Michael V. Pappagallo
Analyst · Merrill Lynch
Thanks, Glenn. I'll start by going off script. There are many questions surrounding the impact of Superstorm Sandy on the Kimco portfolio. The good news is that the impact on the portfolio is relatively tame considering the devastation that the storm brought to the area. Now recognize between Kimco's Northeast and Mid-Atlantic portfolios, we have over 200 properties. It's about 22 million square feet. And remarkably, most of it escaped pretty well. Now our Mid-Atlantic region, essentially untouched, all but 5 centers have full power. New York metro, a little bit more impact, mostly canopies, facades, some roof damaged on a few centers but very few issues that are shutting down the centers. In fact, although there is a significant amount of power loss in the area, most of the major tenants are open for business through the use of their own generators. Our crews are out. Cleanup is already underway, so there's very little impact. The one area that we have not been able to gain access to is Staten Island because of the issues surrounding that particular area. But we hope to get out there this morning and assess the situation in that market. Most -- all of our properties will be fully covered by insurance and we have a very low deductible, so there's certainly no economic impact on that. And again, with respect to our tenant base, the majority of the tenants are open and operating, so we don't see any significant issues coming out of rental revenues. We will keep everyone posted as conditions warrant. So that's the update on Hurricane Sandy. And I do need to give a full public acknowledgment to our property management teams in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, who are doing an incredible job of getting out to the properties and making an assessment as we go through this process. Okay. Back to the standard stuff. The third quarter operating metrics and trendlines remained solid. And I think they underscore the strengthening of our portfolio base and the overall improving environment. Both the U.S. and overall occupancy levels improved again in the third quarter. The U.S. portfolio occupancy increased by 20 basis points sequentially. Interestingly, the uptick was due solely to smaller-space lease-up, and it's certainly been a while since we've been able to say that. The occupancy of spaces under 10,000 square feet jumped 60 basis points to 83.9% with 2/3 of the increase attributable to positive leasing activity and the balance that benefited from the dispositions. Peeling back the onion a bit more, the overall non-anchor space occupancy has jumped over 2% in the past 12 months, and we're experiencing increases in both the true small-space leasing of under 5,000 square feet, as well as the larger mid-shop spaces. Consistent with prior quarters, this shift is towards national and franchise concepts with the 2 drivers being food and service offerings. On the anchor leasing side, we did experience some important new lease signings, but it was mostly offset from a couple of vacancies from the bankruptcy of RoomStore. With respect to those new deals, the eye-popping 40% positive spread underscores the ongoing trend of improvements in rental rates, periodically turbocharged by a below-market anchor box space brought up to market. In this case, it was a location in Pompano, Florida, in which Kmart was replaced by Whole Foods and Sports Authority. And I'd also like to point out that the meaningful increases were captured in releasing of spaces made available from the Borders and A&P bankruptcies, including Nordstrom Rack at our center in Manhasset, New York, and LA Fitness in Farmington, Connecticut, and a strong regional specialty supermarket replacing a Waldbaum's in Huntington, also along Long Island. Our U.S. same-store gross number landed at 2.5%. And I was quite pleased with this result knowing that the rent commencements for some of our replacement deals for those Borders and A&P boxes wouldn't kick in until the fourth quarter and thought we might get nicked a bit on the comps for this reporting period. However, our renewal experience was better than expected and credit loss experience continues to improve, underscoring the overall upgrade in tenancy and portfolio composition over the past year. And as a result, the U.S. same-site numbers have averaged at roughly to 2.5% handled through the 9-month period. So we are pleased with direction, velocity and recovery of rental rates, leasing spreads and NOI growth. But we are not losing focus as there's still a lot of hard work and creativity needed to manage through some of the downsizing initiatives on certain formats, the inevitable retailer bankruptcy and recognizing changing demographics and consequent demand in best tenant fit at our centers. That said, we're aided by increased demand for space, conscious that it's the stronger retailers that are taking market share rather than the general economic rising tide lifting all boats. It is the retailers that demonstrate operational excellence and/or focusing on differentiation, often by catering to specific targets, be it high-end or specialty or value or ethnic or other differences that are carrying the day. And as mentioned earlier, for smaller-space users, services and food products and restaurants across the spectrum are filling the gaps. Recognizing that over the long term, the primary driver in demand for space and strong pricing at a property will remain its location and market, we continue to push through our portfolio recycling efforts. We accelerated the pace of dispose since the begin of the third quarter with a total of 23 properties and 2.7 million square feet exited over the past 4 months. Because of these moves, we were able to consolidate our 2 Ohio offices into a single one and generated over $116 million for reinvestment into our existing property base and purchases in our target markets. We currently have deals set on 15 more properties and another 20 are in the market. And we expect that pace to continue through the next couple of years. Finally, looking outside the U.S., as Glenn noted, currency movements did not help the cause for our Mexico and Canadian comparable results this quarter. But in local currency terms, we're still trending well and expect 2012 to end with an NOI level ahead of budget both in local currency and U.S. dollar basis. Latin America, we executed a little under 200,000 square feet of leasing since our last earnings call and overall occupancy continues to increase. As Dave mentioned, in Mexico, we reached the 90% mark on our portfolio of stabilized properties. And when adding in those still in development and lease-up, the overall Mexico occupancy rose to 86.9%. Demand levels have continued to increase. And our operating team there has noted an increased interest from U.S.-based apparel retailers to enter the Mexico market. I think this has been helped by the reduction of tariffs against the wide variety of Chinese-made goods, including shoes and textiles. Canadian market remains healthy with an ever-growing roster of retailers expressing interest in opening stores north of the border. Most recently, Nordstrom announced its intention to open full -- 4 Full-Line Stores over the next 2 years and they'll continue to pursue additional opportunities for both more Full-Line and Nordstrom Racks. That's my report. And now for concluding comments, if Milton is still on his cell phone, I'll turn it over to him.