American Assets Trust, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the American Assets Trust third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only 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 telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Weil, President and Chief Operating Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to American Assets Trust third quarter 2023 earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, our earnings release and supplemental information were furnished to the SEC on Form 8K. Both are now available on the Investors section of our website, AmericanAssetsTrust.com. And with that quick intro, I'll turn the call over to Ernest Rady, our chairman and CEO, to begin the discussion of our third quarter 2023 results. Ernest?

Thanks Adam and good morning everyone. During these times when the economic and business landscapes are so unpredictable, it has become imperative for us to focus on what we can control, including how we can adapt to meeting the evolving market demands in such a turbulent economy. Along these lines, we have a history of overcoming challenges with resilience, and we are confident that our high-quality operating platform and real estate portfolio will remain steadfast in spite of market adversity as we face persistent inflation, higher for longer federal funds rates, much tighter credit conditions, and truly unfortunate geopolitical instability and war. We are certainly not naive to the fact that the office sector in particular seems to be painted with a broad negative brush. It may take time for the office sector to see meaningful bifurcation of performance and value between the more modernized and amenitized office projects like ours versus that of commodity offices. But we are confident that we'll be on the right side of that equation. And not to mention, as we see replacement costs for high-quality property like ours soaring and likely to continue to climb over the years to come, I think that today's real estate prices for premier properties will be a bargain in the future. Meanwhile, in Q3 2023, we were once again encouraged by our operating fundamentals, which were stronger than our projections against the negative backdrop for commercial real estate. Nevertheless, we remain optimistic that our earnings trajectory for the rest of the years as we have once again increased our full-year guidance based on our better-than-expected performance so far in 2023. Candidly, the outlook beyond this year, at least in the short term, is less certain with the prevailing economic and global challenges. But as always, I promise you, we'll work hard, do our very best, and look forward to presenting our 2024 guidance next February. Adam, Bob, and Steve will go into more detail on our various asset segments, financial results, and guidance. But first, I want to mention that the Board of Directors has approved and maintained a quarterly dividend of 33 cents per share for the fourth quarter, which we believe is supported by our financial results. and is an expression of the Board's confidence in our expected performance. The dividend will be paid on December 21st to shareholders of record December 7th. Again, on behalf of all of us at American Asset Trust, we thank you for your confidence and continue support in allowing us to manage your company. I'm now going to turn the call back to Adam.

