Good day, and welcome to the Alexandria Real Estate Equities Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paula Schwartz with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The company's actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria. Please go ahead, Joel.

Thank you, Paul, and welcome everybody to Alexandria's third quarter earnings call. I'm here today with Hallie, Peter, and Marc. And first of all, as I do every quarter I want to extend a profound thank you and huge congratulations to each and every member of our Alexandria’s family team for bringing it this third quarter to post an impressive operating and financial performance in a continuingly stubborn economic and operating environment to the team. You're an inspiration to me each and every day in small ways and large. Thank you. The continuingly stubborn economic backdrop for commercial real estate and risk on investments, Peter and Marc will address those, but let me just give you a couple of quick comments driven by the huge and unnecessary federal deficits over the last handful of years $9 trillion plus, inflation in many areas remain sticky, stubborn and structural despite what the Labor Department is saying and reporting. Our cost of capital is also stubbornly high across much of the equity and debt capital markets again despite the delayed and rather feeble responses of the Fed to date. And Main Street is hurting in the United States, it's pretty clear. Hallie will comment more in-depth on Life Science Industry, but let me say a couple of things I've said many times in the past. This is one of the few crown remaining crown jewel industries here in the United States and is the great bastion of true and novel innovation. And the only real and effective path to solve and address over 90% of human diseases which remained unsolved today, which bear an unbearable burden on our citizens and our healthcare system is the translation of this innovation. Since the downward spiral biotech began in early 2021 and kind of hit its…

Thank you, Joel. This is Hallie Kuhn, Senior Vice President of Life Science and Capital Markets. This afternoon, we will provide an update on the life science industry, starting with FDA approvals and followed by a review of the current funding environment across our diverse life science tenant base. Taking a moment to reflect on the immense impact of the biopharma industry, since 2013 there have been 519 novel medicines approved by the FDA. Nearly half specifically 257 of these approvals have been developed or commercialized by Alexandria tenants. That's 257 approvals that have extended and improved lives, and is what inspires Alexandria's deeply held mission supporting the companies at the leading edge of life science innovation. Let's look at an example that will resonate for every person on this call who has personally experienced or supported loved ones with cancer. In the 1990s, the FDA created an approval process known as the Accelerated Approval Pathway with the goal of accelerating access to medicines for diseases with no effective medicines. Over the recent 16-year period, 69 cancer medicines were approved for the FDA's Accelerated Approval Pathway. These medicines have treated an estimated 911,000 patients, and led to 262,000 additional years of life. That is more than a quarter million years of lives saved. It's truly stunning. Now turning to life science fundamentals. Venture capital deployment to private biotech tenants which is 10% of our ARR is healthy. This year is tracking to eclipse 2023 and maybe the third highest year on record. As Joel mentioned, investors are highly disciplined, focused on rational valuations, de-risk technologies, and near-term milestones. The translation to demand on the ground is steady and conservative, transitioning to a just in time model for space. Scale and flexibility are core to this growth model and is why…

Thank you, Hallie. Before I get into my update on the development pipeline, leasing, supply, and asset sales, I wanted to comment on the improving health of the office market because it's helpful to life science real estate in a couple of ways. First, a healthy -- can create competition for life science tenants as tech tenants have historically been attracted to our locations and centers of innovation, and the appeal of our floor plates, ceiling heights and amenities. Second, office offers and alternative for some of the misguided life science real estate supply that's been added since the pandemic. We are seeing it real time with the boom of the office leasing taking place in Mission Bay. OpenAI completed a 490,000 square-foot sublease at our 1455-1515 Third Street property in the fourth quarter of 2023 and last quarter added another 315,000 square feet at the neighboring 550 Terry Francois Building, which by the way was being marketed as lab space. Our understanding is that two other tenants that were competing for that building, including a tech company, and that one of them is now negotiating at Mission Rock, which was also once identified as Future Lab Supply. In the third quarter, we delivered 316,000 square feet of development, redevelopment pipeline, 100% leased with 100% of the space contained in mega campuses located in our high barrier-to-entry submarkets. The annual incremental NOI delivered during the quarter equaled $21 million bringing the year-to-date total to $63 million. The weighted average stabilized yield of the deliveries was strong at 7.7%. After a strong second quarter, development and redevelopment leasing was light at 39,121 square feet, bringing the total for the year to 480,342 square feet. We suspect the result was driven by the fact that most of the space available for lease…

