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Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc. (WHLRL)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 6, 2012

$80.01

+0.01%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings. And welcome to the Cedar Realty Trust Fourth Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Brad Cohen, Investor Relations for ICR. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. You may begin.

Brad Cohen

Management

Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon. At this time, management like me to inform you that certain statements made during the call, which are not historical facts, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities and Exchange Commission of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that expectations reflecting any forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The company can provide no assurance that expectations will be achieved and that actual results may or will differ. Many other factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in the company’s press releases, which was put out this afternoon and from time-to-time in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the end, the company undertakes no obligations to revise or update any forward-looking statements reflected in any circumstances after the date of the company’s release. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Bruce Schanzer, Chief Executive Officer and President. Bruce?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Thanks Brad. And welcome to the fourth quarter 2011 earnings call of Cedar Realty Trust. On this call, in addition to reviewing our fourth quarter 2011 and full year 2011 results, we will provide an update on the strategic plan we first described last November, we will describe some of the important steps we have taken in renewing our focus on leasing, as well as measures we have taken to start creating value through intensive asset management. Lastly, we will provide guidance for 2012. On this call I’m joined by the senior management team of Cedar, specifically, Philip Mays, our CFO; Brenda Walker, our COO; Nancy Mozzachio, our Head of Leasing; Mike Winters, our Head of Acquisitions; Tom Richey, our Head of Development; and Stuart Widowski, our General Counsel. Just about all team Cedar is dialed into this call as well. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge their many contributions. Although you will hear three people doing most of the talking on this call, there are over a 100 members of team Cedar and each of them is critical to us achieving our objectives. Since beginning at Cedar in June of 2011 with Phil, the reconstituted management team had endeavored to bring strategic and financial rigor to Cedar’s decision making and business planning. As we enter 2012, we are starting to see our efforts begin to produce results, though there was much work ahead of us and it will take time before we can say that Cedar has become what we intend for it, a strong performing shopping center REIT that delivers compelling results on a consistent basis. Over the past eight months there has been one major focus at Cedar in furtherance of this objective, namely, developing and then executing our near-term strategic plan, which includes…

Nancy Mozzachio

Management

Thank you, Bruce. Well economic recovery remain choppy, our leasing results evidence the defensiveness and resiliency of our centers, as well as the lure of high growth in supermarket to tenants large and small. As Bruce discussed, we solve sizable leasing velocity improvement in 2011 versus 2010 in every category, anchor, dark anchor, mid-sized anchor, small shop and temporarily leasing. New leases commencing in the fourth quarter totaled 146,000-square feet, up 23% over the same period in 2010. Total volume for 2011 was up approximately 34% over 2010 with a sizable increase in small shop activity in the last half of the year and overall absorption rate increasing 60% over 2010. Let’s break it down by category. Anchor volume was up 50% in 2011 over 2010. In 2011 we completed transactions with Giant, Kohl’s, Carmike Cinemas, as well as expansion of two of our well-established supermarket in Central Pennsylvania. Activity levels on darks but paying grocer locations are up substantially year-over-year. In Connecticut we are in advanced negotiation to replace a dark Shaw's box concurrently discussion concerning replacement in some cases replacement and expansion of three other dark boxes meaningfully progress. We see credit worthy replacement anchor tenants capable of producing strong sales for the asset. In doing so rent may not always meet dark box contractual rent. However, the trade-off is often value creation through ancillary tenant lease up, lease rollover rate and cap rate associated with the property. Mid-sized anchor transactions in 2011 were up meaningfully over 2010. We lease and delivered a T.J. Maxx at The Commons in Dubois, Pennsylvania and A.C. Moore at Upland Square in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. We signed leases with Michael's at Coliseum Marketplace in Hamptom, Virginia and with Marshalls at Trexler Mall in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. Both Michael’s and Marshalls expect to open at…

Philip Mays

Management

Thank Nancy. Good afternoon, everyone. I will briefly highlight our financial and property operating results, provide an update on our balance sheet and discuss our initial FFO guidance for 2012 before giving the call back to Bruce for a closing comment. Beginning with the operating results, this is a third quarter in a row we are reporting recurring FFO of $0.12 per diluted share. This is a decrease of $0.02 per share versus 4Q of 2010. We are also reporting $0.49 of FFO per diluted share for the full year 2012. This is a decrease of $0.10 per diluted share versus the prior year. In both cases and consistent with our last call, these decreases are driven by lower acquisition fees from our RioCan JV and lost rent from the IRS vacating two properties in Philadelphia that are in the process of being return to the lender. The progress we are making on dispositions will have a further impact on this current rate of $0.12 per quarter and I’ll discuss that in a minute. Now looking at same-center results, same-center NOI excluding redevelopment increased 2.9% for the quarter and just over 1% for the full year. The strong quarter results were generated by occupancy gains along with the decrease in bad debt expense. Including redevelopment same-center NOI increased 3.9% and 2.3% for the quarter and year, respectively. The positive spread over same-center excluding redevelopment results from lease up at Townfair Center over the year and than the new Giant coming on lease or coming online at Trexlertown Plaza in 4Q 2011. With respect to occupancy, we finished the year with total occupancy at 91.6% and same-center occupancy at 93.3%, a 110 and 30 basis point increase respectively over last year. Now occupancy may temporarily decrease if we make progress filling…