Thanks. Thanks, Ernest. At American Assets Trust, we focus our strategy and decision-making on what we believe will create long-term financial outperformance, specifically our portfolio of high-quality properties and our asset class diversity, which provides more stability and protection from risks associated with changes in economic conditions of a particular market or industry, our property locations and demographics, favoring cities with temperate climates, higher household incomes and education levels, near world renowned universities and transit centers, our fortress balance sheet and debt profile with a well staggered debt maturity schedule, our integration of property technologies to provide operational cost savings and efficiencies, our economically prudent ESG initiatives, and our integrity and transparency in our communications and business dealings with our stakeholders. We certainly believe that these factors together with consistently improving our properties is critical to remaining best in class among our peers and being fiercely competitive in the marketplace, which will enable our continued long-term success, notwithstanding the inevitable cycles of the real estate industry, including the one we are currently mired in. In fact, as of the end of Q3, we had our highest ever average monthly base rent per square foot for both our office portfolio and retail portfolio, and also highest average monthly rent per unit for our multifamily portfolio since our IPO. Pretty proud of that. Briefly on the office utilization front, a recent study by Resume Builder showed that 90% of companies plan to implement return to office policies within the next 12 to 14 months, with a meaningful amount of those companies also stating that they would threaten to terminate employees that don't comply. This, of course, comes as more and more CEOs contend that employee collaboration, engagement, mentorship, and productivity are clearly suffering without in-office presence. No surprise there. As labor forces soften and recessionary concerns ease, we believe many more large companies will begin to solidify future space plans. From what we can see based on tenant card swipes, access control records, and property manager estimates, we have seen an uptick in office utilization on average of a few percentage points at our properties since we last reported at the end of Q2, with Bellevue showing the most meaningful improvements. On the retail front where we stand just under 95% leased and comprises 27% of our portfolio NOI, we continue to see an improved leasing environment post-COVID as retail fundamentals have remained strong for the most part despite sustained headwinds. We had a significant retail renewal activity in Q3. Our comparable retail leasing spreads have maintained their favorable trajectory over the past year plus with an 8% increase on a cash basis and 19% increase on a straight-line basis for Q3 deals, an 8% increase on cash basis, and 15% increase on straight-line basis for the trailing four quarters. No doubt this is a testament to our best-in-class and well-managed retail properties that are absolutely dominant in their trade areas, which reside in supply-constrained and densely populated markets with favorable demographics. With respect to our multifamily communities, we continue to see positive, albeit decelerating, rent growth as we posted better than expected results in Q3. In our view, the deceleration of rent growth is due, in part, to an increased amount of applicants not meeting our income and credit requirements, not to mention general economic stress on individuals and families. Nevertheless, in San Diego, we saw leases on vacant units rent at an average rate of approximately 3% over prior rents. while rates on renewed units increased at an average of 11% over prior rents for a blended average of approximately a 6% increase. Additionally, in San Diego, net effective rents for our multifamily leases are now 9% higher year over year compared to the third quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, as expected, our occupancy in Pacific Ridge Apartments rebounded from just below 70% as of the end of Q2 to approximately 90% as of the end of Q3, with a move-in of USD students this fall. This has ticked up a few more percentage points since the end of Q3, with additional occupancy of units in October. In Q3 in Portland, at our Haslo on 8th, we saw a blended increase of approximately 4% in new move-ins and renewals, with concessions being offered on longer-term leases. Though net effective rents for our multifamily leases at Hasolo are approximately 3% higher year-over-year compared to the third quarter of 2022, the multifamily market in the Pacific Northwest has remained sluggish as our occupancy has softened. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob to discuss financial results and updated guidance in more detail.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Last night we reported third quarter 2023 FFO per share of 59 cents and third quarter 23 net income attributable to common stockholders per share of 20 cents. All in all, the third quarter was better than our expectations. Third quarter 23 FFO was flat compared to the second quarter of 23. Same store cash NOI ended at 1.8% growth year over year for the third quarter. Our same store office portfolio was flat in Q3 largely due to non-recurring rent deferral payments made in the comparable period. Excluding those payments received in Q3 of 2022, Q3 23 office same store would have been 2.1% and total same store cash NOI would have been 3%. On an individual office basis, we saw strong same store growth in Q3 at Tory Reserve of approximately 11%, Tory Point of approximately 5%, Landmark at approximately 2.5%, and La Jolla Commons at approximately 7%. Our same-store retail portfolio grew at 6.3% in Q3, primarily due to the commencement of new leases. Our same-store multifamily portfolio was flat in Q3, primarily due to higher vacancies at our household on 8th and Portland. and our mixed-use portfolio grew at 2.1% in Q3 because of higher revenue at our Embassy Suites, Waikiki Beachwalk. Speaking of Embassy Suites, Waikiki Beachwalk, our hotel continues to lead its competitive set in occupancy, ADR, and rev par year-to-date through September 23. It is worth noting that demand this past summer of 23 ended sooner than expected as occupancy dropped in the third week of August. This typically does not occur until after Labor Day weekend and was likely the result of the Maui fires, Japanese yen, and with the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, it makes it more attractive to travel internationally with Europe and the Caribbean as competing destinations. Our partners in Oahu now believe that our Japanese guests are slated to return more meaningfully late summer of 2024. The Japanese yen, which is now approximately 149 to the U.S. dollar, remains a major factor affecting the affordability of travel from Japan to Waikiki. Pre-COVID, it was approximately 105 to 108 to the U.S. dollar. While the U.S. Fed policy remains firm to keep inflation in check, pressure on the Japanese yen continues. However, on the positive side, demand from Japan was strong, with further growth held back by the lack of air seats For the current period, the infrastructure is in place with Honolulu's nearly complete airport renovation that can handle more and much larger planes from Japan, like ANA's Dreamliner. Delta Airlines also recently announced that it will begin daily round-trip service between Tokyo, Hanada, and Honolulu this month. ANA Airlines will also operate all 14 weekly round-trip flights on the Narita-Honolulu route beginning this December. This will bring the number of seats offered on the Honolulu route to a record high, including those before COVID. It's just a matter of time before we see the full return of our guests from Japan. In the meantime, the U.S. market has filled a large part of the Japanese void, in travel to Waikiki as shown in the following geographic revenue allocation. In 2019, approximately 40% of our revenue came from the US and 40% from Japan. In 2023, approximately 73% of our revenue has come from the US and just 9% from Japan. So that puts it more in perspective. Turning to liquidity. At the end of the third quarter, we had liquidity of approximately $490 million, comprised of approximately $90 million in cash and cash equivalents and $400 million of full availability on a revolving line of credit. Additionally, as of the end of the third quarter, our leverage, which we measure in terms of net debt to EBITDA, was 6.6 times. Our objective continues to be to achieve a maintained and maintain a net debt to EBITDA of 5.5 times or below. Our interest coverage and fixed charge coverage ratio ended the quarter at 3.5 times. We are well capitalized with no near-term maturities. We do have a $100 million unsecured debt maturity in July of 2024. We have several options for refinancing that debt maturity, including without limitations, another private placement, using our untapped line of credit on a short-term basis, or a new term loan, ultimately with an eye of potentially approaching the public debt markets again in 2025. We believe that we have several options and a good debt maturity ladder to work with, along with a great banking syndicate. Overall, I believe we are in pretty good shape. Let's take a moment and talk about 2023 guidance. We are increasing our 2023 FFO per share guidance range to $2.36 to $2.40 per FFO share with a midpoint of $2.38 per FFO share, a 2.6% increase from our previously stated guidance issued on our Q2 23 earnings call that had a range of $2.28 to $2.36 with a midpoint of $2.32. Let's walk through the following items that make up this increase in our 23 FFO guidance that was not previously included in our original 2023 guidance. First, our retail properties contributed approximately two cents per FFO share of outperformance in Q3, primarily as a result of lower operating expenses and collecting certain rents that we had previously reserved. Second, our office properties. contributed approximately one cent per FFO share of outperformance in Q3. Third, our multi-family properties contributed approximately one cent per FFO share of outperformance in Q3. And fourth, our Waikiki Beachwalk Embassy Suites contributed approximately half a cent of FFO share. And fifth, lower G&A expenses were slightly lower. Six, we expect our multifamily properties to contribute an incremental one cent per FFO share in Q4 due to leasing that occurred in Q3. These adjustments, when added together, are approximately six cents per FFO share to represent the increase in the 2023 midpoint over our previous 2023 guidance midpoint. While we believe the 2023 updated guidance is our best estimate as of this earnings call, We do believe that it is also possible that we could perform to the high end of this increased guidance range. As always, our guidance, our NOI bridge, and these prepared remarks exclude any impact from future acquisitions, dispositions, equity issuances or repurchases, future debt refinancings or repayments other than what we've already discussed. We will continue to do our best to be as transparent as possible and share with you our analysis and interpretations of our quarterly numbers. I also want to briefly note that any non-GAAP financial measures that we've discussed, like NOI, are reconciled to our GAAP financial results in our earnings release and supplemental information. I'll now turn the call over to Steve Center, our Senior Vice President of Office Properties, for a brief update on our office segment. Steve? Thanks, Bob.

