Canadian Net Real Estate Investment Trust

Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to Canadian NetREIT's 2023 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you need to press star 11 on your telephone. I would like to advise everyone that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ben Gazif, Canadian NetREIT's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, Mr. Gazif.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our Q3 2023 results conference call. Before we begin today, we are obliged to advise you that in talking about our financial and operating performance and in responding to questions today, we may make forward-looking statements, including statements concerning Canadian NETs, objectives and strategies to achieve them, as well as statements with respect to our plans, estimates, and intentions or concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, or performance, which are not historical facts. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the conclusions in these forward-looking statements. Additional information on the risks that could impact our actual results and the expectations and assumptions we applied in making these forward-looking statements can be found in CanadianNet's most recent annual information form for the year ended December 31st, 2022, and in management discussion and analysis for the period ended September 30th, 2023, which are available on our website at www.cnetread.com and on CDAR at www.cdar.com. We will also refer to non-IFRS financial measures today, which are widely used in the Canadian real estate industry, including FFO, AFFO, and NOI. CanadianNet believes these financial measures provide useful information to both management and investors in measuring the financial performance and financial condition of CanadianNet. These financial measures do not have any standardized definition prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other entities. For more information, please refer to the section Non-IFRS Financial Measures of our MD&A for the period ended September 30th, 2023. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Henley, Canadian NetREIT's President and CEO. Kevin.

Thank you, Ben, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter of 2023, our team dedicated efforts to lease renewals, refinancings, and property dispositions. We are happy to report that in addition to the Timmins property sale in Q2, we also sold a restaurant property operated under the Mike's banner in Trois-Rivières, Quebec for $1.3 million during the third quarter, and a Pizza Hut property in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for $1.65 million in October. These transactions, exceeding our RFRS values, continue to show our ability to create value while enhancing our capital structure. At the end of the quarter, Canadian net REIT boasted an occupancy rate of 100%, combined with a conservative payout ratio of 55%. All expiring leases for 2023 have been successfully renewed. Looking forward to 2024, we have 12 leases up for renewal, representing around 1.7 million of NOI. Renewed leases account for 74% of expiring NOI, a notable increase from 40% last quarter. We are confident we will be able to renew the remaining 26% in Q1 and Q2 of next year, as stipulated in the tenants' leases. The average lease term across our portfolio stands at 6.6%. Despite the strong portfolio performance, this quarter faced challenges due to higher interest rates on mortgage renewals, variable rate debt, and notably line of credit interest. This resulted in a stable FFO per unit for the period and a slight 5% decrease over the quarter. In terms of transactional activities, there is no significant change from previous quarters. Bid-ask spreads remain too wide to transact. Market sentiment suggests rates will lower in the future, paving the way for increased transactional activities. On the financing front, we renewed two loans in Q3 2023, one generating approximately $700,000 of liquidity. About $8.5 million of mortgages, including those in joint venture, remain to be renewed in 2023, with completion expected in the coming weeks. Following mortgage renewals, we anticipate generating around $1.5 million in net proceeds to repay credit facilities. Additionally, during the quarter, we repaid our $1.4 million convertible debenture issued in 2018. As we move forward through 2023 and 2024, our goal is to optimize the REITs capital structure, ensuring a robust foundation for growth. I will now turn the call back over to Ben Gazzis, who will review our Q3 results in more detail. Ben?

Thank you, Kevin. We had another solid quarter. The nine-month period ended September 30, 2023. We generated FFO per unit of 47.3%, consistent with the same period in 2022. FFO for the period ended September 2023 was $9.7 million and was also consistent with the same period last year. FFO was impacted by rental revenues of newly acquired properties and contractual rent step-ups, which was offset by higher interest charges on mortgage renewals, variable rate mortgages, and credit facilities. During the same period, property rental income was $19.3 million, an increase of 9% compared to $17.7 million in the same period last year. NOI was $14.5 million, up 8% from $13.5 million for the same period in 2022. These increases were also primarily due to the impact of properties acquired subsequent to the third quarter. The IFRS value of our adjusted investment properties, which is the total of our wholly owned investment properties and our proportionate share of investment properties held in joint ventures, was $331 million as of September 30, 2023, a decrease of 8% compared to $338 million a year earlier, largely due to the dispositions of two properties Kevin mentioned earlier. We continue to maintain a prudent approach with respect to our leverage and our payout ratio, having a debt-to-gross assets ratio of approximately 57% at quarter end, compared to 58% at the same time last year. Excluding convertible debentures, debt to gross assets was 54% compared to 55% last year. Our FFO payout ratio for Q3 2023 was 55%, a slight increase from 54% in Q3 last year. Our properties are typically financed with fixed rate amortizing mortgages. As of September 30th, 2023, the REIT's exposure to variable rate debt is composed of three variable rate mortgages and its credit facilities. In addition, bridge loans on our development projects are at variable rates until converted to takeout financing. Over the years, our preference has been to take out the longest term available to use on our mortgages in order to mitigate our rate reset risk. We have $5.3 million of mortgages rolling over in 2023, which is excluding mortgages in our JVs, and the bulk of our renewals are not before 2027. In the mortgages rolling over are $2.8 million of mortgages associated with properties held for sale. The current average terms of maturity on our mortgages is 4.6 years. That summarizes our key results for the quarter. We will now open the line for any questions. Operator? Thank you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star 1 1 again.

One moment for the first question.

