Earnings call transcript: Cousins Properties Q1 2025 misses EPS estimates

Cousins Properties Incorporated (CUZ), a $4.71 billion market cap real estate investment trust, reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.12, falling short of analysts’ expectations of $0.16. Despite this miss, the company achieved higher-than-expected revenue of $250.33 million, surpassing the forecast of $230.51 million. Following the announcement, CUZ shares experienced a modest increase of 1.01% in after-hours trading, closing at $28.05. According to InvestingPro, the company trades at a notably high P/E ratio of 93.5x, reflecting investor expectations for future growth.

Key Takeaways

• Cousins Properties’ Q1 2025 EPS of $0.12 missed the forecast by $0.04.
• Revenue exceeded expectations, reaching $250.33 million.
• The company’s net debt to EBITDA remains low at 4.9x.
• Full-year FFO guidance increased to $2.79 per share, reflecting 3.7% growth.
• Portfolio occupancy improved to 90% from 88.4% in Q1 2024.

Company Performance

Cousins Properties demonstrated resilience in its Q1 2025 results, with a notable increase in revenue despite missing EPS expectations. The company’s focus on leasing and redevelopment projects has bolstered its position in the market, as evidenced by a 2% increase in same property net operating income on a cash basis. The completion of 539,000 square feet of leases with a 3.2% cash rent roll-up marks the 44th consecutive quarter of positive rent roll-up, highlighting sustained demand for its properties.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $250.33 million, surpassing the $230.51 million forecast.
• Earnings per share: $0.12, below the $0.16 forecast.
• FFO: $0.74 per share for Q1 2025.
• Net debt to EBITDA: 4.9x, indicating strong financial health.
• Portfolio occupancy: 90%, up from 88.4% in the previous year.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Cousins Properties reported an EPS of $0.12, missing the forecast of $0.16 by 25%. However, the company exceeded revenue expectations by 8.6%, with actual revenue of $250.33 million compared to the forecasted $230.51 million. This discrepancy highlights the company’s ability to drive revenue growth despite challenges in achieving expected profitability.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Cousins Properties’ stock rose by 1.01% in after-hours trading, closing at $28.05. This movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s revenue performance and strategic initiatives, despite the EPS miss. The stock remains within its 52-week range, with a high of $32.55 and a low of $22.01, indicating stability in its market position. InvestingPro data shows the stock has a beta of 1.23, suggesting slightly higher volatility than the market. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be trading above its fundamental value.

Outlook & Guidance

Cousins Properties has raised its full-year FFO guidance to $2.79 per share, reflecting a 3.7% growth. The company anticipates further capital deployment and is focusing on lifestyle office assets in Sunbelt markets. With potential rent increases on the horizon as supply tightens, Cousins Properties is well-positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Executive Commentary

CEO Colin Connolly remarked, "The office market really isn’t that oversupplied. It’s just under demolished." This sentiment underscores the company’s strategic approach to navigating market conditions. CFO Greg Azima added, "Despite macro uncertainty, Sunbelt office fundamentals are solid," highlighting the company’s confidence in its regional market presence.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential market saturation in certain regions could limit growth opportunities.
• Macroeconomic pressures may affect leasing demand and rental rates.
• Supply chain disruptions could impact ongoing redevelopment projects.
• Rising interest rates may increase borrowing costs, affecting financial flexibility.
• Competitive pressures from other real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the sector.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s leasing pipeline and potential for debt investments. Management highlighted a strong leasing pipeline with 70% new and expansion opportunities and expressed interest in exploring acquisition opportunities across markets. There are no immediate plans for equity issuance at the current stock price, indicating a focus on maintaining shareholder value.

Full transcript - Cousins Properties Inc (CUZ) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cotton’s Properties First Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. This call is being recorded on Friday, May two of twenty twenty five. I would now like to turn the conference over to Pamela Roper, general counsel.

Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties: Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Cousins Properties first quarter earnings conference call. With me today are Colin Connolly, our president and chief executive officer Richard Hixson, our Executive Vice President of Operations Greg Azima, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Kennedy Hicks, our Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. The press release and supplemental package were distributed yesterday afternoon, as well as furnished on Form eight ks. In the supplemental package, the company has reconciled all non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with Reg G requirements.

If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available through the quarterly disclosures and supplemental SEC information links on the Investor Relations page of our website, cousins.com. Please be aware that certain matters discussed today may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, and actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors, including the risk factors set forth in our annual report on Form 10 ks and our other SEC filings. The company does not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The full declaration regarding forward looking statements is available in the supplemental package posted yesterday, and a detailed discussion of some potential risks contained in our filings with the SEC. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Colin Connolly.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Thank you, Pam, and good morning. We had a terrific first quarter at Cousins. On the earnings front, the team delivered 74¢ a share in FFO. Same property net operating income increased 2% on a cash basis. Leasing remained very strong.

We completed 539,000 square feet of leases during the quarter with a 3.2% cash rent roll up. This was our forty fourth consecutive quarter or eleven years of a positive rent roll up. This is an extraordinary achievement. Given the solid first quarter performance, we have increased the midpoint of our guidance to $2.79 a share, which represents a 3.7% growth rate over last year. Our encouraging start to 2025 highlights the strength and resiliency of our leading Sunbelt Lifestyle office portfolio and best in class balance sheet.

Before discussing the quarter in more detail, I will start with a few observations on the market. Fundamentals are improving. The existing supply of office buildings is declining as older buildings are converted or torn down and new construction is almost nonexistent. JLL reports that 10,000,000 square feet have been removed from The US office inventory since 2024 and predicts that inventory could decline by an additional 40,000,000 square feet by the end of this decade. At the same time, demand is accelerating.

