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spk09: hello everyone and welcome to the hudson pacific properties fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call my name is emily and i'll be coordinating your call today after the presentation there will be the opportunity for any questions which you can ask by pressing start followed by the number one on your telephone keypads i'll now turn the call over to our host laura campbell executive vice president executive vice president investor relations and marketing Please go ahead.
spk00: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Victor Coleman, CEO and Chairman, Mark Lamas, President, Haruthi Ramiram, CFO, and Art Suazo, EVP of Leasing. Yesterday, we filed our earnings release and supplemental on an 8K with the SEC, and both are now available on our website. The audio webcast of this call will be available for replay on our website. Some of the information we'll share on the call today is forward-looking in nature. Please reference our earnings release and supplemental for statements regarding forward-looking information, as well as the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures used on this call. Today, Victor will discuss our 2023 accomplishments and 2024 priorities, along with macro trends across our markets. Mark will provide detail on our office and studio operations and development, and Harut will review our financial results and 2024 outlook. Thereafter, we'll be happy to take your questions. Victor?
spk18: Thanks, Laura. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. 2023 proved to be a challenging year as higher interest rates fueled recession fears and slowed the pace of office leasing across the country. Many industries, including tech, focused on cost cutting in part through layoffs and real estate downsizing. And while the nationwide office leasing activity improved incrementally in the fourth quarter, remained about 10% below the five-year quarterly average. Furthermore, a once-in-a-generation dual studio union strike effectively shut down the entertainment industry. In Los Angeles, 2023 film and TV production in aggregate fell approximately 40% compared to the prior year, led by scripted TV, which fell close to 70%. Against that backdrop, And within our portfolio, in many of the most impacted markets, our team has remained steadfast in our priorities to navigate these uncertain times. Aggressive leasing, further strengthening our balance sheet, in part through asset sales, executing our active development opportunities, as well as maintaining a leadership position in ESG. Specifically, we signed 1.7 million square feet of office leases in 2023, averaging over 420,000 square feet per quarter. We executed on over a billion dollars of asset sales, which enhanced liquidity, allowing us to address our debt maturities until fourth quarter 2025 and improve our leverage metrics. We're also on track to deliver our Sunset Glen Oak studios and Washington 1000 development projects this quarter. And we received multiple ESG accolades. All of this we accomplished while quickly pivoting to streamline studio operations and maximize non-production revenue during an historic strike. The Fed's January commentary did little to encourage a major shift in corporate sentiment around office leasing, but we continue to observe a variety of trends in our core industries and markets that are favorable. In the fourth quarter, tech leasing rebounded to approximately 15% of all activity, up from 10% in the fourth quarter last year, but still 5% to 10% below pre-pandemic levels. In aggregate, tech layoffs appear to be slowing. Tech employment still exceeds pre-pandemic levels and is relatively strong compared to other industries. AI is in its early innings and has been an important driver of growth, comprising of around 40% of leasing activity in the San Francisco market in the fourth quarter. In the years to come, we expect to see second and third waves of AI growth as big tech builds out their own teams and non-tech companies implement AI services, both increasing the demand for office space. Venture funding levels for the full year 2023 were in line with 2020 and are still strong. Most of the funding that has disappeared versus peak years of 2021 and 2022 is for very large deals, say 250 million plus, whereas smaller deals are only 25% off peak. And while tech has embraced the hybrid model, Research indicates companies that are working on innovative, evolving technologies have a much stronger preference to be in the office. These are small to medium-sized companies requiring 30,000 square feet or less that are growing and looking for space to support that growth. This is our area of expertise in the Silicon Valley and a trend we should benefit from in our leasing tours and pipeline. Turning to our studio segment, following SAG's contract ratification in December, Production companies have been slow to green light new productions. And in January, production counts remained approximately 20% below 2021 and 2022. Based on the level of activity we're seeing real time, we now anticipate that production levels may not materially improve until the second half of the year. Media companies are still adjusting their business models through both revenue generating and cost saving measures. But original content remains integral to subscriber growth. And as an example, Netflix, one of our largest tenants, recently reaffirmed $17 billion of content spend for the year, which is in line with their 2021 and 22 pre-strike spend. On the transactions front, we successfully executed on three asset sales in the quarter, generating almost $890 million of gross proceeds. Most notable of these was our $700 million sale at approximately a 6% cap rate, for our One Westside and Westside 2 office redevelopment to UCLA, which we owned 75-25 with Mace Rich. The fact that in the five years plus since acquiring this asset, we found not one but two high-quality, innovation-centric end users for this asset is a testament to our ability to identify and execute on unique opportunities and ultimately realize significant value for our shareholders. We'll be working with UCLA on their build-out for certain elements of this project on a fee basis going forward. We also sold certain tranches of a loan secured by our Hollywood media portfolio for $146 million and a parcel of land in North San Jose for approximately $44 million. All of these proceeds served to significantly enhance our leverage and liquidity positions. We also received additional ESG recognition in the fourth quarter. We were named an Office America's Sector Leader by Gresby for the third year in a row, and for a second year in a row, Nereid's Leader of the Light for Office, and one of Newsweek's America's Most Responsible Companies. Our focus on ESG continues to further differentiate our platform and assets while providing value for our tenants, our employees, and our shareholders. At Hudson Pacific, we remain committed to our long-term strategy of optimizing our unique portfolio and platform to take advantage of future growth opportunities as they arise. In 2024, our priorities are fourfold, aggressive leasing within our office and studio portfolios, executing on opportunistic dispositions, successfully progressing our New York studio development, and further deleveraging and fortifying our balance sheet. In so doing, As the next wave of growth takes hold, we will be well positioned to leverage our portfolio, expertise, and relationships to benefit our shareholders. Now I'm going to turn the call over to Mark.
