we think those were in a great position because we don't really experience any of the cost inflation. And as rents continue to grow, it just continues to increase our initial underwritten yields on those projects. Great. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Dave.
spk00: And the next question will be from Connor Siversky from Barenburg. Please go ahead.
spk04: Good morning out there. Thanks for having me on the call. You guys already answered a lot of my questions. But just thinking about the shift in development margins, the expectations from Q4 to Q1, and in the footnote, you guys state that you're assuming Class A cap rate ranges for the current markets and that the costs are fixed in the contract. I'm wondering if this slight shift in margins is due to a change in those cap rate expectations or is it driven by timing or just rolling in the new projects into the pipeline? Thanks.
spk01: Yeah, I think it's really just the mix of projects that are in the pipeline and costs have shifted a little bit amongst those. So I don't think the movement in the margin was too high. I think it was a couple percent. So I think it really was just a mix. We did add one new project. We're probably being conservative because it's new and a little bit further out into the development pipeline as well. But, again, I think the movement overall is fairly small, so I think it's more just a slight mix and reallocating some costs than any real change in cap rate outlook or yield outlook on the projects.
spk04: Okay, thanks for that. And then just thinking in terms of some of the commentary from earnings that had some pressure on the industrial REITs in general. I mean, in terms of leasing expectations going forward, do you expect a shift in the tenant base at all? Or, you know, are different types of tenants, different business segments pulling back where others may be seeing the same kind of demand for industrial space?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, I think it's – obviously there's an announcement by one of the biggest takers of industrial space over the last couple years, a couple weeks ago, that seemed to have an impact on the sector overall. You know, I think one thing I'd say, and I think all our peers obviously had their earnings a couple weeks ago, but I think we all had seen Amazon slowing and, frankly, had pulled way back earlier in kind of the quarter, you know, earlier. So the first quarter, everyone had sort of seen Amazon pull back, and demand was really, really strong from a whole variety of tenants. Right. I think it's logical if Amazon's pulling back by e-commerce broadly just because they're a big piece of it, maybe shrinking. I think our other peers commented on that as well. Just not shrinking overall, but shrinking as a percent of the demand. But I think what we're seeing is a couple of different things. One, continued omni-channel retailers bolster their e-commerce efforts. I described kind of what you call sort of the home improvement chains, Lowe's and Home Depot. doing a lot of kind of last mile delivery facilities. Best Buy, again, we've seen in the market doing a lot of that. Some of the other retailers, for example, Macy's announced a 1.4 million square foot build to suit in the Charlotte market for e-commerce. So we think there's all the other players catching up to what Amazon's kind of built and done over the last couple of years, continues to be a really strong driver. But what we've seen, if you look at our tenant roster, even our top 10 tenants that's in our supplement, we always had a very, very diverse group of tenancy. So whether it's industrial type supply, tires, 3PLs that support consumer product companies and healthcare companies, those all still are really active. And what we've seen a lot of them focus on is really shortening their delivery times. And that's been a focus for a couple of years that kind of that day of waiting three or four days apart from your automotive supplier, that just doesn't cut it anymore. They want to have two-day delivery across the country. We have a tenant in Charlotte that's one of the biggest distributors of Brigham Stratton engines, and they expanded their number of facilities exactly for that reason. They needed to have two-day delivery. And I think with the continued inflation trends we're seeing in the market with wages, availability of drivers, fuel costs. One way for all these companies to reduce their supply chain costs is to have more widely distributed warehouse facilities. That's a big saving. So we continue to see a drive for shorter times and saving money. And so we're seeing continued widespread demand across a lot of sectors. So we think even with the slowdown that Amazon said they're going to have in their absorption, you know, they're taking up space in the next while. All the other sectors have been picking up and focused a lot on supply chain efficiencies, which we think is very bullish for the sector.
spk04: Got it. That's helpful, Culler, and a lot to chew on. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thanks.
spk00: And the next question is from John Nicodemus from BTIG. Please go ahead. Hello. Good morning, everyone.
spk05: Just wanted to ask about some more color surrounding the last mile industrial assets in Orlando and Palm Beach. Just curious what exactly last mile looks like in those two markets and then how the tenant base and rent growth potential for last mile compares to the remainder of assets in those two markets. Thanks.
