Howard Hughes Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 5, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Howard Hughes Third Quarter 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Eric Holcomb, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Aloha from Honolulu, and welcome to Howard Hughes Holdings' Q3 2024 Earnings Call. With me today are David O'Reilly, Chief Executive Officer Jay Cross, President Carlos Alea, Chief Financial Officer Dave Stryfe, President of Asset Management and Operations and Joe Helane, General Counsel. Before we begin, I would like to direct you to our website, howardshues.com, where you can download both our Q3 earnings press release and our supplemental package. The earnings release and supplemental package include reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures that will be discussed today in relation to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Certain statements made today that are not in the present tense or that discuss the company's expectations are forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

Speaker 1

Although the company believes that the 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 statement disclaimer in our Q3 earnings press release and the risk factors in our SEC filings for factors that could cause material differences between forward looking statements and actual results. We are not under any duty to update forward looking statements unless required by law. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, David O'Reilly.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Eric. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. On our call today, I'm going to begin with a recap of the quarter and cover the segment highlights for our master plan communities. Dave Stryfe will cover the performance of our operating assets, followed by remarks from Jay, who will provide updates on our strategic development projects. Finally, Carlos is going to review our updated full year guidance and the balance sheet before we open up the lines for Q and A.

Speaker 2

For the Q3, we reported exceptional results across our entire portfolio, further exemplifying the resilience of our unique business model and our continued ability to defy the narrative for the national real estate market. Turning to our segment results. In MPCs, we continue to experience elevated homebuilder demand for new acreage, which contributed to a significant increase in residential land sales revenue. These land sales, which were achieved at a near record price per acre, led to a record quarterly MPCEBT. Our operating assets delivered strong 8% year over year NOI growth with meaningful increases for each property type, most notably in office and multifamily.

Speaker 2

In strategic developments demand for our premier condos in Ward Village and The Woodlands continued at a solid pace with 29 units contracted representing more than $57,000,000 of future revenue. Here in Hawaii, we completed Victoria Place just last week. Closings are expected to commence tomorrow, which we now expect to generate $760,000,000 of revenue with 27% to 28% gross margins in the 4th quarter. With all of these incredible results, we are raising our full year guidance in each segment. Looking deeper at our MPC segment results, we reported record MPC EBT of $145,000,000 in the 3rd quarter, which included the sale of 191 Acres of residential land across our communities at an impressive average price per acre of $1,000,000 Land sales were again led by Summerlin, where we closed on the sale of 129 acres of super pads for an average price of $1,300,000 per acre.

Speaker 2

Land sales in Houston were also strong with 62 acres sold in Bridgeland in the Woodland Hills, representing a 41% year over year increase. Overall, land sale revenues totaled $198,000,000 in the quarter or 163% increase year over year with our average residential price per acre increasing 13%. New home sales across our MPCs remained solid in the 3rd quarter with nearly 500 homes sold. Although this represented a 19% year over year decline, the reduction was almost entirely related to reduced inventory of finished homes available for sale in Summerlin. As evidenced in the Q2, several neighborhoods were closed out, but these were not offset with new inventory.

Speaker 2

In fact, at the end of the Q3, our homebuilders in Summerlin had 30% fewer floor plans available for sale as compared to the prior year. The reduction in inventory is temporary however, as we expect several new Summerlin neighborhoods with additional housing inventory will come online in the Q4 and a record number of new neighborhoods will open in 2025. It's important to note that we do not consider this temporary reduction in home sales to be an indicator of declining demand for future land sales. Instead, we remain very bullish on the outlook as homebuilder demand for our land has not abated and many of our partners continue to report strong results, healthy homebuyer interest and increases in new orders. Within our communities, our homebuilder partners are working hard to meet the elevated demand, but the inventories of finished new homes and a vacant lots remain significantly undersupplied.

