City Office REIT Inc
NYSE:CIO
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
City Office REIT Inc
The company faced a slight same-store cash Net Operating Income (NOI) decline of 0.5% in Q4, while the full year showed a modest growth of 3% compared to the previous year. The overall portfolio occupancy rate stood at 84.5%, which includes 114,000 square feet of signed but not yet commenced leases, indicating a potential occupancy rate of 86.5%. The main operational challenges presented are concentrated in a subset of properties, most pronounced in the Portland market, which has been recognized as particularly tough. A significant 70,000-square-foot lease departure from this area had a notable adverse effect on the quarter's retention rate, which fell to 21%.
Allocations totaling $900,000 were made to spec suites and vacancy conditioning, key strategies in the company's business plan. Adjustments due to these and other changes, the guidance anticipates a decline in Core Funds from Operations (FFO) by approximately $6 million from 2023. This projection also acknowledges the expected increased interest expense by $3 million year-over-year, mainly attributed to higher rates on property level debt renewals and a higher average balance on the company's credit facility.
For 2024, the provided guidance entails no new acquisitions, while expecting dispositions of $21 million, primarily reflective of the Cascade Station property in Portland. This suggests a possible lender disposition, contingent on the negotiation of material loan modifications. Interest rate assumptions align with current levels, not factoring in any potential rate decreases for floating rate debt. The company has outlined its Core FFO per share expectations to lie between $1.18 and $1.22.
In 2024, the company is set to navigate $102 million in scheduled debt maturities, including a significant $21 million nonrecourse property loan maturing in May at the troublesome Cascade Station property. This asset, having undergone an impairment that wrote off the company's equity value, demonstrates the difficulties persisting in the Portland market and the reluctance to invest further without substantial loan modification. In face of this, a strategic decision may lead to conceding the asset back to the lender, provided negotiations do not yield a favorable outcome.
The company's projections take into account various influences such as the aforementioned assumed dispositions, interest rate treatments, operational investment strategies, and debt negotiations. A cumulative $2 million reduction in Core FFO is anticipated for 2024 in comparison to 2023 due primarily to Cascade Station's performance. Furthermore, another $1 million reduction is expected from the non-operation of former WeWork spaces, with a potential return to revenue in 2025 contingent on successful replacement tenant transactions.
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Good morning, and welcome to the City Office REIT, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].
It is now my pleasure to introduce you to Tony Maretic, the company's Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary. Thank you. Mr. Maretic, you may begin.
Good morning. Before we begin, I'd like to direct you to our website at cioreit.com, where you can view our fourth quarter earnings press release and supplemental information package. The earnings release and supplemental package both include a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures that will be discussed today to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.
Certain statements made today that discuss the company's beliefs or expectations or that are not based on historical fact may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Although the company believes that these expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that these expectations will be achieved. Please see the forward-looking statements disclaimer in our fourth quarter earnings press release and the company's filings with the SEC for factors that could cause material differences between forward-looking statements and actual results. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be made in the course of this call. I'll review our financial results after Jamie Farrar, our Chief Executive Officer, discusses some of the quarter's operational highlights. I will now turn the call over to Jamie.
Good morning, and thanks for joining today. On this call, I'd like to touch on several topics. First, a look back at our performance in 2023, then an overview on the state of the office market and last, updates on our progress and focus areas for 2024.
Overall, 2023 was in line with our expectations. Our core FFO per share ended the year at $1.39, which was within the guidance range we set at the beginning of 2023. Our performance led to dividend coverage for the year with a total AFFO payout ratio of 66%. Operationally, we executed 599,000 square feet of new and renewal leasing throughout the year. Our pipeline of leasing prospects gained considerable momentum as the year progressed. In the fourth quarter, we executed 109,000 square feet of new leases, which was the highest level of any quarter in 2023. The average term of those leases was a healthy 8 years.
Our occupancy also ended the year approximately where we expected it to land, and we achieved 3% same-store cash NOI growth for 2023 as compared to the prior year. Last, during 2023 we renewed 2 property loans for 5 years each, which was a success in an otherwise challenging financing market. I'll use this as a transition to provide an update on the state of the office market. There continue to be headwinds in certain areas and promising green shoots and others. On the challenging side, the investment sales market continues to be very slow. Across the office market in 2023, sales volumes was down 57% year-over-year. Within the limited transactions that closed, many were aided by seller financing or assumable debt.
Debt capital also continues to be effectively frozen for new originations with lenders seeking to reduce their office sector exposure. We're closely monitoring these trends and remain in active dialogue with our own lending relationships.
