This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk03: Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Dream Unlimited Corp. 3rd Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call for Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Please be advised that all participants are currently in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. During this call, management of Dream Unlimited Corp may make statements containing forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Dream Unlimited Corps' control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained in Dream Unlimited Corps' filings with securities regulators. such as its latest annual information form and MD&A. These filings are also available on Dream Unlimited Corp's website at www.dream.ca. Your host for today will be Mr. Michael J. Cooper, President and Chief Responsible Officer of Dream Unlimited Corp. Mr. Cooper, please proceed.
spk05: Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everybody. Normally, we'll have a conference call in the third quarter, but with so much volatility, we thought it was a good idea, and we didn't have a chance to tell you more about our business and answer questions. Also, this quarter, we took the information from our September 6th investor day and created our first effort on a supplemental information package. We would like your feedback as we'll continue that to the year end, and then I think we'll advance it further for Q1, so any feedback is appreciated. To start, Deb will speak about our results. I'll give some commentary, and then we'd love to answer questions afterwards. Deb?
spk02: Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon. So as Michael said, yesterday we published our supplemental information package for the first time in an effort to provide investors with better insight into how we evaluate our various business lines. The supplement is a work in progress, and we'll continue to add disclosures in future quarters and welcome feedback on the content. Now I'll provide a brief overview of our results by operating segment for the quarter. In the third quarter, in our recurring income segment, we generated revenue and net operating income of $44 million and $13 million, respectively, from $34 million and $10 million in 2022. Year-to-date, segment revenue and net operating income increased by $30 million and $10 million over last year. The increase was primarily driven by growth in our asset management platform and completing buildings in our multifamily rental pipeline. Included in revenue for the nine-month end of September 30th is $47 million related to our asset management and development contract with Dream Industrial REIT, Dream Office REIT, Dream Residential REIT, and our partnership, up from $36 million in 2022. We expect these revenues to continue to grow over time as we actively pursue new asset management opportunities. This quarter in our development segment, we generated revenue and net margin of $89 million and $16 million, respectively, up by $68 million and $18 million from the prior year. Q3 results were largely driven by the timing of our sales in Western Canada, as we achieved 400 lot sales this quarter. As of today, we have commitments for an additional 66 lots and five acres for fourth quarter, in addition to 231 lots and 71 acres already committed through 2025. As disclosed in our supplemental information package, these committed sales represent $117 million in revenue. On a consolidated basis, we generated adjusted earnings before income taxes of $4 million for the quarter and $66 million year-to-date. Down by $67 million from the nine months ended, September 30th, 2022. The amounts are adjusted for equity accounts pickup of Dream Office REIT and a one-time net gain on land settlement that was recorded in 2022. The decrease from year-to-date 2022 adjusted earnings before tax was due to fair value losses on investment properties, higher interest expense on variable rate debt, and prior year occupancies at Canary Commons. Earnings for development can significantly vary quarter to quarter. given seasonality and the timing of occupancy. This was partially offset by strong lot sales activity in Western Canada and higher base fees from our growing asset management platform. We maintained a strong liquidity and managed risk, with $305 million in liquidity and conservative leverage ratio of 36% on an adjusted standalone basis. As of today, we hold interest in Dream Office REIT, Dream Impact Trust, and Dream Residential REIT, at 33%, 35%, and 12% respectively, inclusive of senior management holdings. On an annualized basis, we received $16.5 million in cash distributions from the trust. As of November 13th, the market value of our interest in the trust is $148 million, approximately 20% to Trane's current market cap. We remain committed to maintaining a conservative debt position and may use excess liquidity to purchase additional units through our NCIB and fund potential new investments. And now I'll turn it back over to Michael.