spk01: Yeah, so I think as a general comment on our portfolio, you know, we do have different assets that we say are last mile infill regional. And sometimes it's the assets sort of the same. It's just a question of what the tenant inside is doing. So in reality, they're not dramatically different than some of our other assets. For example, the two buildings in Orlando are very similar to a couple other buildings we own in Orlando. One that is fully leased to Iron Mountain, which is fairly local shredding, paper storage. shredding everything else, and that's already a 100,000-foot tenant in our portfolio. The two Orlando assets are in a sort of similar type of park, fully built out, very close into Orlando. The tenants in that are sort of what I would call your classic kind of, not e-commerce, but last-mile tenants. One is a building product supplier that, again, has delivering construction goods to nearby construction sites. The other is Safelite Auto Glass is a tenant in that portfolio. Again, local auto glass is an example. Down in Palm Beach, again, there are buildings that are just located really where there's very little industrial. The current use is actually for an auto parts importer. It's kind of a specialized auto parts company. The company grew up in the area. This is their site. But next door and adjacent are sort of more what you would consider a typical last mile type delivery of food products, electrical contractors, and things like that. So, again, I don't think they're wildly different than some of the other assets in our portfolio. They just, you know, that's the location and that's the use, if that answers your question.
spk05: No, it definitely does, Michael. Really appreciate that. And then last for me, with the renewal that came in in April, Indus addressed the bulk of your expirations for this year. Saw 2023 looking pretty light as well. I think there was just six leases expiring. Just curious if you had any sort of an early read on known move-outs or renewals for next year. Thank you.
spk01: Yeah, not a ton of early read. Again, the 2023 ones are still pretty far out. What I'd say in 2022, I think there's about three left. I think we're in discussions for one of them. One is the building in Charlotte that we bought early this year where the tenant had a short-term lease there. We are actively looking. That tenant was may or may not stay. We don't really have a good read. It's a large European conglomerate that typically moves slowly. So we are looking to backfill that space. We think, again, the market's very tight there. There's a lot of tenant activity. So we think we'll do really well backfilling that if that's the direction we go. And that's kind of an August, July-August lease expiration. And then the only other expiration in 2022 is about 63 000 feet i believe which is actually the tenant that we're more than doubling their space and going into the pre-lease building that's going to deliver later in the quarter they need that 63 000 square feet for overlap so the reality is that space even though the lease comes up they're going to stay over as part of kind of the the pre-leasing of the new building they're going to stay over in that space into 2023 so we're not even going to get that space back likely until sometime in the first or early second quarter of 2023. Great.
spk05: Thanks so much, Michael. Really appreciate all the call today.
spk01: Great. Thank you.
spk00: And the next question is from Emmanuel Korchman from Citi. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hey, good morning, everyone. Just maybe sticking to that recent Charlotte acquisition, So if I just quickly Google the address, it looks like you've got your marketing docs. It was built in 2019, but it doesn't look like it was ever occupied until, I guess, this conglomerate that you just mentioned occupied it, though that's unclear because some places you say it was never occupied and others it has a short-term lease. I guess if I'm right and it wasn't occupied sort of at delivery, why not? We're hearing everywhere that supply is tight and it's so easy to lease industrial. Why would this building in particular not have leased more quickly, unless I'm just wrong in my analysis.
spk01: Yeah, so I think this building, you know, again, I don't have the dates exactly. You know, I think, in effect, it really delivered late 2019, early 2020. There's been a tenant. The company that's in it has been in it for more than a year. I'd say, you know, so it kind of delivered at the start of COVID or just, you know, right before COVID hit. I think Charlotte was a market – during COVID that there were a lot of deliveries in 2019, early, you know, sort of 2019, early 2020. You know, I think we bought another building in Charlotte, if you remember, a 400,000 foot building that delivered sort of similarly and was half leased when we bought it. And we, you know, fairly quickly leased up the second half in early 20, in middle, late 2021. And so I think there was a number of deliveries in Charlotte. COVID happened. I think Charlotte Certain markets kind of turned on kind of three to five months after the onset of COVID with kind of the scramble for last mile healthcare and other things was kind of that initial onset in 2020. And I think in Charlotte that happened a little bit later. We saw that through the market. And then 2021, things got very active in Charlotte. And like I said, the building we bought was half leased and then we bought it and fully leased it. And very quickly, A lot of buildings that were kind of 200 to 400,000 square feet that had vacancy at the start of 2021 all got absorbed really quickly. And when we bought the other building, the 400,000 foot building with 200,000 feet vacant, we saw, you know, tremendous activity, a number of buildings we thought would competitive buildings soon to be absorbed and we'd be in a great position. And that worked out with that, with that deal. So I don't know if there's anything particular to this building. I think the Charlotte market had a decent number of deliveries. I think it slowed in COVID like most markets did for a while. Charlotte, like certain markets were a little bit, you know, took a little bit while to get back into gear. But frankly, it's been super active in leasing in Charlotte and that market's done really well. So I don't think there's anything building specific. I think that was sort of the history of the Charlotte market for the last couple of years.
