DREAM Unlimited Corp.

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 Corp.'s control. That could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed or implied by such forward-looking information. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained in Dream Unlimited Corp.'s filings with securities regulators, including this latest annual information form and MDNA. These filings are also available on Dream Unlimited Corp.'s website at .dream.ca. Later in the presentation, we will have a question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Your host for today will be Mr. Michael Cooper, CRO of Dream Unlimited Corp. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Dream's year-end conference call. Today I'm here with Megan Peloso, who is our Chief Financial Officer, and we also have Jose Maldonado speaking, who is the head of our strategy and planning group, as well as the chief financial officer of the United States of America, who is also the head of the United States of America's business, overseas Western Canada, Western Canadian development business. I'll turn it over to them in a minute, but firstly, I just want to mention that over the last few years, I've been very focused on liquidity. I've been concerned about the uncertainty in our environment and tried to make our company safer. The uncertainty is at record levels right now, and we don't know what's going to happen, but I can tell you that we're pretty well positioned. Every politician of every party is promoting ideas that are good for Western Canada. We're not an exporter, but we do get affected by the overall strength of the Canadian economy, but generally we're positioned quite well. For the year, we had our second highest profit of $1.5 billion, and we had a very good We had a very good year, and we had our second highest profit in total dollars. The only year we did better was the year where we sold Dream Global. If you take out Arapaho Basin and extraordinary events prior years, we have the highest ordinary income we've ever had, $2.86 per share. A lot of the things we've been working on, we're at the beginning of seeing the benefits. We've been growing our asset management business, and it's improving, but I think we're going to see more improvement in the future. We've been finishing a lot of apartment buildings, and they're getting leased up. They're contributing a little bit, but they're going to contribute more and more. Each year, we have more apartment buildings finished. In both cases, the improvements that we make in one year, unlike our development business, which is sort of like a lot of one-time earnings, both in asset management and the recurring and the income properties, the money that we start to make the next year will continue to increase indefinitely. So we're pretty excited about the shape of the business. We're pleased with our liquidity, and I think we're kind of surprised that 2025 has started off being such a busy year. But I'll make some final comments first. I'd like to turn it over to Jose to discuss the business.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to provide a quick overview of the three key segments in our business that make up 80 to 90 percent of our net asset value, being Western Canada land, asset management, and income properties. Starting with Western Canada land, we're finishing the year in 2024 with record profits for the land division since we went public in 2013. The division is producing a large amount of free cash flow, and there's great momentum for 2025. We're paying close attention to changes in immigration, tariffs, among other things, but we have decent visibility into the year. As of today, we pre-sold $105 million in revenue for 2025. By the end of next month, we hope to secure another $60 million of pre-sales to builders based on early conversations we're having as of today. That will be a combined $165 million of pre-sales that we hope to show by the next time that we will report. This will make up 80 percent of our financial targets for the division, and we will have nine months left to go. In 2025, we will begin pre-selling two new neighborhoods in Saskatchewan. In Saskatoon, we will be launching the sales of the Homewood Suburban Center, which is the second neighborhood after Brighton. Most of the revenue will start to show up in 2026. However, in 2025, we sold 13 acres to the city to build a high school and a community center that will be the largest in the province and will be a great amenity to the community and our rental product. We will recognize that sale this year. In Regina, we're close to meeting the last milestone needed to start another new community called Cooper Town. We have development approvals in place, and we're waiting to hear for approvals on the financing of the infrastructure costs funded by the city to get the community going. There's a decent probability we can start recognizing lot sales in this new neighborhood starting in 2026, and we can begin pre-selling lots at the end of this year. Moving on to asset management. We're making good progress in growing the division. In Q4, we closed on a $1 billion joint venture transaction of apartments in the Netherlands. We also announced a couple weeks ago a new joint venture to purchase existing Canadian multifamily apartments with an institutional partner for up to $2 billion of assets. We will be closing on the first small transaction in this venture in the first half of the year. Our assets under management have grown to $27 billion by the end of 2024, up $3 billion from last year, and $17 billion since the end of 2020 after the sale of Dream Global. There continues to be growth in the public vehicles, but the largest driver of growth is the private institutional business, where we're seeing the most traction for new ideas, particularly on the residential and the industrial side. Another area that's picking up steam is our development management business, which is much more lumpy in terms of earnings. We're getting closer and closer to the development of 49 Ontario and Keysight in Toronto, which are large-scale projects where Dream would earn a development management fee. Dream Office just announced an office conversion project in Calgary, where Dream Unlimited will also be the development manager. Lastly, our income property division, which is doing very well. We're continuing to grow this division, and in time this could be our largest division as it continues to compound and grow assets through development. Today, we own around $850 million of income properties at our share on a standalone basis in our balance sheet, which excludes the indirect share in our securities or funds. The distillery district in Toronto is about a quarter of that, and the rest is mostly our retail and multifamily income properties in Toronto, Western Canada, and the Capital Region. We continue to see good risk-adjusted returns in developing income properties, especially purpose-built apartments. We have a large pipeline of units in the Capital Region and Western Canada, in land we already own. In the Capital Region, we're looking at starting one new block this year in Quebec, which will own 50% of 220 units. We also began construction last quarter on 250-unit apartments in Ottawa that Dream Unlimited will own 100%. Both projects are financed through the ACLP government program, where we will secure attractive financing rates over a 10-year period. In Saskatoon, where we now have experience building apartments, townhomes, and single-family rentals, we really like the economics here. We're developing to a 6% yield, getting permanent takeout at .5% .4% as of today, and getting most of our original equity out on takeout. We recently completed two projects in Brighton for a combined 120 apartments and 110 townhomes. We realized $6-7 million of development profit in each, surpassing our budget. We developed just north of a 6% yield with land at fair market value, and we expect to realize a development and hold internal rate of return of 20% over 10 years. We're looking at replicating this program in Calgary starting this year. In 2025, we have our most aggressive program, where we're looking to start 500 rental units in Western Canada and 70,000 square feet of retail, which we will own 100%. We're looking at approximately a cost base of $210 million to build this, and a development profit of $30 million with land at fair market value, or $40 million with land at cost. We won't require a lot of new equity outside of our existing land to develop these projects. Our commercial and income properties are performing well. In the distillery, we did a large renewal and an expansion for 70,000 square feet at great rents. Our retail in Western Canada and the Canary District is also performing pretty well. We're also looking at some dispositions of non-core mostly vacant retail assets with the recycled capital and reduced leverage. I'll turn it over to Megan now.

