Dream Unlimited Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 14, 2024

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the Dream Unlimited Corp. 2nd Quarter Conference Call for Wednesday, August 14, 2024. During this call, management of Dream Unlimited Corp. May make statements containing forward looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Dream Unlimited Corp's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward looking information.

Operator

Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained in Dream Unlimited Corp. Filings with the securities regulators, including its latest annual information form and MD and A. These filings are also available on Dream Unlimited Corp's website at www.dream. Ca. Later in the presentation, we will have a question and answer session.

Operator

Your host for today will be Mr. Michael Cooper, CRO of Dream Unlimited Corp. Mr. Cooper, please proceed.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for spending some time with us. We're here with Megan and Megan will provide an update on the quarter. I just thought I'd start with a couple of macro thoughts in terms of how we're looking at our whole business. And I think it might help explain our point of view.

Speaker 1

The results are quite good and it's consistent with our thoughts. So firstly, this morning some numbers came out of the U. S, yesterday some numbers came out of the U. S. I think about what happened with COVID when there was so much appropriate fear about the economy and people's well-being at the beginning of 2020, which is like a long time ago now.

Speaker 1

And when I think about what my hopes and expectations were in March of 2020, we're all doing so much better than that. And I think it gets so lost when people look at things. I think the government spent way too much money and locked us down too long, but of course at the beginning that made sense. And we got through it, it probably overheated economy in some areas. But now we started to see in 2022 inflation took off, even though the Bank of Canada and the U.

Speaker 1

S. Fed say they're going to keep rates low, they started to raise them, A lot of discussion about whether this will be a hard landing or a soft landing. This is now 27 months ago, maybe longer. And what we're seeing in the numbers this morning is that things are getting more under control.

Speaker 2

So I think it's pretty amazing, all the

Speaker 1

things have been handled. And we're approaching a year ago, we were approaching the highs in interest rates above 5% of the states and 4.2% for 10 years in Canada. And today, it's around 3% in Canada and 3.85% in the U. S. That's a massive change.

Speaker 1

Canada, we've had 2 rate cuts we're going to have. I think there'll be rate cuts this fall starting in September in the Fed. And all of this is actually great progress. We're seeing a little bit of horizon unemployment in the U. S.

Speaker 1

And Canada, we're seeing a little bit of a rise too, more than a little bit, although it's so difficult to understand how much of it is immigration as opposed to job losses. But overall, I think it's going pretty good. I'm astounded by how negative people are in Canada. We deal with institutional investors, whether they're private equity funds or sovereign wealth funds, very, very sophisticated investors who invest all over the globe. And they all think Canada screens very, very well.

Speaker 1

So I think that there's a real negative slant despite the fact that if we were all talking in March of 2020 and I told you this is a situation of how we've been in 4 or 5 years, we'd all say, hey, that's not so bad. So I think that with a longer term view, we think things are setting up pretty well overall. I've been speaking over the last while about the company and really focusing on our Western Canadian business, our asset management business and our income properties. And each of them have gone through major changes over the last 5 or 6 years. Western Canada, we built our business based on the profits that we made out of Western Canada between 1994 and probably 2013.

Speaker 1

For 2014, for a few years, it got very weak. And it's coming back. It's coming back for a lot of reasons. Our numbers are good this quarter. But I think what's more important than numbers this quarter is all of the things that are leading to good numbers this year in Western Canada, we're doing so much that shows that this is going to continue and maybe pick up steam.

Speaker 1

So Western Canada is doing very, very well for us. On asset management, we've grown a lot over the years. Our current business is making quite a bit of money and we're excited about that. This year we got to promote because it's been 3 years since we launched the U. S.

Speaker 1

Industrial Fund and there's a promote after every 3 years. And it has done quite well. So we're not going to have that every year. But having said that, we're working on a lot of opportunities to invest to grow our asset management business. And I think we'll hit 1 or 2 over the next year or 18 months.

Speaker 1

So I see asset management growing internally as well as with new areas to grow, very exciting. And on the income property side, we've really shifted our business to do more building to hold. And we're at about $800,000,000 We have $5,000,000,000 that were $800,000,000 directly on our balance sheet, not any of the indirect interest in a lot of real estate, but just directly on our balance sheet. And that part is going quite well. We're finished as I said, 5 buildings in the organization are under lease up.

Speaker 1

The ones in just as I mean, it's amazing every time we look at it, it's like the building that we're finishing in Western Canada are full at completion. And in Ottawa, Gatineau, they're leasing up quite well. And in Toronto, we had a slow start, but I think we're making a lot of progress. So that's turning land into income properties. These income properties will be very good for us for many, many years and we're adding to our income properties rapidly.