Thank you, Peter. This is Marc Binda, CFO. Hello, and good afternoon everyone. We reported solid operating and financial results for the second quarter. Total revenues and NOI for 3Q ’24 were up 10.9% and 12.5% respectively over 3Q ’23, primarily driven by solid same-property performance, and continued execution of our development and redevelopment strategy. FFO per share diluted as adjusted for the quarter was $2.37, up 4.9% over 3Q '23, and is in line with consensus. Our solid operating results for the quarter were driven by our disciplined execution of our mega campus strategy, tremendous scale, longstanding tenant relationships, and operational excellence by our team. 76% of our annual rental revenue comes from our collaborative mega campuses. We have high-quality cash flows with 53% of our annual rental revenue from investment grade and publicly traded large-cap tenants. Collections remained very high at 99.9%, and adjusted EBITDA margins continued to be strong at 70% for the quarter. An important takeaway for the quarter should be the very strong leasing volume results. Leasing volume for the quarter was 1.5 million square feet, which was up 48% over the trailing four-quarter average, and was the highest quarterly volume since 4Q '22. We continue to benefit from our tremendous scale, high-quality tenant roster, and brand loyalty with 80% of our leasing activity over the last 12-months coming from our existing deep well of approximately 800 tenant relationships. The rental rate increases for the first 9-months of 2024 were strong at 16.4% and 8.9% on a cash basis. And our outlook for rental rate growth for the full year '24 remains solid at 11% to 19%, and 5% to 13% on a cash basis. Rental rate growth for lease renewals and releasing the space for the quarter was 5.1% and 1.5% on a cash…

Okay. Paula, could you have the moderator open it up for questions please?

Yes, please do.

Today's first question comes from Joshua Dennerlein with BofA Merrill Lynch.

Yes. Hey, guys. I appreciate the time. I appreciated the comments on the Seattle asset sale to 4.9% and then the pending sales that are stabilized like a 7.5% cash cap rate. Is there any other like additional color you can provide on like what's driving the gap between those two? I know you touched a little bit on your opening remarks. Then maybe just like the second part of that would be like should we assume like the stuff that's not in the mega campus is stabilized maybe is closer to that 7.5% cash cap rate?

Yes, I don't think that's a reasonable assumption, but Marc do you want to talk about Seattle and maybe how to think about?

Yes, sorry. Yes, Josh, I think on the stabilized cap rate, I think perhaps what you're referring to is, I think it was a 7% cash and 8.5% GAAP. The big reason for the delta there between cash and GAAP was the big chunk of that is the suburban Greater Boston market that actually had some really long lease term in place. So you had a pretty big spread there between cash and GAAP. But I think if you think about what to expect in terms of stabilized asset sales, we've given you the number for this year, and they're non-core. So we expect them to be wider than that.

Yes, So Marc, do you want to comment?

Josh, you're talking specifically about the Greater Boston asset.

No, I thought I heard you say like half the pending dispositions that $1.2 billion were going to be like sold for like a GAAP 8.5% at cash 7%. I was just trying to like contrast like that pool of assets versus that 4.9% that was sold in Seattle.

Right. Yes. So about half of the $1.2 billion is stabilized assets. That includes the one particular asset we mentioned in Greater Boston that, I think had a 6.3% cash cap rate and then a much wider GAAP cap rate given the long terms. The other half of the $1.2 billion is a mixture of land and also some non-stabilized properties. If you kind of reverse engineer the math, it's somewhere in the high-7s in terms of the GAAP NOI coming offline. But what I was trying to say in the prepared commentary is there's a fair amount of that NOI that for those particular assets that we're selling that happened to be in Boston that will be going away next year. And so the decision there was really to allow the buyer to invest that capital since those assets really just don't fit our strategy any longer.