On the side of positive trends, the corporate pressure on employees to return to the office continues to gather momentum. Major companies, including employers such as Google, Meta, Salesforce and Amazon, to name a few, have all shifted their policies towards more consistent in-office collaboration, having employees attending the office a minimum of 3 days a week, which appears to be a common current policy should bolster overall space needs and benefit high-quality office assets. We believe these trends will further strengthen throughout 2024.
Another helpful change is the rapid slowdown in new construction. Q4 2023 had the least amount of ground broken for new office buildings in over 20 years, according to JLL. The projects that are breaking ground are generally build-to-suit or pre-leased with almost no new spec projects underway. This will help shift the supply-demand balance as obsolete buildings get removed from inventory without being replaced.
Subleasing is also moderating with Q4 starting to indicate an equilibrium or a decrease of sublease availability across many office markets.
Relating to leasing trends, the flight to quality trend continues, which benefits our portfolio. According to JLL research, 60% of total vacancy is concentrated in just 10% of buildings. Leasing demand continues to be highest for well-located premier buildings that have amenities and ready to lease space.
That leads us to our update on our progress so far in 2024. The leasing momentum that we experienced in the fourth quarter carried over into 2024. Today, we're actively pursuing a leasing pipeline that exceeds 200,000 square feet. Of note, last year, larger corporate user lease discussions were less frequent with most of last year's activity in the small- to medium-sized suite range. Within our current pipeline, we are in active lease negotiations with 4 companies that average over 40,000 square feet per lease. The return of these larger corporate tenants is a positive development, which has the potential to reaccelerate leasing results.
Our leasing pipeline is in part driven by our spec suite and renovation programs that we've been focused on for the last 2 years. We currently have 84,000 square feet of built spec suites in our inventory with 19,000 square feet under construction or planned to commence in 2024. Combined with renovations, such as our Pima Center property in Phoenix, these investments are allowing us to compete for a larger share of leasing across our markets. As a status update on WeWork, they continue to operate in bankruptcy. As a reminder, at year-end, we had 3 WeWork leases at our newest and best properties. On our last call, we highlighted that WeWork's Raleigh and Dallas operations and our buildings appear to be performing well from an occupancy standpoint. However, the Phoenix location at Block 23 had lower occupancy as it was still in the lease-up phase having been opened for just over a year. Block 23 is an incredible, duly constructed building that is 1 of the top properties in Phoenix. We did not come to terms with WeWork on a lease restructuring and the Block 23 lease was rejected effective February 7. City Office holds a $1 million letter of credit as additional security for this lease, which is being drawn and applied against our costs and lost income.
As discussed on our last call, we've been working with other co-working operators to rebrand this location in the event of a WeWork departure. We continue to keep all of our options open, but are in late-stage negotiations with another high-quality co-working operator. We are working at this location backfilled quickly, and we'll provide further details on our next call.
In terms of collection of rents from WeWork, they withheld January and February rent payments at Block 23 and the terraces as part of their lease negotiation tactics. In response, we immediately initiated litigation. Ultimately, WeWork have now agreed to repay these overdue amounts by the end of February in exchange for us dropping our litigation. Bottom line, we remain very confident in our position.
Our Block 83 terraces and Block 23 properties are 3 of the most desirable office assets in the entirety of Raleigh, Dallas and Phoenix. Irrespective of what happens with WeWork, these are incredible new buildings and are exactly what tenants want to lease today. With that, I'll turn to our outlook for the balance of 2024.
Tony will provide more detail, but in broad strokes, we have several focus areas. First, we remain focused on executing new leasing and driving occupancy. Related to that, we will further our spec suite and property renovation programs to optimally position our spaces for success. We see the timing of these enhancements aligns with market demand. Second, we continue to prioritize maintaining liquidity, protecting capital and addressing debt maturities in a prudent manner. And last, our DNA as a company has always been to uncover creative ways to unlock value at our properties. And in 2024, we're looking to advance a few promising projects. While these initiatives remain at an earlier stage, we've been focused on finding ways to advance shareholder value.
With that, I'll hand the call over to Tony to discuss our financial results and guidance in more detail.
Thanks, Jamie. Our net operating income in the fourth quarter was $26.9 million, which is $300,000 higher than the amount we reported in the third quarter. Fourth quarter NOI was impacted by 2 offsetting accounting transactions. First, we rolled off $1.4 million in straight-line rent receivables and above-market lease amortization related to the WeWork lease at Block 23. Also during the quarter, the company recognized $1.5 million of income due to the reversal of an accrued liability for a tenant improvement reimbursement that was no longer owed as the claim period had expired. The net impact of these 2 transactions was an increase to NOI of $100,000.
