FIBRA Prologis (FIBRAPL14) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by. My name is Novi, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the FIBRA Prologis Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Alexandra Violante, Head of IR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Novi, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that all the information presented in this conference call is proprietary and all rights are reserved. The information has been prepared only for information purposes and is not a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities. Forward-looking statements during this call speak only as of the date of this call. Our actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Additionally, during this call, we may refer to certain nonaccounting financial measures. The company does not assume any obligations to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements in the future, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. As is our practice, we have prepared supplementary materials that we may reference during the call as well. If you have not already done so, I will encourage you to visit our website at fibraprologis.com and download this material. Today, we will hear from Hector Ibarzábal, our CEO, who will discuss our strategy and market conditions; and Jorge Girault, our Senior Vice President of Finance, who will review results and guidance. Also joining us today is Federico Cantú, our Head of Operations. With that, it is my pleasure to hand the call over to Hector.

Thank you, Ale, and good morning, everyone. 2024 was our 10th anniversary. My first year as CEO, and I couldn't be happier seeing all the accomplishments we deliver. Let me provide you some highlights. In March, we successfully executed a $570 million follow-on. This transaction was oversubscribed. We appreciate the trust investors have placed on FIBRA Prologis. We have improved the liquidity in our certificates, which allows us to bring new investors into the name. We successfully acquired FIBRA Terrafina owning as of today, almost 90% of the company. With this transaction, we are now the largest publicly traded industrial real estate company in Latin America. In addition, we added more than 100 new customers to our base. Also, we have initiated the pre-marketing stage for our asset recycling initiatives. First indications show real interest from the market for these good quality assets. We will provide more color as this process moves forward. We keep delivering a strong financial and operational results. We accomplished high occupancy. And importantly, we have another record rate change with an impressive 61% increase on rollover. Additional to Terrafina during 2024, we acquired $284 million of new assets, mostly in Mexico City acquired from a third-party developer. Under a challenging geopolitical environment, I would like to describe our views on market conditions. Uncertainty has increased, particularly regarding trade as the U.S. has implemented incremental 10% tariffs on Chinese products and postponed for next week similar 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports. Our market perspective is the following: the complexity of North America supply chain has been built over more than three decades with massive investment in Mexico, mainly from U.S. companies. As the U.S. itself practically does not have sufficient labor willing to work in manufacturing, the advantage of our location is evident. We believe Mexico is the best alternative to develop and expand new operations. Due to tariff noise, we have indeed seen a slowdown on decision-making and leasing activity in the manufacturing markets. However, we believe the demand for manufacturing space will restart in full force once certainty is recovered as projects have not been canceled, but deferred. On the consumption side, we had a 3% increase in real retail sales during 2024, which is substantially higher than GDP growth, consistent to what has occurred over the last 3 years. Although we have seen a consumption in slowdown since last July, we are positive on the outlook for the map of logistics and consumption-related facilities. In addition, e-commerce continues to grow at high double-digit rates, with Mexico consistently ranking among the top 5 fastest growing e-commerce markets worldwide. Net absorption in our 6 markets last year was almost 33 million square feet, lower than peak of 38 million presented in 2023, but still a very positive figure. 2024 vacancy, including sublease space was 3.6%, a stable quarter-over-quarter and 240 basis points higher versus previous year. Let me provide some additional color per market as we continue to see differentiation among them. Manufacturing markets in the border saw 6 million square feet of net absorption, an important decline compared to the record 14 million square feet in 2023. We believe this was mainly driven by a slower decision-making given uncertainty regarding tariffs. There was an increase in period-end vacancy for border markets from 1.6% to 5.7%. On the other hand, consumption markets like Mexico City and Guadalajara, saw an increase in net absorption from 10 million to 12 million square feet, driven mainly by e-commerce. Vacancy has consistently remained in the 1% to 3% range. We consider Monterrey hybrid market, given that logistics and consumption accounted for 45% of last year net absorption. This market saw a marginal decline in net absorption from 15 million to 14 million square feet, owing to the lower decision-making on the manufacturing sector. Consumption vacancy in the year increased from less than 1% to 2.7%. To summarize, 2024 was an exceptional year and under my perspective, the best once since FIBRA Prologis inception as we almost doubled our footprint while keeping the operational metrics at outstanding levels. We will remain focused in our strategy, keeping discipline and creating value to rent revenue improvement. We are confident in our portfolio's resilience and our ability to navigate through current volatility. Also, we have a solid balance sheet that delivers well positioned to take advantage of market opportunities. Finally, as you all know, we remain committed to our shareholders placing always their interest first. With that, I'll pass the call over to Jorge.