spk00: Thank you. And the next question will come from Mitch Germain with GMP Securities. Please go ahead.
spk07: Yeah, hi. Good morning. What does the pro forma balance sheet, you know, obviously you're paying down some debt with the term loan. What debt is specifically being paid down? Like, how should I think about the pro forma balance sheet, you know, after that transaction?
spk08: So, Mitch, it's John Clark. We're going to take out the first... for mortgages that we would have on our maturity schedule. We'll take that out in May. So it basically will satisfy all of our near-term mortgage maturities. About $62 million.
spk07: Doesn't touch the construction loan, or is that part of that?
spk08: No, we're not going to touch that. The construction loan is a pretty inexpensive borrowing for us, so at least for now we're not going to touch that one.
spk07: And if I consider, I think you guys are baking in about 3.5% growth in NOI quarter over quarter. Is that really just a function of there's just not as much activity that kind of happened since the start of the year? How should I think about that forecast?
spk01: Yeah, I think you hit it. Again, if you look at what we've leased up and when new deliveries are happening, we've had a little bit, as our schedule shows, a couple projects with slight delays. So from first quarter, second quarter, other than natural growth in certain rents, there's not a huge amount of new buildings or new leasing that's hitting versus the first quarter. We do think we're going to be adding projects into the second half of the year, as well as kicking in some of the rent growth from renewals and other things that will start to impact later in the year as well.
spk07: Great. And then I didn't miss, you didn't disclose the price of the Orlando Palm Beach assets, right?
spk01: No. Since we still haven't finished due diligence, the seller requested that we don't give the purchase price um or too much specific about it um in general what it says the cap rates you know more or less in line with kind of the past couple um full you know least uh building acquisitions we've done you know for you know within the ballpark of where those are gotcha and the last question for me the office flex sale um you seem to be positive on the activity so far um fact that it's under unencumbered certainly helps but you know has has
spk07: Is the buyer pool that you're talking to changed at all versus what maybe your expectations were because of some of the debt market volatility?
spk01: I'll take that, John. I think the buyer pool has been quite good. We really haven't seen a change versus our expectations going into it. We launched it, I think, mid-March or third week of March or so. We kind of hit the market And we haven't seen any drop-off in the buyer pool or change into what we expected. I think we've been probably a little bit more pleasantly surprised with the level of interest and number of buyers. Again, I'll caveat that it's a relatively small sale. The book value is, I think, $6.5 million plus. We think we'll do decently better than book value, but it's still a relatively small sale. But we've been pleased with what we've seen so far.
spk07: Thank you so much.
spk01: Thank you.
spk00: The next question is from Brian Holladin with Aegis Capital. Please go ahead.
spk06: Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. How are the local officials in markets that you are in reacting to kind of this increased demand for industrial space? Are they making it more difficult to build or is finding properly zoned land the primary hurdle to increase supply?
spk01: Yeah, I think it's both in your question, which is most areas where we're looking to put industrial, it's increasingly harder to do. One, the sites, properly zoned sites, just aren't really there and available for the most part in kind of the best locations. So you're really working to find good opportunities to do that. But you kind of hit it on the first part. A lot of towns are pushing back. or have been pushing back. In the Lehigh Valley, I think it's been a five- or six-year evolution of increasingly more difficult and restrictive zoning requirements. I don't believe in any of the townships in kind of the two counties that make up the core Lehigh Valley market that you can develop industrial by right. I think it's a special use or conditional use, a special exception or conditional use in every township. A couple of the cities are a little bit easier, but that's a pretty small piece of it. So that's very difficult. And in other markets we're in, you know, whether it's Connecticut, markets we're not in like, you know, Southern New Jersey, there's increasingly, you know, increasing opposition to more and more industrial. And so they just make it a little bit harder to get the approval. So I think that's why everything we own, we think is really valuable. And we think over time, it's going to continue to increase in value because everything's being pushed further and further away from where populations are and the most advantageous locations to distribute because it's a NIMBY issue. People don't want it in their backyard much as they want two-hour delivery. They just don't want it to come from next to their house. And so it is a challenge, but there are sites you can find, and we're working through – The site we actually did a build-to-suit for Amazon on was a rezoning we did in Charlotte, so certain markets are a little bit easier than others, but they're all getting more difficult. The first development we did in Charlotte was an area northeast of Charlotte, and that market, that region now has sort of a moratorium on spec building. It's allowed, but you can't get sewer capacity allocated to your site without having a tenant and justifying the number of jobs. So there's all kinds of roadblocks that are up that make it increasingly difficult, which again, we think if you can find the land and entitle it, uh, as well as the existing properties will continue to increase in value.
