Melcor Real Estate Investment Trust

TSX:MR.UN

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Melcor REIT First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder all participants are in the listen-only mode and 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.

[Naomi Stefura, executive]

Thank you, Galyn. Good morning, and welcome to our conference call and webcast for the first quarter of 2024. With me on today's call is Randy Ferguson, Senior Vice President of our Properties division. I will begin today's call with some mandatory statements, and then I'll walk you through a few financial highlights. Afterwards, I'll turn the call over to Randy to walk through our operational highlights.

Our goal is to keep our remarks to a brief high-level review of the quarter and then open up the call for your questions. 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 or 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. These supplements are 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 nonstandard measures are defined and reconciled in our media release and in the MD&A. I will now walk everyone through some of the financial highlights of our results for Q1 2024. Our portfolio continues to produce stable results. Rental revenue was steady and NOI was up 1% compared to Q1 of '23. Our same-asset NOI calculation, which normalizes out assets sold or classified as held for sale, was up 1% in the quarter.

At the end of Q1 '24, we have classified four properties as assets held for sale, including three retail properties located in Saskatchewan, and one office property located in British Columbia. The sale of these assets is consistent with our strategy to focus on our core Alberta assets. Subsequent to quarter end, we entered into an unconditional deal on the office property in British Columbia, which is scheduled to close on May 10, 2024. The proceeds of this sale will be used to pay down debt. Recently, in May of 2024, we also listed our Grande Prairie Retail Center for $58.5 million. As this was listed after the quarter, it is not included in assets held for sale on the balance sheet.

In the quarter, FFO was down 10% to $5.4 million and ACFO was also down 8%, up $3.48 million for the quarter. Both FFO and ACFO were impacted by rising costs, including higher cash finance costs correlated with higher interest rates and an increase in general and admin expenses, primarily related to the formation of the independent committee and the strategic review process.

As at March 31, 2024, we had $3.86 million in cash and $8.45 million in undrawn liquidity under our revolving credit facility. Subsequent to quarter end, we received confirmation from our lenders that they have issued credit approval for the extension of this credit facility, subject to entering into the amended credit agreement and related documents. We continue to proactively engage our lenders on upcoming renewals.

Subsequent to the quarter, we funded an $11 million mortgage at a rate of 6% bringing in net proceeds of $4 million after the repayment of the expiring mortgage. Our weighted average interest rate was 4.51% at the end of the quarter, consistent with year-end and up from 3.99 at the end of Q1 '23. We expect to see this number increase as mortgages come up for renewal. As announced on February 22, 2024, the REIT suspended its monthly distribution starting in February, and commenced the strategic review process. This impacted our quarter-over-quarter payout ratios compared to last year, where distributions were paid out at a rate of $0.04 per unit for every month in the first quarter.

I will now turn the call over to Randy to speak to our portfolio operations.

[Randy Ferguson, executive]

Thank you, Naomi. I am pleased to share Melcor REIT's First Quarter 2024 operating results. As of the end of March 2024, we've retained 98% or 186,000 square feet of renewing tenants and we have a commitment for an additional 47,000 square feet of future renewals that will come into play in other quarters. We have a present committed occupancy at 88% which is also very close to our full occupancy. We're continuing to work proactively on renewal leasing well in advance of our lease expiries, and we find that program to be effective.

We're still experiencing compression in office lease rents, which result in lower base rents at renewal. This in turn adds to the challenge of maintaining our operating cash flow. Inflationary and labor pressures are pecking away at our lease and our capital expenditure costs and our recurring operating costs. For their part, our team is doing a good job of maintaining the budgets without diminishing service levels or quality at our buildings. The journey through the balance of 2024 will see a strongly focused on tenant retention efforts and new leasing with even more effort on the ongoing stewardship of our assets through our property management services.

We would now like to open our phone lines and take some questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Tom Callaghan with RBC Capital Markets. .

[Tom Callaghan, analyst]

Maybe just start on the credit facility there, Naomi. Just curious, like, is it safe to assume kind of post the amendment there post quarter that availability and the facility will kind of be in line with what was in place at the end of the first quarter?

[Naomi Stefura, executive]

Yes. Yes. The renewed credit facility is under the same margining calculation and in the same interest rates. So the terms of the credit facility aren't changing.

[Tom Callaghan, analyst]

Got it. Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just on the assets out for sale. Maybe first, -- just on the retail piece of it. What interest look like today? And kind of where are you in that process?

[Randy Ferguson, executive]

Sure. Thanks for the question, Tom. So Grande Prairie is newly listed. We listed that in May of 2024. So we've just started the initial conversations working through the broker's book of institutional and family office investors where initial interest sort above the 3 dozen or so people they talked to, there's a half a dozen who have indicated strong interest.

That's encouraging for us. It's a good market, and that's a good site. Regina itself is -- Regina is the market generally is very quiet. We have -- the most interest we've generated there has been with our Towers Mall project, our challenge is to make sure that we get full value for our shareholders on a sale.

But we're entertaining now at Towers Mall 2 offers that have come in, in the last couple of weeks to see if we can get them papered to a point where they'll make sense for us. The other -- our industrial piece in Lethbridge has been -- that's a very quiet market. It's an opportunistic investor for somebody local who handles that kind of portfolio. So that in the meantime, all of these assets, by the way, in the meantime, are producing good results for the REIT.

So we don't feel a sense of urgency. We just need to get to the right deal.

[Tom Callaghan, analyst]

Okay. Understood. Maybe just a quick follow-up there on Grande Prairie. Obviously, strategic review is ongoing. So just kind of curious like the decision to list that asset, is that being done in kind of conjunction with the strategic review or kind of almost like an interim conclusion or finding? Or just kind of curious on how you came about the decision to list that property?

[Naomi Stefura, executive]

To list Grande Prairie was made sort of in advance of the strategic review. However, just sort of in the time in choosing the listing agent and getting the property officially listed. It's only been announced now. But that was something that was in the works prior to the strategic review.

[Tom Callaghan, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. And then last one for me, just on the refinancing there Naomi, it looks like there's a bit about financing. Still broadly over the course of the year, the expectation that, that kind of maturing amounts are balanced with proceeds on real?

[Naomi Stefura, executive]

Yes. We're still projecting flat renewals on the remainder of the mortgages.

[Operator]

There appear to be no further questions. So this concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Randy Ferguson for any closing remarks.

[Randy Ferguson, executive]

Thank you very much. And Tom, thanks for your queries. In closing, I'd also like to thank our leasing operations and PM teams for their hard work in attracting and retaining our tenants at our properties. I also extend our gratitude to our finance, admin, HR, communication and IT teams for their commitment in supporting, maintaining and improving our platform.

Thank you all for taking the time to be with us in reviewing our results. We know your time is valuable, and we appreciate your participation. We invite you to join us on June 25, 2024, and for our Annual General Meeting, we'll have further details to follow. Thanks very much, and have a wonderful day.

[Operator]

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.