Leasing volume over the past twelve months now reflects 89% of typical pre pandemic activity and is steadily increasing. We believe vacancy has peaked in the lifestyle office sector and market tightening is not far off and already arrived in some submarkets. The return to normal is well underway. With these tailwinds, our team remains strategically focused on driving earnings growth while maintaining our best in class balance sheet. To do so, we are prioritizing both internal and external growth opportunities.

Our portfolio was 90% occupied at the end of the first quarter, up from 88.4% at the end of the first quarter in 2024. We are thrilled to be making progress, growing our leasing market share and driving the occupancy back to more stabilized levels. As we’ve discussed, Bank of America’s expiration in Charlotte this year is a small speed bump in that process. However, with the pickup in leasing activity and only very modest expirations through 2026, we believe there is meaningful upside in the cash flow of our existing portfolio in the intermediate term. Recent tariff discussions have created macro uncertainty.

The most immediate impact to the REIT sector has been increased volatility in the capital markets. However, tariffs also create concerns over a softening economy, weaker demand, and higher construction costs. Given the strength of our markets, the quality of our portfolio lifestyle our portfolio of lifestyle office assets and fortress balance sheet, Cousins is uniquely positioned in the office sector to navigate these uncertain times. First, we have seen no impact in the leasing market to date. As I mentioned, demand remains robust across our markets and broad based across industries.

Many companies are still playing catch up from not leasing enough space during the pandemic, which has created pent up demand as the return to office intensifies. While higher construction costs could delay potential new starts for our development team, a further pause in new supply will only accelerate the tightening of market fundamentals for our existing Trophy portfolio. Lastly, we still maintain a relative cost of capital advantage over our public and private peers. This advantage, combined with our balance sheet capacity from low leverage and strong liquidity, creates optionality for Cousins. We are positioned to capitalize on compelling opportunities that might arise due to the market disruption.

Importantly, our twenty twenty four transaction activity highlights the creativity of our investment team and openness to a wide variety of opportunities, including debt, structured transactions, joint ventures, and property acquisitions. However, our core strategy remains the same. Invest in properties that already are or can be positioned into lifestyle office in our target Sunbelt markets. Near term accretion is a priority. In conclusion, the office market remains highly bifurcated.

There is little to no leasing demand or capital for commodity and older vintage properties. Values values for these properties are resetting so that they can be reimagined or demolished. This process is now clearly underway. At the same time, the life lifestyle office market is improving. New construction is at historic lows, while leasing demand is improving.

The market is rebalancing, and a shortage of premium space is not far off. We built Cousins to thrive during all parts of the economic cycle, and today, we are at a highly advantageous position. We are in growing Sunbelt markets. Bank of America ranks our portfolios the highest quality among all office REITs. Our leverage is the lowest across the sector.

The pricing on our our unsecured bonds trade at the tightest spread to treasuries among all traditional office companies. In short, we have great access to capital, and we see great opportunity. We are excited about the future for Cousins. Before turning the call over to Richard, I want to thank our talented Cousins employees who are the foundation of our success. They are dedicated, hardworking, and provide excellent service to our customers.

Thank you. Richard?

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: Thanks, Colin. Good morning, everyone. Our operations team had a strong start to the year, delivering yet another outstanding quarter. In the first quarter, our total office portfolio end of period leased and weighted average occupancy percentages were 92.190% respectively. As a reminder, the long anticipated move out of one trust in Atlanta occurred at quarter end and Bank of America in Charlotte will expire at the July.

With that said, the team continue continues to do great work in managing our expirations with only 9.3% of annual contractual rent expiring through 02/1926. This is 280 basis points lower than last quarter. Including Bank of America, we only have two expirations greater than 100,000 square feet through the February. With new leasing demand continuing to be healthy, we still see occupancy declining likely through the third quarter and then building back toward the end of the year and beyond. This was a particularly notable quarter for Cousins from a leasing perspective.

During the first quarter, our team completed 47 office leases totaling a very strong 539,000 square feet with a weighted average lease term of six point three years. Our square footage volume was the highest in a first quarter since ’2 On a transaction count basis, 53% of our completed leases this quarter were new and expansion leases totaling over 200,000 square feet. Again, the team also made great strides this quarter in managing near term expirations. Specifically, we completed six separate renewals for a full floor or greater this quarter. I’ll provide more details on a few of these when I touch on our markets.

Regarding lease economics, our average net rent this quarter came in at $35.87 in line with last quarter. This quarter average leasing concessions defined as the sum of free rent and tenant improvements were $8, about 9% lower than the full year 2024. Average net effective rent this quarter came in at a solid $25.06 Finally, second generation cash rents increased yet again in the first quarter at 3.2%. This is lower than our recent run rate and as we always try to note was a function of leasing mix. This quarter, we renewed a large customer at North Park in the central perimeter of Atlanta, a project where we tend to see rent roll downs.

Excluding that renewal, total portfolio second generation cash rents increased 7.9%, closer to our recent run rate. Beyond our encouraging completed activity, our leasing pipeline remains very healthy at all stages with no signs of slowing related to ongoing trade dynamics or macro uncertainty. In fact, our combined early and late stage pipeline is currently near the highest level it has been in years. In short, as of right now, demand for lifestyle office appears resilient. At the same time, and as Colin already highlighted, domestic office inventory removals are accelerating.

This should be an important long term tailwind for our business. At the market level, the broader Atlanta office market continued to show positive trends in the first quarter, following record breaking deal volume in 2024. Per JLL, both average tenant requirement size and average lease term increased this quarter. Across our Atlanta operating portfolio, we signed a very strong 213,000 square feet of leases with approximately 110,000 square feet of that at North Park. As I mentioned earlier, our activity at North Park included a key renewal of Veritiv in 68,000 square feet.