Thanks Jose. Hi everyone. In the fourth quarter, we recognized pre-tax earnings of $168 million, an increase of $240 million over the comparative period. Now the increase was primarily attributable to $157 million gain on the sale of a basin, which closed in the fourth quarter. Proceeds from the sale were used to pay down debt facilities and pay a special dividend in December. The fluctuation in earnings was further driven by the timing of loss sales and higher acre sales in Western Canada and lower losses incurred related to our investment in Dream Office REITs. On a segmented basis, in Q4, our Income Properties Division generated a revenue of $17.9 million up from $14.1 million in the prior year. The increase in revenue was driven by the stabilization of three retail properties in Western Canada at the end of 2023, in addition to the opening of the Postmark Hotel earlier in the year. Net operating income was fairly consistent year over year as we incurred about $1 million in cost year to date to stabilize the Postmark Hotel. At the end of the fourth quarter, we acquired a partner's interest in the Broadview, Gladstone, and Postmark Hotels carrying these assets in our book for an aggregate of $83 million as of December 31. We continue to grow our portfolio of multifamily assets, including those held through our interest in Dream Impact Trust and Dream Impact Fund. Our stabilized multifamily portfolio, which includes nearly 8,000 units, continues to perform well in the Canadian portfolio with approximately 97% occupied as of year end. At 100% project level, we expect to add over 2,600 rental units to our portfolio through 2027, nearly all of which are actually under construction today. In the fourth quarter, our asset management business generates a revenue and net margin of $18.2 million and $11.3 million compared to $23.8 million and $16.8 million in 2023. The decrease was really driven by the magnitude of development fees recognized in the prior year, partially offset by growth in base fees. Generally speaking, development activity was slower in the period, but this is really a function of timing, as fees are typically recognized in income when milestones are achieved. Since 2023, fee-earning assets under management has increased by over $2 million. As it relates to our development segment, in the fourth quarter, we generated revenue and net margin of $151.2 million and $42.6 million on a standalone basis, up from $53.8 million and $4.3 million in 2023, largely driven by the timing of lot sales and an increase in acre sales. On a -to-date basis, we completed 622 lot sales and 236 acre sales, which, as Jose mentioned, has generated some of the strongest profit levels since going public, which is a great accomplishment for the division. In Saskatoon, we recently completed the TEAL and a portion of blocks 166 and JK in the fourth quarter, which adds 144 multifamily rental units to the recurring income portfolio. The recently completed developments are 93% leased as of February 24th. We expect to continue or commence construction on 500 units within our Brighton community and launch our first 168-unit purpose-built rental building in Alpine Park in Calgary in 2025. We continue to make progress on our GTA development pipeline. In December, the City of Toronto announced a waiver of development charges on selected projects to support the advancement of purpose-built rentals across the city. Both 49 Ontario and Phase 1 at Keyside were named as part of this development charge waiver for a combined 2,500 units at 100% project level. This is a significant milestone for both projects and leads to considerable cost savings. We continue to make progress on innovative finance solutions for both of these projects. As of December 31st, we had total liquidity of $367 million after returning $67 million to Dream Shareholders during the year. Our fourth quarter liquidity is up from $257 million as of September 30th, which is really due to a basin closing. Our preference right now is to maintain a robust liquidity position in light of the broader operating environment. With that, I'll open the call-up for Michael, Jose, and I to answer any questions that people might have.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press start with 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press start with 2. We will pause for just a moment as callers join the queue. And today's first question comes from Sam Demiani with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Thanks and good morning everyone. I just want to obviously congratulate everyone for the strong operational results in the fourth quarter and last year. It's great to see everything kind of humming on all cylinders there. Maybe the first question, just to pick up where Megan, you left off with the liquidity. And it is quite high. It might even be record high. I didn't see any share repurchases in Q4 or post-Q4. What are your thoughts on deploying some of that liquidity on buying back stock in the near term?