Speaker 2

Since the end of last year, new home inventories in Bridgeland and Summerlin have been in decline and are currently 1 month or less in both MPCs, well below the national average of approximately 2 months. Bacon developed lots or VDLs remain well below equilibrium, which we believe is approximately 20 months of supply. At the end of the Q3, Summerlin VDLs were 11 months and Bridgeland VDLs were 12 months. Overall, with these dynamics at play and mortgage rates on the decline, we expect continued positive momentum within our MPCs. As a result, for the near term, we have raised the midpoint of our 2024 full year MPC EBT guidance by 10% headlined by what we expect will be record residential land sales achieved at a record price per acre.

Speaker 2

Carlos will discuss this in more details in a few moments. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Dave Stryfe for a view of our operating assets.

Speaker 3

Thank you, David, and good morning. Our operating assets segment continued to experience heightened demand during the Q3, delivering strong year over year growth across each asset type. In total, we delivered $65,000,000 of net operating income, which represented an 8% improvement compared to the prior year. Our strong performance was once again led by office, which reported solid NOI of $32,000,000 or 9% year over year increase. This growth was primarily driven by continued abatement explorations in The Woodlands and Summerlin, most notably at 9,950 Woodlock Forest and 1700 Pavilion.

Speaker 3

This is a result of our successful leasing performance over the last couple of years. These gains were partially offset by lower occupancy at 1725 Hughes Landing in The Woodlands. During the quarter, we executed 114,000 square feet of new or expanded office leases across all of our markets, making our stabilized office portfolio 88% leased at quarter end. We expect to further benefit from this leasing momentum in 2025 as office build outs are completed and free rent periods burn off. Our multifamily portfolio also performed well delivering a 2nd consecutive quarter of record NOI totaling $16,000,000 or an impressive 15% year over year increase.

Speaker 3

This growth was primarily driven by increased rental revenue associated with the lease up of our newest properties, including Marlow in Downtown Columbia, Tananger Echo in Summerlin and Starling at Brisland. These properties have seen impressive leasing success with Marlowe now 75 percent leased, Tanager Echo 74% leased and Starling at Bridgeland 93% leased. These improvements were partially offset by initial operating losses from Wingspan, the latest addition to our multifamily portfolio in Bridgeland, which was fully completed in June and was 49% leased at quarter end. Our stabilized portfolio continued to perform extremely well and ended the quarter 95% leased with Downtown Columbia and Summerlin both at 96% and Houston at 95%. In retail, NOI was $13,000,000 in the 3rd quarter or an increase of 2% year over year.

Speaker 3

This growth was primarily driven by improved performance from the ground floor retail at Juniper and Marlo in Downtown Columbia, which ended the quarter 86% leased. Overall, our stabilized retail portfolio was 94% leased at the end of the 3rd quarter. Overall, with these strong results, we are further increasing our full year guidance for which Carlos will provide more details in a few moments. I'll now turn the call over to our President, Jay Cross.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. In the strategic developments, we had another great quarter and recently achieved several important milestones with our projects under construction. Starting in Hawaii, as David mentioned, we had another strong quarter of presales contracting to sell 24 condos. The majority of these presales related to the La Neue, our 11th condo project in Ward Village, which continues to see steady demand. As of quarter end, 55% of this project was already presold.

Speaker 4

At this pace, we hope to start construction of La Neue sometime next year. We also sold a handful of units at the Park Ward Village and Kalai with these projects now 96% 92% pre sold respectively with 45 units remaining to sell. At Eulana, our final workforce tower in Ward Village, construction continued to progress nicely and we celebrated its topping off ceremony in late September. This tower is fully pre sold and is expected to be completed in the Q4 of next year. As David mentioned earlier, we completed Victoria Place just last week and will commence bulk condo closings tomorrow.

Speaker 4

This project represents our 7th completed tower to date and is expected to contribute record condo revenue and gross profit in the Q4. Congratulations to the entire War Village team on this amazing achievement, which is a beautiful addition to the Honolulu skyline. In Texas, we sold an additional 5 condos at the Ritz Carlton Residences of The Woodlands, making this 111 unit luxury project 69% pre sold at quarter end. In early October, we broke ground on this exciting project, which we expect to complete in 2027. As we've discussed on prior calls, in an effort to maximize returns on this project, we continue to hold back the majority of the remaining units with plans to mark them for sale closer to the project's completion.

