Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 21, 2024
Gladstone Land Corporation isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Greetings. Welcome to Gladstone Land Corporation's Year-End and Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll now turn the conference over to Mr. David Gladstone, Chief Executive Officer and President. Mr. Gladstone, you may begin.
David Gladstone: Thank you, Rob. It's a nice introduction. This is David Gladstone and welcome to the quarterly conference call for Gladstone Land. Thank you all for calling in today. We seriously appreciate all the time you take to listen to our presentations and hope we can give you some really good news this time. Before I begin though, we have to start with Michael LiCalsi. He's our General Counsel. So, Michael, take it away.
Michael LiCalsi: Thanks, David. Good morning everybody. Today's report may include forward-looking statements on the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including those regarding our future performance. Now, these forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that are based on our current plans, which we believe to be reasonable. The many factors may cause our actual results to be materially different from the future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, including all the risk factors in our Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and other documents we filed with the SEC, you can find them on our website, which is www.gladstoneland.com, specifically the Investors page, or on the SEC's website, which is www.sec.gov.
And we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Today we'll discuss FFO, which is funds from operations. FFO is a non-GAAP accounting term defined as net income, excluding the gains or losses from the sale of real estate and any impairment losses from property, plus depreciation and amortization of real estate assets. We may also discuss core FFO, which we generally define as FFO adjusted for certain non-recurring revenues and expenses. Also adjusted FFO, which further adjusts core FFO for certain non-cash items, such as converting GAAP rents to normalized cash rents. And we believe these are better indications of our operating results and allow better comparability of our period over period performance.
Please visit our website once again, gladstoneland.com, sign-up for our email notification service. You can also find us on Facebook, key word there is the Gladstone Companies, and on Twitter we're @gladstonecomps. Today's call is an overview of our results so we ask that you review our press release and Form10-K, both issued yesterday for more detailed information. Now with that, I'll turn it back to David Gladstone.
David Gladstone: Okay. Thank you, Michael. Let me start with a brief overview of our Farmland Holdings. We currently own about 112,000 acres on 168 farms and over 46,000 acre feet of water assets. One acre foot is equal to about 326,000 gallons. So we own about 15 billion gallons of water. And although the land and the water are valued at about $1.6 billion, it'll be interesting to see where the land and buildings go over the next year or two as the changes in the economy hopefully take hold. Currently, $250 to $500 per acre foot, so $23 million worth of water. And you can't grow anything without the water, so we're in good shape there. We have that all of this land that we own plus the water is worth about $1.6 billion. Our farms are in 15 different states and more importantly in 29 different growing regions and our water assets are all in California.
Our farms are leased to over 90 different tenant farmers, all of whom are unrelated to us and the tenants on these farms are growing 60 different crops, mostly fruits and vegetables and nuts and you can find these in the produce section of grocery stores which is where most of our crops -- our tenants sell our crops to those people running those grocery stores. And now I'll give a quick update on some of the tenants issued -- issues that we're continuing to have. We currently have five properties, about 15 of our 168 farms that are vacant. And we also are recognizing revenue from leases with two tenants who collectively lease five of our farms on a cash basis. So we're a little bit behind on that. Regarding the vacant farms, we're in discussion with various potential buyers or tenants to buy or lease these properties and hope to have all of those in place by this summer.
And regarding the two tenants on non-accrual status, one of them is now current in their rental payments to us, and we are continuing to work with the other tenant to collect from that tenant. And total year-over-year impact on the operations as a result of these two and other tenant issues got sorted out during the year but decreased operating income by about $1.4 million for the fourth quarter and about $1.7 million for the year. I think you'll see that come up in the next quarter. As we mentioned on the past several calls, we continue to be cautious with our new investments because the cost of capital, both borrowing cost that we have to pay and equity that we have to raise remains very high and the land prices are still too high to make sense in many of the acquisitions that we look at.