I think right now, or hi Sam, I think right now our main focus is really to sit tight. I think it's something that we continuously evaluate. But at this point in time, we might have a little bit of activity in 2025, but it's not our main focus.

Yeah, Sam, to make it really clear, we're looking who's going to be the new Liberal leader. There's probably a new Prime Minister. There's threats of tariffs, financial coercion. I don't really know what enough liquidity is, so I think that we're very glad with what we have. We did buy back a few shares in January. I suspect we'll continue to buy stock when we think it's, you know, tactical. But I would think that we would probably be buying back a lot more stock when things are more certain than they are right now. We do think the company is cheap, but I don't know, I heard them talk about a 25% tariff on all of Canada, plus another 25%, so it would be 50% on steel. We're going to have to give them stuff and money. So let's figure out what we're getting through first before we start spending,

though. That makes sense. I guess just on the asset management side, I think Jose, you mentioned the first acquisition in the new apartment joint venture would firm up or close later, I think this quarter is what you said. I'm just wondering how much capital you think you might deploy in that strategy over the course of 2025?

It's hard to tell. We're starting with a small transaction of, I think it's around $60 million. We would probably do $100, $200, $300 million potentially this year, but there's maybe more if there's bigger opportunities. But we're looking at that slowly to make sure it's the right return for our partner.

I think the high point, Sam, is that the values for apartments look fair, but there's actually not that many happening. So when Jose is referring to a couple hundred million of one-offs, I think that's true. Hopefully we'll find some bigger opportunities from somebody who wants to get out of apartments or who has a need to come up with capital, maybe for redemptions or something like that, so we'll see. But we're reviewing everything that is available and we are going to be very prudent to make sure we do very well for our investors.