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Thanks, Phil, and thank you everyone for joining us on this call. 2011 represented an important year for Cedar in that we effected a fundamental management transition which resulted in a cultural change and strategic shift that we expect will lead to significant improvements in Cedar’s performance over the coming years. 2012 will be a year of evolution as we implement our strategic plan and start to see the seeds we planted towards the end of 2011 and in early 2012 begin to take root and hopefully start to bear fruit during the second half of the year and into 2013. With that, we will open the call to any questions you might have.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from line of Craig Schmidt with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Craig Schmidt – Bank of America: Thank you. Looking at the second piece of your asset sales, that’s the 24 properties of $65 million. How soon will those be close that under contract and is there any work to be done on those that are been return to the lender?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Okay. So let me answer those questions in the order which you asked them. In terms of the timing, we are driving them pretty hard. I think that I would surprised if they blend much past the end of the third quarter that sort of how we are thinking about internally. It’s hard to control the space some of these require landlord, I mean, I’m sorry, lender approvals that we can’t perfectly control and so again, our -- in terms of how we are thinking about it, we think about these things at the offset closing by the end of the year and we are hoping that they close by the end of the third quarter. In terms of the assets being return to the lender, our corporate objective in my direction to Brenda Walker who is being heading that is to try and spend as little money as we possibly can, some of these loans have non-recourse carve outs we obviously don’t want to attribute those, but with the specific exception we’re avoiding, triggering the non-recourse progress, we are trying to spend as little money as possible on those assets. Craig Schmidt – Bank of America: Okay. And then sort of on the third tranche or third piece rather the $45 million loan assets. Are you getting much response from those assets or is little slower going then the initial first two pieces?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

I would say, I would really divide that up into a couple of categories. Some of those assets are currently being marketed and I alluded the pricing discipline, we are, some of these assets we received offers on and we are working those deals, some of them we are currently marketing and waiting to get deals, some of those assets we haven’t yet brought to market, because we’re looking for the lease up and so they really, there is not one answer to how to characterize all those assets. One thing I would say that only five of the 11 are improved assets, right. So the rest or balance are land assets and they are between close malls and two non-mall improved retail assets, since I would characterize those differently in the sense that most of the value that we are talking about remaining is in those five improved assets and much less that is in the land. Craig Schmidt – Bank of America: Okay. Thanks. Very much.

Bruce Schanzer

Management

You got it, Craig.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Rj Milligan with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Rj Milligan – Raymond James: Hey. Good afternoon, guys. Pretty good progress on disposition so far. I’m just curious who is on the other side of these transactions, who are the -- who been the buyers?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

It really varies, it really varies, I wouldn’t characterize then with any kind of single characterization may vary from very sophisticated institutional buyers to local developers and local small time investors. It really just -- it varies by the asset, [by the result]. Rj Milligan – Raymond James: Okay. And so, I’m curious if what’s the same-store NOI guidance or can you provide same-store NOI guidance for 2012, what this core portfolios going to do?

Philip Mays

Management

Yeah. So in our guidance it provide for same-store growth between flat and 1% excluding redevelopment. For ’11 we did 1% excluding redevelopment 2% with redevelopment. We’d hope to get there again, we disappointed if we didn’t, but if we keep in mind the strong, defensive and stable nature of our assets, should economy improve, that will moderate, the same characteristics will moderate the growth the little but in the guidance flat to 1%. Rj Milligan – Raymond James: So would that be backend loaded into third and fourth quarters with the leasing that you guys have done in Q4 of 2011?

Philip Mays

Management

Yeah. Rj Milligan – Raymond James: Okay. Great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Paul Adornato with BMO. Please go ahead. Paul Adornato – BMO: Thanks. Good afternoon. I’m trying to understand the leasing activity and the effect on cash flow? And so, I was wondering if you could tell us what the difference or the gap between signed leases and rent paying leases is, and if you could exclude the noise surrounding the re-anchoring of the dark spaces?

Philip Mays

Management

Yeah. We’ll – this is Phil, Paul. With most of the leases that Nancy talked about are all coming online such as Kohl’s very, very late in the year. So I don’t think that will be backend loaded the same with the same-store growth towards the end of the year. Paul Adornato – BMO: Okay. And what’s the, could you quantify the impact of re-anchoring the dark spaces?

Philip Mays

Management

Extremely we’re to do that, would be lost rent, we hopefully, we would push our term fee too, that would probably wash out, so there is a lot of moving parts there as we work through them. If we do achieve one of those Paul and if that significant we’d update our guidance at that point in time.

