Dream Unlimited Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Dream Unlimited EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -C$0.36
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Dream Unlimited Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Dream Unlimited Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 11/12/2024
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Dream Unlimited (TSE:DRM) Corp is a real estate company. The company's divisions include Asset management; Stabilized income generating assets; Urban development - Toronto and Ottawa and Western Canada community development. It generates maximum revenue from the Asset Management segment. Its segments are Recurring income and Development.

Dream Unlimited Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Dream recognized a Q3 pre-tax loss of $1.9M versus earnings of $11.4M a year ago, largely due to the timing of lot sales, lower development activity, and higher interest costs.
• Recurring income properties generated $18M in revenue and $2.8M in NOI, up $700K and $1.4M respectively year-over-year, driven by stabilized Western Canada retail assets and reduced losses at A Basin.
• The Western Canada development segment locked in commitments for an additional 520 lots and 109 acres through 2025, representing $191M of future revenue, with $112M expected in Q4.
• Year-to-date total margin rose to $82M from $51M last year, reflecting strong presales and growth across development, asset management, and income properties.
• The company ended Q3 with $257M in liquidity and a 39% leverage ratio, plans to close the A Basin sale by year-end, and remains cautious on capital deployment amid market uncertainties.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Dream Unlimited Corp's third quarter conference call for Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. During this call, management of Dream Unlimited Corp may make statements containing forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Dream Unlimited Corp's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained in Dream Unlimited Corp's filings with securities regulators, including its latest annual information form and MD&A. These filings are also available on Dream Unlimited Corp's website at www.dream.ca. Later in the presentation, we will have a question-and-answer session.

[Operator]

To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Your host for today will be Mr. Michael Cooper, CRO of Dream Unlimited Corp. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Thank you, Operator, and good morning to everybody. I think your management team is very excited about the progress we've made since our last call. The quarter itself was really quiet. It wasn't uninteresting, but I would say that the fourth quarter continues to meet or exceed our expectations. We're expecting to have a pretty fantastic year. I'm going to ask Meaghan to speak to the quiet quarter, and then I'll talk a little bit more about the strategy and the progress we're making.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, we recognized the pre-tax loss of CAD 1.9 million on a standalone basis, down from pre-tax earnings of CAD 11.4 million in the comparative period. Results were largely driven by the timing of 2023 lot sales in Western Canada, the majority of which were recognized in the third quarter. There was also less development and transactional activity across our asset management platform this period, in addition to higher interest costs. Now, this activity was partially offset by lower fair value losses on investment properties in the current period. From a segment perspective, in the third quarter, our recurring income properties on a standalone basis, including A Basin which is under contract, generated revenue of CAD 18 million and an NOI of CAD 2.8 million, up by CAD 0.7 million and CAD 1.4 million from prior year, respectively.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

This was largely driven by the stabilization of three Western Canada retail properties, which were 92% occupied at the quarter end. In addition, we also realized lower losses at A Basin as income and losses were no longer picked up from the ski hill after August 31st, which is in accordance with the purchase and sale agreement. We continue to build out this segment as we develop our apartment pipeline and anticipate adding a further 930 units, which is at share, between now and 2027, the majority of which is under construction today. Our asset management division generated revenue of CAD 15.1 million and a margin of CAD 3.9 million, which includes an additional CAD 2.2 million of promote earned from the Dream U.S. Industrial Fund.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Excluding the promote, margin from our asset management division was down relative to prior year, which was largely driven by development activity and some transactional noise, which will fluctuate period to period. As it relates to the development segment, revenue and net margin of CAD 47.3 million and CAD 6.5 million was generated from our Western Canada Development division, down by CAD 30.9 million and CAD 12 million from prior year, largely due to timing. For comparison, lot sales on a quarter-to-date and year-to-date basis were CAD 120 and CAD 223, respectively, versus CAD 404.52 last year.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

As of September 30th, we have commitments for an additional 520 lots and 109 acres through 2025, representing CAD 191 million in revenue. Of this amount, CAD 112 million will be recognized in the fourth quarter. Now, this is a significant level of presales volume, reflecting some of the strongest performance in Western Canada in our history.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

As part of our broader land development and capital strategy, we will continue to lock in presales commitments in advance of bringing new phases online. Aggregating our Western Canada Development, asset management, and income property operations, our total margin year-to-date was CAD 82 million, up from CAD 51 million in prior year. I'll also say that although the third quarter was quiet results-wise, with the Edmonton joint venture income and a U.S. Industrial Fund promote recognized earlier in the year, the committed lot and acre sales lined up for the fourth quarter and income expected from the A Basin sale, which is conditional upon closing, we are on track to end 2024 on a very strong note.