Peter, any further comments you have?

Yes. I mean part of your question, I think referenced the 7.6% cap rate maybe that I mentioned of one of our workhorse assets versus the core asset 4.9% -- the 7.6% was in Northern Virginia. It is lab space, but it is more clinical lab space and not the R&D type of space that is in our core mega campuses. But what I was trying to get across in my commentary was, we wanted to make sure that everyone was aware because a lot of what we've been selling has been non-core, almost everything is non-core unless it's been a partial interest sale. We haven't done a partial interest sale in a while. So we just sold a core asset in Lake Union and I explained why. And it was at a 4.9%. And even though it was a user sale, which certainly influences value. It has to be in the ballpark of market value, right? I mean from any rational buyer is not going to way overpay for anything no matter whether they are a user or not. So I thought it was a good example and reminder to everybody that we are on our way to making everything that we own or a good portion of what we own core mega campus assets. And once we're done with our disposition program, we are what we have left is highly valuable and that comp reflects that and that's what I was trying to get across.

Yes, that's really good. And Josh just one other comment that you have to remember, so the company is 30 years old and so it's acquired, developed or redeveloped assets over a long period of time that now don't fit the go forward mega campus strategy. So that's pretty obvious.

And our next question today comes from Rich Anderson at Wedbush.

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. So in terms of the dollar value of what you can still do in terms of non-core assets, you mentioned 76% mega campuses. I just sort of did a 24% of your enterprise value and got to $9 billion. But I assume that's a bit simplistic, but is the pipeline for additional sales to meet your development obligations in that sort of $5 billion to $10 billion range, would you agree with that number or am I wrong?

Yes. Marc, do you want to respond to that?

Yes. I think it's true that some of that 24% of ARR that resides in non-mega campuses, some of that would be stuff that we would we may look to exit over time. But there are some really good assets in there that are located in good markets that maybe things we hang on to. The other thing I would say is that we do have some land on the books that is also not located in mega campuses. So that could also be another capital source that we look to go after. I think about 31% or so of the square footage in the land bank is not located in mega campuses.

Okay, great. And then just a quick sec question here, on the realized gains guidance for the full year, it's still over $100 million I think you've done $47 million as of the Q3 year to date. Does that imply another $50 million plus in the Q4 or am I again, am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing it --

Yes, realized gains for the quarter were $23 million and I think we're $85.2 million for the nine months. So if you annualize that, that kind of puts you square in the middle or pretty close to the middle of our guidance range of $95 million to $125 million.

I thought I saw disclosure for $47 million year to date. I must have I'll have a relook at that.

Erroneous, yes.

And our next question today comes from Michael Griffin with Citi.

Thanks. It's Nick Joseph here with Michael. Maybe just first on the 5 year lease extension with the tech tenant in Texas. Just hoping to get some more color on that and kind of what your long term plans are if you still plan to convert this to lab space and kind of the considerations that went into that decision?

Yes. So we're under strict confidentiality as you probably can imagine. All big tech tenants don't want their name used. They don't allow you to put other tech tenants in the building. They're pretty strict in what they do. So we can say very little other than, we felt that, this renewal was integral to their own campus, which is actually adjacent to our site. These are highly improved buildings for their particular use. So they aren't just some kind of half-asset tech, office kind of thing. They're actually quite valuable and quite improved. I don't know where it goes over time, but clearly having the cash flow is better than in this market environment with cost of capital than trying to reposition them, but they may be an ultimate buyer here as well. So we'll see how the story plays out.

Thanks. That's helpful. And then, just on leasing more broadly, have you started to see larger space requirements, kind of demand pick up, or is it still more from the medium size 20,000 to 40,000 square foot tenants?

Well, I think it's pretty good in the early and steady on the revenue-generating side. I think in the middle is where it still remains challenging. And when you've got good clinical data run approval, generally you've got good news. And if not, you know, it's kind of sluggish. So I don't think that's materially changed.

And our next question comes from Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets.