Veritiv’s expiration was previously one of our largest in 02/1926. Austin has also seen solid demand for high quality office space. CBRE reports that as of March, more than 112 tenants were actively seeking space, totaling over three point seven three point seven five million square feet, which they state is a 33% increase in demand compared to last quarter. We signed 176,000 square feet of leases in Austin in the first quarter, and our portfolio currently stands at 94.7% leased. Like Atlanta, this quarter’s activity in Austin included some key renewals.

Specifically, we completed a 34,000 square foot renewal and expansion of KPMG at 111 Congress in the CBD and a 71,000 square foot renewal of Time Warner at Domain Point. Recall that Time Warner currently occupies 112,000 square feet and was previously set to expire in September of this year. While Time Warner ultimately elected to contract by 41,000 square feet, the contraction will not take effect until October of twenty twenty six. The contraction space extension is not reflected in our reported renewal leasing volume because it is only for one year. On that, we view this as a great outcome to retain a long standing large customer with an opportunity to market a very desirable space with 17 of lead time.

In Charlotte, the market posted positive net absorption in the first quarter and the development pipeline hit its lowest level since 02/2013 with only 150,000 square feet under construction, all per JLL. Given the growing scarcity and high quality and new office space, we remain excited about our redevelopment projects at 550 South And Fifth Third Center in Uptown. As we mentioned last quarter, these significant redevelopment projects will elevate the properties with new amenities, refreshed lobbies, and plentiful outdoor space, cementing their status as best in class for years to come. In Phoenix, the team is very energized about the finished product after our redevelopment of our Hayden Ferry project in Tempe. There are currently a number of large office requirements searching in the Tempe submarket, and interest in Hayden Ferry in particular continues to be very strong.

In fact, I’m very pleased to report that we are in lease negotiations with a 105,000 square foot new customer at Hayden Ferry One. Once complete, this new lease would take Hayden Ferry One to 76% leased. Recall that this building was occupied by Silicon Valley Bank prior to its bankruptcy and was 0% leased only seven months ago. In Tampa, our team leased an impressive 84,000 square feet and rolled up cash rents 5%. Our activity also included yet another key 41,000 square foot renewal of a customer at Corporate Center 3.

Our Tampa portfolio stood at a solid 96% leased as of quarter end. Finally, our Newhof mixed use development in Nashville continues to show momentum. After quarter end, we signed a lease with Fifth Third Bank for 18,300 square feet at the project. This lease takes the commercial portion of the project to 50% leased. Our multifamily leasing velocity continues to accelerate as well, with that segment increasing to 70% leased as of today.

In light of this velocity, we have moved up our projected stabilization of the multifamily by one quarter to the first quarter of twenty twenty six. As we look ahead, even amid today’s macro uncertainty, we are encouraged by office fundamentals and the continued leasing momentum we see as we move further into 2025. As always, thank you to our entire team for your hard work to make the start of 2025 a positive one. We look forward to continuing the momentum together this year. Greg?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Thanks, Richard. Overall, as Colin stated upfront, our first quarter results were outstanding. Second generation cash leasing spreads were positive for the 40 straight quarter. Same property year over year cash NOI increased and leasing velocity was particularly strong. There were three items during the first quarter that pushed FFO above the current run rate.

First, as previously disclosed, we sold our bankruptcy claim with SVB Financial Group four point six million dollars Second, we realized an unusually large amount of termination fees during the first quarter, approximately $2,900,000 The front loading of these term fees in the first quarter was included in our original earnings guidance and was based on known move outs. Three quarters of these move outs were proactively initiated by us. Third, although the mezzanine loan on the Radius property in Nashville was paid off early in March, our recent loan modification guaranteed us interest income on this loan through September of ’twenty five. We recognized this extra interest of $858,000 during the first quarter. This is a timing issue only and does not change the total amount of interest that we received during 2025.

All three of these items, the SVB bankruptcy claim sale, the large amount of termination fees, and the radius interest guarantee were in our internal numbers and do not impact our full year earnings guidance. Focusing on same property performance for a moment, GAAP NOI grew 4% and cash NOI grew 2% during the first quarter compared to last year. This continues a string of positive same property numbers that began in early twenty twenty two, with the most recent quarterly cash increases largely driven by our Atlanta portfolio, with increased occupancy and cash rents excuse me, cash rent commencement at Promenade Central, Bucket Plaza, and 3350 Peachtree. There is one unusual item that ran through our cash same property performance this quarter. Our lease with Parsley Energy, now Exxon, at 300 Colorado for 298,000 square feet included a Middle East rent abatement for January, February, and March 2025.

Without this one time abatement, year over year same property cash NOI would have increased 4% this quarter instead of the reported 2%. It’s a better indication of underlying portfolio performance. I also wanted to take a moment to point out the lumpiness that can sometimes run through our quarterly same property expense numbers. It’s usually driven by property taxes. Property tax true ups, as we receive actual assessments from the taxing authorities, can push the quarterly numbers around quite a bit.

So it’s always best to use longer term time frames when looking at expense numbers. For example, last quarter, our same property cash expenses were up 11.7% compared to the previous year. This quarter, they declined by 0.3%. However, for full year ’24, same property cash expenses were up 3.6% over the previous year, and they’ve increased only 2.3 each year on average over the past four years. Moving on to our transaction activity, we completed three significant deals during the first quarter.

In January, we received the payoff of a $138,000,000 mortgage loan secured by the Saint Anne Court Building in Uptown Dallas. In March, we received the payoff of a $12,800,000 mezzanine loan secured by the Radius Building that I discussed earlier. And finally, over the course of the first quarter, we sold 2,100,000.0 shares of common stock on a forward basis under our ATM program at an average gross price of $30.43 per share. These shares were issued in anticipation of potential new investments, and will likely be settled when we identify and close on a potential new investment. Looking at our balance sheet, net debt to EBITDA remains an industry leading 4.9 times.

