Piedmont Office Realty Trust Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Piedmont Office Realty Trust EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.37
• Consensus EPS: $0.37
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $143.23 million
• Expected Revenue: $142.16 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.07 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/13/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Friday, February 14, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Piedmont Office Realty Trust (NYSE:PDM) (also referred to herein as "Piedmont" or the "Company") (NYSE: PDM) is an owner, manager, developer, redeveloper and operator of high-quality, Class A office properties located primarily in major U.S. Sunbelt markets. The Company is a fully-integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust ("REIT") with local management offices in each of its markets and is investment-grade rated by Standard & Poor's and Moody's. The Company was designated an Energy Star Partner of the Year for 2021, 2022 and 2023, and it was the only office REIT headquartered in the Southeast to receive those designations. Approximately 85% of the Company's square footage is Energy Star certified and nearly 70% is LEED certified. Piedmont is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings. Welcome to the Piedmont Office Realty Trust Inc. Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Call. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Laura Moon.

[Operator]

You may begin.

[Laura Moon, Chief Accounting Officer & Senior VP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Piedmont's fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings conference call. Last night, we filed an eight K that includes our earnings release and our unaudited supplemental information for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four that is available for your review on our website at piedmontreit.com under the Investor Relations section. During this call, you will hear from senior officers at Piedmont.

[Laura Moon, Chief Accounting Officer & Senior VP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Their prepared remarks followed by answers to your questions will contain forward looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward looking statements address matters which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and therefore, actual results may differ from those we anticipate and discuss today. The risks and uncertainties of these forward looking statements are discussed in our press release as well as our SEC filings. We encourage everyone to review the more detailed discussion related to risks associated with forward looking statements in our SEC filings. Examples of forward looking statements include those related to Piedmont's future revenues and operating income, dividends and financial guidance, future financing, leasing and investment activity and the impact of this activity on the company's financial and operational results.

[Laura Moon, Chief Accounting Officer & Senior VP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

You should not place any undue reliance on any of these forward looking statements and these statements are based upon the information and estimates we have reviewed as of the date these statements are made. Also on today's call, representatives of the company may refer to certain non GAAP financial measures such as FFO, core FFO, AFFO and same store NOI. The definitions and reconciliations of these non GAAP measures are contained in the earnings release and supplemental financial information, which were filed last night. At this time, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Brent Smith, will provide some opening comments regarding fourth quarter and annual 2024 operating results. Brent?

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thanks, Laura. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we review our fourth quarter and annual 2024 results. In addition to Laura, on the line with me this morning are George Wells, our Chief Operating Officer Chris Colmey, our EVT of Investments and Sherry Retstrode, our Chief Financial Officer. We also have the usual full complement of our management team available to answer your questions. Before I get into Piedmont's specific results, I'd like to take a moment and discuss the continuing improvement in the office market fundamentals and the near term growth opportunities for our business.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

No doubt, the perception around office space turned the corner in 2024 with many major employers and Piedmont tenants such as Salesforce, Amazon, UPS, AT and T and Starbucks, just to name a few, continuing to prescribe greater in office attendance. We've witnessed this dynamic for companies, small and large, implementing a workforce strategy that utilizes office space to build corporate culture, foster collaboration, push the boundaries of creative thinking and to communicate most effectively. The need for well located, amenitized and differentiated office space has never been more important for a company. And as a result, demand continues to grow for well priced, high quality, high service operators and buildings, which is very much aligned with Piedmont's strategy. And with virtually no new construction and supply growth at historic lows for the next two to three years, we believe the market for high quality office space will tighten in 2025 and for the years following, providing the backdrop for strong increases in rental rates across the portfolio, but particularly our Sunbelt market.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

The fourth quarter witnessed positive yet modest net absorption according to JLL's national office report, levels not seen since 2021 with three of Piedmont's markets, Dallas, Orlando and New York, included in the list of those reflecting these positive trends. In addition, on a national basis, gross leasing volumes have improved each of the last three quarters, reaching post pandemic highs for the fourth quarter coming in at ninety two percent of pre COVID averages. However, I note that this demand is more concentrated than ever at the top end of the market. As we've discussed before, 90% of the vacancy resides in the bottom 30% of the office stock. As a result, we're starting to see demand at the top of the market outpace supply.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