Yes. Thanks. Marc, I wanted to circle back on the valuations on some of the dispositions you provided to make sure I'm thinking about everything correctly. So I know on the $1.2 billion of pending sales. The supplement says there's $96 million of GAAP NOI associated to that, which reflects about 8.1% cap rate. Do you have the cash number for there? So how much cash NOI should we expect kind of goes away once those sales are completed?

Yes, that number is around $91 million, Michael.

Okay. Great. And then Peter, in your comments earlier, you're saying once you're done with the non-core asset sales, the portfolio quality is going to be significantly improved. I mean, how much should we think about the timing of that. I mean is this going to be a longer-term process, or is there a line of sight when you kind of gave us that idea?

Well, yes, let me say something before Peter answers. I don't think you could say the quality of the portfolio is going to be substantially improved. It is already first in class, best assets, best location, best services, best tenants. So I don't think how you're thinking about that is quite correct. We have a variety of assets, land, redevelopments, and developments that no longer fit the mega campus strategy, and will harvest those assets over the coming years as we deem appropriate to match sources and uses and also in light of the valuation in the marketplace. So that's kind of how we look at it, but Peter you could comment further.

Yes, look, the best strategy for us to mitigate the supply that's gone into our core markets is our mega campus strategy. So we are going all in on it. And as Joel mentioned, we feel like all the assets we have are good assets, but we deem some of them to no longer be part of our strategy, and we're those are the ones that we're selling in order to fund our pipeline, which is increasing our percentage of mega campus assets. How long it's going to take is hard to say, but we're doing it incrementally as we build out our mega campus platform. It's good. We feel like it's good that we are able to fund this transition by selling assets that are no longer part of our strategy versus using common. So, the net effect is not we are funding the business without issuing common equity. And at the same time as those sales occur, we increase the percentage of our mega campus assets.

And maintaining a great balance sheet in the meantime.

Okay, great. And then just one last question for me. It does look like 99 Coolidge in the development schedule, kind of the stabilization got pushed out a year. Can you kind of provide some color, the reasoning of why that kind of got pushed out?

Yeah. Well, it's pretty simple. This is a brand new building. It's one of the most highlighted buildings in all of the Watertown campus and submarket. And it's pretty clear that it's going to take us more time to build out space to deliver to tenants rather than having just some time space available. So as part of the development, we're doing that, but that takes time in this marketplace. But we did just sign a lease, I don't know and maybe after the end of the quarter another lease there which will be reported I think was October 13 or something like that for part of the space there. But the challenge there is to lease space and have available space that people can move into and that's what we're trying to get to. That's the point.

And our next question comes from Omotayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank.

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Just wanted to follow-up on Rob's question. Marc, you mentioned the cash NOI disappearing was about is about $91 million on the $1.2 billion of sales. So I'm looking at it kind of saying that that's about a 7.5% cash yield, but developments are being done at a stabilized 6.4%. So I'm a little I'm just kind of trying to understand again selling at 7.5% to fund assets at 6.4%. Are we looking at that being something dilutive to FFO? Or should we be thinking more about because you're certainly not dealing with a bunch of recurring CapEx, it's still going to be accretive on an AFFO on a free cash flow basis?

Yes, sure. Yes, no, you're right that what we're selling is obviously has a higher cap rate than what we're developing in if you just look at a moment in time. But I think though a bunch of those assets particularly for the non-stabilized ones will absolutely need or will require significant capital to re-tenant those. So I think the choice there was really just to allow the buyer to do that, since those assets don't fit our strategy any longer and take those proceeds and redeploy them into the pipeline where a significant amount of the product in the pipeline is all concentrated in the mega campuses.

Okay, that's helpful. And then if I may ask another one, the reduction in guidance for straight line rents, again, I know part of it was just write offs of associated with some tenants and some lease terminations. I mean, when you look at the overall portfolio today and you kind of think of a watch list, if I may use those words. I mean, how does one kind of think about that and kind of as I start thinking about 2025, whether we may see a few more of these instances of straight line rent write-offs?

Yes. Maybe, Hallie, maybe, I'll put that one over to you just to talk about kind of how we look at the watch list.

Frame it for her first.