Thank you, Hector, and good morning to everyone. Last November, we reached nearly 90% ownership of Terrafina, and on December 1, we took full control of their systems and process. Please note that our Q4 results include onetime acquisition expenses which are about $5 million in G&A and about $4 million in operating costs. This includes cancellation fees with previous third-party managers and some of accounting adjustments. Financial results. FFO was $76.2 million or $0.049 per certificate, a 4.1% increase per certificate compared to last year. On the operational front, we now manage both portfolios under one portfolio policy. This means all metrics include both portfolios, except for same-store cash and GAAP NOI. Operating metrics. We leased 1 million square feet during the quarter with occupancy rates, both period end and average, slightly above 98%, meeting our expectations. On the net effective rent change front, we set a new record with 61% increase for the quarter and 55% for the last 12 months. Same-store cash NOI grew 3.8%. GAAP NOI grew 3.2%. These improvements were mainly driven by rent increase and annual bumps, though partially offset by FX. Moving to balance sheet. We maintained a $1.5 billion capacity to achieve a 35% loan-to-value, which is a key competitive advantage. Our rating has been reaffirmed, reflecting our solid financial position. Given the current geopolitical landscape, our focus is on prudent debt management. We plan to refinance our short-term loans and credit lines to improve our maturity schedule, financial flexibility and overall cost efficiency. On the ESG front, which we do not include Terrafina core portfolio for the moment, we accomplished the following: Gonzalo Portilla has been named Independent Chair of the Technical Committee. We earned our 5th consecutive sector leader recognition by GRESB. 91.5% of our portfolio is green certified. We have 18 megawatts of installed solar capacity with a target of reaching 54 megawatts by the end of 2025, covering more than 100 buildings. All new buildings feature high-efficiency designs using 50% less water than the industry standard of 2.6 liters per square meter per day. Moving to guidance and outlook for the year. Based on current trends, we expect year-end occupancy between 96.5% and 98.5%. Same-store cash NOI growth between 4% and 7%, driven by strong leasing activity and and record rent increase adjusted by FX. Annual capital expenditures to be between 13% and 14% of NOI. G&A expense between $65 million and $70 million. Full year FFO per CBFI projected between $0.20 and $0.22 per certificate. We are writing our guided distribution by 6.4% compared to last year, reaching USD 0.15 per certificate. On the capital deployment front, we expect acquisitions to be between $150 million and $250 million and asset dispositions to be between $100 million and $400 million, which will mainly come from the assets that we want to sell from Terrafina that are not part of our long-term strategy. In summary, our strategy remains clear. We are dedicated to delivering value as industrial leaders. I want to thank our teams in Mexico and across Prologis for their hard work in integrating Terrafina while upholding our operational excellence. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Rodolfo Ramos with Bradesco BBI.

Congrats on the results and accomplishments in 2024. It's quite remarkable to see this level of rent renewal rates, especially driven by these markets, Reynosa and Monterrey, which have been struggling and also seeing occupancy actually improving. So I wanted to get your thoughts on what do you attribute this divergence in performance from what we've seen in the market? And are we seeing here a consolidation effect perhaps on Terrafina?

Thank you, Rodolfo, for your question. Indeed, I think that I am pleased to keep on seeing Prologis teams in the markets achieving such impressive rent growth figure. Increasing rent is not just a matter of sitting in front of the customer to request a higher rent, but it has a lot of implications behind. We are a customer-focused company. The relation that we have with our customer, I think, is the best one that we have in the market. We anticipate what the needs that they have. We invest almost 14% of our NOI in the buildings. We provide additional stickiness with our customers through programs that we have to satisfy other needs behind real estate, we are providing now clean energy that was unsolicited and it's coming to a lot of our customers with a high acceptance in this regard. So it's a complete process. It's multifactoral. But the main point is to keep this great relation with the customers and always keep the buildings as if they were practically new, no matter if they are 20, 25 years old.

Your next question comes from the line of Pablo Monsivais with Barclays.

I was just curious about the progress on the noncore asset sales from Terrafina. I remember you mentioned at the end of last year that the process will be relatively quick. Just any update on that would be great?

Thank you, Pablo. Indeed, we started January doing a premarketing effort in which we have important meetings with most of the real estate service companies that are very active in Mexico and that have proven to be successful on this type of processes. I'm very pleased to see the reaction that we received from these advisers. I think that all of them are very optimistic about the results that we could have on the [ dispo ] process. And I'm pleased to see the certainty that they show on being successful on this. And as well, I'm very pleased to see the valuation -- the preliminary valuation that they are attributing to the different portfolios. We will be active in the market promoting the portfolios by the second quarter in just 1 month. And the only concern that I have in order to move more rapidly is things that are out of our control, particularly the antitrust approvals that it's moving into a different direction from what it was in the previous administration. That's why we think that even though we will be in the possibility of announcing binding transactions of portfolio sales, we are prudent on defining or trying to anticipate the time that it's going to take all these approvals. On the overall, I am positive that before year-end, we will be able to show real results and execution on the first 1 or 2 portfolios that we will be launching to the market.