In addition, the uncertainty regarding tariffs and labor costs further validates Piedmont's strategy of acquiring existing assets in desirable locations and bringing them up to today's standards. And the recent announcements regarding the federal government's rationalization of its office space should have limited to no impact on Piedmont, given that the GSA represents approximately 0.5% of our annualized revenue. As we look back at what Piedmont accomplished in 2024, we achieved a number of our strategic goals, but our leasing success certainly pops the list. During 2024, we completed 2,400,000 square feet of total leasing, the most leasing we've completed on an annual basis since 2015. And we grew cash basis same store NOI by 2.6% with both metrics well above our original projections and guidance for the year.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Over 1,000,000 square feet of our 2024 leasing was related to new tenant leases, resulting in absorption for our in service portfolio and a year end lease percentage of 88.4%. Additionally, the leases we executed during 2024 reflected very strong real rate growth, approximately 12% on a cash basis and almost 20% on an accrual basis. The strongest growth we've experienced in the past five years on accrual basis and then over a decade on a cash basis. During 2024, we also saw incremental liquidity coming into the office sector. National office transactional activity, albeit still at historic lows, started to improve, up 29% year over year.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We were able to capitalize on this uptick to accomplish another 2024 strategic goal by disposing of two properties, which generated approximately $77,000,000 of gross proceeds. As office fundamentals continue to improve, debt financing is becoming more readily available and spreads continue to tighten for high quality assets. As Chris will touch on, on his remarks, this bolsters our expectations to dispose of select non core and mature assets in 2025. As expected, our refinancing activity continued in full force and was a top strategic goal for 2024. The team did an outstanding job to complete a $400,000,000 bond offering in June at a significantly improved credit spread compared to our 2023 offering.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And just this week, we completed some additional transactions that Sherry will go into in more detail about in a moment. The headline being that we now have no debt with a final maturity until 2028. Finally, core FFO for the year was $1.49 per diluted share and reflected approximately $22,000,000 or $0.17 per diluted share of increased net interest expense as compared to the previous year. Additionally, our 2024 results reflected the sale of two properties and the downtime between the expiration of a few large leases during the year before newly executed leases commence late in 2024 or will commence in 2025. No doubt, there is still work left to do and George will provide market specifics and details on our leasing pipeline in a moment, but we continue to believe that the investments we've made in our portfolio combined with our relentless focus on best in class service and a sustainability mindset are resonating with the market, clients and the brokerage community.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And the demand for highly amenitized, well located work environments operated by a financially stable landlord will continue to grow throughout 2025. We believe our portfolio is well positioned to capture more than our market share of customer demand and we will be able to continue to drive leasing percentage and rental rate growth this year. 2025 contractual expirations are very manageable with roughly half already filled or close to being backfilled. We expect our backlog of approximately 1,400,000 square feet, representing roughly $46,000,000 of future annual cash flow to benefit our financial results during the latter half of twenty twenty five as those leases commence or reach the end of their abatement period. With that, I'll now hand the call over to George, who will go into more details on fourth quarter operational results.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thanks, Brent. Good morning, everyone. Once again, our well located, highly amenitized portfolio performed well in the last quarter of the year and the impact of greater in office attendance is being realized. During the fourth quarter, we completed 45 lease transactions for 433,000 square feet of total overall volume, well within our typical range of 350,000 to 500,000 square feet with renewal transactions dominating the activity. Our twenty twenty four year to date haul of over 1,000,000 square feet of new leasing is a retro amount not seen since 2016 when our portfolio was approximately 20% larger.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Lower new leasing volumes in the fourth quarter were reflective of users taking longer to make decisions post election, and I'll touch on our robust pipeline in a moment. But we believe the slowdown was related to economic uncertainty post election as well as a shortened period between Thanksgiving and the end of the year holiday slowdown. Importantly, we have witnessed a more normalized level of new leasing in the first quarter. Activity for the fourth quarter was predominantly focused on smaller users and our retention rate came in at 66% in line with our historical quarterly average trend of 70%. New leasing activity moved our lease percentage into the middle of our projected range ending at 88.4%.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Lease economics was strong with 11.5% and a 14.7% roll up from increased investments for the quarter on a cash and accrual basis respectively. Leasing capital spend stayed relatively flat at approximately $6 per square foot per lease year, in line with our average over the past several quarters. Sublease availability continues to hover around 5% of the total portfolio with only 25,000 square feet expiring in 2025. Dallas was our most active segment this quarter closing on 16 deals for 225,000 square feet or 52 of the company's overall volume. New transactions were completed in each of our three submarkets here, which consists of Las Colinas, Uptown and Lower Tollway.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Galleria Towers continues to experience strong demand from large users due in part to superior accessibility located at the nexus of two major highways, the Lower Tollway and North Tollway and is also considered the most centrally located submarket in Dallas. Kinley Horn, a national engineering firm extended on all of this 83,000 square feet at the complex for another ten years. Also at Galleria, a large international e commerce retailer released 43,000 square feet to accommodate its new five day a week return to office mandate. We're also in the legal stage for a large user to backfill a substantial majority of Ryan's lease at 3 Galleria Towery, which is scheduled to expire during the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Galleria's exceptional location and many of which environment and hospitality infused redevelopment have allowed us to increase net rental rates by 10% over the past year and approximately 30% since acquisition in 2020.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