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Lastly, just to touch on liquidity briefly, we continue to maintain a very solid position throughout the year, excuse me, throughout the quarter, ending the period with CAD 257 million in total liquidity and a conservative leverage position of 39%, all on a standalone basis. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Michael.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Thank you, Meaghan. As you said on multiple occasions, the business is really 90% of the business is the income properties that are directly owned by Dream on its balance sheet, Western Canada, and our asset management business. And all three of those businesses are doing very well. In the other 10%, it includes our share of Dream Office and our share of Dream Impact among some other investments. We're very pleased. We completed just a few days ago a CAD 225 million loan on Adelaide Place. And throughout the year, we've done very well on the capital side of the business. The leasing's gone pretty well as well, and the company's in better shape this year than it was last year. We've had the Milos open, and Daphne's been doing great.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

We finished the construction on the Bay Street Collection, and a lot of the work that we've planned on is now done. So the buildings look great, and we're all focused on leasing. But overall, it's improved quite a bit since last year. With Impact Trust on an asset-by-asset basis, it's gone well. Our liquidity has improved, and we're making a lot of progress on 49 Ontario, Quayside, and some of the other developments. We're also making progress at Zibi, and Toronto seems to be a difficult place for us to do great lately with either office buildings or land. But we've got excellent assets. We're making the most of them, and we're making progress, but that's all in the 10%. The other 90%, firstly, Western Canada is doing very well. We expect to have one of our best years ever this year.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

We're ending this year with, I think, the highest presales for future years we've ever had. And there's quite a bit of momentum. So we've done a lot of development work. We've done a lot of sales in 2024. We've got a lot of work to do in 2025 to complete the land that's been purchased. Primarily, what we're looking at is we are progressing in Brighton. Hopefully, we're going to start the next community right next door. Alpine Park, we're into the phases that are higher density than the initial phases that were just single-family housing. Those are going very well. We've sold a tremendous amount there. And in fact, we hope to start our first apartment building in Calgary early next year. We're also looking at starting a new community in Regina, and hopefully, that'll start by the end of next year.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

So overall, the demand is very good. The margins are good, and we're very pleased with the Western Canadian business. On the income properties, our assets are performing well. We're completing apartments relatively frequently now in Western Canada and the National Capital Commission primarily. We started quite a few buildings this year. Sorry, so in the last 12 months, we've had five buildings completed, including a townhouse development in Saskatoon and an apartment in Saskatoon. Both are leasing up extremely well. Every unit is leased that's available. In Ottawa and Gatineau, we have a building in Gatineau that I think is about 80% leased. And in Ottawa, we have one with Common, which has two floors of co-living. It's just over 50%, and in downtown Toronto, we have a building at the West Don Lands, which I think is also over 70%.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

So they're coming along, and they're turning into good income properties. If you look at our numbers, you can see that very consistently, quarter over quarter, our income properties continue to grow, and they're going to continue to grow going forward. I think we're expecting about CAD 200 million of additions to income properties every year for the next few years. And when I say a few years, we're in the middle of our business plan, and we plan out the next four years. So during those four years, we have at least CAD 200 million of income properties being completed each year. So that's a very exciting part of our business that's going very quickly, steady income, best-in-class assets. So we're looking forward to completing those buildings, leasing them up. We're also doing some retail in Western Canada that's working out pretty well.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

So our Western Canada is doing well, our income property is doing well, and in asset management, it's continued. Obviously, we're switching a little bit from discretionary investing, like with open-ended funds and doing more JVs. We're quite pleased that we've been working together with other asset managers to complete a billion-dollar transaction in the Netherlands on apartments. We're expecting that to close before year-end, maybe a little bit into next year, and that'll be a good piece of business for us. But we're also working on a number of other specific mandates that we think will continue to grow our asset management business. I was quite pleased to see that we're up to CAD 27 billion of assets under management, and a significant portion of those are fee-paying. So the main drivers of our business are doing very, very well.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