spk19: Thanks, Victor. We signed 432,000 square feet of office leases in the fourth quarter. 75% of these were renewal leases, and close to 65% of that activity was in the San Francisco Bay Area, including a 57,000 square foot renewal with GitHub at 275 Brennan. Our cash rents decreased just under 10%, while gap rents decreased 2%, largely driven by two mid-size renewals in the San Francisco Bay Area, the expiring leases for which were signed at the top of the market. But for these two renewals, our cash rent spreads would have been flat. Our in-service office portfolio ended the year at 81.9% lease, with approximately 75 of the 120 basis point decrease between the third and fourth quarter attributable to the sale of One West Side. We are still seeing tour demand accelerate. During the quarter, we had over 145 tours representing 1.4 million square feet of requirements of 4% since last quarter and 50% higher than this time last year. Our leasing pipeline also remains active with deals and leases LOIs or proposals totaling 1.9 million square feet, slightly below last quarter, but still up almost 6% year over year. In 2022 and 2023, we had an atypically high number of office leases expiring, largely the result of short-term renewal leases signed during the pandemic. We also had several large 100,000 square foot plus leases rolling. This year, we have a more manageable 1.5 million square feet expiring, which is aligned with our long-term average. This includes only one tenant and known vacate of just over 100,000 square feet expiring. We currently have a variety of activity that is deals signed in leases, LOIs, proposals, or discussions on approximately 40% of that space, which is relatively on track for this time of year. Importantly, while we cannot control how and when demand will return, We remain confident in our portfolio along with our team's ability to drive tour activity and execute on leasing in an effort to expedite closing timelines. That said, we are not banking on any material improvements in the operating environment this year. Our occupancy will likely be under pressure at least in the first three quarters of the year with a potential to return to essentially flat occupancy by year end. This is based on both our historical leasing trends and informed directly by our team's detailed space-by-space, lease-by-lease assessment of our portfolio and what we believe should be achievable. Turning to our studios, on a 12-month basis, our in-service studios were 80.4% leased and our stages were 84.7% leased, with the change largely attributable to a single tenant giving back six stages in support space in the second and third quarters due to the strike. Our KOD studios and stages were 29.3% and 30.1% leased, respectively, in a 12-month basis. In terms of our service business, in the fourth quarter, production resumed on certain of our long-term lease stages, which led to a 7% increase in combined lighting and grip and other services revenue. We also grew our transportation revenue by approximately 10% from live events. Even as it's taking time for shows to enter production, we have seen a pickup in demand. From December to January, we saw a 45% increase in studio tours and more than a doubling in stage-related inquiries. Utilization across our transportation assets also picked up incrementally in January. Looking out over the next 90 days, 45% of our available stages are booked, which is a new high watermark since the strike. following a multi-cam reality show taking all three stages at COD New Orleans. As for our in-process developments, Sunset Glen Oaks is effectively complete and we are awaiting Department of Water and Power sign-off required for certificate of occupancy, which we expect to have next month. We pushed out our completion date to first quarter to reflect this updated timing. We are actively touring and engaging with an array of productions interested in either long-term or show-by-show leases. Construction continues at Sunset Pier 94, which will deliver year-end 2025, and we are in discussions with multiple tenants interested in long-term, multi-stage leases. As for our Washington 1000 development, we are finalizing FF&E and other marketing improvements as we await certificate of occupancy, which we also expect to receive next month. Large tenant demand in Seattle has yet to come back in a material way, but we are staying flexible and actively touring full-floor users. The building is stunning, and we expect interest to accelerate once tenants can fully experience its impeccable design and fantastic indoor-outdoor amenities, especially vis-a-vis competitive product. And now I'll turn the call over to Arun.