This unique 1,500,000 square foot project has had an incredible success story for Piedmont. The project stands at over 90% lease with an opportunity to push rents even higher, now approaching $40 on a net rent basis resulting in strong economics on Piedmont's foot basis of approximately $280 a square foot. Moving to Suburban Boston. Our third largest deal of the quarter was a renewal transaction at our Wayside Complex in Burlington where we extended large technology company's lease for its entire 33,000 square foot footprint for a seven year term. In Boxborough, Two new deals were completed for 13,000 square feet at 80 Central Ave with one of those deals coming from an existing customer expanding its footprint by 30% for ten years' term.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

The PMA formula for attracting and retaining customers worked extremely well in 2024 and we're confident of continued success in 2025. Today, our leasing pipeline is strong with over 300,000 square feet in late stage activity. Outstanding proposals stand at 2,600,000 square feet for both our in service and redevelopment portfolios, which is higher than our trailing twelve months. Though demand is strong, the course of quarterly net space absorption is also dependent on the amount and timing of exploration. And it remains to be seen whether the uncertainty from the federal administration change usually brings will impact corporate decision making as we move into 2025.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Our supplemental report shows 7.4% of our ALR expiring in 2025 with the first quarter having the most exposure for the year. As such, we project lease expirations for the first half of twenty twenty five to moderately exceed our due leasing quarterly average before we resume positive net in the second half of the year. Assuming there's no downside surprise for The U. S. Economy, we project our lease percentage for our in service portfolio to end the year between 8990%.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I'll now turn the call over to Chris Comey for any comments on investment activity. Chris?

[Christopher Kollme, Executive Vice President of Investments & Strategy at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thank you, George. I'm pleased to report that we are in advanced negotiations for the disposition of two small non core assets, one in Dallas and one in Boston, that if both are consummated will generate approximately $35,000,000 in gross proceeds. We have another two to three assets that are currently in price discovery, but given market conditions, the outcomes of these efforts are uncertain, although the strategy for selling these assets is entirely consistent with Piedmont's long standing recycling initiatives.

[Christopher Kollme, Executive Vice President of Investments & Strategy at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

As we have done for years, we will continue to elevate and optimize the portfolio, and we will look to selectively shed non core assets throughout the year. On the new investment front, we remain highly engaged in each of our key markets and we expect to see some interesting opportunities in 2025. These could materialize in a variety of forms, including joint ventures, note purchases and or our more traditional fee simple acquisition. Our core investment strategy of owning high quality, differentiated assets located in healthy, thriving markets certainly will not change. While we are in active dialogue, the Barta transaction will be high, and there is nothing imminent to report at this time.

[Christopher Kollme, Executive Vice President of Investments & Strategy at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We remain very focused on executing our disposition pipeline and on continuing to position the balance sheet in order to play offense in 2025. With that, I'll pass it over to Sherry to cover our financial results.

