Marcus & Millichap Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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February 16, 2024

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Marcus and Millichap's 4th Quarter and Year End 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Joc Cornett. Thank you. You may begin.

Operator

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Marcus and Millichap's Q4 year end 2023 earnings conference call. With us today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Saum Naji and Chief Financial Officer, Steve DeGenero. Before I turn the call over to management, please remember that our prepared remarks and the responses to questions may contain forward looking statements. Words such as may, will, expect, believe, estimate, anticipate, goal and variations of these words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements.

Operator

Actual results can differ materially from those implied by such forward looking statements due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to general economic conditions and commercial real estate market conditions, the company's ability to retain and attract transaction professionals, the company's ability to retain its business philosophy and partnership culture amid competitive pressures, the company's ability to integrate new agents and sustain its growth, and other factors discussed in the company's public filings, including its annual report on Form 10 ks filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2023. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in such forward looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can make no assurance that its expectations will be attained. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. In addition, certain financial information presented on this call represents non GAAP financial measures. The company's earnings release, which was issued this morning and is available on the company's website, represents a reconciliation to the appropriate GAAP measures and explains why the company believes such non GAAP measures are useful to investors.

Operator

This conference call is being webcast. Webcast link is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.marcusmillichap.com, along with the slide presentation you may reference during the remarks. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to CEO, Hessam Nadji. Thank you, Jacques. On behalf of the Marcus and Millichap team, good morning and welcome to our Q4 year end earnings call.

Operator

2023 ended up as one of the most challenging periods for the commercial real estate industry. The residual effect of soaring interest rates and volatility caused a breakdown in valuations and pushed buyers and sellers alike to the sidelines. The impact of widened bid ask spreads and severely restricted financing was illustrated by the lack of the usual 4th quarter investor urgency to close deals before year end. For the year, transaction and financing volumes declined by an estimated 55% market wide based on third party sources. MMIs revenue for the 4th quarter was $166,000,000 up modestly from the 3rd quarter and adjusted EBITDA loss came in at $4,500,000 For the year, revenue was just short of $650,000,000 a decrease of 50% from the prior year with an adjusted EBITDA loss of $20,000,000 While these results are extremely frustrating for our team, it is important to note that despite this challenging environment, MMI still closed roughly 7,500 transactions last year, once again more than any other firm.

Operator

Our unique marketing system and culture of collaboration resulted in 44% of our closings going to out of state buyers, which highlights our ability to generate buyer interest locally and nationally even in a disrupted market. Our ability to solve problems and uncover opportunities for our clients resulted in a movement of $12,600,000,000 across markets and product types. The company's financing experts at MMCC and IPA Capital Markets closed nearly 1100 financing transactions with 350 separate lenders. Leveraging this vast network of lender relationships and real time information exchange among our originators are major advantages for our clients in this market. These numbers and the company's financial results would be significantly stronger if not for 3 key challenges that we believe are temporary.

Operator

The first is the market's impact on our productivity. Listings have been difficult to price appropriately and are taking longer to market and put under contract. An elevated portion of our deals have fallen out of contract with many going in and out of contract more than once. This is due to lender and or buyer issues and essentially having to remarket the same deal multiple times to reach an actual closing. The net impact of getting the job done for our clients in a difficult environment is reduced time for new business development.

Operator

The second challenge is higher expenses related to investments made over the past few years for top tier talent at a time when their revenue production is well below long term averages entirely due to market headwinds. We're confident that the strategy behind acquiring and retaining top level producers, all of which were made with sound underwriting, will drive long term growth as the market recovers. Lastly, the broad nature of the market disruption has not only impacted larger institutional transactions, but has also impeded private client transactions more than past cycles. Although the percentage decline in private client deals is still far less than larger transactions, pricing uncertainty and widened bidask spreads across all property types have lowered private client trading. The pullback by banks and credit unions that usually provide the majority of financing for our private client deals is a contributing factor to this particular challenge.

