Prologis Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 19, 2022

There are 21 speakers on the call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Prologis First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. It's now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Tracey Ward, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Brent, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q1 2022 earnings conference call. The supplemental document is available on our website at prologis.comunderinvestorrelations. I'd like to state that this Conference call will contain forward looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are based on current expectations, Estimates and projections about the market and the industry in which Prologis operates as well as management's beliefs and assumptions.

Speaker 1

Forward looking statements are not guarantees of performance and actual operating results may be affected by a variety of factors. For a list of those factors, please refer to the forward looking statement notice in our 10 ks or SEC filings. Additionally, our Q1 earnings press release and supplemental do contain financial measures such as FFO and EBITDA that are non GAAP measures. And in accordance with Reg G, we have provided a reconciliation to those measures. I'd like to welcome Tim Arndt, our new CFO, who will cover results, Real time market conditions and guidance.

Speaker 1

Hamid Moghadam, Gary Anderson, Chris Caton, Mike Kerless, Dan Leiter, Ed Nekritz, Tom Olinger, Gene Riley and Colleen McEwen are also here with us today. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Tim. Tim?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Tracy. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining our call. The strong performance we realized through 2021 has continued into the New Year. Today, as the production and distribution of goods continue to be disrupted, our customers find themselves struggling to simply keep up rather than focus on optimizing for resilience. This morning, we released our Q1 results, which exceeded our expectations across the board.

Speaker 2

Core FFO was $1.09 per share, ahead of our forecast. Brent change on rollover was 37 on a net effective basis and was led by the U. S. At 42%. Notably, our Southern California and New York, New Jersey portfolios realized 86% and 67% rent change during the quarter respectively.

Speaker 2

We ended the quarter at 97.4% occupancy, Holding average occupancy flat to the Q4 of 2021 counter to the typical Q1 decline. These operating results drove cash same store NOI growth to a record 8.7%. As we've been highlighting, The positive news in market rent is adding to our lease mark to market now at 47%. This equates to $1,600,000,000 of annual NOI As leases roll to market are over $2 per share of earnings that will drop to the bottom line even with no additional rent growth. Given our market rent forecast and expected rent change, the lease mark to market could exceed 50% by year end.

Speaker 2

We started over $1,000,000,000 in new development during the quarter across 32 projects in 16 markets, which are expected to generate over $400,000,000 in value creation. The build out potential of our land bank now stands at $28,000,000,000 We're approximately 200,000,000 square feet. Most importantly, the balance sheet remains in excellent shape. Our debt to market cap is very low at 14%. We have nearly $7,000,000,000 of liquidity and over $18,000,000,000 of investment capacity across Prologis and our open ended funds.

Speaker 2

Turning to our markets. Vacancy is at all time lows in most of our geographies. During quarter, we signed 60,000,000 square feet of leases and issued proposals on 90,000,000 square feet as customers continue to compete for the little space that remains. Supply chains have yet to return to normal as measured by in stock rates, shipment lead times and active dialogue with our customers. While the flow of goods has improved, the inventory to sales ratio remains more than 10% below pre pandemic levels.

Speaker 2

Inventories need to not only make up for this 10%, but build an incremental 10% in safety stock. And even if retail sales declined 5% as consumers shift their spending to experiences versus goods, We project that the market will still require an incremental 800,000,000 square feet of space in the U. S. Alone. As for supply, we are reducing our deliveries forecast for the year to 375,000,000 square feet As developers struggle to deliver on time due to the lack of materials and labor, a condition we expect to continue throughout the year.

Speaker 2

Because the supply story can become nuanced, we believe the best way to understand it is by comparing current vacancy in the market, Including the development pipeline, the trailing net absorption. We are calling this true months of supply or TMS. Historically, in our 30 U. S. Markets, the average number of true months to absorb this view of vacancy has been 36 during expansionary periods.

Speaker 2

Today that figure is 16 months less than half. By contrast, We analyze supply in the next 20 non Prologis markets and see approximately 30 true months of supply. Our research team will be releasing a paper This leads us to vacancy where we forecast rates to remain at record lows in our U. S. And global markets, upholding the strong environment for continued rent growth.

Speaker 2

During the quarter, market rents in the U. S. Grew by 8.5% and 6.5% globally. Given this pace and our outlook on demand, we're revising our annual rent growth forecast to 22% in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And 20% globally, in line with 2021. This rent growth was the main driver of value increases during the quarter, which measured 9.5% globally. The uplift in Europe was a record 6.3% with strong appreciation across all markets, while the U. S. Increased 10.3% during the quarter following the significant 42% increase in 2021.

Speaker 2

Still, while logistics markets remain strong, there are a number of macro So far, we haven't seen any impact on our business. And as we've highlighted in the past, these disruptive events often have the effect of increasing demand for warehouse space. Prologis and our employees have been contributing to refugee assistance efforts, including providing space to local nonprofits under our Space for Good program and staying close to our colleagues personally affected by the conflict. We are also watching both interest rates and inflation. On interest rates, we've been well ahead of refinancing this for some time, addressing substantially all of our debt maturities to 2026 and taking advantage of low interest rates.