Our liquidity position is strong with only $39,000,000 outstanding on our $1,000,000,000 credit facility, and our debt maturity schedule is well laddered to accommodate efficiently accessing the unsecured bond market. Turning to our development efforts, the current pipeline is now only comprised of a 50% interest in Newhauff and Nashville. We’ve moved Domain 9 in Austin, which is 98.5% occupied to our operating portfolio. Our share of the remaining development costs at Newhof will be funded by a combination of our Newhof construction loan and our operating cash flow. I’ll close by updating our 02/2025 earnings guidance.

We currently anticipate full year ’25 FFO between $2.75 and $2.83 per share, with a midpoint of $2.79. This is up 1p from the last quarter and is up 10¢ or 3.7% over our ’24 results. The increase in FFO guidance is driven by higher parking income and lower real estate taxes, primarily in Atlanta and Austin. Our guidance continues to assume the assumed refinancing of a $250,000,000 senior note that matures on July 6. It also continues to assume no SOFR cuts in 2025.

Our guidance does not include any speculative property acquisitions, property dispositions, or development starts. If any of those do take place, we’ll update you on future earnings calls accordingly. Bottom line, our first quarter results are excellent, and we’re raising the midpoint of our full year earnings guidance. Our best in class leverage and liquidity position remains intact. And despite macro uncertainty, Sunbelt office fundamentals are solid.

And although it’s not in our guidance, we anticipate the potential to deploy capital into compelling and accretive investment opportunities. We look forward to reporting our progress in the coming quarters. With that, I’ll turn it back over to the operator. Operator, are you there?

Conference Operator: Yes. Our first question comes from the line of Dylan Burzynski from Green Street. Your line is open.

Dylan Burzynski, Analyst, Green Street: You guys talked about how the demand pipeline remains fairly robust. Obviously, within the portfolio is high. Even though it’s expected to dip throughout the rest of the year, it should continue to grow over the near term. I guess just given that backdrop and your comments around the supply expectations moving forward, I mean, do you guys get the sense that you’re going to start to see rent spikes eventually across the portfolio? And can you guys talk about sort of the ability to push net effective rents in today’s environment?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Hey, Dylan. Good morning. It’s Colin. Yeah. I I think it the backdrop for the lifestyle office sector, I think it’s a positive one because, you know, again, anytime you’ve got demand improving at the same time supply is declining, I think that that will ultimately rebalance the market and I think in time show show itself in really positive improvements in the leasing market, both from a volume perspective, as well as the underlying lease economics.

And so we already are starting to see some signs of that tightness or tightening. I’d say that’s showing up in some of the concessions and tenant improvement allowances starting to level off. And as those do, I think in time we’ll begin to see rental rates improve. I think if we see spikes, I think that’s going to be determined by how long a period we have with kind of very little to no new supply. And as I’ve mentioned earlier today, many times in the past, we do see some shortages of high quality lifestyle office in certain in certain sub markets.

And and I think over time, if this delay in in any construction starts is, you know, takes quite a while, I I think you could see some some meaningful upside in rent rents, particularly when you compare that to what new construction rents are. In some cases, it’s 50% higher. So I do think there’s a long runway for the the high the highest quality lifestyle office rents, kind of the existing where they are today and where they need to go to get to to new construction levels.

Dylan Burzynski, Analyst, Green Street: Appreciate that color, Colin. And then maybe just one. Greg, you alluded to sort of the acquisition pipeline and and looking for continuing to look for opportunities. I guess, given you guys did the forward equity raise at the start of the year, I mean, it safe to assume that there’s something in the near term hopper as it relates to the pipeline? And then maybe if you can just sort of talk further about sort of the pipeline today versus maybe at the start of the year.

Are you seeing any changes with regards to seller appetite wanting to part ways with their properties given volatility in the capital markets?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah. Sure, Dylan. It’s Colin again. I I definitely think we are seeing more owners explore, you know, the opportunities to to sell. And perhaps some of these these owners have have kind of delayed decisions to sell for several years and that they’re now looking to monetize.

And so I I think there is a greater volume of of opportunity. That being said, I think the recent, I’d say, disruption in the capital markets with impacts to to equity prices, debt spreads, you know, that that has a tendency to create a a bid ask spread. So we’ve seen that creep back into the market, but but I could also see that being fairly short lived. For us in particular, you know, we’re always looking at a wide variety of opportunities, we’re always hanging around the hoop, we’ve got great relationships with owners out there, I think we’re somewhat of a preferred buyer given our track record, and so we’ll, we’ll, we’re always evaluating. We think we’ve got interesting opportunities out there.

I wouldn’t say any of them are immediately actionable as we balance the impact of those investments on our FFO accretion, our FAD accretion, what does it do to leverage and some other strategic considerations. But as the forward equity raise highlighted, we are optimistic over the course of this year that we’re gonna find creative ways to deploy capital, and it could come in a lot of different forms as it did as it did last year.

Dylan Burzynski, Analyst, Green Street: Awesome. Appreciate the details, Colin. Have a good one.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: All right. Thanks, Dylan. You too.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Richard, I didn’t know if you could maybe provide a little bit more color on the pipeline, maybe either by market where you’re seeing the most activity and then maybe by industry. Is it legal, financial services? Is it tech?

You know, I’m kind of interested in where if if in fact you’re seeing any big tech kinda picking up things.

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: Sure. Good morning, Steve. So I’ll start with the industry breakout of our pipeline. It really is remarkably diversified. But as you drill down, I would say that there’s today an overweight to legal, which we view as encouraging.