Speaker 1

So those three areas are a massive part of our business over 90%. And then not everything is going well. As everybody knows, office is a difficult asset class. Since 2016, we've been reshaping Dream Office. We've made into a great company and office isn't in favor now and it's it seems to be doing a great job.

Speaker 1

And we're going to have to sort of muddle through these times. But I'm pretty excited about what we own and the future of it after we get through this. Again, I'm not sure what's happened from work from home, but it seems to be less and less of an issue. Now we have sort of typical recession where recession thinking where companies are trying to save some costs. But we're grinding through all of it.

Speaker 1

And then with the impact trust, it has a lot of income properties, a lot of apartments, they're going great. But especially trying to turn land into either condos or income properties in Toronto is increasingly challenging. And that's an area that we have to continue to work on. Our stake in that company isn't very high. The projects and assets are great.

Speaker 1

And we monitor it on a day by day basis. And with relationships with the various governments and lenders, we've had great success. CMHC being us as a trusted building partner is very valuable to get projects through the system quicker, and they are really showing up as a great partner. I think the federal government has been doing a lot with the waiver of HST. CMHC has a lot of money to promote apartments.

Speaker 1

We are working very closely with City of Toronto, who I think is doing an excellent job trying to understand the issues and create obstacles to development. The province waived their pay a portion of provincial sales tax. I think they're setting up pretty well too to support. So we're working very closely with 3 levels of government. And while I hear everybody complain about every single thing the government does, we've never had more support by every level of government in areas that we needed the most to get these apartments and rental properties built.

Speaker 1

So overall, I think we're doing well. I think we're producing a lot of money. I think our business is growing. We have challenges in parts of our business, but the benefits of being a diversified company is really coming through. I'll turn it over to Megan to provide details.

Speaker 1

And Megan and I would be happy to answer questions afterwards.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Our 2nd quarter results were extremely strong as we recognized earnings on a standalone basis of $55,500,000 up from a loss of $100,800,000 in the comparative period. This is largely driven by the 2 parcel sales in Edmonton and revenue of $15,700,000 in carried interest related to the Dream U. S. Industrial Fund.

Speaker 3

The comparative period included an accounting loss of $88,200,000 on the sale of 7,000,000 Dream Office units in addition to our share of the recent losses in that period. On a segmented basis, in Q2, our recurring income properties, again, all on a standalone basis, including a basin which is under contract, generated revenue of $28,200,000 and NOI of $11,600,000 up by $3,300,000 $3,600,000 from prior year. This was largely driven by strong performance of the distillery district and improved yields at A Basin. We continue to build out the segment as we develop our apartment pipeline and anticipate adding a further 700 units a share between now 2026 based on what is currently under construction or in the pre dev phase. Our asset management business generated revenue of $28,600,000 a margin $20,500,000 which includes the aforementioned Dreamy West Industrial Fund promote fee of just under 16,000,000 dollars Excluding the promote, margin from our asset management division was down relative to prior year, driven by reduced transactional and development activity, which will fluctuate period to period.

Speaker 3

Now as it relates to the Development segment, revenue and net margin of $65,900,000 $30,900,000 was generated from our Western Canada Development Group, up significantly from $11,200,000 and a loss of $500,000 in the prior year, which is really being driven by the 2 Edmonton parcel sales discussed in the prior quarter. Margin for these two transactions was $28,100,000 Lot sales on a quarter to date and year to date basis were $80,000,000 and $103,000,000 respectively. As of today, we have commitments for an additional 5 15 lots and 115 acres through 2025, representing $185,000,000 in revenue. Dollars 134,000,000 of that will be recognized over the second half of twenty twenty four. This is a significant level of presales volume, reflecting some of the strongest performance in Western Canada in our history.

Speaker 3

Now aggregating our Western Canada development, asset management and income property operations. Again on a standalone basis, our total margin in the first half of the year was $66,000,000 up from $20,000,000 in prior year, which is pretty significant. We continue to maintain very strong liquidity ending the quarter with $280,000,000 in total liquidity and a conservative leverage position of 39% on a standalone basis. This includes certain assets held at cost, which can be lower than market value. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Michael.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Megan, for introducing FAX. At this point, Megan, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question is from Sam Damiani of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

First question is on the CMHC frequent builder designation. That looks very interesting. I was wondering if you could provide a little bit of color of how and when you expect those advantages to first materialize for Dream?

