Waypoint REIT (WPR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Waypoint REIT FY '24 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Hadyn Stephens, CEO and Managing Director. You may proceed, sir.

Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'd first like to start with a quick overview of the year, which is outlined on Page 7 of the presentation. Distributable EPS for FY '24 was $0.1648, which was in line with the updated guidance provided at our half year results in August and at the top end of the original guidance range provided in February 2024. The value of Waypoint's investment portfolio increased by 1% during the year to $2.8 billion, underpinning a $0.03 or 1.1% increase in NTA per security to $2.76. Cap rate expansion of 6 basis points in the first half was offset by 2 basis points of compression in the second half and contracted rental escalations throughout the year. December 2024 gearing was slightly lower at 32.6% and we were very active on the refinancing and interest rate hedging front with $600 million of debt refinanced during the year and $375 million of additional swaps put in place. At year-end, Waypoint's weighted average debt maturity was 4.1 years with a weighted average hedge maturity of 2.6 years and 93% of our debt hedged or fixed for the 2025 financial year. We continue to take a patient and disciplined approach to noncore asset sales and are reasonably happy with the progress to date with 2 assets sold for a total of $6.55 million or a 3.8% premium to prevailing book value. In addition, we currently have buyers in due diligence on a further 3 assets with a book value of approximately $15 million. Version of its Express network to the OTR offering is obviously a key focus of ours over the next few years with 4 Waypoint owned sites having been converted to date. In addition, we've provided landlord consent on a further 5 sites that are now awaiting planning approval and look forward to seeing an acceleration of Viva's plans in the coming months. 8 leases representing less than 1% of Waypoint's rent roll were due to expire in 2024 or 2025 and I'm pleased to report that terms have been agreed for the exercise of options on 7 of these 8 leases so far, including Viva's lease at Rouse Hill in Sydney. Lastly, I just wanted to touch briefly on Viva's FY '24 result, which was announced to the market earlier this week. Although group EBITDA was up 5% on the prior year, net profit after tax was down 20%, primarily due to higher interest costs as a result of the debt-funded acquisition of OTR in March. Solid results from Viva's other divisions were offset by a flat result in Convenience and Mobility, also like-for-like earnings for this division were down 22% for the year. Factors impacting the top line of the Convenience and Mobility division include cost of living pressures and the continued decline of tobacco sales, whilst the business is also suffering from rising operating costs, particularly wage inflation as well as transition costs from the recent acquisition of Coles Express and OTR. The OTR business was not immune to these pressures. However, we note the much higher convenience profits being generated from the OTR stores compared with the current Express network, highlighting the long-term opportunity that exists for Viva as it looks to roll out the OTR offering over the next few years. An overview of Viva's FY '24 financials is provided in the appendix of the presentation. I'll now hand over to Aditya to take you through our financials and capital management in a bit more detail.

Thanks, Hadyn, and good morning. Turning to Slide 9, which sets out the annual result. As Hayden mentioned earlier, FY '24 DEPS was $0.1648, which is consistent with our guidance and in line with FY '23. Like-for-like rental growth was 3.1%, reflecting our fixed rent reviews of 3% per annum across 93% of our leases as well as slightly stronger growth on CPI-linked escalations. Operating expenses were down, reflecting lower property-related costs on our double net sites and a disciplined approach to corporate expenses in the current operating environment. The MER was stable compared to the prior period. These benefits were broadly offset by higher interest expense, which increased as expected, in line with our weighted average cost of debt. An earnings bridge is provided on Slide 23 for those interested with additional detail on the key movements. Finally, the statutory result for the year was a net profit of $131.5 million and a full reconciliation between operating and [Technical Difficulty] is also provided in the appendix. Turning to the balance sheet on Slide 10. The value of the property portfolio increased to $2.8 billion with rental growth offsetting a mild softening in the portfolio cap rate. As noted by Hayden, we had one asset held for sale at year-end, which has since settled in February. NTA was up circa 1% to $2.76 per security and gearing stood at 32.6%, which is at the lower end of our target range of 30% to 40%. Our balance sheet and capital position remains strong and we have set out the key metrics illustrating this on Slide 11. The balance sheet retains significant headroom to debt covenants and it is encouraging to see that property valuations appear to be showing signs of stabilization. Liquidity at year-end was just shy of $150 million and provides capacity to pursue value-accretive opportunities. Our weighted average cost of debt increased to 4.5%, which is in line with our cost -- with our guidance at the start of FY '24 and continues to benefit from our high level of interest rate hedging, which I will cover shortly. Our ICR also continues to show healthy headroom to the 2x covenant. Turning to Slide 12 to look a little more closely at our debt and hedging profile. It was an active year on the debt front with a significant amount of bank debt refinanced or extended. Early in FY '24, we extended a $100 million bilateral facility with a major Australian bank for 5 years. In May, we put in place a new $500 million multi-tranche facility, which secured 6 new lending relationships and for the first time for Waypoint, bank debt with a 7-year term. This enabled the termination of $450 million of existing facilities, including the repayment of a $40 million institutional term loan facility in September, which was due to expire in FY '26. Our weighted average term has increased to 4.1 years and we are well extension of the [Technical Difficulty] expires in December. [Technical Difficulty] high level of...