Speaker 2

Today, our weighted average interest rate is 1.7%, which has an average of 10 years remaining. And as far as inflation, we operate over 1,000,000,000 square feet of real estate where we find replacement costs rising at multiples of inflation. While rents have been increasing from secular tailwinds for some time, inflation will create a pricing umbrella for even further rent growth. Taking these macro conditions and our strong Q1 performance into consideration, we have raised our 'twenty two guidance as follows. We are increasing the low end of our average occupancy forecast to a new range of 96.75% to 97.5%.

Speaker 2

We expect rent change on rollover to increase throughout the year, driving net effective same store growth to a range between 6.25% and 7% And cash same store growth to a range between 7.25% 8%. Given the increase in asset values in Europe and our PELF venture, We are increasing our net promote guidance to $460,000,000 most of which is occurring in the 3rd quarter, and we are also increasing Capital revenues excluding promotes to a range of $550,000,000 to $565,000,000 Combined, our strategic business will generate over $1,000,000,000 in revenue this year. We are maintaining our guidance range for acquisitions of 700,000,000 $1,200,000,000 as well as our development starts range of $4,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 While we often increase or narrow deployment guidance As the quarters progress and notwithstanding the strong demand we see across our markets, we've elected to maintain our starts guidance recognizing certain factors that are outside of our control such as labor availability. We are increasing our disposition guidance by $400,000,000 reflective of both values in the strong selling environment. We expect to generate $1,700,000,000 of retained cash flow after dividends, an impressive amount given the 25% dividend increase we announced during the quarter.

Speaker 2

Overall, we've increased the midpoint of our core FFO guidance by $0.08 To a range of $5.10 to $5.16 per share, core FFO excluding promotes will range from $4.50 to $4.56 per share, representing 11% growth from 2021 at the midpoint and driven by our same store increase. Over the last few quarters, in outreach we've had with analysts and investors, we've reiterated what we hope is a clear picture of our differentiators. It starts with a customer first mindset, a unique approach in the sector and we found great opportunity in our scale and are only beginning to realize its potential. For example, our procurement capabilities continue to be a significant advantage as we've secured both materials and pricing of various components, Extending deeper into the products needed to fully stabilize our projects. We estimate that our procurement efforts have allowed us to deliver projects 4 to 8 weeks ahead of our competition and at 7% to 8% lower costs.

Speaker 2

In our Essentials business, We're working to provide end to end solutions for our customers beyond the real estate, which is providing new sources of revenue. This includes Energy Solutions where we are leading the way with solar, storage and EV charging. And notably, we crossed 300 megawatts of power production this quarter and we'll add another 20% by year end, dramatically accelerating our pace. Additionally, we're innovating with workforce solutions serve our communities and tackle the acute shortage of labor through our community workforce initiative. This program has trained over 13,000 workers to date across 15 markets.

Speaker 2

These efforts are a logical progression of our ESG leadership and are integrated with our premier global portfolio, Industry leading cost structure, strong balance sheet and strategic capital platform. We continue to believe our best days lie ahead and look forward to reporting out on our progress. With that, I'd like to pass the call back to the operator for your questions.

Operator

Your first question comes from Jamie Feldman with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Thank you and good morning. Hamid, I'd like to get your thoughts on where you think cap rates and asset values are heading Given the move higher in financing costs we've seen this year, I'm also hoping you can discuss Prologis' appetite for acquisitions With $18,000,000,000 of investment capacity and your positive fundamental outlook, I'm not sure how much you can comment on the Mile Way bid that's been in the press, But any color you can provide on that transaction, what you would or would not like in that portfolio or even the final pricing on that transaction would be really helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 4

That was pretty good, Jamie. You got 3 questions into 1. We're doing it a lot Yes, me too. First on your question, I think cap rates are a little tricky. I actually think cap rates are going to hold because the mark to markets are So every quarter that goes by, even if the underlying cap rates of leases at market were to go up, The actual cap rate is unlikely to go up because there's so much mark to market that increases from quarter to quarter.

Speaker 4

So I don't know if your question literally meant cap rates or cap rates for deals at market. If it was the latter, I would think that they would go up a bit. But that's certainly not the major vector driving those cap rates. Our general appetite For acquisitions, it's always the same. We reluctantly provide guidance on acquisitions.

Speaker 4

You've heard me say that before Our acquisition guidance in any given year can be $0,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 and we've exceeded it on both ends in the past. So I wouldn't read too much about our acquisition guidance because we don't have a budget to which we acquire. However, And this sort of goes to your question on MileWave, which I can't really answer directly, but I think it will give you the our philosophy. We do not comment on market groomers, but we look at every single deal of any significance that happens in any of our markets. You would expect us to.

Speaker 4

And usually the 3 criteria that we look at are number 1, fit with the portfolio in terms of quality and location. The second would be valuation and economics and returns and things of that nature. And third, we look at a process and determine whether it's a process we can be successful in or not. And that's how We analyze and prioritize our time. We did not talk to any reporters in connection with the Mile Way transaction.