spk05: Thanks, Deb. I mentioned that things are quite volatile, so I thought I'd add some comments as to how our business is changing. In Western Canada, we continue to sell lots in our communities, but I think the bigger change is that we're selling more parcel sites, some to the typical buyers who are building condos, but we're selling more to institutional uses like schools and utilities and other people. that need land as part of a growing community. So in a way, we've become a lot less subject to the changes in the single-family market. The other thing that's changing is we're building a lot more rental units, and the returns there are quite good. Our current plan is to continue building all of what we set out to. Because we don't need land, we need very little equity, and we're building to six caps. With today's debt rate, we could probably borrow at four and a half when they're finished. So they are great properties. They've got good growth in the rents, and we've got a good spread. So Western Canada is looking very good, and we expect it to be stronger over the next few years than it has been in the last few years. Our asset management business increased quite a bit this year. We've been in the process of trying to grow it much more. We've been seeing a lot of institutional clients literally all over the globe, and we've gotten quite a bit of traction in terms of conversations that we started. But it seems as if a lot of the sources of capital are relatively frozen in terms of making new decisions. So we hope that in 2024, a lot of the groundwork that we've done this year will turn into completed transactions. I mentioned the income properties in Western Canada. We're actually building income properties and growing our portfolio everywhere. And it's adding a lot of value to our business. So primarily it's apartment buildings and a density-based retail distillery. And that's become a big part of our business. And it's going to continue to become a big part of our business. And when you put those three groups together, Our income assets, our asset management, and our Western Canadian land and housing business, that's a major portion of our business. In regards to urban development in Toronto, it's been a lot more uncertain. Construction costs are higher than they've been here before, while we're seeing reasonable pricing everywhere else in the country. So construction costs are very high. Industry has been changing quite a bit. We'll see where they settle. They're down a lot in the last three weeks. We're hoping that they come down a lot more. And with the right interest rate, we can proceed with building purpose-built rental. The condo market has had, it's a bit patchy. And again, for us to move forward on development, we have to have pre-sale or rebuild condos. Condos is a lesser part of our business, but we still have a portion of condos. And right now, about half the projects that were planned on starting, have indeed started. So, you know, we hope that we can start some of those projects, but we're going to be very cautious. In addition, we own a stake in Dream Office, and as everybody knows, Office has gone through the most changes of any sector over the last few years. We're quite pleased with the buildings we own, how we've taken care of them, and now what the team is focused on is how do we reduce our capex and leasing costs to have a sustainable model even through as difficult times as we have now. And I think we're going to get there, and I think we're looking at the billings for the long run. But in the shorter term, we want to be very careful what we do with capital. The impact trust is where most of our development, a lot of the development that Dream Unlimited is doing, it is based in Dream Impact Trust. It has a billion dollars of income assets or development assets that turn into income assets. or a condo that is a majority sold, a majority price fixed, and all of those billion dollars of assets require a no further equity. Beyond that, we have another $250 million for, you know, communities, both Zimmy and Brightwater. Those ones have land loans and have the opportunity to build many buildings, and they're not going as quick as we would like, but the product is great. So we're watching those closely. And the other $250 million is some past investments and others, and some land loans and great sites like Keyside, Victory Silo, and Gary West. So amazing assets, but we're watching our capital very closely as the developments. We want to make sure they're profitable enough to proceed, and we want to make sure we have enough funding. And I guess with the changes in the market in the last year, that business has been hit. But impact in office is still a small proportion of the overall Dream Unlimited business. If I had to say how Dream Unlimited is doing, generally it's doing quite good, 7.5 or 8 out of 10, even though some of the businesses are challenged and we'll get through them. But overall, we're really quite pleased with how the business is doing. We like our liquidity. And as I said about office and impact, We have really good assets throughout the business. I'd be happy to answer any questions anybody could ask.
spk03: Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question is from Mark Rothschild with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
spk04: Thanks, and good afternoon. Western Canada Residential clearly is doing well. In regards to your land development there, do you expect the lot sales to pick up again in the next year or two? as far as the multifamily residential development that you're doing, which is kind of a new thing, at least in Western Canada. How big do you want that pipeline to get? And, you know, how much are you willing to invest in development in that area over the next couple of years?
spk05: All right. I mean, quite honestly, this year we were very conservative about how much land we serviced. It turns out that there was more issues that we serviced a bit extra. So right now we're planning I'm not serving as much for next year. What we don't want to do is have our builders with a lot of inventory. So I think where we are now is where we expect to be next year, and then after that, we expect it to pick up. On the second part, we're finishing our second apartment building in Brighton. It's 120 units, and we're starting our third building. The math is pretty simple. I think between land and cash, we need about $5 million to Our land is often two and a half or three, so we're hardly investing any money to build in Western Canada. So we expect to do another building a year in June. We're also doing some townhouses and single family. So I think we're going to get to 200 units a year or more. And I think by next year at this time, we'll have started our first building in Calgary. And there I think we could do another building a year. So we're probably looking at... 300 or 400 units of purpose-built rental that we'll build in Western Canada.
spk04: And the amount of capital is very, very small. Okay. Maybe just moving on to a different area. The asset management business is something that you didn't address too much in your comments, focused on many other areas. Obviously, with the summit transaction, that business grew quite a bit. Do you see a likelihood of additional opportunities to do transactions of that size or even close to that size over the coming year, or is that really just – should we look at that as maybe just an opportunistic transaction that came up and maybe will come up again, but look at that as kind of unique? We thought Summit was a very valuable company, and it was trading relatively well, but it wasn't trading for what it was worth.