I think particularly in that industry segment, we’re seeing some pent up demand that’s starting to come through the pipeline. But again, it’s diversified. We’re seeing strong presence from our bread and butter kind of segments of technology and financial services and general professional services. So feel very good about the diversification of the pipeline. When you look at it by market, it it is skewed well, first, it started strong in every market, so we feel good about demand across the board, but it’s skewed toward Atlanta and Charlotte mainly.

It’s no coincidence, though, that that’s where most of our availability is, And Phoenix is also screening very strong, but again, we have a lot of availability there as well. One other data point I put out there is that the in terms of deal type, we’re we’re seeing that we’re over 70% new and expansion leasing opportunities versus renewals. So a very healthy metric, we think, as well.

Steve Sakwa, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Okay. Thanks. And then maybe just to kind of follow-up on Colin’s some of Colin’s comments about development. Obviously, you have some attractive land parcels down in the Austin market. I’m just curious, how do you sort of think about new development?

It doesn’t sound like maybe large tech is maybe as robust down in Austin today, but how do you sort of think about activating a new development? And I guess, how would you think about a yield requirement for new development today versus some of the acquisitions you’ve recently done?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah. Good morning, Steve. You know,

Analyst, Baird: we look at

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: development as, you know, as we do any other investment opportunities. So we compare it relative to acquisition opportunities and any other ways we could we could allocate capital. And ultimately, the risk adjusted return has to to justify itself. And so today, obviously, mentioned construction costs have are are materially higher than they were some years ago. That ultimately means that the the rents need to be materially higher to, you know, to to have a going in yield that’s attractive relative to where we’ve been able to invest on the acquisition side.

I I I do think though, as we look across, you know, the company, we we’ve got a land bank of some really, you know, highly attractive sites, not just in Austin, but in places like Atlanta and Charlotte and and otherwise, and and we’re always looking at those opportunities. You mentioned in Austin, I think that’s actually a really unique situation where we could see new development perhaps sooner than some than one would expect. And that’s a function of the two and a half million square feet that we own out as a domain is effectively 100% leased with almost no sublease space available. And I do think there are is some big tech, as well as some other large corporate users that might make their own independent decisions and be willing to make a rental rate commitment to to get the space that they want in the submarket they want. And so I do think Austin is a you know, has potential and hopefully in the not too distant future, places like in Atlanta and Charlotte and Nashville and some others, you know, we do believe there’s going to be opportunity and that rents are ultimately going to go up and will justify development.

The question is just kind of when.

Steve Sakwa, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Great. Thanks. That’s it for me.

Conference Operator: Thank next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Thank you. I think this is the first time you mentioned office removals in your markets accelerating. So I was wondering what markets in particular you’re seeing that at and then what’s driving some of the removals? And is this going into multifamily redevelopment or some other some other use?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Good morning, John. It it’s it’s really now broad based across all of our markets, and I think, you know, all across the country. And it’s a function of of obsolete space. As as you’ve heard me say in the past, the office market really isn’t that oversupplied. It’s just under demolished, and there’s there’s there’s probably been too little demolition in the office sector over the last ten to twenty years.

And so I think there’s a certain amount of catch up that’s that’s taking that’s taking place. And and it’s those obsolete properties that can really no attract no longer attract customer demand and therefore investor demand. And they ultimately are being repriced to a level where they can be either repurposed or torn down. And, you know, I’m I’m sitting in our corporate headquarters in Atlanta today in the Buckhead submarket, and I can look out the window from where I’m sitting now and look at, you know, several different properties, one of which there’s plans to demolish parts of it and reposition others, Another park just down the road where they’re planning on demolishing roughly half of of the of the project in multiple buildings and consolidate the office into the other half and and likely build multifamily. So it’s a combination of tear downs, repositioning.

I think you’re gonna see kind of a wide variety of executions, but but ultimately what’s driving it is product that today is no longer relevant.

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Okay. That’s interesting. In recent weeks, Blackstone has made, office investments in Manhattan and San Francisco, and I was wondering if you, any comments on either Blackstone or the large private equity firms, their interest in office in in your markets.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah. Well, I think it’s a positive. I I think ultimately, there’s more capital in into the space. First, I think it, you know, shows their conviction that that that perhaps the or that they have taken a view that the secular concerns and the overhang around the office business is perhaps faded. And and I think that should ultimately translate into a a rerating in the public sector and higher multiples.

And and they see the opportunity. And really, I don’t wanna speak for for Blackstone, but but I think more investors are seeing a an interesting and compelling opportunity that’s driven by a market where demand is improving and supply is declining, and that ultimately should translate into higher occupancies and higher rental rates and an interesting investment opportunity to be on the front end of.

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: But are you are you seeing them in your markets in particular?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: We’re seeing an increase in in private equity, in particular, you know, some of the large private equity firms in in markets all over the country. And, again, I I think they’re, you know, not not just Blackstone, but but others are are interested in, you know, this higher end of the market or assets that can be repositioned into the lifestyle and quality assets where where they think there’s going to be, again, this interesting opportunity and and and perhaps in the not too distant future and imbalance where there’s perhaps more demand and and less supply. So I think it’s, you know, across all major markets of the country, investment firms, both public and private are looking for those opportunities.

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: That’s great color. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties0: Great. Thanks. Good morning. Just following up on the investment side, are you seeing any more or better opportunities on the debt side, given the uncertainty that’s come about and some disruption in the credit markets? Just wondering if we could see debt opportunities come back to the forefront for you guys.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah. I think it’s a possibility, Blaine. It you know, last year, we executed on three different debt investments and and then, you know, as as some of the bid ask spread and the uncertainty faded, you saw us begin to invest directly into the equity properties with a bit of dislocation that’s happened more recently. I think it’s definitely a possibility that that we would look at the debt side as an interesting way and and the appropriate part of the capital sack to invest in. You know, as we’ve said in the past, we’re not looking to build a large scale debt book here at Cousins, but we’re in a unique part of the cycle, and we think we need to be flexible as to to where we invest.