Speaker 4

Overall, at quarter end, projects under construction or in pre development were remarkably 88% presold and collectively represented $3,400,000,000 of future revenue, which will be recognized between now and 2027 as each project is delivered. With respect to our newest operating assets in development, we continue to advance construction on several projects, including the Summerlin Whole Foods Anchored Grocery Center and Village Greenup Bridgeland Central, which will both be substantially completed in the Q4. These projects are now approximately 75% leased with more negotiation. In late September, we also celebrated a topping off ceremony at 1 Riva Row in The Woodlands. This luxurious 13 story multifamily project on the waterway is expected to be completed in the second half of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4

And with that, I would now like to hand the call over to our CFO, Carlos Solea, who will review our guidance and the balance sheet.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Jay, and good morning, everyone. With our incredibly successful Q3 in the books, we remain very confident that 2024 will be a strong and record setting year. Today, we raised our MPC, EVT, operating asset NOI and condo sale guidance expectations and we tightened our cash G and A expectations for the year. In MPCs, with a record EBT results in the Q3, we now expect to deliver ENHANZE results for the full year. In the Q4, we anticipate continued momentum in Texas with incremental land sales in Bridgeland and The Woodland sales.

Speaker 5

In Summerlin, following the very successful sale of 2 17 acres of Super Pass year to date, we do not anticipate additional closings in the Q4, but we do see very strong prospects for additional sales in 2025. Overall, for 2024, we now expect MPC EBT will be down 1% to 6%, which will imply a midpoint of $330,000,000 and represents an improvement over the original guidance of $30,000,000 at the midpoint. This guidance contemplates record residential line sales revenue, including record acres sold at a record average price per acre, which largely offset reduced commercial land sales and builder price participation as well as limited inventory of custom lot sales due to a significant fast success of Area Island The Woodlands and The Summit in Summerlin. In operating assets, with the strong performance of our portfolio year to date, we now expect record full year NOI of approximately $257,000,000

Speaker 2

at

Speaker 5

the midpoint with growth in all property types. Our guidance contemplates some seasonality and modest cost increases in the Q4, but overall represents a solid 5% to 8% year over year increase. This compares favorably to our previous guidance range of up 3% to 6%, including $3,000,000 of NOI from the Las Vegas ballpark in the prior year and represents an increase of $2,000,000 at the midpoint. Condo sales revenues, which was previously expected to range between $730,000,000 $750,000,000 are now expected to range between $755,000,000 $765,000,000 Gross margins expectations are now expected to be between 27% 28%. This guidance is driven by the completion of Victoria Place with more residences closing in the Q4 than we originally expected and only $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 of condo sales revenues delaying into the Q1 of 2025.

Speaker 5

And finally, we now expect cash G and A to range between $83,000,000 $88,000,000 for the full year, which compares to our prior guidance of $80,000,000 to $90,000,000 This guidance excludes $33,000,000 of expenses incurred to complete the spin off of Seaport Entertainment, which are now reflected in discontinued operations, as well as approximately $9,000,000 of non cash stock compensation. During the quarter, we recognized $90,000,000 of other income related to the final settlement of our dispute at Waiea in Ward Village. Over the last few years, we expensed $158,000,000 to remediate construction defects, including the replacement of all the windows in the tower, while pursuing reimbursement from general contractor, other responsible parties and various insurance carriers. This $90,000,000 payment represents the full payout of the related insurance policy and the release of any further claims. In conjunction with the settlement, we also agreed to pay general contractor $22,000,000 which settled final project costs that they incurred during YF's construction.

Speaker 5

Approximately $10,000,000 of this was purely accrued. Therefore, we recognized $12,000,000 of incremental condominium rights and unit cost of sales during the quarter. With those disputes now settled, the overall gross margin achieved on Waiea was approximately 25%. Turning to our balance sheet. We had $401,000,000 of cash at the end of the quarter, leaving us well positioned to deploy capital as necessary in the future.