So as a result, acquisition activity remains slow for us and probably will for at least another couple of quarters. With inflation still above the Fed's target rate, interest rates are going to remain probably pretty high for the next six months, maybe even a year. And when the rate cuts do come, might be getting further -- the rate cuts might be pushed further down the line, so maybe a while before we can start bulking up again on more land. But overall, our existing farmland portfolio continues to perform as expected with the exception of those issues that I mentioned just about -- just a few minutes ago. We did sell one property after year-end, that's after December 31st. That resulted in a nice gain for us. This farm is in Florida and we bought it for about $54 million about seven years ago and we sold it in January for about $66 million.
So net of closing costs, this resulted in a cash gain of about $10 million. And remember, during the last seven years, the tenants had been paying rent on the farm. And I'll note the price we sold out was about $2 million more than its recent appraised value and leads me to believe that the appraisals that we have on our properties which go to net asset value are a little bit low. On the leasing front, since the beginning of the quarter, we renewed or amended seven leases on farms in two different states. In total, these renewals are expected to result in a decrease of annual net operating income from those properties about $682,000 than the prior leases we had on it. However, this includes one lease executed on a property to replace a prior tenant who had been placed on non-accrual status.
This prior lease was fixed, was a fixed rent basis, whereas the new lease is largely a crop share basis. We usually use that crop share where we get part of the profits from -- in new leases simply to give the new tenant a chance to feel out how much you can really pay for the property. So excluding this one lease, the remaining lease renewals are expected to result in an overall increase in net investment income of about $504,000. That's about 5.4% over the prior leases. So looking good there. Looking ahead we only have one lease that is expiring in the next six months and it makes up less than one-half of 1% of our total annualized lease revenue. We're in discussion with a group of lease groups that wants to lease the farm and we're currently anticipating an additional vacancy, no additional vacancies as a result of this or any other upcoming situations.
And just a few other items I'd like to mention. In 2023, that was really a good year for our Western portfolio regarding water. Water is the key to almost everything on the West Coast. And then 2024 now is off to a very positive start. There's a lot of rain going on out there and right even today and certainly yesterday. Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or as we call it, SGMA, which was enacted in 2014, certain basins must achieve groundwater sustainability by 2040. So we've got plenty of time to do it, but our team in California has been focused on ensuring that we have a firm understanding of the impact of SGMA on the long-term sustainability of our Western portfolio. And as such, we have been working to develop projects in certain areas that have identified as having a risk of potential water shortages over the next couple of decades.
During 2023, we completed a construction of a large groundwater recharge facility on two of our farms we entered into various agreements with both local water districts and private third-party individuals to acquire additional water supplies in the near term. And we secured -- we have secured a long-term water supply contract for substantial amounts of our portfolio in the western San Joaquin Valley, California. These acquisitions and projects have already made a large impact in achieving long-term and sustainable water supplies for many of the farms in California. We intend to continue this focus on water security for our farms in 2024, which has started off with another round of historic storms in California. If the rain events continue, we expect the state's water supply to allow for another year of great opportunity from farms in California, allowing us to leverage the projects and contracts secured in 2023 to acquire even more water rights.
We have additional water projects that we anticipate completing in 2024 to secure additional water rights. It's important to note that these projects are largely forward-looking. Our portfolio currently has adequate supply of water and to-date none of the farms have had to fallow the farms or reduce plantings. Our goal is to remain in case through full compliance of SGMA into 2024 -- 2040 and beyond. While certain other land may have to fallow a portion of their farms, thus reducing the amount of planted acreage of certain crops, our goal is to maintain a stable production level on all of our farms. We intend to continue to partner with local groundwater management agencies across California to ensure that we have, unlike any of our farming friends, sustainable water supply for all of our farms in the west.
In Florida, of course, and in the east, it's much easier to get groundwater. And just one more note regarding weather in California. They're experiencing another round of storms and flooding over the past few weeks, but fortunately we've been able to report that none of our farms have suffered any significant damage as a result of these recent storms. And we don't expect our farms to get hurt. We have good runoff programs. And finally, I just wanted to touch on a question we get from time to time from some of our good shareholders. We pay money, that is, your company pays money to Gladstone Securities to sell the preferred stock that we're issuing in the company. And Gladstone Securities is largely a conduit in this process. It remits a large majority of the fees received to other parties involved in the offering, including participating broker dealers and wholesalers.