We've been working very closely with the governments to move ahead on things like the waiver of HST. We work very closely with CMHC on funding for affordable housing, and we've been a big proponent of it and also a big recipient of it. We're working currently. Today, the city council is considering a motion to waive development charges on 7,000 units and then to actually work with the federal and provincial government to get the funding to waive development charges on another 13,000 units, all of which have affordable housing. I think we're positioned well to benefit from it. And I think we're going to be able to start some significant projects in 2025 and 2026 in Toronto, which we haven't done for a few years. So when you put it all together, the company's looking good.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

I haven't mentioned A Basin, but we're expecting to close that by year-end, and that will provide quite a bit of liquidity. We're sticking with our idea of trying to distribute maybe 25% of our income. In this case, it's 25% of the free cash that comes out of the transaction, and we're going to end the year with quite a bit of liquidity. I think we're going to have the most liquidity year-end that we've had at any time since we sold Dream Global, but with Dream Global, we had quite a bit of tax with this share buyback. I think by March 31st, we should have the most liquidity we've ever had at the end of the first quarter, so we're very pleased with how the business is going. It's been one thing after another since at least the beginning of COVID.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

I think we've turned the corner on our core businesses, and I think we're really pleased with how we've landed. So although the quarter was quiet, the company hasn't been. And we've got a lot going on between now and the end of the year. And I think by the time we get to the year-end call in February, we'll have a lot of things to discuss that we're currently working on. So that's what I've got. If there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer them.

[Operator]

We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will pause momentarily as we assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Mark Rothschild from Canaccord. Please go ahead.

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Thanks. Thanks. Good morning.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Good morning.

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Meaghan, you noted that the asset management income will fluctuate. Does that mean that there are items maybe that weren't in this quarter that'll be in the next quarter or two on a more recurring basis? And maybe the second part of that question, can you quantify how much management fees should grow when the European apartment acquisition closes?

[Meaghan Peloso, CFO at Dream Unlimited Corp]

I don't want to give any type of guidance yet on the ERES part, but what I'd say for in the quarter, there's probably relative to where we'll come in for Q4, I think you could probably assume there's CAD 2 million of just noise and timing that dragged down the Q3 results. So I think I'd leave it at that, and then we can give an update once that other transaction actually closes over the next three months.

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Okay. Great. Thanks. And Michael, you made a comment about starting new projects in Toronto in the next year or two. Were you referring to condo projects or new rental apartments? And if you could just talk a little bit more about the returns that you believe you can achieve on those projects. In general, most other public, at least the REITs, seem to be more pinned down on new development. So just wanted to understand more how that works.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Yeah. Sorry. That's a great question. I want to be thoughtful about exactly what I say. None of the projects are condo projects. We think that the surplus of condo inventory will clear out, but it still seems too early to start condos on an economic basis. If you're doing market apartments, it requires a lot of cash, and you need 30% equity or something like that. So that's a lot of money, and I think that's really been challenging for the people who historically have built market apartments, but we've been in this area of affordable housing working with CMHC. We've done it at West Don Lands, at Zibi, and elsewhere, and the type of projects that we've been doing are really incredibly well-positioned for the market we're in, so as I mentioned, we've got the HST waivers now.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

CMHC is doing the ACPL financing, affordable construction loan program, which we've been using quite a bit, and it reduces your overall cost of debt. It reduces your risk because the debt's 10 years, and it's high leverage, so it reduces the amount of equity you need. I don't want to get into too much about the return on equity, but what I would say is where people were building at the low four, where they were building to a low four yield on costs a couple of years ago, cap rates have moved up, but with putting all these pieces together, we're in and around a five cap to build new apartments, and we think that's pretty attractive.

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Okay. Great. Thanks, and maybe just one more with the upcoming closing of the sale of Arapahoe Basin. You commented that even after the special dividend, you will have more liquidity than you ever had at year-end. The shares have come off some after having a nice long run. You've been a little less active in the buyback of late. Would some of this liquidity continue to be put into share repurchases?

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Oh, it's funny you say that because what I actually said was the second most.

