Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Kennedy Wilson first quarter of 2024 earnings call. Please note that today's event is being recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. Should you need any assistance at any time, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, and instructions to join the queue will be provided at that time. And with that, I would like to now turn the call over to Devin Bobsar. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Today's call will be webcast live and will be archived for replay. The replay will be available by phone for one week and by webcast for three months. Please see the Investor Relations website for more information. With me today are Bill McMorrow, CEO, Matt Windisch, President, Justin M. Bonney, CFO, and Mike Pegler, President of Europe. On this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income. You can find a description of these items along with the reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and our first quarter 2024 earnings release, which is posted on the investor relations section of our website. Statements made during this call may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may materially differ from forward-looking information discussed on this call due to the number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors indicated in reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would now like to turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Bill McMorrin.

Bill McMorrin. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our call. Yesterday, we reported our results for the first quarter of 2024, which was highlighted by significant growth across our key financial metrics and positive momentum across all our business lines. Fee-bearing capital grew to a record $8.6 billion. and investment management fees increased by 94 percent in Q1. We also successfully completed $360 million in non-core asset distributions. These sales enhanced our liquidity by generating $236 million of cash and led to gains of $106 million in the quarter. Since the end of Q3 2023, we have generated $320 million of cash to KW and we are more than halfway complete against the target announced in December of 2023 of 550 to 750 million of cash generation from non-core asset sales by the end of the first quarter of 2025. We've made great progress towards completing our development pipeline of 2.5 billion, including finishing two remaining projects in Dublin. We delivered over 800 new apartment units in the U.S. and Ireland in the quarter, and in total, we have 4,100 units either undergoing lease-up or completing construction, which upon stabilization will add meaningfully to our estimated annual NOI. Our assets under management at quarter end totaled $25 billion. Transaction activity has picked up significantly this year, and in the first four months of the year, We completed $1.1 billion of loan originations with another $800 million in the process of closing, $160 million of new real estate acquisitions, and $450 million of dispositions, resulting in $2.5 billion in gross investment activity. Proceeds from asset sales are being recycled into our investment management business and to pay down debt and repurchase securities. Turning to the future, we have built KW on the ability to adapt quickly in order to take advantage of changing market conditions and to invest in asset classes that create long-term value for the company. While we continue to see uncertainty across the globe because of high interest levels, high interest rate levels, and geopolitical risks, we are making great progress on the following key initiatives and goals. First, we have shifted our business in a significant way to emphasize growth within our investment management platforms, allowing us to grow our fee-bearing capital and resulting fee income. Over the last five years, we have grown our fee-bearing capital and fees at the rate of 30% per annum, making it the fastest growing part of our company. We expect to continue growing our fee income at the rate of 15 to 20 percent over the next several years. Our capital-wide investment management platforms are allowing us to generate above-market returns on our invested capital. Our investment focus is around three key sectors. First is rental housing, where our portfolio now totals 60,000 units, including 22,000 units financed through our debt platform and 38,000 owned in various partnerships. There remains a structural shortage of rental housing globally, and specifically in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Ireland, where we have built a long-term track record of acquiring, institutionally managing, and developing high-quality communities. Rental demand is being driven by the large differential between affordability of renting versus buying, due in part to the interest rate environment. There has also been a significant decline in new construction starts in 2024, which over time will alleviate excess supply in virtually every growth market and enhance our ability to grow our net operating income. We also believe that starting in the second half of the year, we expect increasing levels of investment opportunities that will come from debt maturities and or owners who have high levels of leverage on their portfolios, many of which were acquired during the 2021 to 2022 period and financed with floating rate debt. Second, we look for continued expansion of our credit platform. Banks and non-bank lenders have largely exited the construction loan market for new development. Our focus here is on high-quality sponsors who are developing multifamily and student housing communities. We have a strong pipeline today of new potential origination opportunities that should give us ample opportunity to grow our portfolio further in 2024. As I mentioned earlier, We have either closed or in closing on loans totaling $1.9 billion, which would bring our total platform to over $8 billion. And third, we look to continue building on our existing 11 million square foot logistics platform. We're evaluating a number of new opportunities in our industrial pipeline in both the U.S. and in Europe. As to capital raised for our platforms, we have developed very strong relationships with large global institutions located in the US, Canada, Europe, and across Asia. As part of our capital raising plan, we recently reopened our office in Japan, which is a market where we have been doing business dating back to 1994. We are continuing to see tremendous interest from our institutional partners to invest in existing high-quality multifamily properties, new construction of multifamily properties, industrial and credit, where our investment teams continue to find off-market opportunities to deploy significant capital into new transactions, which in turn will grow our investment management business. The second initiative for us relates to our non-core asset sale plan. As I mentioned earlier, our asset sale plan expects to generate between $550 and $750 million in cash proceeds. We have also resized our dividend rate to 12 cents a quarter, which will allow us to save $66 million annually on dividend payments. These two sources of cash will allow us to deploy capital into stock buybacks, debt reduction, and capital to grow our investment management business. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Justin Embiid, to discuss our financial results.