Your next question comes from the line of Francisco Suarez with Scotiabank.

Congrats on the results. I appreciate very much what you have done on your overall policies on putting subletting in your vacancy rates that you're disclosing. That's great. Appreciate it. But pardon me if I'm sounding like a broken record, but can you share with us if you -- what are your overall utilization levels on capacity like PLD does in the United States?

Thank you, Francisco, for your question. I would like to mention that last December, we launched our first space utilization survey, which is aligned with the same methodology that we use in the United States, which showed that our customers have a space utilization of 89%, which is a very good level compared to industry standards. And in conversations with customers, it is -- this number is confirmed in terms of just renewals and the amount of business that they have regardless of the uncertainty in the environment. So going forward, we'll be able to have comparison metrics as we provide a history based on this methodology, but this first indicator is encouraging to see.

Your next question comes from the line of Jorel Guilloty with Goldman Sachs.

There are two. So first one is a bit broader. So you mentioned earlier that potential tenants are hesitant in signing contracts right now. But I just want to get a sense from you what is, in your view, an all clear signal for them? Like what needs to happen in terms of policy or anything of the sort in order for them to start executing on signing deals? Is it the MCA review done? Is it no go on the tariffs? I just want to get a sense of you -- what is the main driver there? And then the second question, I just want to clarify about the lease spreads. The lease spreads that you printed for this quarter, so 61% on an NER basis, that's inclusive of Terrafina? And if not, what sort of lease spreads are we seeing in Terrafina?

Thank you for your question, Jorel. Indeed, we have seen customers not canceling projects. I think that this is very important to highlight. The need of projects, the need of expanding current operation is still in place. As of today, I have not seen -- we have not seen one single project that had been canceled. Customers that are operating are not hesitant of signing and renewing spaces. What we have seen is almost a standstill situation in all the new projects, no matter if there are expansion, if they are new divisions of the companies or they are new companies coming to the market. It's very hard for a company to take that important decision when in the media, all the noise surrounding tariffs, volatility and uncertainty is in place. This is why I mentioned in my opening remarks that once that an agreement and certainty is reached, we think that all these projects will restart in force. What needs to happen for this to be clearly seen by customers, I think that's a definition of what's going to be happening with tariffs when if the renegotiation of the USMCA is going to be anticipated and conversations start moving fluently between Mexico and the U.S., I think that all those type of signs will start reigniting some projects to happen to the market. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there is no other place under our perspective to launch these projects for Mexico. We have not seen projects being appearing elsewhere, what projects keep on with the attention in Mexico, just waiting for these positive signs.

Well Jorel, I'll take your second question. This is Federico. And yes, the -- as of the fourth quarter, this includes Terrafina properties in our core markets, the core portfolio. And I would like to just highlight that our current lease mark-to-market across our portfolio is 49%. And the Terrafina portfolio is very much in line with that number. So we do expect to continue to harvest a very positive and very remarkable rent changes going forward.

Next question comes from the line of André Mazini with Citigroup.

So my question is around the disposition guidance. So the middle of the range is, of course, USD 250 million. And you guys have already said that most of that disposition to be taking place in 2025 is going to be coming from the Terrafina portfolio. So my question is, is this $250 million mid guidance enough to sell all the noncore assets you guys see in the Terrafina portfolio? I would imagine it would be a little bit maybe greater than the mid guidance over there in terms of noncore assets? And what do you guys consider a noncore assets for Terrafina? I would imagine like a small town, a shallower market, right, that will be a noncore asset. But is it just that or other way of saying all assets outside the 6 metro areas that Fibra Prologis had before Terrafina, are all of those noncore? So if you guys could give a little bit more color on what's noncore? And what's the total size of this noncore assets that you guys see from the Terrafina portfolio?