Operator

The good news is that the passage of time and the market's realization that interest rates are unlikely to return to record lows is starting to spur the valuation reset necessary to bring buyers and sellers back into alignment. We anticipate that assets previously withheld from the market in the hopes of better pricing will be brought to market at more realistic prices in the quarters ahead. This shift is being prompted by maturing debt as well as operational issues, particularly in deals that were underwritten aggressively over the past few years. Our IPA division is seeing an uptick in inventory coming to market by institutional owners as well as cautious interest on the buy side. In the meantime, our strategy to remain on offense while being diligent on investment underwriting and cost management continues into 2024.

Operator

Some examples include our leading presence at key industry events and conferences such as National Mobility Housing Council, NMHC, ICSC, NAAP and other organizations covering every major property type. Our client webcast, which grew over 40,000 investors last year, expanded research content through 3,300 publications and various client outreach programs help our sales force stay connected and enhance their client relationships. Service expansions including auction and loan sales continue to provide alternative ways to add value to our clients. We continue to have success in attracting top level teams and groups and remain highly focused on sourcing acquisition opportunities. Recent negotiations with firms within our core business as well as complementary service lines reinforce the external growth opportunity and interest in MMI.

Operator

However, they've been hampered by ongoing gaps between pricing and terms expectations given the degree of short to midterm market uncertainty. We're confident that in time there will be more realism by sellers as we pursue additional opportunities to accelerate growth. Notwithstanding our cost containment measures, we're investing more in M and A related resources as this area remains a high priority. Another key priority is expanding recruiting resources and programs. Our experienced professional targeting and acquisition continued to show success.

Operator

In the last year, we brought on board numerous experienced individuals and teams across the country and product types. Recent examples include a major institutional apartment team that joined IPA in our Washington DC office and major capital markets team that joined in New York as well as highly experienced market leaders added in Dallas, Nashville, Los Angeles and Toronto, just to name a few. Our net hiring of newer professionals continues to be a challenge as the market disruption is keeping the fallout ratio of newer agents elevated. In the Q4, we initiated a proactive push to terminate those who are unlikely to become productive. The flow of new candidates is actually increasing, which is very encouraging and we're expanding our internship, mentorship and training programs as part of our commitment to return to positive net hiring of new associates.

Operator

Looking forward, we believe that the Fed's eventual lowering of interest rates and investors growing confidence in the economic soft landing will be the key catalyst in rising trading activity. Persistently strong job numbers and January's higher than expected inflation data have taken the pressure off the Fed to start easing, further fueling the higher for longer trend we pointed out on our last call. However, with the real estate pricing reset underway and some degree of interest rate easing by the Fed expected by mid year, we're cautiously optimistic for an improving market environment in the second half of this year. In the meantime, our theme of control the controllable drives management's focus as applied to internal tools, education and best practices sharing as well as providing best in class brokerage services to our team. At the same time, we continue to pursue external growth opportunities through our acquisition strategy.

Operator

Our playbook from past down cycles in 52 years of being in business continues to improve each time with the benefit of technology, a strong and growing brand and laser focus on revenue growth. Throughout the recent market and economic shifts, we've effectively balanced strategic investments with the returning capital to shareholders. NMI has a long history of producing high quality earnings that have generated strong cash flows through multiple economic cycles. The combination of share repurchases and dividends reflect our commitment to maximizing shareholder value. The strength of our balance sheet combined with our leading market position and brand form an exceptionally strong foundation for our long term success.

Operator

And with that, I will turn the call over to Steve for additional insights on our financial results. Steve? Thank you, Hessam. As previously mentioned, revenue for the Q4 was $166,000,000 compared to last year's $262,000,000 For the full year, total revenue was $646,000,000 compared to last year's record high of $1,300,000,000 Revenue from real estate brokerage commissions for the Q4 was $145,000,000 or 87% of total revenue compared to $236,000,000 last year, a decrease of 39% year over year. For the quarter, total sales volume was $8,700,000,000 across 1413 transactions, down 33% 31%, respectively.