At the end of the third quarter, our office portfolio was 86.8% leased, with our same store portfolio dropping 50 basis points to 89.7% leased, primarily due to a few known move outs. In the third quarter, we executed 10 leases totaling approximately 87,000 rentable square feet, including two comparable new leases for approximately 27,000 rentable square feet with rent increases of 10% on a cash basis and 13% on a straight line basis. Five comparable renewal leases totaling approximately 36,000 rentable square feet with rent increases of 5% on a cash basis and 14% on a straight line basis. and three non-comparable leases totaling approximately 24,000 rentable square feet, one of which was an approximately 14,000 rentable square foot medical tenant at Solana Crossing, yielding a $13 per rentable square foot annual triple net premium over a comparable office rent. We are encouraged by significant new leasing proposal and tour activity across our portfolio, including eight deals currently in lease documentation totaling approximately 55,000 rentable square feet, which would result in approximately 52,000 rentable square feet of net absorption once signed. Nine additional deals and proposals totaling 134,000 rentable square feet, which would result in approximately 93,000 rentable square feet of net absorption assuming those deals close. Of these numbers, at our new development La Jolla Commons III, we are currently in lease documentation for 14,000 rentable square feet and in proposals for an additional 61,000 rentable square feet with expected rents generally consistent with our development underwriting. No news to report on One Beach at this time. We continue to believe that strategic investments in our portfolio will position us to continue to capture more than our fair share of net absorption at premium rents despite current market headwinds. And while we are not immune to potential additional attrition due to current conditions, the attrition is waning and is expected to be more than offset by the new leasing activity just discussed. We have approximately 7% of the portfolio rolling in 2024, with the median suite size of approximately 3,600 rentable square feet, and of which approximately 30% of rentable square feet rolling is already in various stages of negotiation. We believe that the flight to quality for new tenants and the stickiness of quality for our existing customers with leases expiring will continue to drive solid performance from our office portfolio. I'll now turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A. Great job, you guys.