Speaker 4

We never do. But you never know who talks to reporters and for what reason. So let's just leave it at that.

Speaker 2

Hello, operator?

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Good morning. Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Rents continue to grow. Lease mark to market reached 47%.

Speaker 5

Net effective rents Are up 37%. You took your numbers up for what you expect rents to grow this year. Industrial warehouse rents, at least historically been known The lower than other asset types. So my question is, is there just is there a limit to how high industrial rents Can grow? And if so, what are they?

Speaker 5

And if not, like What's going to cause a slowdown in this? Because it seems like the growth that we're experiencing is sort of unprecedented And at a magnitude that is larger than probably previously imaginable.

Speaker 4

Yes. So let me take a stab at that. Yes, there is a limit to how far industrial rents will grow. There's a limit as to how far the prices of anything can grow. But if you look at the factors that are contributing to this tremendous growth in industrial rents, There are many, including supply and demand, to start with, which you're dealing with a market that's 3.5% vacant.

Speaker 4

And as you heard In the prepared remarks, we are running at a fraction of the normal months of supply that's out there. So notwithstanding all this noise around supply, The relevant supply in the markets that we care about are extremely tight. But there are markets where they've already hit that threshold of rent increase. Rent increase is flat. And we don't I can't think of any of those in our portfolio, but I'm sure there are markets like that.

Speaker 4

So, the other factor that's contributing to this rental growth is the escalating construction costs and land costs, Land cost even more than construction cost. And that has to do with anti growth sentiments and limitations on Allocation of zone land to industrial, etcetera, etcetera. The third factor I would think about as being important is just The contribution of rents to overall supply chain costs and you've heard us talk about this before as Rents account for about occupancy costs actually more than rents account for about 3% to 5% of supply chain costs. So Frankly, the ability of our customers to pay rent is a lot more determined by labor costs and transportation costs than real estate costs. So yes, there will be a point of saturation, but I think it would be a mistake.

Speaker 4

And by the way, I use these words cautiously, Very cautiously, because I know that you can get in trouble, by not being cautious here. But I really do think this time is different than the last 20 or 30 years For a variety of reasons that I've described and a few more that if we have some time, I'll get into. By the way, I apologize about this sequencing Of the MC for this show, I don't know what's causing it, but we have very limited control over it.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ki Bin Kim from Truist. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks, and good morning out there. So a few weeks ago, Gateways, a company I know you guys know well, put out an interesting article talking about the downturn in the trucking sector, which might be a possible bearish harbinger. I was just wondering if you can provide some kind of high level commentary on what you're seeing In terms of like trucking volumes and what that mean what that might mean for like a possible consumer slowdown and how that might impact your business?

Speaker 4

Yes, let me I'll pitch that over to Chris.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hey Ki Bin. So for starters, we've seen pricing in the trucking space Decline as I think you have as well. 1st and foremost, I take a look at capacity in that space. It's really supply driven that's leading to repricing.

Speaker 7

And a lot of the metrics that attract demand in the trucking business have proved resiliency here through March April. And when you look at our own leading indicators Demand to better understand if there is any kind of read through. For example, the Prologis IBI or the proprietary leading indicators of our business, we do not see the slowdown.

Speaker 4

Yes. By the way, with the volume and the pricing should be differentiated too. The pricing was just Ridiculously high, in the last year or 2, and it's just coming back to earth. By historical, Sanders pricing is still very strong And volumes, as Chris described, haven't been affected adversely. By the way, they will be.

Speaker 4

I should say this. I think trucking volumes will decline because if fewer containers are coming out of China Because Shanghai is shut down, there are going to be fewer containers that are going to be redistributed and that will affect Trucking volumes, but it's not because of lack of demand from the ultimate consumer, it's because of lack of supply by the producers. And I think that's a problem that people will start talking about next quarter in a big way.

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Yes, thanks. Good morning. I was just wondering if you could provide a little more color on the same store NOI trend. You did 8.7% in the quarter. Obviously, you've raised guidance for the year, but it does imply a fairly sharp slowdown in the balance of the year.

Speaker 8

I know the comps get Tougher, if you kind of look at your progression through 'twenty one, but could you maybe just comment kind of where you settled out given the mark to market comments? And I realize occupancy might be slipping a bit, but just help us kind of frame the NOI increase with the mark to market and the kind of sequential slowdown we're likely to see moving forward.

Speaker 2

Yes, Steve, this is Tim. Look, you've kind of answered your own question there. It is on the occupancy front. And I wouldn't I hate to characterize it as a slowdown because what's accelerating is rent change. If I go on a net effective basis, we have 37% in the quarter And that's going to go up into the 40s over the balance of the year.

Speaker 2

That's the more enduring part of our overall rent growth. So that's what we're focused on. And yes, we had a large occupancy build over the quarters last year and we're going to keep it stable this year. So it's principally coming from

Operator

Your next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hi, good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Tim, earlier you touched on the benefits of your size, including the Essentials business. I was wondering if you could give an update on the business, maybe how much it's contributing to FFO today, where you see that going over the near to medium term And whether it's just being included inside of the rental revenue and expense line items and if that could change at some point?