At the end of the day, it's pretty much a break-even business for Gladstone Securities, so we're not making a profit out of selling your securities. And please also remember that preferred stock is not included in the calculation of any fees that Gladstone Land pays to the advisor. So I'm going to stop here. That's enough on the operations. Now, I’ll turn it over to our CFO, Lewis Parrish, to talk to you more about the numbers that he's reported in the 10-K.
Lewis Parrish: Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin by briefly going over our recent financing activity. We did not incur any new borrowings, but we did repay about -- we have repaid about $24 million of loans since the beginning of the fourth quarter that were scheduled to either mature or reset. On the equity side, since the beginning of the quarter, we've raised net proceeds of about $556,000 from sales of the Series E Preferred Stock. Moving on to our operating results, for the fourth quarter we had net income of about $1.8 million and a net loss to common shareholders of $4.3 million, also per share. For the year, we had net income of about $14.6 million and net loss to common shareholders of $9.9 million or $0.28 per share.
On a quarter-over-quarter basis, adjusted FFO for the current quarter was approximately $5.4 million or $0.151 per share compared to $6.6 million or $0.189 per share in the prior year quarter. Dividends declared for common share were $0.139 in the current quarter compared to $0.137 in the prior year quarter. On an annual basis, adjusted FFO for 2023 was approximately $20.3 million compared to $24.3 million in 2022 and AFFO per share was $0.569 in ‘23 versus $0.701 in 2022. Dividends declared were $0.554 in 2023 and $0.546 in ‘22. Primary drivers behind the decreases in AFFO were the lost revenues and increased expenses associated with properties that were either in the vacant, self-operated, or non-accrual status during portions of the year, as well as a decrease in the amount of participation rents recorded and an increase in dividends paid out to preferred shareholders during the year.
Despite the lost revenues from vacant, self-operated, and non-accrual properties, fixed-based cash rents increased by about $255,000, or 1%, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, and by about $990,000, or 1%, on a year-over-year basis. These increases were largely driven by additional rents earned on capital improvements projects that we completed on certain of our farms. During the fourth quarter, we recorded about $3.3 million of participation rents compared to $4.7 million in Q4 of last year. And for the year, we recorded participation rents of about $5.9 million versus $7.7 million in 2022. Participation rents decreased primarily due to lower yields, coupled with lower pricing for last year's crops. The lower yields were expected due to the fact that these crops were harvested at the end of a multi-year drought and of course the water landscape in California and the West in general has changed drastically since then.
Pricing continued to be somewhat lower due to oversupply, particularly in the almond market however we are starting to see almond prices rebound a bit as global inventories get used up. On the expense side, excluding reimbursable expenses and certain non-recurring or non-cash expenses, our core operating expenses remain relatively flat for both comparable periods. Total related party fees decreased for both periods and that's primarily due to a lower incentive fee earned by our advisor during the current quarter and year. This decrease was largely offset by increases in certain other core operating expenses, namely property operating expenses and general and administrative expenses. Property operating expenses increase in the current year periods due to higher property taxes and additional property management fees incurred as a result of certain properties being either vacant or self-operated during portions of 2023.
And G&A expenses increased due to higher professional fees and additional costs incurred in connection with amending our credit facility with MetLife. One final thing to note on our income statement, we sometimes get reimbursed by our tenants for certain costs or they will sometimes pay these costs directly on our behalf as stipulated in the lease agreement. In these cases, we record additional lease revenue and also additional property operating expenses with the amounts offsetting each other and netting out to zero. In the past, this amount has been averaging about $50,000 per quarter. However, that figure jumped to nearly $550,000 during the fourth quarter. It still nets out to zero on the income statement, but I just wanted to point out that each of these individual line items, that is lease revenue and property operating expenses, are both inflated by about $500,000 in the fourth quarter from what it has been recently.