spk01: Thanks, Mark. Our fourth quarter 2023 revenue was $223.4 million compared to $269.9 million in the fourth quarter of last year, mostly attributable to the sales of Skyway Landing, 604 Arizona, and 3401 Exposition, previously communicated tenant move outs at 1455 Market and 10900 slash 10950 Washington, as well as a reduction in studio services and other revenue due to the related union strikes. Our fourth quarter FFO excluding specified items was $19.6 million or 14 cents per diluted share compared to 70.2 million or 49 cents per diluted share in the fourth quarter last year. Specified items for the fourth quarter 2023 consisted of deferred tax asset write-off expense of 6.6 million or 5 cents per diluted share and transaction related expenses of 0.2 million or 0 cents per diluted share. Prior specified items consisted of transaction related expenses of 3.6 million or $0.03 per diluted share. Our fourth quarter AFFO was $21.5 million or $0.15 per diluted share compared to $62.1 million or $0.43 per diluted share in the fourth quarter last year. Our fourth quarter same-store cash NOI was $116.1 million compared to $127.4 million in the fourth quarter last year with a change mostly attributable to the large vacate at Fortune 55 market and midsize tenant move outs in San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley combined with a single tenant vacating state stages at Sunset Las Palmas during the strike. Note that our 2023 full year outlook assumed a 1.5% same store cash and a wide growth at the midpoint, including one west side, which was sold five days prior to the end of the fourth quarter and where we experienced the full benefit of cash rents in 2023 our full-year office same-store cash NOI growth would have been 3.8%. This also includes 170 basis points of growth attributable to the WeWork letters of credit, which we drew down in the fourth quarter and were not accounted for in our 2023 full-year guidance assumptions. Turning to the balance sheet. Following our $482.2 million mortgage loan refinancing at Bentall Center with Blackstone, and the full repayment of our construction loan from the sale of One Westside and Westside 2. We have no maturities until November 2025. Further, we use the net proceeds from One Westside and Westside 2, as well as the sales of Plowton and the Hollywood Media portfolio to repay outstanding amounts under our unsecured revolving credit facility. As a result, we improved our share of net debt to Undepreciated Book to 36.5% and our share of net debt to EBITDA at 8.9. We finished the year with approximately $800 million in total liquidity comprised of approximately $100 million of cash and cash equivalents and $700 million of undrawn capacity under our unsecured revolving credit facility. The undrawn capacity of our credit facility reflects reduction under commitments to $900 million in association with favorable adjustments made to our related definitions, and covenant calculations this quarter. We also have another approximately $200 million of undrawn capacity under our Sunset Glen Oaks and Sunset Pier 94 construction loans. Now I'll discuss our 2024 outlook. As always, this outlook excludes the impact of any potential dispositions, acquisitions, financings, or capital markets activity or disruptions in studio operations related to an active strike. We're providing a first quarter and initial full year 2024 FFO outlook in the range of $0.15 to $0.19 and $1 to $1.10 per diluted share respectively. There are no specified items in connection with this guidance. We are introducing first quarter guidance to provide greater visibility around how our initial expectations for earnings in the early part of the year compared to our full year projections. More specifically, While we are seeing steady improvement in production activity since SAG's contract ratification in December, most of the current activity relates to returning shows rather than new productions, the acceleration of which is an important driver of demand of our QOD studios and services. We expect new activity to continue to ramp up into the second half of the year, which should in turn contribute to steady improvement in our quarterly FFO outlook. Now we'll be happy to take your questions. Operator?
spk09: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please do so now by pressing star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and would like to be removed from the queue, you can press star and then two. Our first question today comes from Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
spk15: Hey, morning out there. Just two questions. First, a lot of us on the call clearly understand real estate. We don't understand the movie business. So as we look at the guidance and the first quarter guidance, can you just help us understand the media walkthrough and the ramp? And then Victor, to your point about the studios just taking a bit longer, is there an assumption that that 100 million of noi that you guys lost because of the strikes that that will come back or is you know meaning annualized this year or is that something that could get pushed out you know the recovery of that 100 million could get pushed out to like 26 or beyond but let me start with the generic um alex so thanks for the questions and then i'll let uh jump in on the first on the first part uh we'll walk you up the ramp a little bit okay so
spk18: Our prepared remarks sort of indicated in the last quarter that we assumed when the strike was ending in November and then it wasn't ratified until December, the production would cease and desist until January. The current state of affairs right now is any production that was in filming is back up and running now. Anything that was greenlit now has to be greenlit again. And the timeline has been delayed because writers had stopped writing. They couldn't write. And so we assumed that we would have a back-end year. And that's been the assumption and how we've ramped you up to the second half of the year. It may be, you know, second quarter, late second quarter. We're very comfortable it's going to be third and fourth. And seasonality is not going to play as much of an issue going forward on that basis. In terms of the $100 million, yeah, we think we're going to get there this year. But it could trickle through the first quarter. It's clearly been January. The holds for the sound stages and the activity is there. The production has not been executed because the script writing and other aspects around that have not been completed. We do think there are multiple holds that are going to be executed for leasing. And I think pretty much comfortable that how we've looked at this analysis being at, you know, this quarter is going to be low relative to the fourth quarter, which will be high. that step up is exactly where we believe that it's going to be.
spk01: Haruj, you want to walk through it? Sure. So, Alex, good question on the impact on the media on our guidance. So, you know, the media, specifically CHIOTI and the timing around the activity there is contributing about 15 cents of our FFO. So, meaning had that normalized quicker, we'd have 15 cents more of FFO. And you can kind of see that in our, result of activity for the remainder of the year we're going from roughly a midpoint of 17 cents in q1 to an average of I think almost 30 cents the rest of the year if you you know back into the number and that basically is the biggest drivers chiodi as a result of again the the slower ramp up of the studio business I think if you normalize for that you know we'd be much more in line
spk15: Okay, and then the second question is, maybe Art can comment. One of the positives that we were hoping for this year, last year you guys were hit by block, which was a big impact. WeWork, big impact. This year, the granularity of the lease exposure was much smaller. I think the biggest one was like 90,000 and then 80,000, and then it dropped off precipitously, so it was much more smaller impact. Based on your leasing comments that occupancy could decline through the third quarter, that leasing, tech leasing is still tepid, do we still have comfort or do you guys still have comfort in the granularity of this year's lease exposure that we won't really see big impacts the way we did last year? Or are you viewing that the lease exposure this year, while smaller tenants, we could end up with sort of the same treasury, if you will, this year that we saw last year.