Speaker 5

At the end of September, the remaining equity contribution needed to fund our current projects was approximately $242,000,000 From a debt perspective, we had $5,300,000,000 outstanding at the end of the Q3 with $308,000,000 of maturities during 2024. Approximately $304,000,000 of these near term maturities are related to the construction loan on Victoria Place, which will be repaid as units closed this quarter, leaving us with approximately $3,000,000 of principal amortization payments during the remainder of 2024. For 2025, we have approximately $461,000,000 maturing, which includes the office construction loans for 6,100 Merriweather and 1700 Pavilion, both of which are more than 90% leased. It also includes our multifamily construction loans for Marlow, Tana Dureko and Wingspan. Financing discussions for many of these assets are already underway and we will have more to share with you in the coming quarters.

Speaker 5

And finally, during the Q3, we closed on the sale of $193,000,000 of existing MAC receivables through the issuance of 3rd party Sacxent bonds from which we received cash proceeds of $152,000,000 after transaction costs. The 3rd party bonds will be fully serviced by MUD reimbursement cash flows. As part of this transaction, we also sold $33,000,000 of future MUD receivables for additional cash proceeds of $24,000,000 If the MUD reimbursement cash flows are consistent with our expectations, the future MUD receivables could either be returned to Bridgeland or sold in a future transaction. However, if a delay or other event causes a shortfall to bondholders, the cash flows from the future MUD receivables would then be used to service the bonds. However, there are no obligations for Howard Hughes to service the bonds or provide any additional collateral.

Speaker 5

Although this transaction generated a GAAP loss on sale of $52,000,000 after considering relevant accounting adjustments, it significantly accelerated the time to recapture this cash, while creating a new liquidity mechanism, which further enhances our self funding model with $33,000,000 of the loss being excess security available to support future MUD sales. We used the cash proceeds from this transaction to significantly pay down Bridgeland's line of credit by $192,000,000 in the quarter. Subsequent to quarter end, we also successfully expanded this line of credit's borrowing capacity from $475,000,000 to $600,000,000 and extended its maturity by 3 years to 2029, providing additional optionality to fund MPC development in the coming years. I would now like

Speaker 2

to turn the call back over to David for closing remarks. Thank you, Carlos. In closing, our Q3 results were simply outstanding across the portfolio and further solidified our bullish outlook, which includes record residential land sales with robust MPCEBT well above historical averages, record operating asset NOI and nearly $210,000,000 of gross profit from condo sales for the full year. We look forward to sharing more details on our record setting results and our favorable outlook at our upcoming Investor Day, which should be held in Summerlin in less than 2 weeks on Monday, November 18. For everyone who plan to attend, we look forward to seeing you soon and showing you why Summerlin is consistently ranked 1 of the top selling NPCs in the country.

Speaker 2

If you can't attend in person, please mark your calendars to join the live webcast, which will be accessible from our Investor Relations website. With that, let's start the Q and A portion of the call. Operator, can you please open the line for the first question?

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you. First question is, if I look at Slide 26, where you give a rough value for the MPCs, can you maybe spend a minute just giving us a little background as to how you're getting the $3,900,000,000 whether it's just kind of applying recent acreage prices to what you have on the balance sheet? Or is there also like an included cost that you'd have to incur to achieve the $3,900,000,000 Just any color there would be great.

Speaker 2

Good morning, Tom. Good to hear from you. Real quick, what we're doing here is similar to what we do in our Annual Investor Day when we provide an NAV update. We take the remaining acres times the price per acre against the margin that we used to sell it and discount it back to today. It's the same methodology that we've used in each one of the appendices of the NAV analysis that we provide.

Speaker 2

It's illustrative. And we're trying to use very similar metrics and margins, but just applying the revised price per acre showing the increase that's been achieved over the past 7 years.

Speaker 6

Okay. So that does include some margin and just the costs and discount rate and timing and all those sorts of variables?

Speaker 2

Yes, it does. And as you know, there are certain communities where the margins are higher and some where they're lower. Some of it has to do with the topography and the grading that has to occur to Summerlin, which is why there's a slightly lower margin there. And some of them has to do with the relative maturity of the community like Woodland Hills earlier on is going to show a lower cash margin today, higher cash margin later and a consistent GAAP margin throughout.