We reported core FFO of $13.5 million or $0.33 per share for the fourth quarter. This was $200,000 lower than in the third quarter as slightly higher G&A and interest costs offset higher NOI. Our fourth quarter AFFO was $9.3 million or $0.23 per share, which resulted in a well-covered dividend this quarter. The largest impact to AFFO were costs related to our ready-to-lease spec suites and vacancy conditioning program, which are key parts of our business plan. The total investment in spec suites and vacancy conditioning in the fourth quarter was $900,000 or $0.02 per share.
Moving on to some of our operational metrics. Our fourth quarter same-store cash NOI change was negative 0.5% or [ $100,000 ] lower as compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Same-store cash NOI grew by 3% for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the prior year.
Block 83 in Raleigh and Park Tower in Tampa had the largest year-over-year increases due to slightly higher occupancy and free rent in the prior year comp period as a result of signed leases. Our retention rate in the quarter was 21%, which was significantly impacted by the 70,000 square feet of lease departures at our Portland properties alone during the quarter. Consistent with JLL's and market research that Jamie mentioned, the vacancy we have experienced in our portfolio is concentrated in a smaller subset of our properties.
Our portfolio occupancy ended the quarter at 84.5% including 114,000 square feet of signed leases that have not yet commenced, our occupancy was 86.5% as of quarter end. Our total debt as of December 31 was $670 million. Our net debt, including restricted cash to EBITDA, was 6.6x. We had over $90 million of undrawn authorized on our credit facility. We also had cash and restricted cash of $43 million as of quarter end. As far as our debt maturities in 2024, we had 4 scheduled maturities for a total of $102 million. The first, we have talked about on prior calls. In May, the $21 million nonrecourse property loan at our cascade station property in Portland will mature. In December 2022, we recorded an impairment in that asset value that effectively wrote off our equity value. We are in continued discussions with that lender. Portland continues to be a challenging market and without some form of material loan modifications, it is difficult to justify investing further equity into this asset today.
At Central Fairwinds, we have a property loan with a $16 million principal balance that matures in June. This is the same lender that we successfully renewed 2 property loans in mid-2023. At FRP Ingenuity Drive there is a property loan with a balance of $16 million that matures at the end of the year in December. We are currently working on an early extension there. Last, we have a $50 million corporate term loan with our line of credit banks that matures in September. Similarly, we have initiated discussions and expect to provide an update next quarter.
Changing gears to guidance. We have introduced new full year 2024 guidance in our fourth quarter press release. I'll walk through a few of the key points. We have assumed no acquisitions for the year, and we have included $21 million of dispositions. This $21 million reflects our Cascade Station property in Portland and our assumption that unless we are able to achieve material loan applications that property would likely be a disposition to the lender. Related to our interest rate assumptions for debt that is floating rate, we have assumed flat interest rates and have not baked in any potential reference rate decreases in 2024.
Our G&A range is $14.5 million to $15.5 million in 2024. This is the same range we had for the prior year. The result of our assumptions is a core FFO per share range of $1.18 to $1.22. Our projected 2024 core FFO is approximately $6 million lower than our 2023 actual core FFO. We are expecting interest expense to increase by approximately $3 million year-over-year due to higher rates on property level debt renewals and a higher average balance on our credit facility.
Cascade Station occupancy declines year-over-year and assumed disposition lower leverage, but also result in a $2 million reduction to core FFO in 2024 as compared to 2023. Last, approximately $1 million of that reduction relates to the assumption on the former WeWork space at our Block 23 property. We have assumed no income in 2024 with this operation, but forecast returned to a similar monthly revenue stream beginning in 2025 if we complete the pending transaction with a replacement co-working operator. We will revisit these assumptions in the quarters ahead as the results fortify. We refer you to the material assumptions and considerations set forth in our earnings release for further details.
That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will open up the line for questions. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Upal Rana from KeyBanc Capital Markets.
[indiscernible] question. Thanks for all the detail from the debt maturities and the assets that you have provided. I was just curious on Cascade Station. How is the marketability of the asset. Any conversations you have with potential buyers? Or is it just really likely that you'll probably get the asset back to the lender?
Thanks for the question. So we did launch a marketing process kind of mid last year in Portland, has just been probably the most challenging market we have and 1 of the tougher in the entire country. So we did not have any prospects that were close to where the debt level is, and that hasn't changed. So I think absent any sort of material concessions from the lender that make it logical for us to put more money in, that will be 1 that transitions back to the lender, and we cancel the debt.
Okay. Got it. And how is that going to be impacting your occupancy this year? You just given the trajectory of you expect occupancy to be somewhat up by the end of next year -- this year. And I'm assuming that's going to have some sort of impact in driving a little bit of the occupancy guidance?
