INDUS Realty Trust, Inc. (NASDAQ:INDT) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Gamzon: Sure. I think, as I always said, our portfolio is growing, but it’s still not huge and we, certainly, other than typically on the new properties we have either developed or are buying. We are not leasing doing 10 leases a month. But we are leasing properties, and obviously, we are speaking to brokers in all the markets we are in weekly, if not more, and getting a sense of the environment. So, overall, activity still remains really good. The projects were actively leasing such as Florida, Nashville, Charleston, in particular. I’d say tenant activity is really good. In terms of tenant decision-making, I think, it’s always been a mixed bag. Typically, when you deal with big multinationals, they are slower. They just have many levels of approval to go through and that’s still consistent.

Is there a little bit less urgency? Maybe on some part, because five months ago when they were looking for space or eight months ago, if they didn’t agree to it within the first week, it was gone or the price went up $0.50 a foot and it was leased ahead of them. Maybe, but honestly, in Florida, we are seeing tenants move very quickly, because sudden they realize they need the space. Additionally, I think tenants have realized it just takes longer and longer to get their permits and approvals to build out their space. So some are eager to sign space up earlier when they need it. So I think it’s a mixed bag. I don’t think, I could say, we have really seen from our view, a real trend that things have slowed in any material way or companies have become a lot more cautious or a lot slower.

We may have a company that pushes off their plan for six months, but then two more proposals come in from other companies that need the space immediately. So it feels like it’s likely going to start slowing just based on headlines and everything you read and I read in the press. But our leasing activity in certainly in all the markets we are active in still feels really good to us.

Dave Rodgers: Thanks, Michael.

Michael Gamzon: Thanks, Dave.

Operator: The next question is from Christy McElroy with Citi. Please go ahead.

Craig Mailman: Guys, this is actually Craig Mailman here with Citi. Michael, I wanted to just go back to your commentary about maybe land banking a little bit more versus the forward developments here. Could you just kind of discuss high level your thoughts of kind of risk mitigation return differences that you would need to kind of take the development risk on yourself versus buying out a partner just on the construction timing standpoint? And also just given the size of the balance sheet and the liquidity, the thought process beyond having that non-income producing asset on the balance sheet versus using that capital for something that’s maybe more operating in nature quicker?

Michael Gamzon: Yeah. Thanks, Craig. Yeah. So I think on the development side, we have been developing industrial as a company for 25 years. We have a lot of experience doing it. It’s something about more — two-thirds of our portfolio is stuff we have developed ourselves or maybe it’s down to 60% with recent acquisitions. But, so we feel very comfortable having developed through several cycles, whether it’s 2000, 2008, et cetera. So development is something we are very comfortable with, obviously, we recognize there is more variability in your potential returns on development and buying a finished asset at a fixed cost or an existing building. So as we think about underwriting development, I think, as we have described before, we try to be really conservative in terms of rent and estimating where we think rents are today, even if the building is not delivering for a couple of years and taking a pretty conservative look at construction costs.