And, you know, Greg highlighted, we’ve been paid off on two of the three investments that we’ve made. And so if if if if situations arise and and the debt part of the capital sack is the right place to invest and the right basis to invest, and it’s ultimately an asset that we would we would be comfortable owning if if need be, We’ll we’ll make a select few investments if, if those arise.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties0: Alright. Great. That’s helpful. And then can you talk a little bit more about the strong increase in leasing you guys saw at the multifamily portion at Newhof this quarter? Maybe touch on whether you’ve adjusted rents or concessions to kind of increase that velocity of lease signings?

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties1: Sure. Hey, Blaine, it’s Kennedy. We, as Richard mentioned, I mean, we’re very encouraged by the velocity and it just really keeps going. So we’ve leased a lot of apartments there and we are now looking at increasing face rates. We will start to have some renewals coming later this summer, but we are increasing face rates.

We’ve held concessions for now, but are evaluating that on a daily basis.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties0: Okay, great. And related to that, can you talk a little bit about the activity you have on the commercial space at Newhof? I’m assuming you have some kind of large contiguous blocks of space. Are there any large tenant requirements in the Nashville market that you think might fit there and be kind of a quick boost to leasing? Or are you still more focused on some of the smaller tenants and slowly making progress towards that stabilization?

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties1: So we do have a large contiguous block that’s left. We’ve also got some spec suites that we’ll deliver here any day now. And it’s a bit of a mix, I would say, at the moment. We feel that a one or two floor lease up per customer is the right cadence. But there are some bigger requirements that are out there.

They just may be a little bit further out in their decision making. So we’re still seeing a steady flow of tour activity and think we’ll continue to make progress on the lease up there.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties0: Great. Thanks, Kennedy.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Yupal Rana with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties2: Great. Thank you. Richard, you went through some

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: of the implications of some of the renewal leasing in the quarter. Yeah. But lease term did come down a bit to five and a half years. You know, was there anything that was particularly driving that?

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: Hey. Well, I think it was 6.3 this quarter. And and really, I think Time Warner weighed on that a little bit. They tend just historically to do renewals at more of the five year or less timeframe. But just to give some context, if you look at our pipeline today, late stage, the the lease term is pushing nine years.

So I think it’s just the quarter quarter dynamic that that will obviously bounce around over time like it typically does.

John Kim, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Okay. Great. And then you guys noted that you’re seeing parking revenues increase, which is driving the guidance. How much of that is a function of higher office utilization versus increased pricing? And is there any markets that kind of stick out to you the most?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Hupo, it’s Greg. So of the increases that we’ve seen on the parking revenue side, about 75% of that is driven by higher utilization, and about 25% of that is driven by increasing pricing. So it’s a really good proxy we have found over the last few years for utilization of our buildings, and it’s an encouraging sign for us. And then in terms of kind of where it’s coming from, Atlanta by far is our largest market in terms of parking revenues.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Okay, great. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Jana Gallen with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties3: Thank you. Good morning. Going back to the potential acquisition and investments pipeline, with your balance sheet so well positioned today, how large could this opportunity be this year while still kind of balancing your leverage targets?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Jen, it’s Greg. Good morning. What we’ve done in the past is, as we’ve executed these transactions, we’ve raised the incremental capital at the same time on a leverage neutral basis. And so we’ve locked in the spread upfront with zero risk. And it’s been terrific.

So how we fund potential acquisitions going forward will depend upon what’s available to us at that point in time. You know, we’ll see what happens to credit spreads, as Colin talked about earlier. We’ll see what happens to our share price. But as the cycle matures, we’ll also have an opportunity to maybe sell assets. And so, again, I don’t want to commit to how we’re going to fund these acquisitions, although we do have this $64,000,000 of forward equity sitting on our balance sheet, which, by way, I know it’s not large, but I see it as a very powerful asset that we have as we move forward with transactions.

But outside of that, we’re going to look at what’s available to us at the time and make a decision as to how we fund it.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties3: Thanks, Greg. And then just in terms of kind of the leasing discussions, on renewals, in some of your markets, you having any tenants kind of realizing you know, the markets are really firming up in terms of space? Are you getting approached in any of your markets for early renewals?

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: Adjana, yes. I think it was a short answer. We’re we’re definitely seeing situations where customers are are looking at the landscape, especially paying attention to the fact that there there really is a shutdown of new supply and doing the math and realizing that that they need to get ahead of the the game. This is absolutely something we are experiencing right now.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties3: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Nick Szilman with Baird. Please go ahead.

Analyst, Baird: Hey, good morning. Maybe just wanted to follow-up on something and broaden the discussion. But what are you guys seeing on the new to market requirements? Obviously, corporate relocate large corporate relocations aren’t like a huge driver at this business, but we’ve been hearing in Atlanta that there is a big pickup or not a big pickup, but a slight pickup here on requirements. Just curious if you could broaden that scope to the entire portfolio on markets kind of we didn’t touch.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah. Like, it we’re we’re seeing an impact or an increase in, you know, all sorts of demand and and whether it’s folks that that just are now making decision to and and ready to to make the decision to move from one building to the other within our markets to, I’d say, an increase in some new to market activity. And some of the relocation activity has has begun to to pick back up. But but a lot of the you know, I’d say that a a key driver for us now, and I think historically, you know, oftentimes the new to market activity isn’t necessarily a company that’s picking up and moving from California to Austin, but it might be a company that is already that’s headquartered in California, has a presence in Austin, and a company making the decision to have more of their growth in Austin and continuing to grow and expand these hubs. We’ve seen that from the likes of Amazon and companies like Workday and Microsoft and others who have established these large hubs and continue to draw from the talent in our Sunbelt markets to to grow their presence.