Excuse me, this is the operator. The speaker line audio is cutting out slightly, if you can speak a little more clearly toward the microphone possibly.

Sure. Thank you. On the hedging front, we continue to maintain a high level of near-term hedging to support our overall resilience against interest rate volatility. Consistent with our approach to progressively add hedging over time, we entered into $375 million of new swaps, which has increased hedging over the FY '25 to FY '29 period. Our fixed rate debt and hedges provide certainty of cost for 93% of our borrowings in FY '25. Our average hedge rate for FY '25 is 2.8%, which I note is 50 basis points higher than in FY '24. Accordingly, our cost of debt guidance for FY '25 shows a similar increase to circa 5%. I'll now hand back to Hayden to provide a market and portfolio update and our outlook for the remainder of 2025.

Thanks, Aditya. As outlined on Page 14 of the presentation, transaction volumes continued to improve in the second half of 2024 with transactions for the full year up circa 60% on 2023 by number and around 50% by value. This improvement in market liquidity has been driven by improved buyer confidence in the interest rate outlook and we also saw a significant increase in supply, particularly in the second half of the year. We're encouraged by this improvement in transaction activity, which should continue to be supported in 2025 by further potential rate cuts later this year. Details behind Waypoint's December valuations are provided on Page 15. 20% of the portfolio was independently valued during the second half of 2024 with the rest of the portfolio subject to directors' valuations. Waypoint's weighted average portfolio cap rate compressed by 2 basis points during the second half of the year to 5.72% with cap rate expansion in our regional assets being offset by compression across our Highway, Capital City and other metro assets. Moving to noncore asset sales on Page 16. As I mentioned earlier, we sold 2 assets during the year for $6.55 million, representing a premium of 3.8% to the prevailing book value on these assets. We confirmed the sale of Emerald in our half year results in August and sold out Toowoomba site by a public auction during the second half of the year for a 10% premium to book value. With transaction activity increasing and the outlook for interest rates more supportive, we're optimistic about selling further noncore assets and currently have 3 assets with a book value of $15 million in due diligence with third parties. While we've identified a further $45 million of assets we'd like to sell, the timing of these sales will be dependent on market conditions and our plans for the reinvestment of the sale proceeds. Turning to leasing progress across the portfolio on Page [Technical Difficulty] for the exercise of options on 7 [Technical Difficulty] expiring in FY '25, [Technical Difficulty] nonfuel leases to be dealt with later in the year. The key outcome here has been an agreement with Viva on the renewal of its lease for a further 5-year term at its site in Rouse Hill, Sydney at a small premium to current passing rent. This outcome is broadly in line with the average positive reversion of around 1% on all fuel and convenience lease renewals since IPO in 2016. Weaker reversion outcomes on the nonfuel leases reflect above-market growth in passing rents across these leases during the current term as well as tenant-specific performance. In reaching these outcomes, we focused on tenant retention and setting rents at sustainable levels in line with independent market rent assessments, noting that nonfuel tenants are typically difficult to replace or more than difficult to replace and make up less than 1% of our total rent roll. Turning to Page 18 of the pack. Viva provided an update on its OTR rollout as part of its FY '24 results earlier this week, which we have summarized here. Viva noted that the conversion program has been slower than expected, but that it now expects 40 to 60 OTR conversions this year weighted towards the second half with 100 conversions per year from 2026 and a target of around 50% of the Express network being converted to OTR format by 2028. All conversions have been completed to date, all of which are Waypoint-owned sites with Viva noting that initial trading results have been above expectations. Average capital expenditure of $1.6 million per site was funded internally by Viva, which expects a similar average cost for the 40 to 60 sites to be converted in 2025. While Viva's rollout of OTR has been slower than originally planned, we're optimistic that Viva's focus on improving the convenience offer across the broader network will be positive for the performance and earnings mix of these stores over the long term and we expect to see conversions ramp up significantly in the coming year. Understanding Viva's plans for the OTR rollout and how we might participate is one of our key priorities