Speaker 6

Okay, got it. And then, I don't know if you'd be able to comment, but any thinking around the timeline for the Board Special Committee around the process that Bill Ackman and Pershing Square is running?

Speaker 2

I really can't have any comment on that process. That is something that as you know has been filed publicly and if there are any updates we'll file it publicly as well for all shareholders to see.

Speaker 6

Okay. And last question, just for me, looking at the operating portfolios, still looking at areas like Summerlin, retail where the NOI is off from kind of 22 levels and then just the upside with that that you think might exist with some of the office assets in Merriweather, like any just context around timeline for some of those projects where there's a big NOI gap that could be achieved?

Speaker 2

Yes. I can kind of hit those one at a time. The retail portfolio in Summerlin, we're hitting our 10 year anniversary right now, Tony, of Downtown Summerlin. So we're seeing a meaningful number of expirations that are highlighted in our supplemental. And we're taking that opportunity to thoughtfully renew those tenants that are performing well and take advantage of the market environment where we have incredible demand for our retail there to upgrade some of the tenancy across the board and we've signed recent leases with Lego and Chanel that will continue to drive the credit quality and the sales per foot of that center higher.

Speaker 2

In the meantime, for the next 18 months to 24 months, as we have meaningful expirations and some downtime turnover and tenant build out, that NOI will probably lag behind what we saw a couple of years ago when it was as it is today, very high 90s percent leased. But without the kind of downtime and turnover that we've seen recently. I think over time that gap will close pretty quickly as those new tenants open and we see them performing the way we expect. The Merriweather Road portfolio in Colombia is a little bit more of a challenge. It is the older vintage assets within the portfolio and there is, as you know, considerable pressure on office.

Speaker 2

Right before the pandemic hit, we invested meaningfully in upgrading the amenity base and conference centers, fitness facilities, life path, landscaping, etcetera. And we're starting to see the benefit of that capital expenditure from a couple of years ago materialize as we're seeing a kind of turn in leasing momentum. In the past year or so, we've seen a modest degradation in the occupancy. And I think we've really hit an inflection point now where instead of 1 step forward, 2 steps back, it's 2 steps forward, 1 step back. And we're seeing a little bit more momentum in the leasing of that space.

Speaker 2

So, look forward to speaking to that in a lot more detail on the Investor Day. We have a handful of slides pulled out to talk specifically about those assets. And I think that we see some positive momentum there for the first time in a little bit.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler.

Speaker 7

So a few questions here. David, maybe you could just go back to you rattled off some numbers early on land and home inventory in your communities versus national. And 1, if you could just go back over those. But 2, more importantly, mortgage rates certainly haven't dropped as much as people thought. There's still a pretty wide still sort of high relative to the past where they were a number of years ago.

Speaker 7

And the economy is what it is, and yet your land sales and home sales just would almost suggest like a really strong economy. So two parts to this. One is, if you could just run back through so we can catch the numbers on how your communities are positioned for land and homes versus sort of national dynamics? And then 2, the performance of your communities on home and land versus the general economy overall?

Speaker 2

Yes. There's a lot there, Alex. So forgive me if this answer takes a few minutes. In Bridgeland and Summerlin, which as you know are the communities where we sell the most land to homebuilders, our communities there have 1 month or less of new home supply. And the national average is about 2 months or slightly higher.

Speaker 2

So we are pretty tight. And then if you think about vacant developed lots or those kind of lots that are available for new homes, I would argue that equilibrium is about a 20 month supply because it takes that long to get the model home up run, take an order and then build the home to complete that order. Right now, we're sitting at Summerlin is at 11 months and Bridgeland is at 12. I think compounding that and what has led to the modest decline in underlying home sales this quarter is that our community count and the actual number of floor plans available in Summerlin is close to a record low right now, because we've seen such incredible home sales over the past several quarters that we're kind of low. And home builders pause momentarily buying new land and new communities when we saw mortgage rates increase over a year ago.