spk19: Alex, this is actually Mark, because those are my comments as it related to softness in the first part of the year. I'll just give you a little bit of color around that. And then, you know, Art can comment on, you know, status of some of the upcoming expirations. But yeah, so our own expectations is that for the first half of the year, we're likely to see a bit of softness on our occupancy levels relative to where we ended the year, with steady improvement in the back half of the year. Just to put a finer point in terms of what that blows down to in terms of numbers, if you take our 12-31-23 expirations together with our scheduled 24 expirations, about a million seven feet of total expirations, If you take, say, 40% retention on that, which would be an historically conservative amount, we typically retain better than that amount. But if you took 40%, it's about 700,000 feet of that. We've already executed 75,000 feet of that. That leaves us about a million feet of leasing to do on existing availability. We've already executed about 160 of that. So that leaves you about 840,000 to spec new leasing. Tad Piper- On existing availability it's fairly to to get back to where we ended the year on occupancy so 840 is you know fairly. Tad Piper- You know high level of activity, as we indicated in our prepared remarks, you know the team is. Tad Piper- As we do every year heading into year and we do a very, very detailed deep dive into every asset every available space. And as we said today, we think that number is achievable, which is why we commented in our prepared remarks that we think it's a good site to get back to year-end 2031-23 occupancy by end of this year.
spk14: And Alex, we're 40% inactive process right now, which we feel really good about. But you made a comment about small tenants. Yeah, that's exactly right. That number is going to grow because You know, our average tenant size is well under 10,000 square feet. They're, you know, later year. And these tenants aren't engaging just yet. So this doesn't reflect that. Once they start engaging, you know, the small tenants are going to, that number in the aggregate is going to help us a great deal.
spk04: Thank you.
spk09: The next question comes from Michael Griffin with Citi.
spk08: Please go ahead. Hello, Michael. Your line is now open.
spk09: Please proceed with your question.
spk02: Sorry. Sorry, I was on mute there. Question for Harut, just kind of on the cash balance and sources and uses. You know, if we look, I guess, relative to last quarter, from this quarter, your cash balance went up about $25 million. But then I'm just trying to reconcile the $700 million that came in from the One West Side proceeds and then paying off the construction loans there gets me to about $500 million or so. Maybe you have net cash proceeds. So could you walk me through kind of where the remainder of that went? And any commentary around that would be helpful.
spk01: Sure. Just a reminder, the $700 million is not all ours. We have a 25% partner. And so we take the $700 million. There are some closing costs. There is a holdback of about $16 million that we should get by the end of 2024. And the remainder was first used to pay down the construction loan. And then our net proceeds were used to pay down our line of credit. So, you know, every dollar, every extra dollar we had, we used to pay down line of credit. So we have another, like I said, another 16 million coming to us. Well, split between us and Mace Ridge, that will come at the end of 2024.
spk02: Gotcha. That's helpful. And then maybe just a more broad question on your markets and distressed opportunities you're seeing out there. Obviously, it seems like one of the priorities is to pay down debt and get the balance sheet in better order. But if you do see distress out there, could you look to capitalize on any opportunities?
spk18: Yeah, Michael, listen, we're not seeing the stress that is attracting us right now. We are evaluating price per pound and the cap rate movements in all of our markets. But there's not a tremendous amount of deals out there that are truly um uh the forefront deals that i guess uh hudson would want to you know partake in right now um we've got our finger on the pulse clearly as to what's in the marketplace i would say the activity that you're seeing that has been you know obviously given back to some of the lenders or certain sellers are looking to sell assets there's more more about like an owner user type aspect versus a value add aspect right now. That being said, I think we're going to see some opportunities that may be intriguing with existing partners on assets that we may have opportunities of taking out at some pretty good valuations for the company to move forward on if there's upside in those assets. So we're in the market. I would say, of course, everybody's focused on San Francisco because of its depressed aspect. There's only been a few deals done there. There's going to be opportunities in Seattle. There's going to be opportunities in the Valley. And there's also going to be opportunities in Los Angeles.
spk05: Great. That's it for me. Thanks for the time.
spk09: The next question comes from Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk03: Great. Thanks. Good morning. I was hoping you guys could give a little bit more color. I know you guys are done breaking out studio versus office same-store guidance, but I do think that coming into 2024, there was some optimism that the studio side could show some better results in the services business that could offset some headwinds on the office side. So, you know, any sort of general color you could give on the contribution of each of those to the overall same-store number would be really helpful.
spk01: So, you know, we made a decision a while ago to only provide same store for the company overall instead of breaking it out between the two. But you can see that the preponderance of our business is the office side. And, you know, that's been the driver of our projection. There's some growth, obviously, in the media side. But, you know, the driver for at least 2024 is office. But just as a reminder, the Coyote business, which is the operating business, is not in our same store numbers.