Operator

For the full year 2023, revenue from real estate brokerage commissions was $560,000,000 and accounted for nearly 87% of total revenue compared to $1,200,000,000 last year, a decrease of 52% year over year. Full year sales volume was 30.8 $1,000,000,000 across 5,475 transactions, down 55% 40% respectively. Average transaction size during the Q4 was approximately $6,200,000 compared to $6,400,000 a year ago. For the full year, average transaction size was $5,600,000 compared to $7,500,000 in the prior year. The year over year decrease in average transaction size reflects a decline in property values as well as a lower mix of revenue coming from middle market and larger transactions due to the disproportionate impact of the market disruption on institutional business.

Operator

Within brokerage for the quarter, our core private client business contributed 66% of brokerage revenue or $95,000,000 versus 62% last year. For the full year, the Private Client business contributed 67% of brokerage revenue or $373,000,000 versus 58% last year. Middle market and larger transactions, which experienced strong growth over the past couple of years together accounted for 31% of brokerage revenue or $44,000,000 during the 4th quarter compared to 36% last year. For the full year, middle market and larger transactions represented 30% of brokerage revenue or $166,000,000 compared to 40% last year. For the quarter, private client business declined 35%, while middle market and larger transactions declined 49% 47% respectively.

Operator

For the full year, the trend away from larger deals was more pronounced with private client declining 45% and middle market and large transactions declining 61% 66% respectively. Revenue in our financing business, including MMCC, was $16,000,000 in the 4th quarter compared to $22,000,000 last year. During the quarter, we closed 2.37 financing transactions totaling $1,500,000,000 in volume compared to 408 transactions or $2,400,000,000 in volume in the prior year. Financing revenue for the full year was $67,000,000 compared to $113,000,000 last year. This was achieved across 10 76 transactions totaling $6,700,000,000 in volume compared to 2,143 transactions and $12,800,000,000 in volume last year.

Operator

Other revenue comprised primarily of consulting and advisory fees along with referral fees was $6,000,000 in the 4th quarter compared to $5,000,000 last year. For the full year, other revenue was $19,000,000 this year compared to $18,000,000 last year. Turning to expenses. Total operating full year, total operating expense was $705,000,000 39% lower compared to the prior year. Lower expenses were primarily due to a reduction in variable expenses related to lower revenue.

Operator

Cost of services was $105,000,000 or 63.4 percent of total revenue for the quarter, a decrease of 5.50 basis points compared to prior year. For the full year, cost of services was 407,000,000 3 percent of total revenue, a reduction of 2 40 basis points compared to last year. The lower cost of services as a percentage of revenue reflects lower commission rates as fewer agents surpassed revenue thresholds. SG and A in the 4th quarter was $75,000,000 an increase of 2.9% over the prior year, primarily due to increased stock compensation and consolidation of office space in certain markets. For the full year, SG and A was $285,000,000 a decrease of 5% compared to last year.

Operator

The full year decrease was attributable to lower variable compensation tied to business performance impacted by market conditions along with ongoing cost reductions. The decreases were partially offset by expenses related to talent acquisition and retention as well as new business development and marketing support. Despite the market disruption and its near term impact on our earnings, we remain committed to investing in our operating platform, sales force growth, technology and infrastructure. Based on our experience through multiple cycles, these enhancements during a downturn have proven to drive long term value. We are working diligently to balance near term profitability with these strategic investments.

Operator

During the 4th quarter, we reported a net loss of $10,200,000 or $0.27 loss per share compared with net income of $7,900,000 or $0.20 per share in the prior year. For the full year, net loss totaled $34,000,000 or $0.88 loss per share compared to net income of $104,200,000 or $2.59 per share last year. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA was negative $4,500,000 compared to positive $14,100,000 1 positive $165,500,000 in the prior year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 12% and for the full year was 16%. Moving on to the balance sheet.