Yes. Look, I think this was a kind of a discrete event with this particular tenant. It was a large tenant. It was actually a tenant that we inherited when we bought the asset over a decade ago. They've been in there for a very long time, close to, not quite 20 years, but pretty close to it. They've been operating in there. And we sold out of that particular campus a number of years ago in Mission Bay to reduce our exposure. But I think what I want to communicate is that these things do happen, but that was just kind of a one-off event.

Yes. And I'll maybe answer on Hallie, you can hold your fire for another question. So it's important to keep in mind, too, that this tenant who Marc said, was in there when we bought the building in 2010. It had been signed a lease with the Shorenstein team in 2006, I believe. The company, actually, when we underwrote it, I personally was involved in the underwriting in 2010, look to have one of the most promising blockbuster drugs, a replacement for Amgen's erythropoietin, but instead injectable, it was a pill. But over the course of time through a variety of development changes and just the combination of maybe strategy, science and a whole lot of other issues that come to bear it had lost that opportunity and so was faced with the prospect of continuing its business in China and winding down in the U.S. So I think we did everything prudent we could during all those years and very proud of the fact that we have one of the best track records of underwriting tenants, I think the best in the industry by far. No one has our capability. So thank you for the question.

And our next question today comes from Georgi Dinkov with Mizuho.

This is Georgi on for Vikram. What is the potential for exceeding the midpoint of the disposition guidance? And as you say, assets, what's the best use of the capital?

Yes. So Marc?

Yes. Look, I think we're almost in late October. So I don't know that I would expect to do much beyond what we laid out in terms of the actual amounts that are either under contract or under -- have a hard asset. There are other things we're looking at that we're moving along that we'll continue to work on. But for now, I probably wouldn't assume much beyond that.

And the second part of the question?

Sorry, could you repeat the second part, Georgi?

Yes, yes. What is the best use of this capital as you sell assets in your view?

Right. Yes. So look, we planned since the beginning of the year to really fund the construction of the pipeline with this capital. So that's been happening during the year. And this money will be used to pay down debt, which we borrowed to fund the construction pipeline. We do expect, just given where we are in the year, we do expect to actually have a little bit more proceeds from the sales that we won't have the ability to pay down debt. We expect a revolver should be at or close to 0. So by the end of the year. So we do expect to hold on to some of that cash that can then be redeployed next year that ought to reduce our debt needs going forward in 2025.

But obviously, as you look at funding construction given cost of capital, given the fact that many of these projects in the pipeline were committed in past years, we're only funding new pipeline opportunities, whether they be development or redevelopment where our returns can be well above cost of capital. So that's how we're looking at.

And just one more for me. How do you see demand evolving as funding improves? And do you have any updated thoughts on AI and how that would drive lab space needs going forward?

Yes. So demand, I think, has been pretty I think the word I used was the industry is in a highly disciplined capital deployment, both capital raising and capital deployment. So we're dealing with that. But we've got 800 tenants plus, and we have high-quality tenants that need lab space. And so as I think Marc said, 80% of our tenants over the last year have come from our own tenants. So we outcompete in those opportunities if we have space available and that's good. On the AI side, I think it's very early days, although AI has been around for quite a long time, very early days for AI. Obviously, the best use of AI and the world of AI is going to have to meet the world of drug development in a moment. Language models and a lot of inhibitions remain between those two, but many companies. In fact, most companies are trying to use AI to inform them to get to better targets and outcomes. And ultimately, my own view is that AI is going to make maybe the most remarkable progress in the clinical setting, where if, over time, one could predict with greater certainty, the those who would respond positively versus no response or negative response, that could save the largest amount of money in the entire drug development process, which is clinical trials. So thanks for that question.

Joel, can I just layer on that. Hi, this is Hallie. I was just going to respond to your first question in terms of the demand. And just to -- as a reminder of as you think about medicine development, unfortunately, for public companies, it doesn't happen on a quarter-to-quarter basis, right? It takes 10 years easily to bring a new medicine from early research to a patient. And what we see on the ground is just incredible innovation, right? We're still continuing to see the discoveries and new forms of modalities that will continue to be developed and make their way to patients. And so while we are in a conservative environment right now, the outlook on the growth of the industry and that translating to needs over the long term is certainly positive. And so the leads we see for example in the obesity space, right? There's so much unmet need across Alzheimer's across still other forms of cancer that the industry outlook and the innovation driving that demand will continue.