spk03: um if you add that in and and we change the definition of same store i think would be up five percent year over year so just to give you some context there okay that's that's helpful haru um just you know a follow-up on that um to dig in on the office side you do have a lot of vacancy at 1455 market from the block move out can you just give us an update on your thoughts around back filling that space and what's included in guidance if anything
spk18: Yeah, let me start and I'm going to have Art dig in. You know, we have right now in negotiations about 155,000 feet of deals. I think that could grow substantially with some existing negotiations and interest levels over the next, you know, 12 to 24 months. The assets uniquely positioned because of the current build out with Block and Uber, that space is so unique and large floor plates. that that seems to be where the interest level is. Clearly, the deals that we did with Block and Uber were in a different timeline. The market has shifted back to not necessarily where those levels were, but at least closer to where they were than where the rents would have been when they exited. So we still have a little bit of headroom there, and I think we're comfortable with some of the aspects on those deals that we're looking at.
spk14: Yeah, I mean, relative to our vacancy in San Francisco, I mean, the preponderance of it is in 1455 for the reasons Victor described. In addition to that, remember, it's really two buildings in one, right? It's not just the build-out, the residual value in the build-out, but it's 90,000 foot plates on the podium and 25,000 square foot plates in the tower, which is, you know, quite appealing to the users we're talking to. Yes, there's 150,000 square feet that we're actively in negotiations on right now. I just want to underscore that the growth behind it from within these tenants would happen fairly imminent.
spk03: Great. That's helpful. Last question for me. Can you talk about the impairment charge you guys took in the quarter and what that was driven by, just the situation around that?
spk01: Yeah, sure. You know, we were required to evaluate our assets. It's a gap evaluation, not a market evaluation, to be clear. This is not an indication of fair value, but just kind of an indication of where there might be some impairment in terms of the valuation compared to our book balance. And so it primarily, I mean, I don't want to get specific on it, but it primarily relates to a couple assets that compared to the undiscounted cash flow
spk03: don't seem to be long-term value adds so um i mean i know what else to say about that but that's it okay so just just to be clear this isn't uh to suggest that you guys are looking to kind of dispose of any assets but this was a revaluation that was triggered by something else correct okay thank you guys
spk09: Our next question comes from Kaitlyn Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk13: Hi, this is Julian Bluen on for Kaitlyn. Thanks for taking the question. I had a question on GNA. It looks like GNA is going to be a little bit higher year over year and certainly higher than we were expecting. I guess last year I think you mentioned you were looking to reduce costs and reevaluating GNA. and the company has yet to reinstate the regular dividend to common shareholders. I guess, what is driving G&A higher and are there any opportunities to lower it?
spk01: Let me answer the second one first. Yes, there's opportunities to lower it and we're going to constantly evaluate the G&A to make sure it's right size. The increase year-over-year is primarily driven by an incentive plan. So while the expense is high, it's really going to be driven by stock price and return. So it aligns the management's interest with the investor's interest, meaning the shares won't be issued unless we achieve certain hurdles. So for accounting purposes, they're valued at target, and those numbers can seem high. year-over-year but that doesn't mean you actually incur those costs because if you don't achieve those goals none of those shares are issued but the expense is still in our underlying numbers yeah I also thank you mark just remind me in the prior year you know we removed that portion of the incentive plan in 2023 which it caused an increase year-over-year from you know 20 to 24 if you compare that to If you compare G&A from 24 to 22, the increase isn't as stagnant. It's a small increase, but that's what drove the year-over-year increase. There's a lack of the same plan in 23 compared to 24.
spk13: Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe one quick one on the covenants. I guess the debt service coverage and adjusted EBITDA covenants tightened again in the fourth quarter. I know some of the others got sort of amendments and were helped by the flexibility received. I guess, how do you expect those specific covenants to trend in the coming quarters? And will an improvement in the studio NOI eventually start to help these metrics?
spk01: Yeah, for sure. Let me just, I don't want to gloss over the improvement. Remember last quarter, the one covenant that everyone was concerned about was the unsecured indebtedness to unencumbered asset value, which was at 57.7. And this court is at 41.8. I don't want to gloss over the improvement there. Yes, some of it relates to the adjusted definition, but the rest of it is driven by the management's reduction of debt, payoff of debt from asset sales. So that is important. It's not just the definitional changes. associated with a line of credit. But to address your specific points around the EBITDA and fixed charges, so that's a trailing number. So right now we're trailing a lot of the higher interest expense before the pay down that once that, you know, burns off, it will start changing directions. And yes, the studio business will help that number as it starts improving. So we expect that to start improving. I'm not saying it's going to be, you know, immediately back to 2.6, but our productions assume it's going to improve over the year.
spk13: Okay, great. That's really helpful. Thank you.
spk09: The next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk04: Thank you. On the studio and service ramp in the second half of the year, getting you to about $0.30 per quarter,
spk01: does it improve in 25 as you realize some of those synergies in coyote and you get the full benefit of glen oaks or is 30 cents maximum uh oh no no we we expect sorry so just to be clear it's not i just want to make sure i'm not didn't misconstrue it it's not 30 cents for the media business it was 30 cents overall based upon the math okay but the media business um we expect it to continue to improve year over year. So we definitely think there'll be improvement, not only from the synergies of the business, but also just the overall business itself as it continues to get back to normalization. So 24, again, because a Q1 is a much lower year, just that alone is going to increase it in 25 without everything else that we just mentioned.