Operator

We remain well capitalized with no debt and $407,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, down only modestly from the prior quarter's $411,000,000 During the quarter, we returned a total of $14,600,000 of capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases at an average price of $27.92 per share. For the full year, we returned $59,000,000 of capital to shareholders, including $39,000,000 in share repurchases and $20,000,000 in dividends despite the challenging market environment. This is a testament to the strength of our balance sheet and the conviction in the long term outlook for the business. Since inception of our capital return programs roughly 2 years ago, we have returned more than $150,000,000 to shareholders and still have nearly $72,000,000 remaining on the current share repurchase authorization. Finally, last week, we announced that our Board declared a semi annual dividend of $0.25 per share or approximately $10,000,000 payable on our April 5, 2024 to shareholders of record on March 12, 2024.

Operator

Looking ahead to 2024, the headwinds facing the market are likely to remain a challenge through the first half of the year. In addition, our deal pipeline coming into the year did not have the same momentum it did going into 2023. However, we are cautiously optimistic that the end of the Fed's aggressive rate hikes will lead to improving conditions in the latter half of the year. We expect Q1 revenue to follow the usual seasonal pattern and be down sequentially from Q4. Cost of services for the Q1 should follow the seasonal reset and be in the range of 59% to 61% of revenue.

Operator

This is slightly lower than the Q1 of last year given current market dynamics. SG and A for the Q1 should decrease year over year in absolute dollars consistent with lower revenue and lower agent support costs tied to 2023 revenue. We remain committed to helping clients navigate external market conditions, while internally we continue to drive operational efficiency through best practices across the organization. We know that the investments we continue to make in the platform today position us to capture growth when market conditions normalize and transactional activity resumes. With that, operator, we can now open up the call for Q and A.

Operator

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question is from Jason Belcher with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 1

Thanks and good morning out there.

Operator

Hassan, I'm

Speaker 1

just wondering if you can talk a little more about the different transaction size buckets for commission revenue, particularly as it relates to any potential recovery. Are you expecting any particular deal size bucket to lead that recovery? Can you just comment on that?

Speaker 2

Good morning, Jason. Good to have you on the call. In most recoveries, the private client is the first to recover because of the entrepreneurial nature, because they can afford to acquire smaller assets with all cash and then put financing on it at times when financing is constrained and do creative things on the sell side like seller carry and basically work through a lot of market headwinds that we've seen in past cycles. In this cycle, because of the broad nature of the dislocation and because of the credit constraints that we're seeing among banks and credit unions, as I mentioned in my formal remarks, which are the primary source of smaller transactions, mid capsmallcap transactions are really hindering that private client recovery. Now having said that, of course, the magnitude of the transaction decline in the smaller price points is far less than the institutional segment or the $20,000,000 plus segment.

Speaker 2

As far as predicting where it's going to come in 1st, I would still expect the Private Client segment to start showing an uptick because of the fact that the prices are readjusting, expectations are readjusting, more inventory is coming to market. And those factors usually feed the entrepreneurial nature of the sub $10,000,000 $15,000,000 marketplace. What's interesting is that in the last just in the last 30 days really since the beginning of the year, we're seeing a lot more institutional interest, especially in markets that have been impacted by some pockets of overbuilding or a big reversal from rent spikes in the last 3 years to rent declines in the last 6 months or so. And it's encouraging to see the pencils down attitude of institutions start to shift away to showing interest in getting back into the market. So I don't think the institutional market is going to be far behind, but I would still expect the private client to lead the recovery.

Speaker 1

Thanks. That's helpful. And just to follow-up there, you referenced an uptick in certain markets that had been depressed. Can you just share a few of those markets where you're seeing some encouraging green shoots there?

Speaker 2

Absolutely. I'll give you two examples. 1 is a supply constrained market that for many years has been a preferred market with a lot of buyer demand and the other is more of a high beta market. The first one that's interesting to point out is the San Francisco Bay Area. And because it lagged into job recovery, it lagged in the rent recovery, despite being a very supply constrained region, didn't see the kind of benefit from investor demand that we in other markets in 2021, 2022.