Speaker 2

And that's what's caused a little bit of the bottleneck now. The good news is that as those home sales continued strong when mortgage rates increased, those homebuilders came right back to us to buy land. And those new communities will be coming online a few in the 4th quarter, but really meaningfully in the first half of twenty twenty five. Our community count will be back up where it belongs, if not a little bit higher than what we've seen long term averages at. The number of floor plans available to buyers will increase dramatically.

Speaker 2

The price points will increase dramatically and we'll be able to meet that demand that we see right now that we just don't have the diversity of product to meet today. Look, I would argue that if you pulled the public homebuilder results, they continue to demonstrate good numbers. Number of orders are up, backlog is strong, cancellations are down, margins are high. I think the new home market has continued to be very resilient despite the national headlines that overall housing sales are down. If you pull apart those high level numbers of total sales into what's a new construction versus a resale, The new construction market has increased pretty meaningfully and I think that's the dynamic that we see taking hold in our portfolio that has increased the demand for our raw materials, our land that the homebuilders desperately need to effectuate their business plan.

Speaker 2

And we're able to sell that land at increasing values per acre to meet the underlying demand of those that continue to migrate and look for a better quality of life that we offer in Howard Hughes communities.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then second question is, I realize you're not giving 25 guidance and but still when we look at this year, your business is heavy transactional. Clearly, it's been a better year than you anticipated. But as we, the analyst community, think about where you're going to be for 25, is there some sort of ballpark where you'd say, hey, look, this year was outsized, take 20% off the numbers and use that as a run rate? Like how do we sort of gauge the best way to try and look for where you're going to be just given the heavy transactional nature and the fact that this year certainly well exceeded where you originally started out?

Speaker 2

Look, I think it's really difficult for us, even when we do provide guidance on the forward year to anticipate a record year and to say that next year is going to be better than we've ever experienced in the history of the company, which is what we're seeing here today, because our residential land sale number has never been so high. I don't see an overall change in the dynamic today sitting here that demand for housing is going to decline. We are still short millions of units of housing across the country. And I think it's going to take years for that to resolve itself. And as a result, I think we're going to continue to see strong demand.

Speaker 2

We're not providing 25 guidance today, so it's very difficult for me to give you a lot more color than that. We feel great about our communities. We feel great about the number of folks that want to live a higher quality of life community like Bridgeland and Summerlin and Woodland Hills. And I think that's going to continue to translate into strong land sales to homebuilders. How much next year?

Speaker 2

It's way early to tell and we'll look forward to providing guidance on our Q4 call early next year.

Speaker 7

Okay. And just final question, Carlos, on the MUDs sale, you guys generate a tremendous amount of liquidity through the land sales. So just curious what prompted you to monetize the MUDs? And by doing so, does that necessarily not necessarily restrict, but is there an offset to that? Or is this like sort of free I'm just trying to understand if this is free money?

Speaker 7

And then what drove that decision just given all the liquidity you generate out of your land sales?

Speaker 5

Yes, Alex. Well, as you know, the MUDs are an asset that sits in our balance sheet and has liquidity anytime between 3 to 5 years, depending on where exactly it is. In this case, it was in Bridgeland, but there's an administrative process that can take up to 5 years. So the opportunity to see if there was a liquidity mechanism for that asset was very enticing. And this is the first time that we do this.

Speaker 5

We prove that it can be done. And so the impetus was to see if we can take what can be a largely illiquid asset for up to 5 years and turn it into a liquid asset at an attractive with attractive proceeds that then allowed us to turn around and deleverage by paying down the bridge on line of credit. And then subsequent to that, by having created liquidity for an illiquid asset, we were even able to expand the line of credit that we have in Bridgeland by $125,000,000 So it was really a positive all around that helped us understand that we have a lot more optionality than we thought before now that we can take this illiquid acid and turn it into liquid.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Kim from BMO Capital Markets.

Speaker 8

Hi, good morning. It's Eric Gordon on for John Kim. Maybe just starting with now that the drag from the Seaport is gone and you're going to receive a large infusion of capital from condo sales, which is coming online next quarter. I guess, how are you thinking about allocating capital to new development starts? And what operating asset segment is the most attractive in terms of return profile across your multifamily, retail and office segments?