spk04: Okay, so getting to $0.30 in third and fourth quarter would imply $0.28 of FFO in the second quarter. What are the chances that that disappoints, just given the slower ramp-up of production?
spk01: It's really hard to know. We thought we'd finish first quarter. For us to go ahead and comment on second quarter and thinking it might disappoints,
spk04: is um it's a bit early uh i don't think we would have provided the guidance numbers we did if we thought it was going to disappoint so i think we feel pretty comfortable with them and um yeah that's all i can say okay uh my next question is on um leasing activity um i think mark mentioned two-thirds of that was in the bay area this past quarter but then also tour demand has accelerated i was wondering if you could break down that tour activity among your major markets, LA, Seattle, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley?
spk14: Sure. This is Art. Tour activity really kind of goes hand in hand with what we have in our active pipeline. And I would say that, you know, 65% of the million, you know, million nine is, you know, spread out throughout the Bay Area. pretty evenly. So, you know, we're talking about a million two, a million two of the million nine is across the Bay Area. And so, you know, the team is working, you know, ferociously to try to get all of those through the pipeline. You know, it's going to come down to, you know, deal velocity, you know, how long it's going to take to do some of these deals. And going back to the first part of that question, which is tour activity, right? That's the precursor to all of this. And so the fact that we're up, you know, kind of 6% quarter over quarter, both in number and square footage, bodes well for the coming quarters. And so Seattle, of that percentage, Seattle, both Seattle and, Seattle's close to 25% and the rest rounds out LA where we don't have a lot of vacancy or expirations and Vancouver.
spk04: May have missed this, but what was the 6%? I thought the activity was 50% higher.
spk14: The tour, no, the tour activity.
spk04: The tour activity was 6% higher?
spk14: Yeah, year over year, it's 50% higher, right? 50% sequentially, yeah.
spk05: Sequentially, okay, got it, got it. Great, thank you.
spk09: The next question comes from Rich Anderson with Wedbush. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hey, good morning. On the topic of sort of green lighting, new production, and understanding, you know, it's going to take some time because the writers were on strike as well. You know, to what degree did that take you off guard like it did the street, apparently, in terms of how the cadence of your quarterly guidance or your quarterly – results, you know, that we're, we're envisioning for 2024. And, but a bigger question is, does this, does this suggest that there could be like this pent up option or activity, I should say the backup of the year, you don't want to guide to that, but maybe there's a, you know, a real chance to have a two X type of catch up, um, in your studio business, uh, on the other side of all this is, is that something that's at least possible?
spk18: Well, let me sort of make a sort of a general comment. I mean, once the stages are leased, they're leased, right? So you're going to have the revenue stream on the stages whenever they're fully leased. In terms of the ancillary revenue in the Coyote business, yeah, I mean, you know, still on the market share for our Transpo business, you know, we still have 70% of the market share. So when that industry is fully up and running, we're going to benefit from it. I don't know if, you know, Rich, I don't know if it took us off guard. I mean, listen, what took us off guard was the fact is that the industry stopped and it never started even when the strike was over. It didn't start until January because it wasn't ratified until December. They didn't work in December. So there is a ramp up period. We've always said that that ramp up period should be fairly aggressive and we're going to benefit from it. I guess what surprised us was really the green lighting of shows was truly the writers didn't write. I mean, as opposed to if you look back at COVID, there was communication and writing, and when they got to the point that they were going to produce content, it started right away. This is just taking time. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, you know, the majority of our tenants in the industry have still maintained a budget of production content that is going to be for this year. It will be back-ended, but they're not coming off of their numbers. And we don't think it's going to be the case for 2025 or going forward. So I think we're pleasantly looking for production to start. And once that ramp up starts, it should continue.
spk07: Okay. And then second question is on 2025, Mark, you said, you know, we're back to 1.5 million square feet for 2024 in terms of office expirations. But it pops back up a little bit in 2025. in approaching 2 million square feet and 18% of the portfolio. Do you guys see anything there that is sort of on your radar screen, sort of like a watch list further out? Or are things feeling a little bit more stable with a longer term view?
spk19: Well, I mean, we'll tag team this with Art. I mean, as you know, we've got Uber in 25, early 25 at 325,000 feet. Victor mentioned activity we have at 1455 Market, which, you know, helps address the square expiration and could even get us a head start on inroads there. After that, you know, the expirations in 25, at least, taper off. We've got Google for 180 at Foothill. We're keeping an eye on that. I don't want to get too far into arts commentary here, but as we go throughout the rest of the year, the expiration size at least comes down from there, and there is some activity on that. Art, do you want to?
spk14: Yeah, to put a final point on what Mark said about 1455, yeah, some of the space we have actively in negotiations And the deals behind that or the square footage behind that is both on the Uber and the Squarespace. So looking at both of them concurrently. And then beyond that, you know, there's, you know, there's some midsize deals that we're in negotiations on that are perhaps right sizing. But, you know, nothing that's alarming beyond, you know, the first kind of couple deals that Mark mentioned. Okay.
spk07: Okay, fair enough, thanks.