in 2025, which we've outlined on Page 20 of the presentation. Based on Viva's public disclosures, we estimate that Viva's indicative funding requirement is in the order of $60 million to $100 million for the 40 to 60 sites scheduled to be converted in 2025. It's important to note a couple of things here. Firstly, that figure of $60 million to $100 million is just our estimate and it's based on Viva's plans for 40 to 60 sites this year at an average cost in line with the conversions completed to date being $1.6 million per site. Secondly, not all of the 40 to 60 sites will be Waypoint owned sites. Although we own approximately 50% of the sites in the Express network, Viva has publicly stated that there are around 100 potential FY '25 conversion sites to choose from with a range of factors likely to influence their decision of which sites to prioritize, including planning approvals and funding discussions with landlords. As we've consistently said to the market, whilst we're not obligated to provide funding, we do remain open to assisting Viva with its conversion program, provided that the returns are acceptable for our security holders. Engagement with Viva continues to be positive, albeit at very high level at this point and we're currently awaiting further information on its plans for an initial tranche of potential conversions on Waypoint owned sites. We're very conscious of the fact that the OTR program and the nature of Waypoint's participation is a key point of interest for our investors and we'll update the market on any material progress that is made. In terms of outlook and other priorities for the year ahead, as I mentioned earlier, we do expect to see transaction markets continue to free up, which should assist in our efforts to sell further noncore assets. In addition to the 3 assets currently in due diligence with buyers, we'll continue to monitor opportunities to selectively sell other noncore assets as the year progresses. Noting the stabilization in cap rates during the December valuation cycle, the recent RBA rate cut and market expectations for more of the same later this year, we think that we're unlikely to see further expansion in the portfolio cap rate in the first half of 2025. In addition, the 3% rent reviews across 93% of our portfolio be reflected in our June valuations provide further confidence that we have seen the bottom of the current valuation cycle. Accordingly, we believe our balance sheet is in good shape. And with circa $150 million of liquidity, we have ample headroom in terms of capital and gearing to potentially fund a meaningful number of OTR conversions if acceptable terms can be agreed with Viva. Finally, we are pleased to provide FY '25 distributable EPS guidance of $0.1648 with key assumptions outlined at the bottom of Page 20. And with that, I'll hand back to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And your first question is from Adam Calvetti with CLSA.

Look, my first question was you talked about some value-accretive opportunities. What are those entail?

Look, as we've said previously, Adam, I guess the key focus for us or potential investment for us moving forward is participating in the redevelopment of Express sites to the OTR format. That's probably the main priority at the moment.

Yes. I mean you're sitting with like $150 million in liquidity. It could be potentially [Technical Difficulty] of earnings. Is there -- do you expect to spend all of that this financial year?

Sorry, Adam, you cut out. Can you repeat the question?

So, you're sitting there at about $150 million of liquidity, which is about 1% of earnings on the line fee. What -- do you expect to spend all of that in FY '25?

No, we don't expect to spend all of that in FY '25.

Reason you're holding on to it?

Yes. I think -- Adam, it's Aditya here. I think $150 million of liquidity is probably a little higher than what we have held historically. [Technical Difficulty] repay the $40 million term earlier this year, which was 2 years and that was sort of reducing the drag on liquidity. From what we're hearing from Viva, it's while the OTR rollout, as Hayden mentioned, has probably started a little slower than expected, we're really hopeful that we'll have the opportunity to potentially participate at returns that we find acceptable. But you're absolutely right. There's no point holding on to liquidity if we don't need it. But at the same time, it feels like we're at the cusp of understanding what that opportunity may mean for us. And therefore, probably want to hold on to it for a little bit longer until we flesh that out.

Yes, that makes sense. I mean I just noticed you've got about 4% of the actual Viva leases coming up in FY '26. When did discussions, I guess, start about renewing those leases? And then how do you go about being at this kind of inflection point with the OTR rollout? How do you go about potentially capturing some of that upside at this early stage?

