Rayonier Inc. REIT

Welcome and thank you for joining Ray and Nair's fourth quarter 2020 teleconference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. During the question and answer session, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now, I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Colin Mings, Vice President, Capital Markets and Strategic Planning. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to Ray Anear's Investor Teleconference, covering fourth quarter earnings. Our earnings statements and financial supplement were released yesterday afternoon and are available on our website at rayanear.com. I would like to remind you that in these presentations, we include forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities laws. Our earnings release and Form 10-K, followed with the SEC, list some of the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we may make. They are also referenced on page two of our financial supplements. Throughout these presentations, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are defined and reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure in our earnings release and supplemental materials. With that, let's start our teleconference with opening comments from Dave Nunes, President and CEO. Dave?

Thanks, Colin, and good morning, everyone. First, I'll make some high-level comments before turning it over to Mark McHugh, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, to review our consolidated financial results. And then we'll ask Doug Long, Senior Vice President of Forest Resources, to comment on our U.S. and New Zealand timber results. And following the review of our timber segments, Mark will discuss our real estate results as well as our outlook for 2021. We finished 2020 with encouraging momentum across all businesses, generating adjusted EBITDA of $75 million and pro forma EPS of $0.08 per share in the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA exceeded the prior year quarter by 15% as favorable results in the Pacific Northwest timber, New Zealand timber, and real estate segments more than offset a decline in adjusted EBITDA from the southern timber segment. As we reflect on 2020 in its entirety, we are pleased with our performance across all our business lines, especially given the significant disruption and uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The diversity of our timber markets, the positioning of our real estate portfolio, and the resiliency of our people during challenging operating conditions all contributed to our solid performance. Moreover, despite the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, we successfully closed and integrated the Pope Resources acquisition. We continue to believe the assets acquired, as well as the expertise and dedication of the Pope team that are now that has now joined Rainier will play a critical role in our pursuit of long-term value creation for shareholders. For the full year, we generated GAAP EPS of 27 cents per share and pro forma EPS of 25 cents per share. Full year adjusted EBITDA of $267 million increased 8% versus the prior year. In our southern timber segment, we achieved full year adjusted EBITDA of $109 million. which represents a decrease of 9% versus the prior year. Core timber results were stable year over year with slightly higher volumes, more than offsetting a slight decline in weighted average stumpage pricing. However, non-timber income declined significantly due to lower pipeline easement income following a record year in 2019. In our Pacific Northwest timber segment, we generated full year adjusted EBITDA of $37 million, This result represents a more than doubling of the prior year result, which is attributable to a partial year contribution of our Pope Resources acquisition, as well as a sharp increase in log pricing given strong domestic demand and robust lumber markets. In our New Zealand timber segment, full-year adjusted EBITDA declined 27% to $55 million. The year-over-year decline in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by lower volumes due to the government-mandated lockdown in the first half of the year, as well as lower log pricing amid COVID-related export headwinds. Lastly, our real estate segment, we generated full-year adjusted EBITDA of $91 million, an increase of over 50% from the prior year result. This year-over-year improvement was driven by an increase in acres sold amid growing buyer demand for rural land as well as residential lots, and commercial properties within our real estate development project areas. While the bulk of our real estate sales activity garnered significant premiums to Timberland hold values, the successful completion of some low-value non-strategic sales in 2020 brought down our weighted average sales price. These non-strategic sales reflect our ongoing focus on improving the quality of our portfolio through both addition and subtraction. With that, let me turn it over to Mark for more details on our fourth quarter financial results.