spk09: The next question comes from Tom Catherwood with BTIG. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. Victor, in the press release and your prepared remarks, you noted your commitment to de-levering Can you provide your thoughts on near term levers to progress towards that? And maybe what parts of the portfolio you consider untouchable when it comes to raising capital to repay debt?
spk18: A great question. You know, first of all, we have a few deals right now that we've got some reverse inquiries on. We're currently not marketing any asset to deliver the portfolio, but we have at least three transactions that have come to us and two or which are by users. You know, I think we maintain that we want to look at our B assets in the portfolio and eventually get rid of them at the right price and the right terms and the right conditions. There is no fire sale going on because we did a phenomenal job in the billion dollars last year that sort of rewired the ship from the capital market standpoint. But we do have a couple assets that I think will fall into the category of disposition for the first half of this year. And potentially, you know, the ones that are, as you look at it, like off the table, there really is only one asset that we currently have in the portfolio that would be considered a Class A asset that we've got a reverse inquiry on that we would consider. The rest of them are not things that we can't live without, I guess I would put it that way.
spk06: Appreciate those thoughts. Thanks, Victor. And then maybe moving over to San Francisco, the GitHub renewal was a welcome surprise, especially given CEO's prior plans to go fully remote. Can you share any insights you may have into their change in real estate strategy and maybe whether there's any read-through for other tech tenants in your portfolio?
spk18: I mean, on a general basis, there's a lot of these tenants have come back and revisited the you know, work from home status. You know, as we said in the prepared remarks, you know, we feel very comfortable. We're at the tail end of this. Candidly, we're a little surprised that it's taken this long. And the West Coast is a, you know, a slower mover as we're all feeling and unfortunately living with every single day. I guess you guys all know what my thoughts are around that. But that being said, I think there's a generic push for interaction, for onboarding and culture And GitHub is a great example of that. They realized that they needed space, albeit they didn't need all of it, but they needed space. And, you know, hopefully that follows suit with some of the other ones we're talking to right now that we thought were, you know, we're also going to take a different direction and now have come back and asked for renewals. So that's the general tenor. It seems as if the majority of the tech tenants have made their decision as to what direction they're going in and now they're executing on it.
spk14: That's right, Tom, you know, it was a win all around for the reasons Victor Victor mentioned, and we are seeing that with the other tenants there this idea about right sizing and try it really discovery period to figure out. They figure out now people are coming back they figured out, we need space now they're just trying to figure out how much space, and this is a great example of that.
spk06: And just quick follow up on that is this. And again, I know each lease is different. Each tenant is different, but is this a trend you're seeing more of in specific markets or is the kind of rethinking and setting of the real estate strategy pretty consistent across every, you know, across your portfolio?
spk14: Yeah, I think that decision-making is consistent across the board, right? It starts with, you know, cost savings, uh, getting your, your employees back, which by the way has been, uh, no small task. And we're getting through that hurdle, but no, we're seeing it everywhere.
spk05: Got it. Appreciate the insights. Thanks, everyone.
spk08: The next question comes from Ronald Camden with Morgan Stanley.
spk09: Please go ahead.
spk16: Hey, just my first one is just starting with the, I guess, both the studio and the same store. So number one, can you just contextualize sort of what did the studio do in 23 and how much is baked into the guidance in 2024 versus the ultimate amount, which I think was 120 plus? Just what's the context on that? And then so tying it to the same store in Hawaii, trying to get a better understanding of this down 12, what are the pieces, right? How much of that is, you know, again, I know you're not breaking out studio versus office, but maybe what are the big lease expirations doing to it? What other pieces can we think about this down 12, which is a pretty large number?
spk01: Sure. I just want to make sure I understand the 120. I'm guessing that's the media number that kind of would disclose. That's a consolidated number that also includes the Coyote activity, not just the same store. So that Coyote activity that I stated previously is not in the same store number. So the 14%, sorry, the number that we disclosed for the same store is without Coyote. So if you factor that in, I think I mentioned earlier, it would be roughly at a 5% year over year increase, which is part of the whole activity for the company. In terms of the drivers year over year on the office side, I mean, a big one obviously is Square, bringing that number down. And then WeWork, giving back some space at a couple of our buildings. And we also, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, you know, we received some security deposit impact in 2023. That's not reoccurring in 24, so it's, you know, impacting the numbers year over year.
spk16: Got it. Okay. And then, so I guess my last one would just be on the, I think you touched on this earlier, but just on the disposition activity, any, how are you guys thinking about that? Any other assets in the market? What sort of is the right way for us to think about that? Thanks.
spk18: Well, as usual, I mean, listen, we're not going to tell you what we're disposing of. So, you know, we're not going to do it until we make the announcement of those assets. But I think I just covered that in the last question. You know, the ones that we're looking at right now are all reverse inquiries. And there's at least three of them, and there may be more.
spk05: Thanks so much. You got it.
spk09: The next question comes from Vikram Malocha with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
spk12: Morning. Thanks for answering the question. I just want to go back to the studio side and, you know, again, we're all trying to just ramp up and understand the kind of the variable, non-variable piece of it. But is the tour activity that you mentioned being up 40, 45 percent, is that a good leading indicator? Like what are other indicators you are monitoring to kind of realize that, hey, the ramp is real or likely and especially the new production as opposed to stuff that's just stopped?