Finally, other expenses decreased due primarily to lower interest expense incurred as a result of loan repayments made over the past year. With that, we'll move on to net asset value. We had 31 farms revalued during the quarter, and it's all via third-party appraisals. Overall, these valuations decreased by about $13 million from their previous valuations from about a year ago. So at December 31st, our portfolio was valued at about $1.6 billion, and all of this was supported by either third-party appraisals or the purchase prices. Based on these updated valuations and including the fair value of our debt and all preferred securities, our net asset value for common share at December 31st was $19.06, which is down from $20.33 at September 30.
The majority of this decrease was due to the change in fair value of our fixed long-term borrowings and preferred securities as interest rates retreated somewhat from $9.30 to $12.01, as well as decreases in valuations of certain farms that were reappraised during the quarter. Turning to liquidity, including availability on our lines of credit and other undrawn notes, we currently have access to over $200 million of liquidity, including about $60 million of cash on hand, and we also have over $130 million of unpledged properties. Over 99.9% of our borrowings are currently at fixed rates, and on a weighted average basis, these rates are fixed at 3.34% for another 4.2 years. As a result, we have experienced minimal impact on our operating results from increases in interest rates.
And with respect to our current debt outstanding, we believe we are well protected should interest rates remain high. Regarding upcoming debt maturities, we have about $35 million coming due over the next 12 months. However, about $17 million of that represents various loan maturities. And given the value of the underlying collateral, we do not foresee any problems refinancing any of these loans if we choose to do so. So removing those maturities, we only have about $18 million of amortizing and principal payments coming due over the next 12 months, or about 3% of our current debt outstanding. In addition we have about $10 million in loans that they are not maturing but they have a fixed term -- fixed rate term that is set to expire over the next 12 months.
One last item to note here, our lines of credit with MetLife were set to expire in April 2024. However, during the fourth quarter, we amended the MetLife facility to extend the maturity date of both lines of credit to December of 2033, so almost a 10-year extension on those lines of credit. Finally, regarding our common distributions, we recently raised our common dividend again to $0.465 per share per month. This marks the 33rd time we've raised our common dividend over the past 36 quarters, resulting in an overall increase of 55% over that period. With that, I'll turn the program back over to David.
David Gladstone: Thank you, Lewis. Nice report. We continue to stay active in the marketplace should a good opportunity present itself, but we're still being more cautious on the acquisition front. Interest rates are still too high, but we're hopeful that the rates will be lower this fall so that we can start buying more farms again. And just a few final points. We believe investing in farmland, growing crops that contribute to healthy lifestyles such as fruits and vegetables and nuts, follows the trend that we're seeing in the marketplace today. Overall demand for prime farmland growing berries and vegetables is stable to strong for almost all the areas where our farms are located, particularly along both coasts, either East or the West.
So please remember that purchasing stock in this company is a long-term investment in farmland. It's an investment of a stock of two parts. One part of course is for strong assets such as similar to gold. It's a hard asset. Farmland is dirt and that has intrinsic value because there's a limited amount of good farmland in the United States and it's being used up by urban developers, especially in California and Florida where we have many farms. And the second part of investing in this stock is unlike gold or other alternative assets in that it's an active investment with cash flows to investors and believing we're better than a bond fund because we keep increasing the dividend whereas bonds are fixed. We expect inflation, particularly in the food sector, to continue to increase over time.
We expect the value of the underlying farmland to increase as a result and we expect this especially to be true in the fresh produce food sector as it trends that more and more people in the United States are healthy food eaters. We have the cash, as mentioned by our CFO, to back any loans that are coming due. We have cash and credit facilities, the banks that we deal with would love to lend us more money. So we have cash to pay off loans coming due and we have borrowing capacity to do the same. So we are very secure here. And if we had to sell off our farms, I know we would get money to pay off any debts that we have. So we're strong in that regard. So the downside, from my perspective, is very low. Farmers need dirt to grow food, and we have plenty of dirt.
And so we're great for farmers, while people also need to eat. Farmers need dirt to produce the food that they eat. I'm going to stop here Let's have some questions from those who follow us. Operator, would you please come on and help our listeners ask some questions?
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