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Paul, this is Bruce. The only thing that I would add is that dramatically the description that I gave is pretty much how we are thinking about it which is lot of these dark anchors pay pretty stable rents, and the pure cash flow oriented manager might say, we are just going to keep milking these things until they run out, but just thinking about this portfolio from a long-term perspective and again, managing it to try to maximize the value of the asset in the aggregate, we’ve decided -- we made a decision that we are going to compromise and we are going to take best rent in difficult from a replacement tenant. But generally speaking we are speaking with tenants who are better credit quality tenants than the tenants who currently occupy the dark anchors and so again they will definitely be a reduction in the rent per square foot at least in the ones that we’re talking about right now, as Phil mentioned, hopefully we get a term fee that might mitigate some of that lost, but at least based on the numbers that we are working through right now what we think in terms of the appreciation in value overwhelms and offsets that rent reduction, that sort of the calculus that we are making as we think about filling our dark anchors. Paul Adornato – BMO: Okay. That certainly makes sense of the strategy. With respect to the new rents on the anchor spaces would you characterize them as add market or slightly below market in order to get that better credit quality?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Those are add market, I mean, with, Nancy was describing before where were pricing spaces slightly inside of market are really very, very limited type of strategies that are only applied to small shop spaces where there is several vacancies. But in the case of dark anchor we are really getting the rent, we are patiently making deals with new anchors, but we are certainly not going to take it below market rent, where we are already taking a haircut over the rent that we are receiving. Paul Adornato – BMO: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is from the line of Todd Thomas with Keybanc. Please go ahead. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Hi. Good afternoon. With regard to the asset sale plans overall in the past you’d discussed that $7 million to $8 million of NOI that you would loose associated with the full 50 properties that you plan to sell? And based on your comments should we assume that the bulk of that NOI is already accounted for in the completed asset sells and what’d under contract?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

You know, Todd, I’m looking at Phil here. I think, the basically the way to think about it is that about half of it was in our Ohio dispositions and half of it in everything, also with our Ohio deals done, we are just about half way through the NOI loss. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Okay. Because, it’s sounded like some of the land sales, some of the property sales later on will be accretive, so I was…

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Yeah. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: … wondering if.

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Of that. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: So do the first and second tranche of property sales account for more than $7 million to $8 million of lost NOI?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

No. Well, this is distinguished between when you’re talking about tranches there is what we have closed and there is what we have under contract, and then there is what we have remaining to sell. What we have closed on is essentially our Ohio assets with handful of other assets. The Ohio assets represented about half of dilutive impact from an NOI perspective of all the dispositions we are making the balance of the assets that we sold, may be throwing the other million bucks or so. So basically what we sold so far again runs about half of the lost NOI, it’s actually mean by the first tranche and that’s -- I would say the answer is yeah. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Right. Okay. That’s helpful. And then just a question on guidance for Phil kind of technical, but is there any change in the non-cash rental income on the income statement the amortization of intangible lease liabilities, I know it’s non-cash, but in the past that’s been a fact there in estimating rental income and FFO? So just wondering if there is any change in that line item that we should think about for models for 2012?

Philip Mays

Management

Yeah. The company does have what you are talking about kind of the significant amount of the low market leases that are getting amortized to income because that timing when those assets were bought and the average leases on those that is them bleeding off between $11 and $10 decrease about $1 million. I mean, it’s likely to decrease maybe another $0.5 million over ’12. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Okay. All right. That’s helpful. And then, I was just wondering if you could comment Food Lion, maybe just give us an update on the seven stores that you have and then whether you had conversations with them about their strategy going forward for your centers?

Nancy Mozzachio

Management

Hey. I think our position in our conversation with Food Lion that those stores we have are strong stores, many of the changes that were announced or converting bottom dollars toward back to Food Lion, all of our Food Lion are in fact all full line Food Lion stores generating healthy sales. So we’ve heard nothing that reports to closures or any closures and anything in our portfolio. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Okay. And then just lastly with regard to RioCan, they’ve been vocal about their desire to continue sourcing deals in the U.S. and establishing U.S. management platform. I was just wondering if you have any thoughts about where your relationship with RioCan might be headed during the course of the year?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Well, let me answer that question, I guess, you sort of have two-part there, I can help you with one part and you’d have to speak with the folks at RioCan about the other part. In terms of sourcing deals, we continue to work with them to have them source deals and we are helping them look at deals now. So I could tell you that that definitely inactive and dynamic, and constructive relationship that we have with them. As we’ve mentioned before we are not currently putting out capital and so this is strictly done as part of the RioCan relationship. We do get a financial benefit and as much as we get fees from these transactions but this is also just part of the overall very good strong personal relationship that we have with the folks at RioCan. In terms of their objectives, I’ve read the same thing you’ve read, and I don’t make decisions for RioCan, you have to speak to the RioCan folks about what their intentions are as it relates to their growth plans beyond the deals that we are doing with them in United States. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Okay. Would you be interested in taking a large role in managing assets for them?

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Well, to be clear we are managing the assets that we are acquiring for them in the Northeast and we are happy to do it. Todd Thomas – Keybanc: Okay. Thank you.

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Got it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions in queue at this time. I’d like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Schanzer for closing remarks.

Bruce Schanzer

Management

Thank you everyone for joining us. Have a good evening.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.