And before we get to the Q&A, I just want to give you a brief reminder. The statements made on this call include forward-looking statements based on current expectations, which statements are subject to risk and uncertainties discussed in the company's filings with the SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as actual events could cause the company results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. And now we'll begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Today's first question comes from Handel St. Just with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Handel.

Hi, good morning. This is Ravi Vaidya on the line for Hyundai. I hope you guys are doing well. Can we just dig into a bit, can we just dig into like what are the various bad debt or tenant credit kind of risks that are there within your various different segments in the portfolio?

Probably the only significant one is an office, and Steve, why don't you handle that?

Are you, Ravi, are you looking for, you know, the reserves that we're kind of placing on certain tenants in our portfolio?

Yeah, like watch lists, reserves, things along that line.

Yeah, so, I mean, we're keeping an eye on folks like at home on the retail side, Petco, UFC Gym, Rite Aid. On the office side, of course, we're keeping We work on the office side. We're keeping our eye on WeWork. And there's a few biotech tenants that we have in our portfolio that we're just making sure stay well capitalized. As you know, we've been fairly conservative in having these reserves on those tenants. And for the most part this year, we haven't needed most of those. But, you know, we'd rather under-promise and over-deliver on those.

That's helpful. Can you please quantify what that is on an AVR basis? of these expenditures?

I don't know that that's possible because there's so many variables, but net people are still paying rent.

Well, hey, Robbie, Bob here. You know, we can look at it from a different perspective. You know, we started out with $0.06 of reserves. And we've used probably 60% of those through the year, whether it was a bad debt expense or whether an adjustment or rent abatement or reduction in the rent one way or the other. So some of them have been used or applied in our financial statements. Right now, from a reserve standpoint, From the office, we have about a half a cent of office remaining, and we have about a half a cent of retail remaining.

That's for Q4.

Yeah, as we go into Q4.

Got it. That's helpful. And just wanted to touch on the embassy suites in Hawaii. It was nearly 90% occupied with a strong rate. But going forward, what do you have factored in in terms of a recession or pullback of discussions from American tourists? And what's your forecast for that looking forward?

For just the hotel, Waikiki Beachwalk? Yeah, primarily the hotel. So if we're going into Q4, you know, the hotel has seasonality, right? And So in Q4, historically, Q3 has been our strongest, and we're generally down about two, two and a half cents in Q3.

