Paramount Group, Inc. (NYSE:PGRE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Blaine Heck: Okay. Yeah. I’ve definitely seen some of your peers carve out non-core portfolios. One of them did that late last year, but they’re still including the interest expense on debt secured by those assets and guidance. So I just — I’m not sure, I’ve seen that part of it before, but …

Wilbur Paes: … that peer that you’re referring to..

Blaine Heck: …helpful commentary.

Wilbur Paes: Blaine, that peer that you’re referring to does not present two measures of FFO. Just to be clear.

Blaine Heck: Okay. All right. That’s helpful. And then just second question. You’re sitting on a relatively large cash balance at $428 million. You guys talked about the $10 million for common area development with Tom’s question and you’ll have leasing costs as well. But past those, can you just talk about potential uses for that capital in the near term? Are you guys interested in share repurchases here? Or do you have better opportunities to pay down debt?

Albert Behler: Blaine, this is Albert. We have been saying over and over on these calls that we want to be very selective in what we do with our capital, especially in times like these. These are very unusual times. We want to protect our cash on balance sheet. I think that’s in the best interest of shareholders. There could be things coming up that require cash there could be opportunities to pay down debt, but we want to keep our optionality. I think there’s nothing more important and we have the wonderful opportunity that our balance sheet is crystal clear. We don’t have any debt on balance sheet. I say this again. And we don’t want to get in a situation where the company gets into any kind of distress. So, we will be very, very selective in using that cash.

Blaine Heck: Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.

Albert Behler: Thank you, Blaine.

Operator: I would now like to turn the floor over to Albert Behler for closing comments.

Albert Behler: Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to give you all an update on our continued progress when we report our first quarter 2024 results. Goodbye.

Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.