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thank you, Chris. While we will be discussing some of this quarter's financial highlights today, please review the entire earnings release and the accompanying supplemental financial information, which were filed yesterday, for more complete details. Core FFO per diluted share for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four was $0.37 versus $0.41 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three and in line with consensus. Approximately $0.02 of the decrease is due to increased net interest expense as a result of refinancing activity over the past year with the remaining decrease attributable to lower reported rental income due to the sale of two properties during 2024 as well as the downtime between the expiration of a few large leases earlier in the year before newly executed leases commence. AFFO generate during the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four was approximately $28,000,000 providing ample coverage of a current $15,000,000 quarterly dividend and the funding for our foreseeable capital needs.

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

As we've previously mentioned, CapEx for 2024 was elevated as we concluded several major building redevelopment projects and we expect lower redevelopment requirements this year. As Brent mentioned, our core FFO per diluted share was $1.49 outperforming consensus by $0.01 and below the prior year's $1.74 due to the factors articulated by Brent earlier. Turning to the balance sheet. Our liquidity position as of year end was comprised of the full capacity on our $600,000,000 revolving line of credit and approximately $110,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents. I'm pleased to report that yesterday, we amended our $200,000,000 syndicated bank term facility to increase the capacity by $125,000,000 and to add two six month extensions, extending the final maturity to 2028.

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We used these new proceeds along with cash on hand and our revolving credit facility to repay the $250,000,000 term loan that was scheduled to mature on March 31. In conjunction with that transaction, we also recast our revolving credit facility to push the maturity out to 2028 with two one year extension options for a final maturity of 02/1930. As a result of this activity, as Brent indicated, we currently have no final debt maturities until 2028. Obviously, the large amount of refinancing activity that took place over the last two years has resulted in markedly higher interest expense. Fortunately, all unsecured debt maturing for the rest of this decade is expected to be refinanced at lower interest rates given the current forward yield curve and must be a tailwind to FFO per share growth.

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Further, our large backlog of executed but not commenced leases and leases and abatement begins to burn off later this year and should drive improved FFO results as well as improvement in our credit ratios. Please refer to page 39 of the supplemental information filed last night for details of major leases that have not yet commenced or are currently in abatement. Turning to guidance for 2025, we are introducing 2025 annual core FFO guidance in the range of $1.38 to $1.44 per share with the following assumptions. We expect executed leasing for the year of approximately 1,400,000 to 1,600,000 square feet, resulting in an anticipated year end lease percentage for the company's in service portfolio of approximately 89% to 90%, exclusive of any speculative acquisition or disposition activity same store NOI of flat to 3% increase on both the cash and accrual basis for the year net interest expense of approximately $127,000,000 to $129,000,000 versus $119,000,000 in 2024, reflecting the full year of higher interest rates as a result of refinancing activity completed by the company during 2024 and early twenty twenty five general and administrative expense of approximately $30,000,000 to $32,000,000 As a reminder, this guidance does not include any speculative acquisition, disposition or refinancing activity for the remainder of the year.

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

If such transactions occur, we will update this guidance. To help everyone understand the year over year change, the primary positive contribution to projected core FFO growth is a positive $0.04 to $0.08 from Hyatt Property Operations, which is offset by $0.07 to $0.08 from a full year of interest costs given the refinancings completed in 2024 and early twenty twenty five. Core FFO is further impacted by dispositions and modestly higher G and A and weighted average share count. With regard to specific quarterly guidance, as noted in previous calls, we expect quarterly results to improve in the second half of twenty twenty five as the backlog of newly executed leases commence. And with that, I will turn the call over to Brent for closing comments.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Thank you, George, Chris and Sherry. As we turn the page on 2024, we are assured that, as George said, the Piedmont formula is working. The investments that we've made in our portfolio combined with our customer centric placemaking mindset continue to resonate with existing and prospective tenants. Now that all our refinancing needs have been addressed for the next few years, we will continue to be selective with capital deployment and our focus in 2025 will be to drive our lease percentage and generate increased rental rate growth, which will ultimately result in FFO and cash flow growth. With that, I will now ask the operator to provide our listeners with instructions on how they can submit their questions.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We will attempt to answer all your questions now or we will follow-up with appropriate public disclosure if necessary. Operator?

[Operator]

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. Your first question for today is from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

First question relates to the leasing pipeline. I think last quarter you talked about something in the maybe mid-two million dollars range. Can you maybe get an update there and kind of what it looks like tenant wise and size industry that sort of thing?