It's very difficult to predict what the tourist is going to do, but that is a great property and a great location and will do as well as anybody in the same set we are in. Reservations are no longer made a long time out. They're made short term. So far, so good.

Got it.

Hello?

Thanks, guys. Got it. Thank you. Great property.

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Todd Thomas at KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Antara on for Todd Thomas. Just a quick one for me. Would you mind talking a little bit more about the office portfolio and just describe the leasing environment today? I know occupancy was down a bit further in the quarter compared to 2Q, so any sense on whether you're seeing any stabilization in the near term?

Steve? We are on the rollover side. We're down to 7% rolling through the end of 2024. And the average median suite size is 3,600 feet. And 30% of that rollover is already in some form of discussion. We have really good new leasing activity. As I mentioned, we've got eight deals out for signature, one of which signed on Friday, totaling 55,000 feet, of which 52,000 feet is net absorption. And then we've got another nine deals that we're close to letter of intent on, two of which went to leases yesterday. And the reigning seven, the total of all that is 134,000 feet with about 90,000 feet plus of net absorption. So we think the attrition due to work from home or right sizing is waning. And we think the net absorption from the activity we've got right now will outpace that. any further attrition. So we think we've turned the corner.

Okay, thank you. Net-net, our office is well located. Steve's done a great job managing it, and the amenitization is really working to our advantage. So we're hopeful. We're certainly not as bad as the public opinion of office goes. I hope I'm wrong. Thank you for the question.

And specifically, could you touch on the assets in Portland and the Bellevue submarkets that lost a little bit of outsized occupancy? What current leasing trends are there in those submarkets and how do you feel about recovery for those assets?

Starting with Bellevue, suburban Bellevue, first of all, Eastgate is where we experienced most of it and it's not unexpected. When we bought the asset, much of it was leased as commodity office space. We're making good investments in that property and the rent spreads that we've achieved Thus far, prove that theory up, and we're going to complete phase two of that renovation mid-next year. So we think that asset will come on strong in 2024 and beyond. City Center Bellevue is actually doing really well. We just went to letter of intent yesterday on the top two floors of that building. We've got another full floor in leases. So the CBD is recovering right now, and the suburbs follow. So we think both our I-520 corridor assets and the I-90 corridor asset, which is Eastgate, will follow the recovery in the Central Business District. And in Portland... Go ahead.

Go ahead. I'd say Eastgate is one of the best opportunities I've ever run across in my career. It's just a fantastic piece of property. Go ahead, Steve. Sorry for interrupting.

Oh, no worries. And then in Portland, you know, we're doing well. We had a couple of full floors come back in the Lloyd District, but we've got some good current leasing activity. We have three deals pending at the 710 building, which we recently completed the renovation of. That will be two-thirds of that building if we close those leases. And then we've got some good new activity there. We're just adding some additional amenities to Lloyd Center Tower. And, you know, we're actually – pretty encouraged by our activity relative to that market. And then downtown, we have limited vacancy. We got one space back that the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting station, they closed that office. But we've got space rolling in 25 that we've got multiple suitors for. So we're encouraged by our activity. And that's really due to, again, investment in amenities at our first and main building downtown. It's one of the three top buildings in that marketplace and the activity we're seeing is representative of that.

Great. Just one quick one for me.

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Ronald Camden with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, Ron. Hey, guys. It's Adam Kramer on for Ron. Good to chat as always. Just wanted to ask about the maturity schedule for your outstanding debt. Well, it looks like 2024, pretty limited. I think just 100 million senior notes in July. But I think in early 2025, it looks like a number of debt pieces that come due. I think kind of totaling it, it looks like around $500 million, maybe a little bit over $500 million in maturities through kind of early 2025. I'm wondering if you could just kind of walk through what you guys are thinking in terms of kind of these $500 million in maturities. Again, I know some of it's not for a little bit, but, you know, we are getting close to 2024 here, so it's not too far away. So maybe just walk through plans for maturities here.