And it’s really driven ultimately by a decision by these companies to more broadly distribute their workforce across the country. And that’s certainly true of the the tech companies on the West Coast, as well as the financial services companies in the Northeast. And so I think you’re going to continue to see large scale hubs in in all of our markets across those industries, and I think those will benefit places like Charlotte, like Atlanta, like Austin, like Tempe, and there’s that type of activity underway in in in each of those markets.

Analyst, Baird: No, that’s helpful. And then maybe just following up on acquisitions, and I don’t know if I actually get an answer on this one, but are there any markets in particular where there’s a little bit more of a priority to kind of enter? Think of the likes of like Dallas, you had the St. Ann Court loan. Is that a market that you view as one that definitely needs more exposure on this next round of kind of deployment?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: It is. Again, I would say, as we look across all of our markets and the fundamentals in them, we’ve got conviction to invest in any market where we operate today, maybe less so Houston. But but aside from that, I think the markets are all are all performing well, and we would deploy capital. But from a strategic perspective, as as we look at how the company’s position today, we are, I’d say, bit have a bit of an outsized presence in in Atlanta and Austin. Not surprising given the size and scale of those markets compared to to some of our other markets.

But I do think in time, it’s a it’s a long term goal, not necessarily a short term goal, but a long term goal to continue to enhance the geographic diversity diversification of the company. So I think you’ll see us, hopefully in time, grow our presence in markets like Dallas, like Charlotte, like Nashville, Tampa, and and certainly out in the Phoenix market as well. But but we’re not gonna as I said, that’s a long term goal, and we’re only gonna make those investments when we feel like they meet our our investment criteria as it relates to impacts to FFO, to FAD, you know, how we are able to finance it and impacts the leverage and liquidity. And then, again, some of these strategic considerations and and enhancing our geographic diversification is one of those long term goals.

Analyst, Baird: Very helpful. That’s it for me. Thanks all.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Michael Lewis with Juris Securities. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties2: Great. Thank you. Some other office REITs are reporting good leasing volume, but their cash flow is suffering. You didn’t have as big an occupancy dip to kind of recover from. But could you talk about is there anything in terms of timing of free rent or leasing concessions that might pressure the cash flow?

And then also talk about kind of how the leasing concessions are trending in your markets? I know you got some questions about whether there could be rent spikes, but maybe you know, you might see changes in concessions first or and I wonder if you’re seeing that at all.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Well, yeah, Michael, I I think there’s, you know, there’s a there’s a lot of different things at at play. But but I do think that for us, as as it relates to cash flow, you know, you’re seeing some of the, I think, the benefits of the the work that we’ve done at Cousins really over the last ten years, but but I think as it to our portfolio and some of the recycling that we’ve done, and most recently, if you if you go back to 2020 and 2021, we made a very intentional decision at Cousins to to sell when the market was open, $1,300,000,000 of our then a lower quality, older vintage assets that that were also the most capital intensive and rotated into newer, higher quality assets. And since today, we’ve got, I think, the youngest portfolio across the the office sector, and and ultimately that comes with a lower CapEx profile, and I think also some of the most attractive properties to lease and enabling us to drive better lease terms, kind of lower TIs and lower free rent. And that was always part of our goal in in building the portfolio that we have today.

Trophy assets that benefit from the greatest demand and at the same time are able to be operated and run with the lowest CapEx profile.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties2: Okay. Great. And then, you know, Greg mentioned when he talked about lease termination fee income that you initiated three tenant move outs. Is is there a theme among those? There’s you know, maybe explain what’s going on there.

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: This is Richard. I think the theme on a few of those that were initiated by us is fairly simple, which is we had customers that were looking for expansion or new space for them that didn’t quite match up with timing, but they wanted to be at our project excuse me, timing relative to our expiration. So for instance, at Hayden Ferry, we had a customer that was actually set to expire in a full floor later in 02/2025. We knew we had a prospect for that floor. We knew we needed to get control of the space earlier, so we simply approached the existing expiring customer that we knew was gonna move out, said, can we accelerate your expiration?

We were able to negotiate a fee to get control of the space earlier and and essentially immediately backfill that space. So the theme is when we identify opportunities where we can better our position, whether from a timing perspective, whether it’s a rent roll up, better credit, we are not afraid to approach existing customers and try and facilitate a change in control of that space. It’s not unlike what we did last year with IBM and Meta.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties2: Okay. Got it. And then my last question, and maybe it’s too early to ask this one. You guys have really low financial leverage, but the maturities you do have are gonna be at low interest rates. So I know the the unsecured notes this year are in your guidance.

You’re a year out from fifth fifth third center and Colorado Tower. Those both have, fixed interest rates below three and a half percent. Is there anything at this early stage to talk about in the strategy or the pricing for refinancing those low interest rate maturities?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Michael, good morning. It’s Greg. Yeah, I’m not going to provide specific guidance on kind of what we’re going to do with those maturities, but we can talk kind of globally about what they mean for our P and L. We’ll see where interest rates are when those two mortgage notes that you noted mature next year. But we, as kind of the entire REIT industry, has been facing a headwind over the last year or two, as everybody’s had to refinance debt at higher rates.