It's a fairly small impact because the asset is really small. It's 128,000 feet. So in our own forecasting, we think it will exit our results kind of mid this year. So at the end of the year, there would be a slight uptick from that, but that's not the real driver of the improvement. It really is from getting leasing done.
Okay. Got it. And then from your same-store cash NOI, you expect to be flat this year compared to 3% last year. Could you walk us through some of the moving pieces that's impacting the growth?
Yes. So we're showing effectively flat for 2024. And so the drivers are -- it's -- our same-store number is a cash number. And so we are -- Cascade we talked about. There are some departures there that will impact the results in Q1 and Q2 until if we do transfer it to the lenders, so that will have a negative impact on results. And then offsetting that would be the new leasing. We have 114,000 square foot leases that haven't taken occupancy. They will take occupancy in 2024. Some of them have free rent periods, so it will have no impact. But by later parts of the year, it will start factoring into the numbers to offset the negatives to kind of end the year effectively flat.
So Upal, it's Jamie again. So the 1 thing I can't stress enough is the leasing pipeline really has improved. And in our own views, when you look at free rent and build-out period, there's not going to be much impact to our cash flow in 2024 from that, but we see that really establishing and pushing 2025 and beyond.
Okay. Got it. And then just 1 last 1 for me is you mentioned the you're seeing some momentum on the leasing side. And I was curious where is that really coming from in terms of size, industry or location?
So it's a mixture. One market that was quite slow last year was Phoenix. It's a great city. But on the leasing side, it really did slow down and any discussions we were having in 2023 were really usually in the small suite size. That's changed in that, as I mentioned, kind of 4 discussions that we're having right now above 40,000 feet each, 2 of those are in Phoenix. We're in lease negotiations on both, and we're advancing. And so we feel pretty good about that.
So it's really diverse, but I'd say your best markets, right, of those 4 that were in negotiation, 2 were in Phoenix, 1 is in Orlando, 1 is in Raleigh. And so our top markets continue to perform really well.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question today comes from Barry Oxford from Colliers.
Jamie, on the WeWork space out in Phoenix. Does it have to be another WeWork-like tenants because of the way the space is built out, but if somebody wanted the space or would it just cost too much money to rehab it to a normal tenant?
So we've explored both, Barry. And again, we just got the space back a couple of weeks ago.
[indiscernible] .
Yes. It's phenomenally built out. So there's logic to transitioning that into a co-working operation because the money is predominantly already been spent. But could you transition to a corporate tenant, absolutely. We just think the logical thing to do in this particular case is to continue as a co-working.
Right. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. And then from a big picture, Jamie, given that you guys are carrying somewhat high debt, does it make sense -- or look, Barry, I can't make the math work selling into this environment to sell some assets to reduce your leverage. But are you just saying, look, I can't get the prices that I need to make that a viable game plan at this particular junction?
So we've had a lot of success, recycling assets in the past. And I guess what I'd say is there are very few buyers. And 1 of the toughest parts is it's almost impossible to get new debt financing. So the transaction that you are seeing in the market right now, a percentage of them are lenders who are foreclosing and trying to get some recovery. And the other is sellers who are able to carry vendor take back financing at a lower rate. And so if 1 of those 2 isn't there, there really isn't a lot of buyers.
So it's an option, Barry. And I guess I'd say in my prepared remarks, I made a comment about we're trying to explore ways of creating value. We do have a few conversations going on. They're very early stage with unique buyers, whether they're strategic buyers, owner users who are going to owner occupier, it's early stage. But if we can find something that works for everyone, we're absolutely open to that, but it's got to work for us, too. And so I think that will flush out. We haven't assumed any of those in our guidance this year, but it's not lost on us that, that could be a good source of liquidity if values are compelling.
Right. And Jim, I would imagine if somebody is going to assume the [indiscernible] because that has to be mortgage with term, if you don't have really enough term on it, then they're going to recognize pretty quickly, you're transferring your problem to me?
I think that's fair. Yes. And in all cases, are mortgages assumable. So it just it becomes very complex. And I think that's why until the debt markets open up a bit more, you're going to see very muted activity, which means from our standpoint, where do we focus to drive value, we focus on getting leasing done that's going to drive cash flow, which enhances your ability to borrow against it and enhances your ability to drive your cash flow back to the mothership.
Right, right. That makes sense.
That concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I'll now hand the call back over to Jamie for any final remarks. .
Thanks for joining today. As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any follow-up questions. Goodbye. .
That concludes today's City Office Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect your lines.