spk05: The issue with the public companies are a lot of them are trading not well, but they're nowhere near their IFRS value. That makes it very difficult to execute a transaction. So to buy a public company, you've got to have the stars aligned, and some it did. But you've seen a lot of companies use your teacher reviews that go nowhere, and it's probably not worth as much as the company needs to sell them. So I would say it's a very unique transaction. We are busy looking at things now, but I'd also say we think a billion-dollar transaction was a big one. Six billion is huge. I think it's the largest asset management transaction in real estate in Canadian history.
spk04: So don't model one here. Okay, fine. And maybe just one last question for me. You have been slowly active on the share buyback program. is that something that you would like to consistently do over the next year or is it maybe there was some extra liquidity now or you thought the share price was a good opportunity or is this just something that we should expect at a modest pace continue over the next year or two?
spk05: Starting January 1st you have to pay a tax when you buy back stock and I'm having a hard time paying that tax. I mean it's only 2% but I wouldn't expect us buying in early January. I think we're going to have to get used to all the new taxes and decide what we're prepared to do. So, you know, I would think generally buying back stock would be one of the ways to use capital. But I don't think we're going to be buying back as much stock as we used to. I mean, literally, if we paid $100 million, it's $2 million in tax. I guess we can do it, but don't love it. But also we're really focused on liquidity as we get through this tough time. So we thought we'd buy some this year. I would bet we'd buy some more next year, but, you know, 300,000 units, 700,000 units, something like that. But I'm not saying we will. I'm just saying that's the right magnitude, not millions.
spk04: Okay, great. Thank you so much.
spk03: Once again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question is from Sam Damiani with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.
spk01: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Just on a similar line of questioning, does the company today have enough liquidity to meet its needs and wants, I guess, over the next year or two?
spk05: Yeah, it has enough liquidity under any security, any inventivities we've tested on.
spk01: Okay, great. And just on a related question, you know, here we are, whatever, sort of five months after the Dream Office SID. I know there's lots of ins and outs and lots of things moving around within Dream Unlimited, but at a high level, how was that $100-plus million used within the company?
spk05: I think it was used 100% to pay down debt.
spk01: Okay. And if you had another $100 million come into the company for whatever reason, would it also go to pay down debt?
spk05: Yeah, first we'd use it to pay down the housing line because we can always draw that down. We put it into construction. We pay down construction debt and we're allowing construction debt less.
spk01: Gotcha. You did talk about impact and the economics of rental development. The company did put out a press release a few weeks ago following the GST-PST rebate announcement. Can you give us a sense today as to how likely it is the company will start construction of some of those 1,300 units over the next few months? We're working very hard with CMHC to get the documents finished for LaGrette and Flats. That's a big project. And if everything's the way it is today, we would start that immediately. I mentioned that we're starting in Saskatoon. And in Calgary, our expectation is we'll start next year. We have a couple sites in Ottawa. One in Ottawa, one in Gatineau. I'd expect we'll start the one in Gatineau. And in Ottawa, we're planning to start it, but it's totally dependent on interest rates. Now, the interest rates aren't important because of what it does to the project return.
spk05: What it's really important to is the debt service coverage. So the higher the interest rates, the lower the amount of debt you can get and the larger amount of equity. And what we find is, you know, the extra interest that you pay with higher interest rates doesn't affect the returns that high over 10 years. What really hurts is the amount of equity you have in a project. So in all our projects, what we're looking at is how much capital is required to build a building. And in some of them, higher debt eliminates the potential to build right now. But as far as the 1,300 units, I think we'll start 1,300 next year.
spk01: Okay, great. And last one for me is on the Western Canada lots. Last year, the fourth quarter was a huge quarter. I don't know if it was 80% of the year's volume in one quarter. But, of course, this third quarter was a very big volume quarter. How should we think about the fourth quarter in the context of the committed sales that you've announced yesterday?
spk05: I'd like to check that. I think we think some of those are for this year's. So we've done the majority of our pre-sales. I think we've got 66 pre-sales for lots now for the balance of the year, and five acres, and the other part will be possessions of homes we're building. So there's still some to come, but the third quarter was most of it.
spk01: Got it. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk03: That concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Cooper for any closing remarks.
spk05: I'd like to thank everybody. Unfortunately, after the reporting season, I've lost my voice. If it wasn't the case, I would have provided more direct remarks, but when I get it back, I'd be happy to follow up with everybody. Thank you very much.
Disclaimer