And our next question comes from Peter Abramowitz with Jefferies.

I was just wondering if you could comment on sublease space, specifically in Boston and the Bay Area. Is it continuing to increase? Or does it seem like it's sort of stabilized.

Yes. Peter, do you want to address that?

Yes. It's stabilized. It has actually not state -- good sublease space, not stayed on the market long. Anything that -- when you look at the percentage of things that are still available for sublease, that space that's for a long, long time because it's just not a good space or it's not a shelf space. But we're not seeing a lot of space being put back on the market now. So what is being absorbed is generally available vacant space and not directly big enough space and not sublease space. So that's been a positive for the market, although there is still some availabilities for sure. But tenants tend to want to go direct, if at all possible, because they have no control over the space if they're going through a tenant that's subleasing it.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just to go back to Joel's comment, I think tenants generally just being more thoughtful and disciplined in terms of their capital allocation. Could you just sort of comment on length of time and deal cycles to actually get leases done sort of where that's at today versus where it's been historically? And any sense of that changing anytime soon?

Yes, Peter?

Yes. The cycle of leasing has definitely taken a lot longer now than it used to, certainly, Boards are scrutinizing any growth space and tenants are looking at all the options in the market before making decisions to make sure they're doing all their diligence because Boards are requiring them to get everything pretty much, at least, for the earlier-stage companies and maybe the early IPO companies. The Boards are really looking at every dollar and wanting to ensure that all the diligence was done we feel confident when we're in the mix that we're going to win the deal, but the deals are taking longer to make for sure.

And the last question for today comes from Dylan Burzinski with Green Street.

Just one quick one on transaction markets. Given the commentary on the call, it seems like most of the dispositions this year, those that have been -- that happened in those that are said to close to year-end. It seems like most of the depth to bids have come from users. So just sort of curious on appetite from traditional real estate investors to put capital into work into the life science base today?

Yes, Peter?

Yes. Look, we've been fortunate that there have been users out there that want to take advantage of the opportunity to buy the real estate they wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to buy because weren't sellers in the past. Transaction velocity to investors is really highly dependent on the financing market. And although it's starting to improve, it's still not where it needs to be for a lot of money to get off the sidelines and back into acquiring mode. There are some investor sales that we're doing for sure. But we think that coming into next year, there'll be a lot more opportunity for us to do so. One, because rates hopefully will revert. We all thought they'd be going down, not up, at this point, but we do have confidence that they will, the 10 year will start to go down. And then we are seeing lenders now start to get back into the market. So that, that will be an opportunity to increase the velocity of transactions to investors and also an opportunity to do better on valuations because they'll be able to leverage them.

Our last question today comes from Jim Kammert with Evercore.

To the extent you can, where would you say are the better pockets of demand for new space, the lease-up in other words, in the development, redevelopment Is it the private biotech, is it pre-commercial biotechs, big pharma. I'm just curious if you could put any sort of hanging paper around that, where the broader or the deeper view.

I think it's the -- yes, I think it's the earlier stage company by and large. And if you get a commercial or I mean a clinical stage company that has good news and then it's got to move immediately. Those are probably the 2 most common pockets today.

Okay. Great. And if I could just leverage last comment on gen AI, to make sure I understood in your prior response. You thought it would be really powerful AI in terms of clinical studies, Joel. But does that -- am I mistaken to think that helps or hinders demand for space then in terms of your lab portfolio?

Well, I think it's positive in the sense that it will provide way more opportunities for targets, medicines and shots on goal, if it aids in a bets in the clinical trial process, we don't lease space to hospitals or others doing clinical trial. So that doesn't hurt us, but what matters is the pipeline of products that address the 90%-plus diseases that need to be solved. So I think that would be very good news for us.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Joel Marcus for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everybody, and be safe and God bless.

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.