Speaker 1

That's a fascinating question because this was referred to in the budget. I think in the fall economic statement, there's references to it. And the CMHC has been working on it. We've actually had consultations with them as they have with lots of developers. So we started to see a real change by the beginning of June.

Speaker 1

And I think they were either doing it or practicing it, but they have become much more responsive and things are moving through the system much quicker, which is very helpful for us. So we've already seen benefits from it.

Speaker 4

And how would that sort of materialize in terms of would it basically enable the company to kick start some Toronto developments in the near term? And I guess as a follow-up, I was wondering what you meant specifically about the quote about expecting updates on Toronto developments in the next 3 to 6 months. I wonder if you could just, I guess, tie that together and shed some light on that.

Speaker 1

Sure. So on the first part, work with CMHC is helping us in Ottawa, Gatineau and Calgary. I don't think in Saskatchewan, we're doing anything with them. In Toronto, we're working with them and we make progress. Again, the gap to make a project, a goal to get high enough returns, manage risk, it's been harder in Toronto.

Speaker 1

And I've said it before, like the City of Toronto is very much aware of it and they're very active looking for feedback from other developers, from banks, from economists. See, what's happening in Toronto is there's still a tremendous amount of construction. And a lot of the construction are potentially building that were sold before COVID. And what we're seeing is as the cranes come down, they're not being used again. Now, we started form a and we sold it in June of 2023, we're the last ones to get through.

Speaker 1

A couple of other developers got some of their buildings through. And I think it's harder now. So what's happening is there's so many fewer buildings starting that are finishing that it was hard to believe at first to say a year ago when we were talking about this, but now everybody's staying in. And lands are getting approved by the city, but people aren't starting. So I think the city is very much aware that we have a housing crisis.

Speaker 1

The federal government has incentivized the cities to do what it takes to get things started. New buildings provide a lot of development charges and taxes and the city needs it. So we have a much more balanced conversation going on. We're all trying to find a way to fix the gap. So as an example, the city on a piece by piece basis has waived the requirement to replace office space if it helps get housing.

Speaker 1

So there's all kinds of things like that. They have the open doors policy that's been around for a while and it's expanding and that provides a lot of benefits if you have affordable housing to reduce your development charges, etcetera. And I think the city is taking in all sorts of opinions from people and we know they're hard at work finding ways to make starting developments easier. So we're expecting that over the next 3 to 6 months, the city will have some ideas. And I think I don't know exactly where, but I think they've made public statements in that regard as well.

Speaker 1

So I don't think we're saying anything that the city isn't saying as well.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. That's clear. Yes, that is super helpful. Looking forward to more updates in the months ahead. Last question for me, just on the asset management side.

Speaker 4

Michael, you mentioned hoping to hit a couple get a couple of hits over the next 12 to 18 months. I wonder if you could shed any light on sort of what sort of things you're looking at and what that could look like?

Speaker 1

Everything we are good at. I don't mean that's funny. We're seeing that there's a foreign capital that finds Canada interesting and we are trying to market Canada, Toronto, the West and I suspect we're going to find some investors who are interested in income properties in Canada. I don't see it's very likely that we'll find 4 investors interested in development. I just think that's more local and complicated.

Speaker 1

But I think on the investment side, we'll probably see some interest in income properties. In Europe, we're seeing some interest and Europe is doing way better than people expected. And generally what we're seeing is the people who have invested in real estate for a long time, they're not loving their portfolios. They want to make changes. Everything has been frozen for a while, but it seems like it's unfreezing.

Speaker 1

Private equity is showing up more in Canada. And so I think we're now starting to see that freeze free up and people are making new decisions and they're interested in trying new things. So we think there's we're presently having as busy as we've been talking to new institutions about new ideas and we expect that some of those will hit.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. Thank you. I'll turn it back.

Operator

The next question is from Mark Rothschild with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thanks and good morning everyone. Michael, the strategy as far as the development projects and the land development, obviously, you can't shift these things quarterly or even more every year. But I'm just curious how the recent move in interest rates would maybe impact your thoughts on starting new projects and your outlook for maybe condo development or other projects in your portfolio?

Speaker 1

So I think we're at the very beginning no, let me take my thoughts together. Today, the 10 year bond is about 3%. If we're working with CMHC, we can get 10 year financing of 3% or less. So with regard to doing apartments with CMHC, lower interest is better, but interest is not an issue anymore. It's all it's the construction cost, some of the costs associated with development with the city.