We have a question from the line of Patrick Cooley from Ashland Wealth Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi, and good morning. Patrick. Hello?

Yep, yep.

We can hear you. First question is just on the disposition front. Adjusting for the sale of the Dartmouth property post-quarterly, it's still roughly $3 million in assets held for sale. Just curious if

provide any updates or additional color you know with respect to timing and pricing for those assets yeah good question so those assets are still being marketed as we speak little traction on them so the assets we sold so far the restaurant properties received extremely and they're very good offers of markets the assets that were currently marketed I have some buyers looking around, but I would say that the volatility in rates similar to last quarter make it very hard for them to commit to a bid. So we have communications, but on a timeline, it's hard to tell at the moment. We've seen some decrease in rates, which should help going forward.

Appreciate it. And then just touching on that, those properties are backed largely, I'm assuming, variable rate mortgage and know any net proceeds will be uh likely going towards the credit facility exactly yes okay okay um and then just sticking on the debt side um just curious what you're seeing for rates on the uh the remaining 23 mortgages or or maybe for 24 um and just also wanted to confirm that there was uh you said it was 1.5 million in up financing activity there yeah so rates um

Rates are very volatile in the last week we've had we've been very fortunate we've seen some decrease, so what we see right now is between now it's a six and a quarter to 7% over the last week now the range would be closer to 625 to 6.5 which helps us on the more the expiring mortgages. The 1.5 that we will be getting of financing is on two mortgages coming due in the coming weeks. And so we'll get this. And going forward, obviously, very hard to do a forecast, but we expect slightly lower rates following recent news.

Got it. And then just moving forward on the maintenance CapEx side, assuming that the bump this quarter is just a little bit of carryover from, I believe, the roof maintenance that you discussed last quarter?

Exactly. So this year was big. We had $805,000 that were spent on a roof replacement on our curving leg property. This will be recovered with a 9% rate of return. So this is really, we started the work in Q2, finished in Q3, and that's why you see an uptick there.

Perfect. Thank you. And then just last question here. I won't hog the talk too much. Just looking ahead to 2024, could you provide any color or insight as to what you're seeing so far, you know, just with respect to leasing spreads and maybe contractual escalators for those expires?

Yeah, so 2024, so far what we've seen is it's between 10% and 15% on basically leases in place. On new leases, we're currently under negotiation, so very hard to tell, but nothing that is not contractual will be leased at a spread lower than 10% for sure.

Gotcha. Appreciate it. We'll turn it back there. Thanks, Kevin.

Thank you. Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Leon from Desjardins Computer Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Maybe sticking with the renewals there, last quarter you guys were at 40%, and I think there was some commentary about a significant amount of tenants that were undergoing renovations. So I'm just curious, out of that progress that was made from last quarter, how much of that was attributable to those tenants during the renovations, and are there any left for the remaining 26%? Yes.

So, basically, let me rephrase. So, if we include the tenants doing renovations, we would be at 97.5% leased, and then the remainder, 2.5%, would be tenants not undergoing significant renovations, but simply tenants that are with leases expiring in September and onward of next year. And so contractually speaking, they don't have to submit their notice as of today.

Okay, perfect. Thanks for that. Just on the transaction environment, you guys mentioned not much of a change on bid-ask spreads are still quite wide. So what do you expect you need to see to happen before activity accelerates? Is it... rate-driven, and if that's the case, maybe where you expect you need to see rates to hit before transaction markets improve.

Good question. So the main catalyst for sure is rates, especially in our asset class. Our asset class is national tenants' essential needs. There's rarely a worry about the ability to the tenant to pay vacancy. Our leases are triple net in nature. So for us, rates is the most important driver. What can we expect to see? What's our forecast? Very hard to tell. It's always the first one to give up, right? Is it going to be the buyer or the seller? I think now we're on a good trend since the past two weeks in terms of rates, which will make it a bit easier on the buyer. Hopefully, sellers also adjust slightly, which should help in the coming months.

Okay. Is there any kind of specific rate you expect if we hit, it'll kind of improve the economics from the buy side?

I mean, listen, I can't speak for the market in general. It's very hard to forecast such a number. As you know, we've always been on the Canadian net side, we're a bottom-up acquirer, right? We've always been very disciplined. So it doesn't matter if the rate is 6%, 6.5. At the end of the day, if we like the asset, if the purchase price of the asset allow us to reach our required return, then we will do the deal. But it's not like... we're not awaiting a 6% rate to say, well, now it's time to buy. It's always bottoms up, opportunity by opportunity. And as for the markets, I can't speak for other buyers.

I appreciate the color. Maybe last one for me, just on the disposition program. I'm just curious, everything that's kind of added to the health for sale bucket at this point, is that more opportunistic or do you actually have a specific quantum of assets you're looking to sell?

we did an analysis two years ago and we decided certain assets we want to we would like to sell not obviously as you can see we're not rushing to selling those are good assets long leases solid covenants and those are the two assets you can see in the health for sale the other assets that we've been disposing of were as i mentioned a bit earlier off-market offers from local acquires at prices that were extremely accretive for us, and so we've done them. But as for disposition program, it's really what you see in the assets held for sale, and until those are gone, we won't add to the list, and we won't sell unless we receive other very good offers.

Okay, perfect. Appreciate it. That's it for me.

Thank you, Alex. As a reminder to ask questions, you can press star 11 on your telephone.

At this time, no further questions.

I would like to hand the call back to management for closing.

Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to listen to our call this morning. That concludes our call.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.