Appreciate it. And the last one for me, on the same theme, is there an opportunity to expand the industrial platform potentially into Europe this year?

I think that, you know, given the fact that raising equity in the public markets for a dream industrial is out of the question at the current time, and for some extended period of time, if we want to grow, we're going to have to find other capital. So that is an area that we are looking at. And hopefully, I'm not good at time, like saying this year or maybe next year, but we are working on something like that. And I think that is something where we've proven our skill. I think the European industry looks very attractive. I think there's lots of people that would like to own more European industrial. So I think that's a reasonable outcome is that we'll find private money to invest in Europe as well. Thank you.

I'll turn it back.

Thank you.

And our next question today comes from Mark Rothschild with Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Michael, maybe just continuing on the talk about liquidity and buying back shares, the reasons you have for being cautious, you did increase the dividends, and while the amount that you increase that you're actually distributing is not a huge amount, it does say something. So can you just maybe talk a little bit more about what that's connected to? Is that based on growth and management fees, confidence in Calgary housing that you have a lot of lot sales already for this year? Maybe just expand on that.

Well, the fact that increases $2 million a year, I think that takes our total dividend to about $27 million. And I've kind of targeted approximately, not like a formula, but approximately 25% should be available for dividends. Dividends is cash that goes to the shareholders and the shareholders I know like them. When you buy back stock, I don't know, we've just seen it over and over again that the stock goes up sometimes and it goes back down. You could have bought it later. I'm going to say it again, in the fall of 2019, we sold Dream Global, the management contract plus our shares, we got $515 million in cash. We bought back $125 million of stock at $23.50 in January of 2020. And if we wouldn't have done that, we could have bought it back after that at a much lower price. So I think that we've been very aggressive with buying back stock over the years. I think it's been good overall. We're putting more money into income properties. We're just going to have a real strong value year after year. But we do want to grow that first and we'll buy back stock. I know this sounds like I'm in grade six, but when you get a dividend, you can spend it. When you buy back stock, the owners cannot spend it. So as there's less uncertainty, we'll definitely look at buying back stock and maybe in massive ways. But right now we're going to keep going the way we're going.

Big Ray, thanks. Maybe just one more. It seems like you are having continued success with Western Canada land development, selling lots. You may talk a little more of what you're seeing in the Calgary housing market. It sounds like there is some slowing, but you guys still seem to be doing well.

Jose, do you want to address that?

Yeah, there's some softening for sure. I mean, we're watching migration and immigration trends. We benefited a lot from positive interprovincial migration. We will continue to see that. On the nonpermanent residence side, the prairies in general are not as susceptible as maybe central Canada or BC. I think the percentage of nonpermanent residents in the prairies are 5% or below, which is already at the target. But we are seeing a bit of a slowdown. Our builders feel there is still good momentum, still a lot of interest. And we're in a community in the south, in the southwest, where there isn't a ton of competition unlike other areas of Calgary.

Great. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press starve and 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question today comes from Simon Kai, a private investor. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. In the cash flow statement, it appears the cash taxes paid of about $125 million seems quite a bit higher than the prior year. And in the MDNA, it was noted that nearly half was deemed to be nonrecurring. Is there any more color you can share on what activities may have resulted in the much higher cash taxes this year? Thank you.

Megan, do you want to answer that?

Sure, I'll take that. Hi there. So the $125 million of cash taxes paid, as we had described, nearly half of that was a legacy accrual that we settled in, I believe, the second or third quarter of the year. The remaining piece is really taxes paid in normal course and then the tax impact of the sale of a basin. So that's really the main composition of that $125 million, but the nonrecurring piece we won't have going forward.

Thank you, Megan.

Nothing else for me. And by the way, the settlement resulted in, we had over accrued from what we actually paid, so there was a bit of a gain on that. So it was unfortunate, this event occurred in 2011, it took 13 years to settle it. But we had accrued for it the whole time, so it is what it is. But it was disappointing.