Speaker 2

Yes, I'll start and pitch a little over to Gary here. With regard to this year, we have $0.09 of contribution to FFO from all of those businesses. And with regard to geography, that would be our plan and hope that there are of sizes that they need to be Broken out at this point, most of it is flowing through rental revenues as you suggest. But over time that will expand as the businesses grow.

Speaker 10

Yes. And just let me add. So you mentioned last quarter that we hit $225,000,000 German savings, that capability has now been embedded in the business. So we're not going to talk about those savings anymore. You're just going to see them flow through operating and development margins.

Speaker 10

When you look at the Essentials business that Tim just described, we've talked about that business as a $75,000,000 a year business with the potential to go to $1,000,000,000 Our near term goal for Essentials is to double next year and then double again by year end 2025. And I just say that that growth is very much So let me give you a couple of examples. In our energy essentials line, Our solar product is scaling and our storage and EV products are still in their infancy. In our operating essentials, Our forklift and racking products are beginning to scale and our smart building products are in their infancy. So again, all of these offerings are at different points in their life And are growing at different rates of speed, but as Tim said, this year, dollars 0.08 to $0.09 in our share earnings.

Speaker 10

And as we mentioned at On Investor Day back in 2019, we had expected Essentials to contribute about 50 basis points to our annual growth. This year, it will be about 75 basis points to 100 basis points.

Speaker 4

Yes. If I can add something to that, just to put some numbers around what Gary talked about, it's $75,000,000 this year. We think it's going to be double that next year, You said double that by 2025, so you can do the math. We're kind of honing in on $300,000,000 $350,000,000 by 2025. That's what we're driving towards.

Speaker 4

But let's not forget another important line item, which, of course, we've had for many, many years. But it's a real differentiator and I just don't want people to think of Essentials as the only differentiator. That's our private capital business. And you heard that $500,000,000 to $600,000,000 of fee revenues and about that much for months. We're kind of circling $1,000,000,000 of bottom line contribution by that business that not a lot of people pay attention to.

Speaker 4

It's not in our market cap. But I would suggest that $1,000,000,000 is probably a pretty significant standalone P and L for REIT these days. So there are lots of additional things that we're adding that are very profitable businesses that don't actually use up a lot of capital,

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Mandy Corfman with Citigroup. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hey, everyone. I mean, you mentioned Europe in a couple of different ways in this call. One was that values Keep increasing from the others. There's some obviously volatility and uncertainty there. So help us connect those two things And maybe give us an update on what you think about the markets you have exposure to Europe longer

Speaker 6

term? Sure.

Speaker 4

Actually, I think those two things volatility, uncertainty and rents going up are really part of the same equation. When things are running smoothly, people can optimize supply chains and minimize inventories. And that's what they've done for many, many years. Whenever you have a disruption like we had Brexit or we had the pandemic or we had the earthquake here and there and now the war, It's a very unfortunate situation generally, and I feel for our people in Europe and I feel actually for People around the world with this atrocities going on there, but the reality of it is that the impact on our business is actually positive because of The disruption that it causes, people just need to carry more safety sock. Demand in Europe has been surprisingly strong.

Speaker 4

I shouldn't say surprisingly, it's been really strong. And interestingly, Europeans have been more timid in terms of pushing grants And we are here in America, but finally, they're realizing that they have more pricing power than they thought and Taking the rents to a higher level. So, I feel pretty good about actually the rental picture. I don't feel good about what's going In Europe, in the Ukraine, but I feel good about our business there. In terms of the immediate impact of the war, Poland is a country that we're pretty active in that's right next door and a lot of our people are hosting families that have Coming to Poland, almost 3,000,000 people.

Speaker 4

And I mean, we have employees that are housing Dozens of these refugees. And so obviously, it affects how they feel about their life and concerns they have about A lot of families from Ukraine, actually a lot of families from Russia also that work in Europe. And by the way, those people are just in distress just because They were born in Russia, doesn't mean that they like what's going on with the war. So there's a lot of emotional In Europe, it's all understandable. But the business is pretty good and I don't see it getting derailed unless this war goes to a whole another scale of things that I don't even want to imagine and then everything is toast.

Speaker 4

And our business is the last thing we should worry about.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Can you talk about your CLEAR lease program a little bit and remind us what percentage of your tenants are leasing With the clear lease structure, which expense items are kind of fixed in that structure? And whether you've seen any deterioration Margins given the inflationary environment and increasing costs.

Speaker 14

Yes. So this is Gene. So about 70% of new leases are clear lease. Currently in the system, I think it's probably around 35% installed. And in terms of where are we on the spectrum of being a little bit ahead or a little bit behind on expense reimbursements.

Speaker 14

We've been ahead of the game Really since the beginning, and recently now we're a little bit behind. But this is going to happen. Over time, We think we'll be right on the pins. I think to date we're right on the pins by the way. And This is a value add for our customers and we're not doing this to make money, doing this to be on the pins and provide an option that others don't.