We have two. One, having a lower leverage gives you less debt to refinance, so that’s positive from our perspective. But two, we’ve been able to, because of the organic growth that we’ve had, we talked about rolling up rents and positive same property growth and high leasing velocity. That stuff, at the end of the day, results in solid organic growth. And so despite the headwinds of higher rates for us, the lower leverage and good organic growth has allowed us to grow FFO during this period.

I think we’ve been one of the few office REITs out there that have been able to grow FFO in ’twenty four and have a midpoint of growth for FFO in ’twenty five. So yeah, it’s an issue. We’ve got a refinancing in our numbers this year, as I’ve said a couple times. But we’ve been able to grow FFO despite that. I think it’s just kind of a testament to the underlying organic growth that we’ve got embedded in this portfolio.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties2: Great, thank you.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Peter Obramowitz with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties4: Yes, thank you very much. Just wondering if you could touch on specifically leasing requirements in your Charlotte portfolio, and specifically progress on Fifth Third Center.

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Sure. This is

Richard Hixson, Executive Vice President of Operations, Cousins Properties: Richard. Like I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we we feel very confident in the supply and demand dynamics that are that are taking place in Charlotte, especially with really no new development activity happening from here in the near term, or at least in South End. You know, the deliveries are kind of at the tail end right now and anything in Uptown. For us, as we sit with our two assets that are underway in terms of redevelopment or certainly imminent in 550 South And Fifth Third Center, we think we are entering a a a great spot where we will fill a void left by a lack of new development. So and as a result, we’re seeing very good activity and interest in Uptown.

Nothing to report today, nothing imminent, but our positioning is is very good, and we’re very optimistic.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties4: Thanks, Richard. And then maybe one for Greg. So you did a fair amount of capital raising to fund the acquisitions in the fourth quarter of last year. I think on weighted average cost of capital basis, it was somewhere in sort of the mid-6s, maybe high-6s. So just curious, where do you see your cost of debt and cost of equity today?

And if you did find opportunities, would you be comfortable issuing more equity where the stock is today?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Well, I’ll answer that first question first. Unlikely, highly unlikely, to issue stock at the price where it’s trading today. The math doesn’t work on the acquisition side. Remember, our business is a spread business, so got to create a spread between our cost of capital and our use of capital. And based upon where cap rates are today, I think raising equity at this price makes that pretty much impossible.

So unlikely to raise equity at this price. But the two equity raises that we did in the fourth quarter last year were both, give or take, around $30 a share. And at that equity price and at where cap rates were at that point in time, we could do that accretively. And although the acquisition market has thinned out a little bit and we’ve seen fewer trades for our assets, I think we’ll get clarity as the year progresses. And if it shakes out about where it was in the fourth quarter, I think like I said earlier on the call and as Colin said in his prepared remarks, we’re going to have an opportunity to deploy capital, new capital, on an accretive leverage neutral basis.

We think the opportunity will reemerge as the year progresses. And I think balance sheet’s in a position to allow us to do that. I think we’re in a unique position in the office space. Again, as Colin said, I think we’re the buyer of first choice for many sellers, though, because of the cost of capital advantage we have and the history we have of closing trades reliably.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties4: Got it. That’s all for me. Thanks.

Conference Operator: Your next question comes from Brendan Lynch with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties5: Great. Thank you for taking my questions. You’ve been redeveloping assets for the past couple of years and improving the quality of the portfolio. At a high level, where do you see where you kind of stand in that process when looking at the portfolio as a whole?

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Good morning, Brendan. It’s Colin. We’re we’re largely, I’d say, through that. Again, that that decision was made in the early part of the pandemic along with, as I said, recycling really the bottom 20% of the portfolio into ultimately acquisitions and development of of kind of the top tier assets. We we also made an intentional decision to pull forward a lot of the redevelopment and repositioning work within the portfolio to do that at a time to to minimize disruption when our customers were largely not there.

So if I had to look at it today, I’d say we’re probably, you know, 75% of the way kind of through that work. There’s still a handful of properties that that in time just got a more normal cadence that, you know, I can see us working on a project or so project or two a year, but but I think we’re we’re largely through it and and I I put about a 75% number on it today.

Pamela Roper, General Counsel, Cousins Properties5: Great. Thanks. That’s helpful. And maybe one for Greg. The the lease with the Parsley Energy included a a onetime mid lease abatement.

Can you just walk through the details of that?

Greg Azima, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cousins Properties: Yeah, it’s as simple as I’ve said. I mean, back when the original lease was negotiated, then a follow-up amendment was done years ago. I think it was 2018 was when this was executed, so almost a decade ago. This two and a half month rent abatement was placed inside the lease for the first two and a half months of ’twenty five. So on a GAAP basis, everything gets smoothed out.

You don’t notice it. But on a cash basis, obviously, it ran through the numbers this past quarter. So that’s what I wanted to point out. I mean, some of the comments we’ve gotten on our same property performance at 2% is, hey, that’s positive, terrific, but a little lower than it’s been. Is there anything unique going on?

And there was something unique going on, and we wanted to point it out.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Great. Makes sense. And, Brandon, let me just clarify my my previous comment. When I when I say 75, you know, the vast majority of our portfolio is in in now in great shape. It needs kind of no repositioning or redevelopment.

When I when I mentioned kind of 75%, that’s on the pool of assets that we had identified several years ago to reinvest. And so, you know, again, it’s just down to a handful of properties across the whole portfolio. It’s really the portfolio of assets and the quality of it has never been better at at Cousins than it is today. Great. Very clear.

Thank you. Thank you.

Conference Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with any closing remarks.

Colin Connolly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cousins Properties: Thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your time and interest in Cousins Properties, and we will look forward to hopefully seeing many of you at the upcoming investor conferences and ultimately at NAREIT in June. Have a great day and a great weekend.

Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your call for today. We do thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.

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