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Certainly, Tony. This is George, and good morning to you.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Look, I think what we clearly, we had a phenomenal year in 2024, accomplishing about 2,400,000 square feet in totality. And as we look in terms of how we came up with our projections and our guidance for 2025, let me break that down in two different buckets. From a new deal perspective, we accomplished 1,000,000 in 2024. And I think we really need to back out the T and L transaction for nearly 200,000 square feet out of that total to get to about 800,000 square feet, which is kind of the ballpark of where we believe we will hit in 2025. And the reason I'm backing out that T and L deal from last year and not able to duplicate that in 2025 is we just don't have another large block of this size in our current in service portfolio.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

So I think from that perspective, we're on a reasonable path. From a renewal perspective, we accomplished, again, we're $2,400,000 in total, back half million dollars in new, $1,400,000 square feet. We had a couple of large transactions during the year, but we really have a much wider role in 2025. And in 2025 itself, we already know about Ryan who is leaving at the end of the first quarter, which we previously announced in the heading during home development a little further north from our current location. So in totality, we feel it's an assumption down the middle of the Fairway.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And then getting back to your question in terms of where is how is our pipeline and what sectors are we seeing? Well, I would say today, our pipeline is really good. We're looking at late stage activity, as I mentioned on my call, at about 300,000 square feet. So in the context of where we sit today, we are well on our way to meeting our overall goal for 2025 and comparing that to where we were in the first quarter of twenty twenty four, it's a similar trajectory. And then going even further back into proposals, to our early stage proposal list, we have 2,600,000 square feet in totality, which is above our trailing twelve months of 2,400,000 square feet.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And then when you take further into that, which is really what is in the new bucket, we're looking at 2,000,000 square feet of new activity and three quarters of that is for our in service portfolio. Sectors, coming back to that, we're seeing activity from the insurance sector, law, accounting, engineering firms and we'll even start to see some activities in the technology sector.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Okay, great. Thank you for that. And then just my follow-up is maybe for Brent.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Just how are you thinking about acquisitions versus dispositions? Because it sounds like on the disposition side, market's not great. You may not want to execute in this kind of market. But I'd imagine there's some similar dynamics on the acquisition side. So how do you weigh waiting on the dispositions when maybe the acquisition pricing may change on you too?

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Great question, Tony. I appreciate the time. This morning. I think first, we've really taken a lot of effort to position the balance sheet to where we can focus on the portfolio and growth opportunities and disposition opportunities. But with no maturities or final maturities until 2028, we feel like that gives us a really great runway to continue to recycle capital.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

If we think about 2025, Chris alluded to, we've got a couple of dispositions that are in the hopper and a few more behind that doing price discovery. I think we take a holistic view to portfolio. We're always looking to upgrade the quality, update the growth profile. And so you're going to continue to see us focus on those smaller non core, I'd say, not emblematic of the remainder of the portfolio, I mean, the lowest quality assets initially to dispose off. But we'll then continue throughout this year testing what we would call mature well leased assets and looking to monetize.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We're realistic on where the pricing is in the market, but we're also very mindful to continue to move the strategic needle, continue to rotate a little further into the Sunbelt.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

So we'll look to leverage the PESON platform to transform that 80,000, 90 thousand, two thousand vintage assets that we go after from an acquisition standpoint. And we are evaluating call it $200,000,000 3 hundred million dollars on the growth asset value basis assets. But we recognize the key to being able to grow is really raising equity to target those growth opportunities that is accretive. And that will do so and utilize either public or private capital that will coincide with the risk of the asset.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

So as I talked about that kind of evaluation portfolio or deals that we're looking at, they're predominantly opportunistic in nature. And so as a result, it really wouldn't facilitate or be what we look to bring on balance sheet at least day one. And so we think of those as probably more likely to be done with a joint venture partner. We own 100% of all our assets and we feel like that doesn't add a lot of complex to the balance sheet if we were to go after a few assets in that manner. We typically be maybe 10%, twenty % of the equity in that venture.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And again, we'd be looking for low basis, 20 plus percent IRRs. And those assets would really take two to three years to reposition. So we think about really then that creating a potential pipeline for acquisitions once the markets do start to stabilize and more normalized environment. But we're going to utilize our same recycling strategy to continue to call the kind of bottom quality. There would be modest solution potential in some of those dispositions, but I think moving the strategic needle and improving the quality of the overall portfolio and again the growth profile will make up for that in the multiple.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And again, we feel like there's we can take our time, what we've got in terms of dispositions planned for this year. We feel like we feel that equity bucket in that joint venture program if we find they're able to consummate some of those opportunities.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Is that helpful? Yes, that's great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question is from Nick Filman with Baird.