Yes. So, our FY '26 expiry process will start later this year. It's effectively 12 months prior to the expiry of the leases. The initiation of that is -- sits with us. So, we'll be looking at that later on this year. That process involves, first of all, us putting forward what we believe is the correct rent on those properties and then there's a negotiation process there with Viva. And if required, there's an independent market rent assessment as part of that process. So, I imagine when we do get into discussions with Viva around an initial tranche of sites to the extent that there are 2026 expiries in that initial tranche, then that will be part of our discussions. There are 2 of the -- I think it's 2 of the 9 of Viva that we've provided landlord consent to, so far are 2026 expiries, one of which is Greystanes that has already been converted to OTR by Viva and was a relatively minor conversion, so -- and there is another one on the list as well that's a 2026 expiry. And there may be more 2026 expiries coming through, as I say, once we get a longer list from Viva.

Yes. No, that makes sense. And then just last one for me. I mean, of those 4 that have been converted and 5 that they're asked to landlords consent on, has there been a general trend in characteristics of these service stations? Have they been quota sites or larger footprints or anything that we can think about?

No. Look, I think probably the only sort of similarity or I guess there's a couple of similarities across that group of 9. By and large, the average performance in the portfolio would be one thing I'd call out. But the other one is just the nature of the conversion. They're very, very simple conversions, rebranding, forecourt upgrades, internal reconfiguration of space, but no real -- no sort of major capital or structural work. So, they're pretty basic conversions to the OTR model, which makes sense from a -- when you look at it from Viva's point of view and their desire to roll this out quickly, they are the, I guess, the low-hanging fruit that they can rebrand and get the rollout happening. So, those probably the 2 characteristics I'd call out.

And the next question is from Murray Connellan with Moelis Australia.

I was wondering whether we could just touch on the noncore asset sales that are currently being targeted. I guess just what your experience has been with the direct market in the last 6 months, how it's changed as we've moved closer towards the 3 rate cuts? And I guess what sort of buyers are out there for that sort of product and what your expectations are for the next sort of 6 to 12 months?

Sure. Look, it was pretty patchy last year. I think buyer sentiment waxed and waned throughout the year depending on how people saw the interest rate outlook at the time. As we mentioned in the pack and during the notes speaking the presentation, there's clearly been a huge pickup in activity from the prior year and the low. So, there has been a real focus from buyers on longer WALE assets. And to be honest, that's sort of been sport for choice, particularly in the second half as more stock came on the market. So, the focus on the income security of this asset class and long-term leases and that sort of thing is clearly there. In terms of the type of buyers that we've been dealing with, we obviously sold one asset at auction that was to a private. And most of our engagement has really been with syndicators who are still in the market and looking for product. And I think they are seeing increased interest from their investors, which is flowing through to their interest in assets. So as we mentioned, we've got 3 assets in [ DD ] at the moment. No further plans beyond that. But as always, we'll continue to monitor market conditions. And if we think that we can get assets away at decent pricing in -- particularly in the second half of the year as I think we see potentially more of these rate cuts coming through and improved buyer confidence off the back of that, then we'll be looking closely at those opportunities.

Do you know or do you have handy the number as to the average yield for that $60 million bucket?

Average yield is about 7.5%.

Got it. And then just lastly for me, on the Viva conversions, is there any -- just as you move further down the road, do you have any more certainty around how the funding that may be provided by landlords would be captured in valuations. And to what extent it just gets rentalized and gets added into the yield. To what extent there may be a development profit to what extent it gets captured a little bit less tangibly in the form of longer WALE?

Yes. Look, I mean it's really site by site, Murray, in terms of valuation impact. There's 2 real drivers there. The impact that the development will have on the market rent of the asset, the assessed market rent for the asset. And there's potential tighter cap rate from a lease extension. I think any funding from us is -- will require a lease extension to sort of create the value uplift that we need to then be able to provide funding to Viva on that. So, does that answer your question?

Yes, sure. I guess just would your expectation be that the rentalization would be similar to the existing passing yield on each site?

You mean the coupon...

Yes. The development coupon on the CapEx.

Yes, I don't really want to talk about coupon in this context, Murray, if that's all right. I think that's something that's obviously the negotiation between ourselves and Viva. I think when we look at these investments, we're very focused on ensuring we meet our cost of capital and that's our marginal cost of capital as well as our long-term cost of capital. So that gives you a pretty good reference rate for the bare minimum sort of returns that we'll be looking for.

