Veris Residential, Inc. (NYSE:VRE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 2 of 2

Tom Catherwood: Got it. Appreciate those thoughts. And then Mahbod, you mentioned that Liberty Towers project is, if I heard you correct, is kind of a four-year probably, I assume, multiphase project. But can you give us some more color maybe on both the scope and cost? And I understand that if it’s a four-year project cost maybe isn’t fully nailed down, but maybe what you’re expecting to spend towards that this year?

Mahbod Nia: Well, it’s a pretty comprehensive refurbishment of that property ranging from the units to the communal and amenity space. And so, the idea really is to we own properties in the area. We know where rents are for newer products. We know where the rents are for that property. And so, the return on invested CapEx assessment is a relatively easy one for us to be able to do in an insightful way. And so, it’s a range of things we’ll be targeting from actually from units to the broader areas. Total cost, we anticipate to be somewhere in the region of $30 million. But obviously, that’s over a four-year period that, that will be spent and resulting in very accretive effects to both earnings and value as a result.

Tom Catherwood: Got it. And then I think it might have been Josh before that asked about other kind of value-add projects in the pipeline, and you provided some thoughts on that. But I think you’ve got – it appears you’ve got an ongoing one or at least some ongoing work at the Boulevard collection. Is that a refresh there? Or is that kind of more of just a smaller facelift?

Mahbod Nia: Yes. That’s, I would say, a smaller refresh rather than a comprehensive project equivalent to the Liberty Towers one.

Tom Catherwood: Got it. And then last one for me. Amanda, you mentioned one of the caps burning off midyear, and I think you have at least one, if not a few more, that burn off towards the end of the year. What are you building into your sources and uses for the year as far as capital to recast those caps?

Amanda Lombard: So, in my – as I said earlier, the one loan that has a rate reset in the middle of the year, it’s actually a rate reset, it’s not like a cap that burns off. And so, our intention there is to reset that loan to market rates, whether that’s with new refinancing or other options. And then as you noted, there are other caps that expire throughout the year. Generally speaking, we assume that we replaced them in our – and it’s like – we generally assume that we replace them.

Tom Catherwood: Okay, that’s it for me. Thanks, everyone.

Mahbod Nia: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question will be a follow-up from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Steve Sakwa: Yes. Thanks, Mahbod. I just wanted to circle back on the question I had asked about the guidance. And you mentioned that you’re going to lose interest income of about $5 million. Presumably, that cash was earning interest. But presumably, you did something with that cash, either debt pay down or you bought an asset, or you helped fund the development. But I guess I would think that there’s some economic return on that cash, but that doesn’t seem to be in the thought process. So, I guess what are we missing on that bridge there because it wouldn’t seem that that $0.05 completely disappears.

Mahbod Nia: Well, it went towards went towards repaying Rockpoint. So, the way I thought to simplistically lay it out is if you look at the saving from repaying Rockpoint, it’s about $14 million, if you look at the NOI loss from office, it’s about $14 million. So those two things are largely a wash. And then – but you had $5 million of interest income while you were sitting on that cash weighting to repay Rockpoint plus the other $3 million of onetime nonrecurring and those we don’t get the benefit from again this year. So, you could present that a number of different ways, but simplistically, that’s how I think about it, you ultimately had a level of nonrecurring income to the tune of $0.08, $0.09, last year, which takes you down from that $53 million [ph] to the mid-40s and then you build back up from there.

So, earnings-wise, yes, the upper end of the range is flat on last year if you look at it just in absolute terms, but it’s higher quality recurring earnings relative to what we have last year.

Steve Sakwa: Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

Mahbod Nia: Of course. Thanks, Steve.

Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Mahbod Nia: Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us again this quarter. We’re pleased to announce another period of both strategic progress and very strong operational performance and look forward to updating you again next quarter.

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

Follow Veris Residential Inc. (NYSE:VRE)

Page 2 of 2