Thank you, Andre. The $250 million midpoint is probably a reference to the first portfolio that it's going to be going out to the market. The total amount of disposition is going to be more in the range of $1.5 billion. And all the process is going to take 2025 and 2026. So for next year, the disposition activity should keep on happening. As we have all the information regarding Terrafina, I think that we have positive news when we have access to contracts and customers and buildings. I think that the perception that we have of the quality of Terrafina is better than what we were anticipating, which I think is positive news. And actually, we went into a deep internal analysis about the convenience of opening new markets. That was an ample discussion that we have internally, and we decided not to open any new market into FIBRA Prologis. We will keep stick to our current strategy of the 6 markets that you guys know. Terrafina portfolio is placing us in a leadership position in all of the 6 markets. Our strategy is to be in markets where we have ample barriers of entrance. And as we have now a very clear leadership position in those markets, I'm very positive that we will be able to see all the opportunities that happen within those 6 markets. Same markets, higher participation in those markets, that's what we are pursuing going forward. But we do see a lot of traction and a lot of interest from current players and current investors that already have the liquidity to invest in these type of properties to take advantage of this opportunity. We anticipate that the Prologis portfolios are going to be the most important product going out into the market that even will capture the attention from investors that are not currently participating in Mexico. So a lot of activity on this front, not only in 2025 but expected as well in 2026.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Tainan Costa with UBS.

One specific point that caught your attention here this quarter were the fees, especially administrative and incentive fees. So initially, I would like to better understand what exactly are the fees paid by Terrafina to PLA Administradora Industrial. And secondly, I would like to understand what happened this quarter with fees, why it came well above last quarter, if it's related with Terrafina transaction? And if looking forward, we should continue to see this number of $20 million in a recurring way or if there were some nonrecurring items this quarter? Any color on that would be great.

Thank you, Tainan. This is Jorge Girault. Regarding fees, let me just clarify a couple of things. One, when we acquired Terrafina, we are keeping and we said this to the market, the 50 basis points asset management fee that was paid in the past to PGIM now is paid to Prologis Mexico. So the same fee goes to now to Prologis. In terms of the third-party managers, we -- in our markets, we are taking over those operations in those markets. And we're keeping whatever fees they were being paid. We didn't put our fees in. We just -- if they were paid 3% or 2%, we are getting the same fee, but we are not using the third-party managers except for the markets where are not Prologis markets, the ones that we're going to sell. There, we're keeping the third-party managers. And in FIBRA, if you recall last year, we reduced twice in the year the fees that -- the asset management fees that were paid to Prologis. The second one coming into effect on January 1, and we reduced and we put another type of fee regarding the size of the company, which also reduced [indiscernible] fees. So hopefully, that answers your question.

Your next question comes from the line of Francisco Suarez with Scotiabank.

The question that I have is on PLD's development pipeline in Mexico, another quarter with zero starts back in the days when there were no doubts about nearshoring and no uncertainties on USMCA. Those -- when that happened, that was attributed clearly for red tape, lack of water, lack of energy. But now perhaps this is driven by the overall expectation that your parent may have on overall demand given the uncertainties. Can you give us a little bit of more color on what might be driving these decisions on the PLDs development pipeline in Mexico?

Thank you for your question, Francisco. PLD Prologis does not have any concern regarding Mexico. We enjoyed the visit of Dan Letter, our current President that was appointed last week, the new CEO starting January 1 of next year, and we received from Dan [indiscernible] commitment to keep on supporting operations in Mexico. The lack of development starts that you mentioned in PLD is related to market conditions. As soon as market conditions improve visibility because the decision-making progress starts happening, you will see an immediate response from the PLD pipeline. The backlog that Prologis has is in the supplemental information is enough basically to participate in all of the markets in which we have activities. And it's important to reiterate that the PLD is committed to Mexico, and there's no concern on the volatility that we're experiencing as we are very positive about the fundamentals and a strong need that Mexico has on providing supply chain solutions to the different U.S. companies.

Your next question comes from the line of Alan Macias with Bank of America.

Just a question on the building acquisitions. Is a fair assumption that these acquisitions will be done to the parent company?

Part of them are going to make to Prologis, which are in the process of being finalized the stabilization. And some others we're expecting with some placeholders to take advantage of some market opportunities that we're currently pursuing. With the visibility that I have today, I think that potentially doing from third parties is going to be higher this year than contributions coming from Prologis.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Natalia Leo with JPMorgan.

I was just wondering on guidance. So I just wanted to check if your FFO per share guidance includes the impact from acquisitions and dispositions you are expecting in the year? And also, is the CapEx guidance of 13% to 14% of NOI includes leasing and tenant improvement, et cetera?

This is Jorge Girault. Regarding your question on FFO per certificate, yes, it does include acquisitions, dispositions, FX movements. That's why you see the range. But the answer is yes. And the -- regarding your 10% to 14% on CapEx, CapEx, as we define it, [indiscernible] leasing commissions and capital improvements to the buildings. So also yes.

Since there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Hector Ibarzábal, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you very much to all of you for your valuable time and attention devoted to FIBRA Prologis' call. We really appreciate it. Please do not hesitate to contact Alexandra for any additional information or any property visit that you may require. See you in the [indiscernible].

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.