Speaker 1

But the development side with the city is coming along. Construction cost is unsolvable. It's just shocking how expensive things are. And hopefully, we'll see some improvements, but we see no indication of improvements there. So the interest rates are fine at the 3% level.

Speaker 1

From going from 5.25 to 5 to 4.75, it's a nice thing for consumers, for us. We save a bit of money. We got a lot of stuff hedged. We have some floating rate debt, but it's not it's a no real consequence for our company. The real issue is when do the consumers start to feel better.

Speaker 1

So right now, it looks like you did a 5 year mortgage under 4.5% fairly readily and I think that's pretty good. I think a lot of buyers are waiting to see how much lower it goes. But when you think about how when interest rates are increasing, people are incentivized to move quickly. On this side, I think they're incentivized to move slowly and get comfortable and they're not really concerned at this point about prices get taken off. But we have seen a lot of surveys that are showing that the projections for housing prices to increase in Toronto.

Speaker 1

So I think it's getting better, but the gap between what finished product is selling for and what you need for a new one is still too far, but hopefully we'll see that close. So everything is going in the right direction. The flip side is in Western Canada, they're already buying. They're buying it at I think the consumer is buying, businesses are buying land from us, institutions like schools are buying land from us. Rural building apartments, they're filling up right away and interest rates are coming down.

Speaker 1

So that should get even better. So we think in Western Canada, it's very, very strong, getting stronger. In Toronto, it's more a work in progress. It is getting better, but it's tough. Ottawa and Gas and O are kind of working according to plan.

Speaker 1

But having a 3% 10 year bond and doing it and doing a 3% loan on an apartment building, let's say, in Ottawa or Gatineau is quite achievable. We can build to at least 150 basis points spread between our cost of debt and the yield on costs. And that's why we're building so much in Western Canada and then the Capital Region.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Thanks. And maybe just one more. I'm not sure if you said anything about this earlier in the call and I missed it, but as far as Rapop Basin, what's your level of confidence that the sale can close by year end?

Speaker 1

Well, I would love to tell you that I am an expert on everything in America, but I am not. I have been learning as we go. I am shocked that the Department of Justice looks so closely at every single transaction. Arapahoe Basin is 2% of the Colorado market. The people who are buying it, they have 24% as we take the 26%, Vale has 40%.

Speaker 1

Whether Ultera has 24% or 26% looks pretty meaningless. But they have asked us to submit information, which is going in now and we'll hear in the next couple of months. But everybody involved is like this is a process. They believe the outcome is certain that they will get approved. But I actually don't know.

Speaker 1

I'm learning about it as we go.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Thanks. Good luck with that.

Speaker 1

Good luck. Thanks.

Operator

We have a follow-up from Sam Damiani with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Cohen. I just wanted to ask about the lot sale commitments through the end of next year increasing by over 200 from last quarter. Just wondering what's driving that if it's 1 or more bulk deals or if it's an indication of higher kind of recurring consumer demand?

Speaker 1

That would have more to do with that our progress of getting those lots ready, crystallized to sell. You know what I mean? Like that's driven by where we are on approvals and starting construction more than it is on anything else. The key thing is everything we brought to market has been sold to the best of my knowledge.

Speaker 4

So that's more that the demand was bigger than your quarter ago commitments were indicating?

Speaker 1

No, it would be that we've opened up a new part of a subdivision and made those lots for sale. Like if you come to buy something from us today, I don't think we have anything to sell you. But in the Q3, maybe at the end of September, we'll have another 100 or 200 lots in Alon or Brighton or somewhere else. And then you could buy those. And what's been happening is when we make them available, basically they all sell out.

Speaker 1

So the other thing we're doing is prior to doing some of the work, we're getting presale commitments. So it might come to you and say, okay, now we're ready. Do you want to sign up for 40 lots in this community? If we get enough, we'll build it. And then we I mean, that's been going very well.

Speaker 1

We've been hardly doing any spec development. So my point is, it's when the land is ready, that's driving when the sales are.

Speaker 4

Okay. That's super helpful. And then I guess with the increase, if it's 220 or whatever it is, is it concentrated in 1 or 2 communities or is it pretty widespread across your major communities that you're active on right now?

Speaker 1

No, no. Again, I think it's Brighton.

Speaker 3

Right, between Brighton and Providence is really good.

Speaker 1

Yes. And we did a lot of parcel sales in Providence. We might have done some single family. I don't remember when we brought them to market. But one thing I would say that to me is more insightful, no disrespect obviously, is that if we were thinking of developing 50 lots, in some place we increase them to 100 because of demand.

