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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Melcor REIT's Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Naomi Stefura, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Ariel. Good morning, and welcome to our conference call and webcast for the year ended 2023. With me on today's call is Andy Melton, CEO of Melcor REIT. I will begin today's call with some mandatory statements, provide an overview of our February 22's announcement, and then I'll walk you through a few financial highlights. Afterwards, I'll turn the call over to Andy to walk through our operational highlights. Our goal is to keep our remarks to a brief high-level review of the year. After the remarks, we are open to questions from analysts. If you have not reviewed the materials related to this call, including the management's discussion and analysis, and the financial statements, they are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at melcorreit.ca and on sedar.ca. Certain statements made during this call may be forward looking. For a complete discussion of items that may cause actual results to differ, please refer to the Business Environment and Risks section of our annual MD&A. Second, we report our financial results in Canadian dollars and in accordance with IFRS. We supplement our financial reporting with nonstandard measures, including FFO, AFFO, ACFO and NOI. We believe these measures are important in evaluating our performance but caution listeners that they may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. These non-standard measures are defined and reconciled in our press release and in the MD&A. To recap our February 22nd news release, the Board of Trustees has established an independent committee to oversee a broad-based strategic review. The independent committee will retain a financial advisor to evaluate strategic alternatives to maximize unitholder value. This committee is comprised of the independent members of the Board of Trustees of the REIT and is chaired by Richard Kirby and will be supported by management. All available information related to our announcement of a strategic review has been disclosed in our public filings, and we have no further information to share at this time. I will now walk everyone through some of the financial highlights of our results for the year ended December 31, 2023. Our financial results for 2023 were stable compared to '22. Revenue for the year was $73.9 million, flat compared to 2022. NOI was up 1% to $46.64 million. Funds from operations, or FFO, was down 3% to $23.87 million or $0.82 per unit at December 31, 2023. A contributing factor to this decrease in FFO was an increase in interest expense in the current year as mortgages were renewed at higher rates and the interest rate and use of our credit facility increased. Management believes FFO reflects our true operating performance. Adjusted cash from operations or ACFO, was down 12% to $15.65 million or $0.54 per unit. The decrease in ACFO was primarily the result of increases in our normalized capital expenditures and normalized tenant incentives and leasing commission estimates, which were updated in late 2022. Distributions made during the year represent an ACFO payout ratio of 89% compared to 78% in '22 based on these updated normalized reserves. In the current year, actual credit facility usage was impacted by even higher TI payments and capital expenditures as compared to these normalized amounts. In 2023, we have 4 mortgages and 2 Class C mortgages up for renewal with a maturing principal balance of $71.6 million. These expiring mortgages have a weighted average interest rate of 4.3%. We renewed 5 of these loans for a combined total of $66.15 million at a weighted average interest rate of 6.97%. There were no new net proceeds on refinancings in 2023. We also paid out 2 mortgages in the year for $12.66 million. This includes the mortgage paid off related to our Kelowna Business Center, which was sold early in the year. Based on our mortgage maturities in 2024, we do not expect any new net proceeds on financing in the coming year. We amended our revolving credit facility in February 2023 to increase our limit from $35 million to $50 million. The facility matures June 1, 2024, and we are currently working on the renewal. Under our revolving credit facility, we currently support a borrowing base of $46.07 million. And as of December 31, we had $37.86 million drawn. Our monthly distributions remain steady at $0.04 per unit per month in 2022 and 2023 and in January of '24. In February of 2024, the Board made a conservative decision to suspend our distribution while undertaking the strategic review I mentioned previously. Several factors were considered in this decision, including but not limited to, the increased cash cost of new leasing deals, building capital expenditures required in 2024, decreased property valuations resulting in no new proceeds on refinancings, the credit facility, which is up for renewal and the $46 million convertible debenture due in December of 2024. I will now turn the call over to Andy to speak to our portfolio's operations and performance.