Speaker 2

And yet on an apples to apples basis market like that is now a diamond in the rough in many ways and we're seeing a lot more investor interest in that market than many others. The other example is Phoenix, of course, or even in markets like Atlanta where you see a lot of construction and the absorption of those units have been strong when the deployment market was on fire with the pullback of some of the momentum on jobs and some overbuilding, we've seen a reversal there. And therefore, the price correction has been more pronounced and the kind of volatility from peak to a trough has been more dramatic. Nonetheless, again interest is picking up even in a market like Phoenix that's been through a lot of ups and downs. Because over the long term, if you're looking at replacement costs and really look at the price per unit trend that we're seeing, this is a great window of acquisitions.

Speaker 2

And for long term investors that believe in growth markets like Phoenix, they're seeing that benefit now. Conversely, in a market like the Bay Area or even Southern California, because there's soap supply constrained, they're seeing that benefit. And again, with price adjustment that makes it very competitive now on a replacement cost basis to be a buyer in this market.

Speaker 1

Again, really helpful. Thank you. And just one more follow-up there, if I may. On these markets where you're starting to see increased interest, could you just comment on any particular property sectors that might be leading the way there?

Speaker 2

We continue to see retail as a comeback asset and in some ways a preferred asset. The consumer remains very strong. Retail is way ahead of the curve and having reinvented itself because of e commerce over the last 10 or 15 years, There has been a major pullback in new construction for well over 10 years now in retail and the power of destination retail, entertainment and experiential retail are out in the marketplace in full force. We're seeing more retailers expand that perhaps in the last 15 to 20 years. And there is a pricing power on behalf of the owners.

Speaker 2

I'm very involved with ICSE as a trustee and it's fascinating to see the confidence level of major retailers looking to expand into brick and mortar. And brick and mortar has been rediscovered as an essential part of retail. And so it's really interesting to see that evolution go full circle with brick and mortar retail. So lots of interest there. Prices have adjusted in a way that you're starting to see the kind of alignment between buyers and sellers, because again they're further ahead of the curve.

Speaker 2

And the cap rate spread to interest rates wasn't as dramatic as apartments and industrial. So in the multifamily marketplace, which is usually the most stable, we're seeing more of a dislocation and a drop in trading activity because of that tight cap rate band to interest rates before the tightening cycle began. That delivered a very significant valuation disruption for multifamily. And the market is sifting through it. At the same time, you have a lot of maturing loans from debt funds and short term financing options that are terming out.

Speaker 2

And so that's creating some pressure. And of course, you have pockets of overbuilding. But I really think all of this is temporary and multifamily would be a phenomenal investment on a long term basis. And then lastly, of course, industrials continues to be very much favored, but there is definitely pockets of overbuilding on the industrial warehouse side of the equation where we're becoming more and more active. The product type that is still very much distressed is office in general, but specific office investments are really getting judged incorrectly.

Speaker 2

And that if you look at urban office, those vacancies are well north of 22%, 23%. You look at newer suburban product that's been built in the last 10 to 15 years, those vacancies are around 11%. So there's really a tale of 2 markets within office, but the sector is just being judged with too much generalization. I would say that's probably the product type where we have the most difficult bid ask spread situation. Other product types, hospitality is doing well, self storage is doing well, velocity is way down.

Speaker 2

But from a fundamentals perspective and investor demand, those products are doing well. There is some overbuilding happening with storage as well on a local market basis. But as a whole, it still is garnering a lot of attention. So hope that gives you a little idea of different product types.

Speaker 1

Great color. Thank you so much for that. Switching gears a little bit, I think you mentioned investment in technology initiatives in the quarter. Can you talk a little bit more about what that was related to and what kind of benefit you have to get from that?