Speaker 4

Yes. The other thing that is important to note is that we're getting escalations on the Clear Lease rent, which is the gross rent. And those escalations are moving up from 3% to 4% in some markets to 5% and that will During the duration of the lease, we'll cover any short term issues. But you're talking about literally $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 of spread one way or another across a $400,000,000 sort of expense category. So it's a very small Aviation and we get to recalibrate it every time we sign a lease.

Speaker 4

So it's not like it's an endemic kind of an issue.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Just a question on the development pipeline. I know you give the yields on stabilization versus the starts. And if we're to factor in the 20% rent growth that you're talking about, expecting globally this year, Does that mean that your starts your yields on your starts are really going to be over 6% versus the 5%, 6% that you gave for the starts In the quarter, just not sure how we should also factoring in rising construction costs maybe offsetting the yield a bit?

Speaker 4

They do. That's exactly the way you should think about it. And it's not just construction costs, but land costs don't immediately affect the margin because Obviously, land is at historical value, but on the new land, land is even increasing more than construction. So that is Our margins, we always perform around 15 ish percent and we've been for the last As far as I remember, coming at 20% to 40%. So clearly, rental growth has outpaced construction and land costs Growth.

Speaker 4

But I think that outperformance will narrow in the near term, and may widen again, But I think it will narrow. So I think we're going to hold margins. We're not going to necessarily increase them.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Just a quick follow-up on the same store NOI guidance. Just any incremental color on the 113 basis Can you break that down between occupancy, rents and anything else? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes, you can roll forward our occupancy guidance and see there's a Just using the midpoint small component out of occupancy and it's principally going to be rent change really the step up in market rents we saw in the Q1 Going through to the balance of the year together with the rest of our forecasted increase and that's driving the majority of it.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mueller with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 15

Yes. Hi. Tim, can

Speaker 13

you talk about how much your spot global debt costs have changed versus where they were at year end?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks for that question. We're certainly proud of where the debt stack sits. As a reminder, we're 1.7% today. I would say on dollars, we put that out at 3.25% to 4% would be the dollar rate.

Speaker 2

In euros, we'd be in the low 2s. In yen, we'd be in the low And I think if you're putting that all together and this information is in the back of the stuff that 60%, 70% of our debt is going to be in euros. That's how you ought to think about reassembling the stack with a large chunk in yen and then it's actually the dollar component that's the smallest. So That's what lies ahead. We have very few maturities coming up through 'twenty six as we've mentioned.

Speaker 2

So we feel really well insulated in this rising rate environment.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Johnston with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, everybody. Thank you. Just a quick one on the dual demand drivers. Clearly, e commerce is intact. But has the supply chain bottlenecks Impacted the increased inventory build mandate that you were seeing from customers.

Speaker 6

I guess, is leasing demand for space to Has elevated inventory levels still intact? I mean companies struggle to procure parts and materials for finished goods. Do you see a possible pause here until Biomex ease?

Speaker 4

I don't think so, because what's going on is that people are running to catch up Just with the demand that they're seeing from their end customers and they're not getting there. They're always behind. So the first stage is for them to catch up with what they need to have to get even with pre pandemic kind of levels of service. And then they need to think about their long term strategies. And for sure, as we've talked about many times, resilience is going to factor into those So that's why we think about this as a 10% catch up and a 10% resilience cushion for a total of 20%.

Speaker 4

But we're also and Tim alluded to this in his prepared remarks. We think there may be about as much of a 5% temporary decline too, netting out the 10 plus And minus 5 to 15. And the negative 5%, you may ask why do you think that there may be a negative 5%, because The percentage of online sales to temporarily step back a bit before it gets back on a growth curve of ever increasing penetration levels. And I also believe that the Expenditures are going to shift more to experiences than goods like they have been in the last 2, 3 years. So between those two factors, we I don't know if it's going to be 5%, but in our thinking, we're kind of putting in a factor of 5% for that just to be safe.

Speaker 4

But Still, a 15% swing in inventories up is like 800,000,000 square feet of additional industrial demand on top of the normal demand that we see just based on population and economic growth. So I think there's a lot of cushion there for demand long term.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of David Rodgers with Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Hi, good morning out there everybody. Tim, wanted to follow-up on your mark Market comments, obviously one of the more important numbers I think you gave on the call this time around and your guidance about over 50 by the end of the year possibly. Can you give a little more color on kind of the buildup of that? I realize there's a lot of numbers in there, but thinking geographically or length of lease duration since you're rolling about 25% of your leases in practice by the end of each year. How do we kind of build up to this number that then continues to grow and exceed your spreads?

Speaker 2

Sure. The number and again, this is in the sub, you can look at how our expirations roll. We're rolling more like 14% to 16% of our leases every year. So you can take that through the level of rent change that we've Had, and I've explained it's going to grow from here. That's going to get you into actually, if you compute that, you're going to find Same store growth rates that are 7s, 8s and 9s actually going forward.