spk18: So, Vikram, I'll start with that. Listen, the activity is holes, right?
spk05: I mean, holes on space is the first way.
spk18: And as a result, they're reaching out for vacant spaces on the soundstage side. Once they get picked up, then the equipment starts going out the door from that point on. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, anything that was in production is now back in production. So it's all sort of happening at the same time. Mark?
spk19: Yeah, just to add a little bit more color. That's exactly what we're watching. As Victor has now, I think, responded to three or four times at this point, everything that was...
spk11: Hello. Hello.
spk09: Apologies, everyone. It appears that the speakers have disconnected. Please be patient and please wait while we stand by. No, we're here.
spk12: We're here. Hello, operator, we're here. Yeah, this is Vikram. Sorry, I don't know where you got cut off, but I don't think anyone could hear you.
spk18: Yeah, sorry, Vikram.
spk19: We were just adding a little bit of color in response to your question. We are watching, you know, where television and film show accounts are, and... I don't know if you heard this, but the good news is we are back above where we were at this time last year. But we are still behind or below 21 and 22 levels under 21 by say 18% by 25% under 22 by 18% 21 was an exceptionally high year because of making up for the pandemic in any event. As we project out by show count for L.A., which is where the lion's share of our coyote businesses and our stages are, we do anticipate show count to be at a normalized level at or close to 21%. or 22 levels, sometimes towards the end-ish of second quarter, early third quarter. And that's sort of one of the key barometers that we're keeping an eye on as we think about the recovery in the studio business.
spk12: Got it. Okay, that's helpful context. Just on the office side, you mentioned the occupancy is under pressure the first, I think, three quarters, and you expect to ramp back up. I'm just wondering, I think you said 40% coverage on the expiration, but in the pipeline or perhaps these are like leases in LOI or just stuff that's signed but not commenced, like what gives you the insight into sort of the down three and then up in the fourth quarter? That seems very specific.
spk19: Well, it is very specific because that's the way we model our activity. It's as granular, Vikram, as you could imagine. I mean, this is inputs from every person on our leasing team assigned to their respective assets. And it goes suite by suite on renewal, likelihood of renewal or not renewal. on activity on available space. And so when we look at an output on, say, at the end of any particular quarter, it's not some high level input and output. It's a very specific result based on very specific inputs and outputs. And I don't know how else to explain it other than to say, The result of all of those inputs is that we see a bit of softening in the first half on occupancy with a steady recovery in the third and into the fourth quarter. I don't know what else.
spk12: I can follow up. I was just wondering whether it's the lease rate or the occupancy, because if it was occupancy, it must have been your close to signing a bunch of deals, which would hit occupancy in second half.
spk19: Yes. It is. I was being very specific about occupancy just because that's what's informing guidance.
spk12: Got it. Okay. And then just last one, Harood, could you clarify, I was just confused on what changed in the Stockholm plan that was not there last year and is there this year? I'm wondering, like, have the metrics on which you award stock, has that changed or something else? I was just confused. Like you said, something was not there last year, but it is this year.
spk01: Yeah, so last year we didn't have our part of the stock comp plan that is driven by like share metrics, if you will, like share stock price metrics. That did not exist last year.
spk19: Can I just say, because this is a second, we forfeit, the senior management team forfeited a portion of our long-term incentive program. We voluntarily did that. And so that's one of the year-over-year differences.
spk12: Okay, that's it for that period. Thanks so much.
spk09: Our final question today. Operator, we're going to take one more question because.
spk18: Yeah, sorry. Sorry, this would be our last question because I'm sorry we went over, but we had a technical problem. Go ahead, Dylan.
spk09: Our final question today comes from Dylan Bozinski with Green Street. Dylan, please go ahead.
spk17: Yes, thank you. Thanks for taking the question, guys. Just one quick one. Sort of given everything that's going on across your markets in terms of just vacancies and established availability continuing to move higher here, I guess, do you guys expect to be able to maintain face rents in this environment, or can we finally start to see pressure on this front?
spk18: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Right now, you know, we did have a slight mark to market last year and the year before on an upward mobility. I think we're looking at it being flat right now to slightly down. You know, the interesting thing is, Dylan, we're not seeing the concessions add in the same way from a free rent change and or increase in any CapEx or TIs. That being said, you know, I think we are comfortable at our rent matrices that we're going out with, and we're not getting pushed around a ton on that, you know, with at least with the deals that are in negotiations right now. You know, we're going to continue to monitor that, but it's not something that's surprising us to say, oh, we're coming off some big numbers or we're coming off current rent numbers. It's always going to be, you know, based upon the availability and the quality of the space. And we still maintain that our quality is high enough to sort of absorb the kind of rental rate structure that we're currently at.
spk05: Perfect. Thanks for that, Kyler. Have a good one, guys.
spk18: Thank you, Dylan. Sorry that we went over, and I apologize for those who we couldn't get to the questions to, but I know lots of you will be reaching out to the team.
spk05: Thanks so much, operator. Have a good day.
spk08: Goodbye. Thank you, everyone, for participating.
spk05: Questions too, but I know lots of you will be reaching
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