Speaker 1

That's the real driver. We've had interest, so we're going to do more.

Speaker 4

Got you. That's great. Thank you and I'll turn it back.

Operator

We have a question from Sid Levin, a shareholder. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi, Michael. Congratulations on and the team, congratulations on a fantastic quarter. I just wonder if I could follow-up just a little bit on the last comment that you made. It relates to the development or rather the sale of lots and acreage. From what you've described, it seems like it's not a demand issue at all, but it's a supply issue.

Speaker 5

Could you maybe explain a little bit about what that development cycle is? And to what degree you can forecast a year or 2 or 3 years forward, what supply of lots and acreage you might have available for sale? It's just like such a large part of the cash flow to the company. I'm just wondering how predictable on the supply side the available lots and acreage are? Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Thanks for the question Sid and thanks for spending your time on our businesses. We appreciate it. Your question is one that's very difficult to give a short answer to. So I'm going to try my best, but have some patience. Let's say we get 1,000 acres approved like in Brighton.

Speaker 1

We'll map out where we think we're going to develop year by year. And it's not just how much we're going to develop, it also has to do with we need some retail, we might need a school site, maybe we're going to build some apartments, where we're going to have single family, but even with single family, maybe we'll have some lane housing, which is really at the low end, maybe we're going to have some housing on a pond, which is at the high end and we look at it and say, okay, this is the way we're going to develop. It is very expensive to go out of sequence. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to do Phase 1 and they want to do Phase 8, it means you need to put roads and sewers and everything else.

Speaker 1

So the way we line this up is really important. But we do have room to make Phase 1 bigger or smaller just because of demand or we could also make it a little bit bigger or smaller to provide different kinds of real estate for sale. So if you were sitting with me and we had a map out, I could show you what we plan to do in 2,032. So that's really what drives it. And then when we I mentioned earlier what we try to do is we try to presale when we're ready.

Speaker 1

So then we'll go to the building and say, do you guys what's your appetite in this area? And that's where we really get a sense of demand. But what that means is, we'll get a that's where these pre sales come from. That means we have a contract to buy it, but it's way in advance. We still have to maybe even start construction and it will only become a sale when we have the asphalt down, they have access to it and we meet other requirements where they can start to get a building permit.

Speaker 1

So we probably have and then we get the money a year later. So over the next like 12 to 24 months, we have a really good insight on what we're going to have. And then when you go further like next year, so that's why he's saying like we got 2024, we know what's going on. 2025 looks really good. What we started to work on in 2025 is for 'twenty six and 'twenty seven.

Speaker 1

When you look at the presales, you can see it says some will be realized in 'twenty four, some in 2025. So we're already selling land that we know is available till 'twenty five. Soon we'll get to land, but we'll take deposit and won't be available for 2026. So we actually have pretty good visibility and it's more on the edges when we say, okay, why do we go from 80 to 120 lots and expand the subdivision a bit. That's really the margin.

Speaker 1

But for the most part, what we're seeing is a steady demand. And when I say demand, we're not just talking about what is already buys lots from us, we're talking about whether the builder is selling the lots to the final customer. And what we keep close track on our subdivisions is how many end users are buying houses. And from that we can tell pretty much that the builder is going to want to re up as they're getting through the demand. And we learned that lesson in 2014 and 2015 where we're selling lots to people, but they weren't selling it to any end users.

Speaker 1

So we got a sale, but then the next year, the year after, they didn't buy anything from us. So we're now really matching up our development costs with the demand by the ultimate customer. So we've got pretty good visibility for 'twenty four, for 'twenty five. We mentioned last call that the City of Saskatoon is going to build an elementary school, a high school that's public plus a Catholic elementary a Catholic elementary school, a Catholic high school. The Y is going to build a $60,000,000 community center all in our land.

Speaker 1

And that like we won't have presales for that, but we know that's going to generate tremendous demand. And if we were forecasting, we would say, well, we don't have the presales, but we know we're going to sell more as 3,700 students start to attend that school. And I think they'd rather live around the school with all the facilities than have to take a bus. So for the most part, we have very good visibility. And when you get longer out, we look at those kinds of things.

Speaker 1

And right now, a lot of things are lining up very well.

Speaker 5

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I'll turn the conference back over to Mr. Cooper for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

I just want to thank everybody, like I thank Sid for your time and attention. We're happy to provide more answers. If people want to see our properties, we're happy to make it available. But thank you for following us and we look forward to working for you. Thank you.

Operator

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines.

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