Speaker 2

Happy to, Jason. There is an initiative for internal proprietary system development. We've done a great deal of it over the past 3 years. And all of that effort is around the productivity level of the back office that basically supports our sales force, whether it's the underwriting process, the proposal preparation process before an agent goes out to meet with a prospect and shifting from that back office internal productivity to then the marketing of our listings, we have done quite a bit of work on our website that's geared toward ease of finding our inventory. We introduced an application not too long ago called MyMMI that enables investors to register with us, tell us what they're looking for, save their searches by property type, price range, geography.

Speaker 2

And as our system basically does a real time search to match that criteria, the buyer is alerted and the listing agent is alerted and we make the kind of a linkage between potential investors and our listing brokers much, much more efficient. That application now has well over 100 1,000 investors registered in it. They also get notifications about research content and upcoming industry and Marcus and Millichap events. So that's an example of an application we introduced and we continue to refine. And then our marketing center within our internal proprietary inventory system called MNET is a fantastic automation example of making it really simple for our brokers to launch email campaigns of new listings and to be able to monitor the interest level that is coming in from our website from various screened out potential investors, potential buyers and Vino will get in touch with them very easily.

Speaker 2

Knowing who is looking at what product type, what interest level they have also makes the targeting of our new listings to the right audience a lot more efficient, because our system is constantly tracking all of this movement and activity and harnessing it by creating smart basically distributions of new listings to the right target audience. These are just a couple of examples. We invested in Equity Multiple as we announced last quarter, which is really a phenomenal platform for a lot of our clients that need to raise capital as sponsors. And their ability to very quickly reach out to huge audience of crowdfunding type of investors to raise equity or equity shortfalls that our sponsor clients may have as a great value add. And we're just in the early stages of rolling that out and introducing it to our key brokers.

Speaker 2

And also we made an investment in Archer, which is a really interesting startup around the whole notion of streamlining multiple data sources into a modeled synthetic NOI estimate right now predominantly for multifamily, where it's a very accurate highly accurate synthetic NOI that makes the initial stages of doing a BOV broker of Internet value or preparing to sit down with a client much more efficient in that our brokers know what's happening in every submarket, what's happening in every metro. They know what's on the market, what the price per units are, what the rent per units are. But to have this automated tool as a kind of a validation of their market assessment is very helpful. And we're looking to bolt that process onto our analytics on the back office, so that our analysts can become a lot more efficient. So those are just a few internal and external examples of how we're leveraging technologies to make the business more efficient and more powerful.

Speaker 3

And Jason, just to elaborate on the last two, those PropTech investments, those started out as commercial relationships. We liked what we saw as we evaluated the technology for the internal and synergistic reasons that Hessam elaborated on. We like the opportunity and at that point decided to make those investments in each of those perms.

Speaker 1

Thank you both. Really appreciate all that detail. And then lastly, maybe one more for you Steve, switching gears to the income statement. I noticed your interest income and other line jumped a little higher this quarter. Just curious if that was mainly driven by higher interest rates on your short term investments or if there was something else behind that?

Speaker 3

Yes. That's exactly it. Higher rates, obviously, we've got $400,000,000 plus on the balance sheet between cash and our various investment vehicles. We did during the quarter elect to swap out some shorter term lower rate investments for some longer term vehicles, still well within our investment policy, but swapping out cash that was earning 1% to 2% for a little bit longer time horizon, earning above 5%. So we're active in that regard.

Speaker 3

Obviously, with the strength of our balance sheet, we're never pressured to sell anything even if it happens to be below market. And it gives us the opportunity to swap lower performing vehicles for higher performing.

Speaker 1

That's helpful. Thank you. And just on that, the longer time horizon vehicles, what kind of duration are we looking there, 1 year, 2 years?

Speaker 3

Yes, in that range, I think the max we go out is something like 30 months.

Operator

Okay.

Speaker 1

All very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions guys.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jason.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back over to Hessam Nadji for any closing comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone who joined the call. We look forward to seeing you on the road and having you back on our next earnings call. Thank you very

Operator

much. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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Earnings Conference Call
Marcus & Millichap Q4 2023
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