Thank you. And our next question plays a follow-up from Sam Damiani with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Just on Cupertown in Regina, that's been in the works for quite some time. As I recall, it's quite a large holding in the city. How could that play out in the future, maybe two to three years out in terms of annual lot sales contributing to the overall business? Could it be competitive with Saskatoon in terms of volumes? What's your outlook there? Jose?

Regina is a fascinating market. I mean, that's a market where we have the largest position, there is no new communities in the works, very low existing inventory. So the fundamentals are probably the best out of the four markets. That hasn't yet translated into an increased home price index or the same demand dynamics we've seen in Saskatoon. But we're in a pretty good spot. Realistically, I think it will be a little bit less than Brighton, just the way things are today. We're probably looking at around 150 to 200 lots a year.

That's helpful. And just for 2025, back to this year, and the month sales were up last year over 2023. You expected more of a flattening on lot sales this year or a bit of a pullback, just given the softening comments that you made earlier?

For this year specifically, we think we'll do slightly better than last year, but we won't have the Edmonton JVs. So when you strip out the income that we've generated for the sale of those two parcels, we should be in better shape this year than last year.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Ian Golubski, a private investor. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Is there an argument against simplifying the corporate structure? You have a string of pearls. I can understand the logic of having done that some years ago. There doesn't seem to be much recognition for some of the subsidiary companies in the overall corporate structure. Is that something that you're looking at?

DRR announced that it's doing a strategic review, and that it's looking to potentially selling itself to create higher value for the shareholders. So I think that's the type of thing that could make sense. I think there are benefits of having either separate public companies or separate investment funds. And Dream is set up pretty well the way it is. I'm not sure that, as an example, buying Dream Office would be better for the Dream Unlimited shareholders. So we're going to work with each one, I think, independently to the greatest outcome. I was thinking of...

Go ahead. I was thinking specifically about Dream Impact, for example, where they're not really in a position to take on some of the specific projects. Dream is having to step in to do some of that on their behalf. And so this will presumably continue for a couple of years till things get stabilized. But in the interim, there is quite a large value gap that appears to exist.

Well, you know what? We found that in the public markets, it's much more difficult than it used to be to acquire related party companies. And, you know, the value that the stock is trading at compared to the underlying value is too great, and Dream's not going to pay a huge premium. We already own about 40% of the company. I think Impact Trust is in better shape than people think. I think what you're referring to is that in Ottawa, in one case, we have an investment fund owning half of a new building we're going to build, and they're going to assume they're going to buy out Impact Trust there. Dream Unlimited took on Block 204 on its own and is buying out Dream Impact there. But that's partly because Dream Impact wanted to participate in the LeBreton Flats. So we are definitely doing things to keep moving developments forward and paying down land debt because that makes it better for everybody. So at times, people are buying Dream Impact share, but Dream Impact is coming along pretty good. I mentioned it's been busy this year. Dream Impact has been among the busiest. And we announced the development waivers for Forty-Nine Ontario and Keyside in November. That was the city announced in November, but we mentioned it in January press release. We mentioned that we're very close to finalizing the debt on Forty-Nine Ontario with CMIC. So there's a lot of things that are moving forward, but I don't see an occasion where Dream would take over Impact Trust. I don't think that the Dream shareholders would be better off by that because right now we have 40% of the upside. So I think that works out pretty good.

Okay, thank you.

Thank

you.

And this concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Cooper for any closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everybody for their interest and your questions will reflect upon them. Having said that, I think that in a pretty treacherous time, the company is coming together very well. The last caller was speaking about Impact Trust. Developing land in downtown Toronto is very tough right now. And there's been a lot of land value degradation. Office buildings have had the same. So we have exposure to those and we've had big losses in those. But I think that we've made up for that with the improvements in Western Canada, revenue properties and asset management. So we are pleased with the diversity in this kind of market. I think we're going to be cautious. All of the investments that we're making are really investments in what we already own. And as a result, we're turning land into income property so we're going to be better for it. But we are being very prudent with our capital. We look forward to reporting back to you after the first quarter. I think we'll have a lot more to share. And Megan, Jose and I are always available to answer questions between the quarters too, if you like. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Have a good day.

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.