Speaker 2

And this year, we have on a net effective basis, Same store growth projected around 6%, 7%. As long as we have a market rent growth forecast that's Higher than that, which it's dramatically higher than that this year. That's going to drive the expansion. And we could see I mean, We're not forecasting market rent growth in 'twenty three. We'll see where that plays out, but it's going to take a long time to lean that number down.

Speaker 4

Yes. And just to tie that to earnings because that's what we care about same store. Look, we've been pretty open about what we think In terms of a longer term earnings growth picture and all of this is without promotes, which are volatile. But in the last time we all Together in person and we provided the forecast for you. We kind of set in high single digits low double digits high single digits Actually, and we ended up being about 150 basis points above that annually for 3 years.

Speaker 4

I think if we redid those numbers, we would be in the low to maybe mid teens, not 15%, but maybe 12%, 13% kind of 3 year earnings growth picture given these mark to market That are extreme. So I feel really good about the cushion and I feel more better about the longevity of it Even than the absolute level of it, because with 45%, 50% mark to market, I mean, that will Carry you for a long, long time. So I think we have very resilient earnings and most of it is most of that gas is in the tank. Whatever gas we put in the tank because of further rent growth market rent growth from here, that's just gravy.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Craig Mailman with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 16

Hey, there. This is Arty on for Craig. Just a quick follow-up on Jamie's question earlier, but how do you guys anticipate cap rates to change across The quality, geography and maybe portfolio size spectrum in the current environment and maybe how big do you guys see that magnitude or that spread getting?

Speaker 4

Well, I think the markets that have had the biggest mark to markets will have the The strongest cap rates because basically you're buying a below market income stream. So just look around For the markets that have experienced the biggest rent growth in the last 3 or 4 years and those are the CapEx that are going to remain the strongest absent Any capital market considerations? And then you got to look at your expected growth in the future. And the markets that have grown Strongly in the past are pretty much the markets that are going to grow strongly in the future. So I think it's pretty easy to hone down on narrow down on those markets.

Speaker 4

There are some markets, as I suggested earlier, that really the only thing they've got going for them is Higher replacement costs, there is not a scarcity of land. And even if demand at elevated levels is not going to normally result in Significant rent increases. I'm talking about markets where we either have no or very little exposure to the less constrained markets, The Columbus's of the world, for example. So, you got to go market by market, but I think the places that have to have the strongest growth will have the strongest cap rates Thanks, Ross.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Roszak with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 17

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to follow-up on the clear leases. And by the way, thanks for that great video that you have on your website. It makes a lot of sense with your business model that given the skill you have that you could pass on savings to the tenants.

Speaker 17

You still pass through utilities, you still pass through real estate taxes. What percentage is kind of tied to a gross lease?

Speaker 4

It's CAM, which is less than a third of the overall But it's not the level of expenses that drives the popularity of ClearLease. It's the fact that you spend all your time Reconciling a very small number and that's the biggest source of friction with the customers. So really it's to simplify their life. It's not Look, neither they or us are that smart to figure out exactly what expenses are going to be. We're probably a little smarter because We got a 1,000,000,000 square feet to experiment around.

Speaker 4

But at the end of the day, it's just like Gene said, it's about simplifying their lives And taking away that point of friction, away from the dialogue, so that we can turn to more important things like selling in forklifts.

Speaker 14

So just to hit on some of the other things. Today, most of the customers, they just pay our utility bill. But in the future, We may actually be selling them energy and that may become part of the Clear lease and real estate taxes are just Volatile for us to take on that risk, but in some point in the future, maybe there's a way to ensure around that risk. And if there is a viable way to do it, we will do that. So 10 years from now, who knows what the clear lease looks like, but it's all comes back to the same thing, Ease of doing business so we can spend our time with these guys talking about important things like essentials versus Reconcileting expenses.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is

Speaker 6

open. Good morning. Europe and including the UK represents 11% of your NOI, but now 58% of your debt by currency and that spread has widened. So whether it's Mile Way or another acquisition, How important is it to increase your NOI in Europe to further borrow in local currency without taking on too much FX risk?

Speaker 4

Yes. So I would completely think about that in exactly the opposite way. We first start with how big we need to be in each market to serve our customers and what the opportunity set is in each market. By doing that, we end up in some markets outside the United States, I. E.

Speaker 4

U. K. And We are U. S. Dollar dividend payer.

Speaker 4

So we don't want to be obligated to pay a significant stream of dollar dividends and have our revenues and bottom line be in a currency that may not be perfectly correlated with the dollar. So we need to hedge somehow. We cannot hedge economically for very long term based on just buying hedges. So we want to set up natural hedges. And there are 2 ways we set up natural hedges.

Speaker 4

1 is that we look borrowing local currency, so the assets and the liabilities move up and down as the currency fluctuates. And the other thing is that we deploy more private capital in those jurisdictions to really bring down the Prologis share in those foreign locations with different currencies. So We don't drive our real estate strategy to lower our financing costs. We

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Vince Tibone with Green Street. Your line is open.

Speaker 18

Hi, good morning. What exactly changed over the past 3 months to cause your U. S. Market rent growth forecast to increase to 22%, Up from 11% last quarter. And could you also bifurcate the current rent growth forecast between coastal and non coastal markets?