You know, that's the hardest question I've ever heard because interest rates are so uncertain and the economy is so uncertain. But we will have options available to us that are available to anybody in the marketplace. And so we'll just have to wait until we get there and see what the landscape looks like. But we have a history of being able to take advantage of the opportunities when they're available, and we look upon that as an opportunity. So I don't know what the hell is going to happen two years out.

Hey, Adam, this is Bob. I just want to add to Erna's comments. So in the script, we also talked about it as well. I don't know if you were listening to that, but we have $100 million maturity in July of 2024. And, well, you know, we have a lot of options. You know, we got $100 million plus on cash in the bank right now. We got a $400 million unsecured revolving line of credit that's untapped. So there's a lot of ways we can go, including doing a short-term payoff on that $100 million maturity in July of 24 and take that out to the maturities of 25, roll that all into a public debt offering if all the stars align on that. and we've already been to the public debt market, so people know who we are. Additionally, part of 25 has a couple extensions, options to extend if we want to, so for probably half of that. There's a lot of ways to go, and we could go term loan, private placement. We could go, I mean, the one thing that we know is that interest expense will go up, and we're factoring that into our 24 guidance when we share that in February 24. But all in all, I think we're really in pretty good shape. We have a lot of ways to go, great banking syndicate, and I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, it does. It does. That's helpful. Maybe just on occupancy, and I know you talked about this in the prepared remarks too, but just looking at kind of sequentially, it looks like office occupancy and lease percentage was down a bit. I know multifamily was up. I know part of that is from the kind of the student housing element, and I think multifamily to 89.5 is probably still below kind of industry averages. Maybe just walk through I guess first on the office side, where we can expect least percentage to be, and then on multifamily, how do we get that maybe a little bit closer to industry averages in the low 90s?

I guess we'll start with office. As I mentioned in our remarks, I think we've turned the corner, so I would expect to climb above 90% in 2024. But as important, if not more important, the rent spreads are good, and they vary from quarter to quarter, but We've got some really positive things happening. Our NOI is actually up for the three-quarters this year versus last year. I'm encouraged by the performance in terms of rent spreads. I can't control right-sizing of companies. We're not losing tenants to competitors. If we're losing it, we're losing it to work-from-home and right-sizing. But again, we're down to just 7% rolling in 2024, and the median space is small at 3,600 feet. We're in play on 30% of that rollover, and our rents are good. So I think we'll cross back over to the 90-plus percent range in 2024, and we'll go from there.

On multifamily, we're using this opportunity to really reposition and upgrade several of our properties in San Diego. Of course, Pacific Ridge is dependent on USD, and Portland is a very special situation. So I don't know exactly what the numbers are going to be, but they'll be all they can be because we're improving the properties that we own. Abigail, do you want to add anything to that?

Sure. In San Diego right now, we are operating at about 93% occupied, and our lease percentage right now is just right under 94%. So when we look at it in terms of our competitors, there's approximately about a 7%. availability to rent. So when we look at our portfolio, we're right on par with the lease percentages, the availability to rent, and our occupancy is where I believe it should be right now. Adam and Ernest have mentioned quality. Our communities are in great locations. We have great team members who operate the properties really well. Our pricing is right where they should be. in terms of where we compare to the county averages. And, you know, we are trying to offer positive experience in customer service in addition to great product. And I think we're faring well in comparison to our competitors in the market.

And, Adam, as we mentioned, Adam, as we mentioned, Hatalo, Portland, has been slow. Pacific Northwest in particular, absorption has eroded. There's been an oversupply. So occupancy is down there, and that's kind of dragging the overall numbers. But we're hopeful that we'll get those back up to be more in line with where we think it should be.

Great. Thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. And this concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Ernest Rady for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to say thank you all for your interest. These are very turbulent times, and the fact that you still care is very important to us. I think that when all this is said and done, we will have differentiated ourselves from the pack. The quality of the portfolio, the excellence of the management with all due immodesty will say to the market that, you know, this is an above-average group with above-average performance. and we'll be grateful for your continued interest. So thank you, and have a good day. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.