Speaker 2

That's a great question, Eric, and appreciate you asking. Look, I love the fact that we have more liquidity rather than less monetizing MUDs, selling condos, selling land that generates free cash flow to our balance sheet and it perpetuates our self funding business models all paramount to how we operate. The most important decisions that we'll make as a management team in conjunction with our Board is how we allocate that capital. And we're always trying to chase those highest risk adjusted returns and those highest opportunities to create value. Sometimes that is in great condo developments like we have here in Hawaii with the closing of Victoria Place this week.

Speaker 2

Sometimes that is in share buybacks. So we're always looking at where we're going to drive the highest risk adjusted returns, whether that's purchasing our own shares and owning more of a company that we love and we see the underlying value in or sometimes it's in new developments. As we think about prioritizing those new developments, it's very market specific, it's very demand specific. So it's hard to generalize and say that ex property type is the highest and best use today. As we sit here today, if we have the opportunity to do another condominium tower here in Hawaii or another tower in The Woodlands of Summerlin like we did with the Ritz Carlton Residences in The Woodlands, we'll absolutely continue to execute on that where we can sell it at 25% to 30% margin and generate a lot of free cash flow for the company.

Speaker 2

The next highest and best use today is probably in multifamily where we've seen strong same store results. We're full across a portfolio And when we're full and we see incremental demand, sometimes we're able to build new products that will generate a lot of value for our shareholders and we see those opportunities will move. Given that we do have some vacancy remaining in our office portfolio, I think it's unlikely that we'll do more office development in the very near term. And then retail is really a great amenity and if we can build it at an outsized return and create a lot of value in a market that is tight and full and we see incremental demand, we'll continue to do that. And you've seen that in kind of small targeted instances like Whole Foods in Summerlin and the retail center that we're building around HEB in Bridgeland.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Maybe one on the retail leasing demand environment. Just curious if you could comment on the strength there. And with the 15% of leasing rolling next year, I was hoping you could provide some brackets around your expectations for cash releasing spreads.

Speaker 2

Yes. And I think largely that question is going to focus around downtown Summerlin, which is where we see the majority of the expirations. I think we have a great opportunity here to see a positive mark to market. How wide that will be? It will depend, right?

Speaker 2

It's very difficult to predict today because some of those expirations. We're just in the very early stages of negotiating right now. I think we do see a positive spread. It's going to be in the mid single digits, kind of all in, including kind of rent mark to market as well as kind of fixed cam adjustments that keep up with the increasing operating expenses. It is positive.

Speaker 2

It's strong. It's demand like we haven't seen in a long time for retail, but I don't expect to see double digit mark to market increases.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 9

Hey, David, it's John Kim. I just wanted to squeeze one last question and if that's okay. But on your G and A, it's up 15% year over year. I know some of that is the non cash stock comp, but outside of that, the cash today is up year over year as well. I would have thought that might have come down a bit or moderated with the Seaport spin off.

Speaker 9

And I'm wondering if you expect going forward, G and A to moderate?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think over the next year or so, you'll continue to see G and A moderate. I think that making knee jerk reactions in the immediate aftermath of the spin off is very difficult to do and to see kind of an overnight change. It's still, as you know, a more complicated business than a lot of our public real estate brethren. We're not just one product type, we're multiple and we're also in land development, condo development and it takes meaningful amount of capital, not just monetary capital, but human capital to execute on that business plan.

Speaker 2

And we're thoughtful on our G and A. We've come a long way from the $140,000,000 that we were 5 years ago and down to a run rate in the mid-80s that I think is very sustainable and we can continue to grow our portfolio meaningfully without adding to our G and A.

Speaker 9

Is some of those costs success based, based on land sales or condo sales?

Speaker 2

I'm sorry, some of those costs what John?

Speaker 9

Success based, like on the closing of land sales like a No. Okay.

Speaker 2

No. The success based fees are all around condo closings and condo sales and those are in the cost of sales of the underlying project not within G and A.

Speaker 9

Got it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2

Thanks, John.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Dara Heiwat from Black Oak.