Speaker 4

The latter Chris will do shortly. But look, we're in as somebody asked earlier, we are in Unprecedented territory. I mean, industrial rents historically well, some people actually used to say industrial rents are never going to go up, But industrial rents do go up and but they've never grown at these levels, but we've never had market conditions like we have now. We've never had E commerce at this level of importance, we've never had resilience becoming such a big factor. We haven't had these bottlenecks in the supply chain That clog up the network.

Speaker 4

So all of these and we haven't had inflation and shortage of materials and labor and all that in terms of bringing on additional Supply. So all of these factors, none of them are new, but the extent of them, if you're off On each one of them by a little bit, they accumulate to being off 10% in the quarter. And we do our best, But we're not always right. And in this case, we were low.

Speaker 7

Hey, it's Chris. I'll jump in with a couple of details. First, as to what's changed in the last entities, I point you to a couple of things. The first is rent growth accelerated and outperformed expectations on an actuals basis in the Q1. The second is we've revised up Our replacement cost growth, we haven't talked about on the call, but there's been meaningful move in replacement costs.

Speaker 7

We could see them up 15%, 20% this year in the United States and more For example, in Europe, property fundamentals are stronger than expected. Tim talked about a reduction in the supply forecast. And then Hamid's earlier remarks on the ongoing dislocations in supply chains, I think will keep urgency flowing through decision making. As it relates to regional differences, the U. S.

Speaker 7

For sure is outperforming and it has been led by the global markets on the coast and it's practically all of them. So you can look at New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Baltimore, even down to South Florida, which we haven't talked about on the call in a while. And then in California, it's not just Southern California, Northern California is Also contributing, the split between the coasts and the non coasts is roughly going to be 25%, 26% on the coasts for this year versus say something more like 15% in the interior markets. And the last point I'd offer is it's not just a U. S.

Speaker 7

Phenomenon, there Clear growth globally, it's both nominal and inflation adjusted. Europe generally, but especially the UK and Northern Europe, There are several Mexican markets that are enjoying meaningful repricing and it also offer Toronto and Canada.

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Powell with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 19

Hi, good morning. I think you mentioned that you kept your development start guidance The same despite the strong demand environment. How much of that was due to, I guess, more opposition from communities in certain areas? And how do you navigate That issue going forward as you seek to develop further?

Speaker 14

Yes. Well, that is a headwind for sure in the future, but it did not factor into Maintaining the guidance. Basically, maintaining the guidance and of course, at this time of the year, we're typically going to Narrow the range and increase the midpoint. And as Tim mentioned, that's really conservatism Based on issues we see in the supply chain, they're driven by labor. They're more prevalent in Europe as you can imagine right now than the U.

Speaker 14

S. I feel great about the pipeline. And if I were betting right now, I think we will increase That guidance as we go throughout the year, but at this point in time with what's going on in the world, we just think it's prudent, but it is not related

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Manny Korchman with Citigroup. Your line is open.

Speaker 15

Hey, it's Michael Bilerman here with Manny. Hamid, you've done and the rest of the management team as well sort of outlining all the drivers of industrial demand and you've made it Clear sort of the attributes that makes Prologis different and unique, whether it's your investment management program, the development, the e commerce and Essentials business that you're building focus on ESG, the 1,000,000,000 square feet under management. And so you can control what you can Control, which is all the elements of growing your business, so you can't control from macro environment. And I recognize there's a word Eastern Europe. So let's not if we put that aside for one second, there's a lot of building concerns around recession fears, and whether it's a yield curve, Inverting, we've talked a lot about inflation.

Speaker 15

You've talked a little bit about the movement of services from goods. I guess, How do you sort of think about recession, which obviously you can't control, but what are you seeing? And is it different from what the macro are interpreting about some of that data. And is there anything that you're doing in addition to protect the firm from that?

Speaker 4

Those are really good questions actually. So we think a lot about recession. We've thought about Plenty of the last three recessions often and we're conservative by nature and we're always when things are going well, we get worried and sort of I keep thinking about what we may be missing. So we're not Pollyanna ish about recession or anything like that. But look, we're not smart enough.

Speaker 4

We just look at what our customers tell us and what they do and the actions and the words that they use. And I would say The posture of our customers is very much front foot forward, because they're benefiting from certain Secular trends that are in their favor. Could those reverse? Does it take a long time for The CEO thinking that he's going to tighten his belt or her belt and the guy who's buying real estate in the field acting on that, there may be a lag. But boy, our customers are very active, particularly on the e comm side.

Speaker 4

I mean, the demand from e comm tenants has really, really broadened. I mean, there was a time that, for example, Amazon accounted for a pretty significant part of this demand and a lot of questions we would get is how broad is it? Well, It's a lot broader than it used to be. Very, very broad. So we see our customers with their front foot forward and taking up more space.

Speaker 4

And that gives us comfort that we're not facing a recessionary environment, at least not as it pertains to our business. Now again, fuel costs are up. That's taken a big bite out of the Consumer's pocket, there's a war going on. We're going to have midterm elections now soon. I mean, there are all kinds of imponderables.