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Second highest, I apologize.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

The second highest amount. That year, we spent CAD 100 million on a stock buyback at CAD 23.50. And now we'll have more than that because we bought back that stock. I don't really want to answer. I want to think about it, like to get it closed. Yeah. I'll have a good answer in February. How's that?

[Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord]

Okay. We'll wait. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star, then one. Our next question comes from Sam Damiani of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I guess, Michael, not too many questions left to ask, but I'll maybe just start off on the Western Canada development just with the, well, everything's kind of a lot of things have changed since the last quarter, certainly on the interest rate front. How are you seeing in terms of new home sales in your core markets in Western Canada? Does that change your outlook at all for a lot of absorption over the next couple of years?

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

What do you think has changed?

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Just the interest rates are a little higher. The bond yields are a little higher than perhaps we would have thought a couple of months ago.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Yeah. Although the short-term rates are coming down, as well as the five-year mortgage is still. I don't think it's gone up much, if it's gone up at all, so we're seeing reasonable sales. I think we had a couple of months that were better than the last two, but it's still reasonable. Overall, this is a good year, and it feels like in Alberta and Saskatchewan, things are going pretty good. We do not see a slowing of opportunity there. If anything, we think it's increasing.

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay. Great, and sort of on that vein, just with the election over in the U.S., does it sort of change your approach and the, I guess, opportunity set for AUM growth on the asset management side in any way?

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

We're very busy right now working on ideas with various investors. And I mentioned that we're pleased to see our assets under management growing. We've got a lot going on in the Dream Summit venture. Dream Industrial is quite active. Our industrial development fund is quite active. Our assets are growing in other areas as we develop more. And we are starting new ventures. So I think overall, it's strong. As far as the election goes, I don't have any idea what it might mean for anybody. I think it's interesting that there was first euphoria in the stock market. The bond rate took off, then it settled again. It feels like there isn't a consensus yet about what the way forward will be. So I don't know. Vivek and Elon Musk running a Make the Government Efficient is fascinating. I just think there's just too much unknown.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

So I don't take anything that's happened in the state as meaning we should do anything at this point for sure. But it's fascinating to watch.

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

I'll agree with you there. And just lastly, on the A Basin sale, a couple of things. One is, I guess, you seem a little more certain that the transaction will close by year-end. Could you sort of enlighten us as to what has progressed or what gave you the confidence to say that, if you're able? And then secondly, just in your comments about the proceeds, I couldn't quite get what you said, Michael. The dividend would be about 25%, and something else would be about 25% of the net cash proceeds.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Oh, no, no. Look, we often look at the dividend and say, "If it's 25% of our income, that's pretty good." With A Basin, the income should be about CAD 110 million, or that's what we said before. But the actual dividend is 25% of the cash we're getting. So it's not a hard rule, but generally, we kind of like the idea of distributing 25% of either the cash or net income. That's a reference point.

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Oh, okay. I thought there was reference to some other use for another 25% of it or something, but I guess I misheard.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

No. I think that the expectation is it'll be used to pay down debt and just have liquidity for our business at this time.

[Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Cooper for any closing remarks.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

Thank you, Operator. I'm going to get back to Mark Rothschild's question on buybacks. I will have a better answer in February. I think our company's always been active. We bought back stock last year. We'll probably be buying back stock this year and other years. But we are trying to think of where it fits into our capital structure. I personally can't stand paying taxes aren't necessary, and why 2% doesn't sound like a lot to other people. It just seems so unnecessary. But we did buy back, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of shares this year. So we'll see. But I think that the uncertainty in the U.S. is pretty mind-boggling. The movement in interest rates over the last two months has been quite interesting. I have no idea how Canada is positioned or what comes next in the U.S.

[Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer at Dream Unlimited Corp]

So, I would just say that we are very excited about how our business is going, but we're also kind of in a we want to be in a position to take advantage of opportunities to defend ourselves regardless of what happens. So, we are living in as much uncertainty as I think there has been in my whole life. And the uncertainty seems to compound, not get simpler. So, we are being cautious about capital. With that, we're happy to answer other questions offline. Please feel free to reach out to Meaghan and I, and we will manage ourselves to have an interesting and complete conference call in February. So, thank you, and good day.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer
• Meaghan Peloso, CFO

Analysts

• Sam Damiani, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Mark Rothschild, Analyst at Canaccord