spk06: Thanks for that color. Uh, last one for me, kind of a macro question. Um, do you think we are, you know, at the beginning of a much longer cycle of us companies on shoring and overall, how many years. before supply, you know, matches demand and these, you know, sort of price increases normalize, you know, in your opinion?
spk01: Yeah, again, I would say that this ends up being more my opinion, and some of this is outside my core area of expertise. What I'd say on manufacturing is, look, I think companies, it takes a lot of investment and time to figure out your most efficient manufacturing, you know, footprint and how to do it. So I think There clearly seems to be a trend over time to at least have more distributed manufacturing, so you're not reliant on one port or one region that may or may not go into lockdowns. It seems logical. What I'd say is we are seeing manufacturing growth in markets we're in. Is some of that onshoring or some of that just general growth in the U.S. economy? Hard to tell. Again, I'll go back to Charlotte where there's a former Philip Morris plant that underutilized a couple thousand acre site that had lots of excess land. Philip Morris, 20 years ago, closed it down. In the last couple years, that site, which is close to a couple buildings we own, three buildings we own in Charlotte, in the Charlotte market, has attracted a huge number of manufacturing. And it includes an Asian kitchen cabinet manufacturer that relocated there to produce kitchen cabinets. local to be closer to obviously where their end use is. Red Bull has put a major beverage manufacturing facility there. Ball Corp, to help supply that Red Bull facility, but also to supply the region, then put a can manufacturing facility there. Most recently, Eli Lilly announced a couple billion dollar investment in a pharmaceutical plant there. I don't think a lot of that's reshoring other than maybe the furniture company, but it is just showing good manufacturing growth in the markets we're in. In terms of thinking longer term in supply and demand, I think it's hard to predict when that evens out. I think it's just a general macroeconomic question. I think e-commerce is going to continue to grow as a share of consumer spending. I think obviously after an unusual burst in 2020 and 2021, retail, general bricks and mortar retail is probably growing a little faster in 2022 than 2021 is what the data shows. But it just seems e-commerce is going to continue to grow. I mentioned the Macy's investment, other things. But again, I think companies are going to continue to focus on their supply chains and supply chain efficiency. And we think that continues to be a longer term tailwind. And it's Coupled with some of the comments earlier about supply delay in construction is going to continue for at least the next 12 to 18 months. It may normalize after that, but I think it's going to still be a fairly slow development process. You know, it used to be a couple years ago you could start a building, start the site work, and be done in nine months. Today it takes you a year to get certain components to begin with. So you're really looking at 12 to 15 months, plus the front end is taking longer. As I mentioned, permitting and entitlement time. We still think the supply is going to be chasing – supply is going to be slower to deliver than in the past. That will continue. So I think there's still a lot of really strong demand drivers out there. I think supply is going to continue to have struggle to meet that in the nearer term. I think it's difficult to predict what the overall economy will do, but just general economic growth pushes industrial – If housing continues to grow, that's going to drive industrial. And so we think there's just many levers that will continue to provide underlying demand, whether 15%, 20% rent growth, it's probably not sustainable for five years in a row, but it feels pretty good for the next couple quarters for sure.
spk06: Thank you.
spk00: And once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and 1. The next question is a follow-up question from Emmanuel Corchman from Citi. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hey, John. One for you. Just how much work have you done and where are you in the process of moving up the accounting system to allow you to report sort of closer to the peer group? Here we are into the, I don't know, it feels like the 18th week of earnings for me, though. We're not that far in. But where are you in the progress of getting the numbers out to us sooner?
spk08: Thanks, Manny, for the question. We went live with the accounting system this quarter, so this wasn't the quarter for us to move things up. But we had really good success from it, and the team's pretty excited about moving earnings calls up a little bit. So hopefully we can shorten that timeline for you, 2Q or 3Q.
spk02: Thanks very much.
spk00: And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. With no more questions, this concludes Indus Realty Trust's 2022 First Quarter Earnings Conference call. We thank you for joining us and enjoy your week. Take care.
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