Thank you, Naomi, and thank you, Ariel, for coordinating the call. And we very much appreciate everybody that dialed into the call to hear our results. I'm pleased to share Melcor REIT's fourth quarter and 2023 annual results. On May 1, 2023, we celebrated the REIT's 10-year anniversary. Through this period, the REIT has faced headwinds of significant economic challenges, yet has consistently posted stable results. As Naomi mentioned, the REIT continues to face challenges, including escalating financing costs, the ongoing impact of inflation on operating and leasing expenses. These rising costs are felt across the industry and are not limited to our properties. Our leasing team have produced admirable results working diligently to lease up vacant space and to help combat these rising costs that I've mentioned. I'm pleased to share some of our leasing results for the year 2023. We completed 109,000 square feet of new leasing and just over 540,000 square feet in renewals and holdovers. Retention for 2023 was 88%, up from '22. Occupancy remained stable at 88% with committed occupancy at 89%. Weighted average base rents improved by 3% to $17.06 per square foot, and our weighted average lease term increased to 4.3 years, up from 4.25 at the end of last year -- at the end of '22. As anticipated, we continue to face sustained pressure on operational cash flow due to several factors, as I mentioned, including reduction in office lease rates, heightened tenant incentives, increasing capital expenditure costs, increasing operational expenses and continuing higher financing costs. As previously noted, we have shifted our focus to our core Alberta assets. In early 2023, we sold the Kelowna Business Center. We have also listed our Saskatchewan and Lethbridge assets for sale and our remaining Kelowna asset. The strategic decision to focus on Alberta markets is intended to create additional liquidity and financial resilience. Our management team continues to focus on the things that we can control. As we move into 2024, we remain focused on our tenants and continuing to lease up vacant space. The operating environment remains challenging but we have an unwavering commitment to our ongoing stewardship through our property management services dispatched by our outstanding team. For now, we focus on things that we can control and continue to move forward in these endeavors. At this time, we'd like to open up the phone lines to analysts to take your questions. Please -- Ariel, please open up the lines.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Tom Callaghan of RBC Capital Markets.
Maybe first one for me, just with respect to the Saskatchewan noncore dispositions there. Just based on the release and kind of your commentary, correct to assume that these dispositions are kind of ongoing well while the strategic review continues? And if so, can you just provide an update on where you're at in that process?
Yes. Thanks for the question. So two questions. The first is, yes, they will be ongoing during the process. We're in the market. We've had some activity, but nothing to the extent that we're able to say we're moving any specific sale along, but there has been interest and activity.
Got it. Okay. And then next question is maybe just around the suspension of the distribution. I recognize it's a Board decision, but given both your positions here. Maybe you can just provide some color around kind of why suspension as opposed to a cut? And how are you thinking about that going forward post kind of strategic review?
Thanks, Tom. I think as far as the suspension versus the cut, I think that was just a conservative decision by the Board to sort of pause all distributions while they undertake the strategic review. I cannot comment on coming out of the strategic review, what will that mean for distributions going forward. But I think it was the advice sort of given and received by the Board to just take a full pause of the distributions during the review. During the upcoming sort of 6 months to 12 months, there are some significant cash requirements of the company as well. And so this will sort of allow us to have the most flexibility in being able to make those payments that are coming up.
And then maybe just following up there and last one for me. But just in terms of those upcoming requirements in terms of the credit facility, is there a potential pay down there? Or is that still to be determined?
I'd say that's still to be determined, but not necessarily something that's sort of heightened concern right now. We support the $46 million currently, as I mentioned. And looking at our forecast for the properties that margin that $46 million, we would expect that to sort of stay consistent throughout the year. But the facility is up for renewal, and so that will be up to sort of the lenders to determine what that margining facility looks like going forward.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Sumayya Syed of CIBC.
Two questions on the assets that are held for sale. First, just any commentary in terms of what demand or interest looks like so far for your assets in those markets? And secondly, can you disclose how much debt is associated with those 3 properties?
I'll answer the first one. The Saskatchewan market is what it is. I would say the interest in investment sales in Saskatchewan might not be as great as it might be in other provinces. However, we are seeing interest. I would say the interest in the retail properties is higher than in the office. But we're confident and comfortable with the interest we're getting, but nothing to report of any specific transaction.
And Sumayya, with respect to the mortgages on those properties, unfortunately, I don't have that exact information in front of me, but you could assume that they are all sort of normally leveraged assets at approximately 50%. None of them are -- actually, essentially one of the Saskatchewan properties, I should mention actually has no mortgage on it at all. So maybe if you're averaging for what a mortgage balance on those is, take an amount slightly less than 50%, but I don't have that number in front of me.
Okay. That's still helpful. And then just lastly, I know you're a bit kind of fine in terms of what you can comment around the strategic review, but could you speak at all to Melcor's development involvement and the process and the review?
The first part of your question, Sumayya, is probably accurate. I probably can't comment too much on that. But I can say that any and all sort of options are being reviewed by the REIT, and so nothing is sort of off of the table at this point.
This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Andrew Melton for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Ariel. I want to thank you two for both of your questions and a very thoughtful consideration in doing your job. In closing, I would like to thank our leasing, operation and property management teams for working tirelessly to attract and retain the best tenants for our properties. I also extend my gratitude to our financing administration, HR, marketing and IT teams for constantly maintaining and improving our platform. I look forward to reporting the results as they come forward for Melcor REIT in 2024. Thank you for joining us today, and have a wonderful day.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.