Speaker 10

Good morning, everyone, and congrats on another solid quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 10

And thanks for taking our call. It's a general call, but I mean as we look across your business and we're obviously seeing your increasing NOI on the operating assets and Victoria Place being delivered just now, which is great, big wins on the land sale side, Seaport behind us. I mean, your business is really hitting on all cylinders right now and it's showing up in the form of rising liquidity and net worth in the financials. And you've already kind of touched on this a little bit, but against that backdrop of success and looking forward, we're really focused on that, how you all are comparing the relatively low new development returns against what at least to us seems to be a continuing very conservative valuation of your stock. And as looking ahead in the Q4 and beyond, even higher liquidity from condo sales and other liquidity drivers.

Speaker 10

So I guess could you just any more particulars you could give around your latest thinking on capital allocation over the next few quarters? And is it possible that we sit on this much liquidity in your mind for a year or more? And I guess as I ask all that, I know you have a Capital Markets Day. So maybe if you plan on addressing it more than maybe just punt us to that. But congrats again on the quarter and look forward to anything you have on that topic.

Speaker 2

Well, I appreciate. Thank you for the comments and I'm happy to answer the question. As nice as it would be just to punt on every question for a couple of weeks, it should be answered. Look, I think your question comes back to whether or not we should just develop and continue to develop at tighter spreads, sit on liquidity or use that capital to buy back our own shares. And I think that those are decisions that we try to make every day.

Speaker 2

It's tough to say that at any one point in time, it should be 100% one or the other. And we have to be thoughtful about how we allocate our capital not just in the very short term, but thinking long term. And if we took all of our excess liquidity for example and put it into share buybacks, we wouldn't be spending any capital improving our communities. And the more we improve our communities, the more people want to live there, the more we can drive higher land values, the more we can create great communities that people want to be in and can continue to drive to these incredible results. So I think we have to be thoughtful, not just for the short term and for next quarter, but over the long term to make sure that we are balanced between creating value on a per share basis by reducing our share count and continuing to improve our communities, but improve those communities by allocating capital to developments that generate value creation.

Speaker 2

And that balance is what I think you'll continue to see us do. Sometimes those development yields are tight. And a great example of that is the Whole Foods in Summerlin. But we've seen in every single one of our communities, even here in Hawaii, what adding a Whole Foods amenity to that community can do and how it can change the price of condos and positively impact the value of all of your remaining land that's adjacent to those developments. So I don't think it's a one size fits all answer.

Speaker 2

It's a balance and it's a balancing act that we try to tackle every day, every quarter, every year. With that said, I think the results have been outstanding. Thank you for highlighting it. I think it shows the resiliency of our business plan and the underlying value in our company. And it shows the disconnect between underlying value and our current share price today and makes the opportunity to buy back shares more attractive.

Speaker 2

So I think it's likely to see a shift of capital allocation to fewer developments and to potentially into more share buybacks depending on how we're trading and what the underlying market dynamics are as we get through the election, the Fed meeting and see where the housing market sits over the next several months.

Speaker 10

Great. I appreciate that. Yes, and yes, obviously your Summerlin project is great and I appreciate that just additional context. So congrats again. Great quarter.

Speaker 2

Appreciate the question. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amanda Schiavo from Commercial Observer. Hi. I was just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail about your office leasing, particularly in the Hawaii market and the success you guys have had there?

Speaker 2

Well, we really don't have an office portfolio in Hawaii, Amanda, to speak of. We're sitting here in the IBM building, which is kind of an iconic building within Ward Village that we almost predominantly occupy with the 80 or so employees that work here in Ward Village as well as the sales galleries and sales center that support the condo sales. So it's tough to speak to and I don't have a tremendous amount of color on the Hawaii office market.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to David O'Reilly for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you again for everyone for joining us. I think our Q3 results were nothing short of outstanding. And we look forward to hopefully seeing a lot of you in a couple of weeks out in Summerlin and showing off what is one of the best communities in the country that offers an outstanding quality of life and talking a lot more about what we see ahead for Howard Hughes. Thank you again. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Howard Hughes Q3 2024
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