Plymouth Industrial REIT, Inc. (NYSE:PLYM) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Witherell: No, I wouldn’t say its regional based. I mean I think we’ve messaged to the market that we might be interested in getting ready Milwaukee and Kansas City. And then anything other than that — I mean, we have scale in the market. So it’s really just for real estate reason. And I think if you look back in the Chicago asset we sold last year, that was to a owner-user. So some buildings are more conducive to an owner-user owning them, whether there’s parking restrictions or whatever it might be. So owner-users tend to pay a little bit more. I mean, we’re not really in the business of selling decent real estate that we want to own. But if an owner-user wants to come in and pay for it because they want it and need it, then we certainly entertain that. But we don’t have a region that we’re looking to unload.

Mitch Germain: Great. And last one for me. I know you just did some development leasing in Atlanta. I believe Cincinnati is either executed or soon to be executed. Some others in even the prior quarters. From a cadence in terms of how the impact is on 2024, it seems to be somewhat back weighted. Is that the way to think about it here?

Anthony Saladino: Yes. That is how we’ve reflected it in guidance. And as I mentioned, the upper bound — to the extent that there’s some acceleration around the remaining development square footage, there could be an incremental pickup above the midpoint.

Mitch Germain: Got you. And Anthony, while I have you, I guess one more question. Last year, there were some cadence issues with regards to the same property growth. Obviously — I think there were some expenses that hit in 3Q and then you were able to collect in 4Q and had an acceleration. How should we think about the cadence? Is there anything that you want to point out with regards to the results that kind of might impact our analysis of your earnings or your same property results?

Anthony Saladino : Yes, it’s a good question. We do anticipate the quarterly cadence to trend very similarly to 2023, with Q1 being a bit more muted as a result of weather-related impacts and the timing of professional fees. Then ramping up during the second half of the year as the balance of Phase 1 developments stabilize and we continue to execute on the remainder of 2024 lease expirations.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question is from Bryan Maher from B. Riley Securities.

Bryan Maher: Most of my questions have already been asked and answered. But maybe as we sit here, Jeff — and you’ve laid-out in your prepared information last night, which was appreciated, kind of the parameters upon which you would transact. But can you maybe talk a little bit in your view as you sit here today what the probability is that you think you’d transact? And what the sweet spot would be of what it is in the 500 you’re looking for that would really compel you to move?

Jeff Witherell: So I mean, we’re tracking some smaller one-off deals in our markets that for a variety of reasons are trading at some pretty high cap rates. I think what we’re starting to see now is where debt is coming due or you’re starting to see leases burn off and someone’s going to have to refinance in conjunction with finding new tenants, that, that’s going to be something – people that have held these properties for a while are probably not going to want to get involved in. So we’re really starting to see a lot of opportunities. And we’re starting to see even Class A, big box stuff that we don’t play in, but we’re starting to see people who bought properties 2, 3 years ago selling them at what they paid for them or even at a loss.

So I think it’s going to be very interesting for us to be able to take advantage of the properties we buy in our markets at fairly attractive cap rates, and as I said, drop them into our property management and get right after them. So that’s probably what we’re going to be interested in buying. We are monitoring the portfolio. It’s going to be very interesting to see where those trade. It has been a few years since we’ve seen decent trades on that. And then, again, anything heavy value add – we are starting to see some value-add deals, maybe small portfolios, pop-up that could be very attractive in a JV for us. We like the fee income. I think if we look back – I keep talking about Memphis all the time that you’re aware of, which was a heavy value-add portfolio that we bought, put our property management team on it right away.

And within a couple of years, we bought it back and into the REIT. And that is paying dividends to us till this day. Still a lot of mark-to-market left on there. We continue to improve the quality of the buildings as we go forward. And so either one of those works well. I do think it’s going to be small deals, and I think there’ll be a JV at some point.

Operator: And the next question is from Mike Mueller from JPMorgan.

Mike Mueller : I guess going back to St. Louis. In the guidance range, when I think of a guidance midpoint, I tend to think of the most likely outcome. And then you kind of deviate up and down from there. So I guess with St. Louis staying in place and having no disruption, being the midpoint, is it safe to say that you think that’s kind of the most likely outcome at this point? Because I guess in the transcript it just didn’t read that way.

Anthony Saladino: Yes. I think at the midpoint, specifically as it relates to FedEx, we don’t have any further clarity beyond what we articulated as a range of outcomes. And so we held the midpoint because there could be the possibility that, that is less disruptive than we accounted for on the downside, Mike.

Mike Mueller : Okay. And then I guess just a quick same-store question. I know you — that’s not included in the same-store range. But if it was in there, do you have a sense as to what the sensitivity would have been by, say, a FedEx move out?