The next question is from Lauren Berry with Morgan Stanley.

Another one on the conversions, please. Just wondering kind of what date you gave the landlord consents because obviously, you've given a couple of consents, but now it seems to be that the commentary is shifting more to land holder -- sorry, landowner funding model. Yes. So, can you just talk about what's -- when the timing of those consents was given, please?

Yes, there's a range throughout the -- primarily the second half of last year, Lauren, all the way from July through to December. So yes, they -- when I talk about landlord consent, that's effectively landlord consent to the lodgment of DAs with the development planning authorities. As a landowner, we need to give that consent. So, we've done that and those the ones haven't been commenced yet, are still in the planning process with the relevant authorities.

Right. So, there's still an option for you to fund those developments?

Potentially, but I think the fact that they're reasonably basic conversions, there's no real uplift in market rent for us. So that sort of limits the capacity, if you like, on each of those assets because the only sort of value creation you get is through a lease extension. And some of these are already on fairly long-term leases. So, it's unlikely we'll -- we haven't been asked for funding on those to date and it's unlikely we'll fund them.

Okay. Great. And then my other question is on the valuation. You've called out a decline in valuations due to lower assessed market rents. Can you just talk about that market rent assumption, please? What's changed there?

Yes. So, each valuation process, the value will go through as part of that, they'll look at the -- what they believe is the market rent on each of the assets and then we flow that through our director sales as well. So during the second half, the assessed market rents across the portfolio reduced by 0.7%. So, we had 19 or 20 market rents assessed lower, 10 assessed higher than the previous assessed market rent. But the net impact of that was 0.7% decline for the half. If you look at it over the whole year, it was still up about the market rent underpinning the portfolio was still up about 2%, but that's just the reason for the difference between June and December is a small decline in assessed market rents.

And is that being driven more by the fuel tenants or the convenience tenants?

Neither. It doesn't look -- they don't look through -- they don't have access to and looking through to the performance of the tenants. It's just their assessment of the market rent for that particular property compared to comparable sites. So over time, the rents in the portfolio have grown has been on this for 2 years now. So, in the next 6 to 12 months, that would have been through the entire portfolio and looked at the market rents on every property. So, it's really just the same process we go through every 6 months, but it's not performance related.

And the next question comes from Adam West with JPMorgan.

Just a quick one from me. I'm just wondering, could you provide a bit more color on the $375 million of interest rate swaps you entered into, just around maturity and what impact they'll have on your hedging rates?

Yes, sure. I can take that one. So, the additional hedges we put in place, there we kind of put in place -- we put them in place progressively through the year so that we're not trying to pick a particular point in the cycle where we think rates are good. And so I don't have all of the individual rates to hand, but they've all been done at market. So, we're not sort of doing anything funny on the hedge rates. In terms of the impact, I think the best way that you can sort of back solve that is looking at our hedge disclosure at the last results press and our hedge disclosure in this results present. And you'll see that the weighted average hedge rate that we disclose for each year moves slightly, and that's reflecting that the new hedges coming in. But broadly speaking, we're hedging sort of in the low-4s or high-3s through the course of the year.

And I guess just on the refinancing discussions you had with the lenders, just if you've got any color on how they went. What were your margins like on, I guess, the new facilities?

Yes. Look, we obviously did a lot of activity this year on the refinancing front. As I touched on in the presentation, a lot of that was in the first half. Really pleased with the response from our banking partners. We did attract new lenders to the group as well, which is really pleasing. In terms of margins, we did see a slight increase, but that was largely driven by us consciously seeking higher longer tenure compared to the in-place facilities that we had. So, I wouldn't say there's really a large increase in margin on an apples-for-apples basis. But it was really more driven by us consciously seeking a slightly longer tenure and a lot of that manifested in the 7-year term debt that we took out that we got some pretty strong demand for.

And at this time, there are no further questions. I'd now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Stephens for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Chris. Yes, once again, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We've got a number of meetings lined up in the next few days. I look forward to talking to those people then. And anyone else that would like to have a chat about our results or outlook for the year, we're always more than happy to jump on the phone and do that. So, please just reach out and let us know. Otherwise, thanks again, and have a good day.

The conference has now concluded for today. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.