Speaker 4

But so far, it hasn't translated into conservative behavior by our customers. And on the supply side, These constraints, I know people don't really believe this because they all throw out the 400,000,000 square foot supply number and all that. But I don't know where that is. In the markets that we really care about, it's that's a day to day battle that we fight. And it's very, very difficult.

Speaker 4

And the only thing that gives me comfort is at least we have our 1,000,000,000 square feet and we do care about growth. Look, if they shut down the whole thing, our 1,000,000,000 square feet is going to be worth a lot more. So again, not pollyannish. We're definitely focused on it, but we're not seeing the signs. And what we've done about it It's pretty simple.

Speaker 4

We have reduced our leverage to a level that we can be on offense If something bad were to happen and this is very different than both companies were in 2,008, 2010 timeframe. Not that I'm predicting anything like that, but I'm just saying we've built it to last. And I think downturns could actually be a source of opportunity

Speaker 11

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 20

Yes, thanks. I just wanted to drill down, Hamid, in an earlier statement that you said that the tenant supply chain costs reflects 3% to 5% of their total cost structure. I know that's a number you guys talked about in a while or for a while and kind of highlighted that they're willing to pay 2 times the real estate cost They can reduce their transportation and labor by 10%. I guess my question is, have you or do you expect to see that 3% to 5% number Chris, as these tenants continue to invest in their supply chains and rents continue to increase at a fairly quick pace?

Speaker 4

I expect rents to increase at a fairly quick pace, but I don't expect that percentage to go up because I think labor and energy will go up Faster than rents. Energy has more than doubled in a very short period of time. How long that lasts? I don't know. If energy prices come back down to oil being $60, $70 a barrel, maybe at that time, the percentage of rent and The other thing on the horizon that's going to increase the percentage of occupancy costs is automation.

Speaker 4

I think over time, people are going to invest more and more in fixed automation in their buildings. And you can count it any way you want. It can be labor because automation is really a substitute for labor or you can call it occupancy cost because it's bolted on to the floor of the real estate. But that will definitely be a new cost category that will increase over time. So net net, I don't think that 3% to 5% is going to change all that much.

Speaker 4

That was the last question in the queue. And before you guys sign off, I really want you to say for this part. I just want to say a few words about our partner and CFO, Tom Hollinger and his substantial contributions to the company over the last 15 years. Actually, it's a lot longer than 15 years because Tom was part of the team that actually took us public when he was a partner, a young partner at Arthur Andersen. So he's been with the company for a long time and has added a lot of value.

Speaker 4

And You know that his last day officially was April 1, and Tim is now our CFO. And that really points to Tom's impact on this company. He has been a leader On our executive team and a fixture on earnings, probably more interaction with you guys than anybody else in our company. In April of 2007 when he joined the then AMB, the company was 150,000,000 square And a different set of capabilities. And now here we are much larger, more significant company.

Speaker 4

I think today we're number 66 or 7 in the S and P 500, all of that has been accomplished under Tom's tenure. And I can't speak enough about his integrity, about how much he cares about our investors, Our analyst and how much he's been a voice of reason and a model for the kind of values that we like to see around here. He's obviously built an industry leading financial infrastructure and a team that positions us well for continued success. I think the transition to Tim has been a textbook example of good succession planning on his part. And The good news about all of this is that Tom is going to end up doing what he's wanted to do, which is To spend his time on his family and his philanthropy, which are important to him.

Speaker 4

And I'm glad that his hard work Here and the success of the company has positioned them to be able to do that. And but he's not going away. He has been nice enough to tell me and his other colleagues that he's going to be around whenever we need them. And I believe that and but I hope That we won't avail ourselves of that generosity of time too many times. So I just want all of you to wish A really great farewell in addition to the team here at Prologis.

Speaker 18

Thanks, Amit. I'm like a bad penny, I guess, Showing up here and there, but I just want to say how proud I am to be part of this company. And as Amit mentioned, I have

Speaker 14

been prospered and evolved over my time here.

Speaker 18

And while we've accomplished much, as Tim said, the best years Clearly, Head for the company. And we spent a lot of time today talking about the things that make Prologis unique, The differentiators at the heart of those differentiators is the amazing group of people that work here and that starts at the top. I want to first thank Hamid for the opportunity to be part of this team. In my 35 years of work experience, I've never worked for or with a better partner. I want to thank my EC Executive Committee and Finance teammates for their friendship and support.

Speaker 18

I'm really proud of Tim And he's going to be an incredible CFO. I want to thank the investors and analysts of Mead said for your time and interest over the years. I'm looking forward to seeing you all at NAREIT one And the bottom line is I've been blessed to be part of this company. After I leave later this year, this team will continue to play a very important part of my life In my next phase and for that I'm very grateful. So thank you all.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tom. And Thank you for all of you for participating in this call and we look forward to seeing you next quarter, if not sooner. Take care.

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Earnings Conference Call
Prologis Q1 2022
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