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe George or Brent commenting on just the acceleration you guys kind of saw in new leasing to start the year. Just a little bit more commentary on the markets, the type of users that you're seeing on that pickup of activity. And then maybe I know in November you're touching on in that proposal bucket, you had a decent amount of requirements over 50,000 square feet, just a little bit more commentary on the larger users within that pipeline.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Certainly, Nick.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

This is George. As I mentioned, we've got 2,000,000 square feet in overall due activity. And when you break down between the markets, we the bulk of that, 35% of that is in Atlanta. And that's no surprise that we've got a large role there in 2026 that we're working on the backfill. But then you've got Dallas that's been around 10% from a new activity perspective.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And Minneapolis does stick out as well as about 28% is related to new activity in Minneapolis. And that's our redevelopment portfolio, right? We've got Excelsior, we've got Meridian Crossing that as as you recall, we have some large vacancies there, but we feel good about it. We've got 500,000 square feet of transactions amongst those two assets and about 10 deals over 50,000 square feet apiece. In totality though, not just there, but we have 15 transactions that are in our proposal space for over 50,000 square feet.

[George Wells, Executive VP & COO at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

That's up by three from last quarter. So and I think there are areas of sectors that we're looking at. So I don't think I need to touch that again.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Yes, I would say to add, really on top of that from a sector standpoint, we've seen tech a little bit increase, but for the most part, it's been more of our bread and butter fire, professional services, accounting, engineering, architecture, etcetera. Again, those higher collaborations, we call it maybe apprenticeship model businesses.

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Thank you. That's helpful. And the 1,400,000 to 1,600,000 square feet of leasing, that doesn't include any sort of like chunkier renewal, say like a New York City renewal or anything along those lines?

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Well, it does include the expected New York City renewal within those numbers. I think as we've talked about it, let me just go ahead and touch on 2026 maturities.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I think that's probably what you're alluding to. We are including the city renewals still expected to hopefully execute sometime towards the end of the year and the second half of the year. And then if we think about Evershed, there's also a first half of '20 '20 '6 exploration. That's been reported and we have noted that they are going to vacate. But we have actually very good velocity behind that and we've got about half of their space now backfilled as well or in process that were in legal stage.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

So we feel very comfortable about continuing to backfill that space before it actually never vacates. And then the last larger lease that we have in 2026 would be the Epsilon lease. That's in the second half of the year and still a little early to tell. I think we still feel pretty good about the outcome of that and the occupied utilizes space But we'll continue to keep the investors updated on that as well on the next call.

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

That's helpful.

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Sherry, just last one. On the lease percentage for year end, there's no large scale move out or changes to the pool embedded in that number like in 2024 when you had the two assets going dark. That 100 basis point improvement at the midpoint, it's just kind of a clean apples to apples comparison?

[Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Correct.

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

All

[Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

right.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Yes, that's correct. We'll have nothing that will kind of go into the out of service portfolio this year. Again, we only would utilize that as a full building with dark in it with a single tenant like those two that we put in last year and they're deep in renovation and having it, as George alluded to, really good leasing success, we think we'll have some positive news to share on the next call around those transactions sorry, those assets, Meridian and Excelsior.

[Operator]

Your next question for today is from Dylan Berzynski with Green Street.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Obviously, sounds like another decent year, pretty good year in terms of 2025 being able to push that absorption. And not to get too early into how things will shape out for 2026, but to us that seems like the growth will finally be realized in terms of NOI coming online in 2026. It sounds like there's some larger move out.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

So just trying to get a sense for, I mean, do you guys think there's enough new leasing in the pipeline to continue to be able to push on this upward trajectory of lease percentage?

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Hi, Dylan. It's Brent. Yes, I think you capped it well. We had a great year in 2024 and we didn't have great net absorption.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I think we also increased our guidance during the year by 100 basis points in terms of occupancy. And we also hit at the top end of our range in terms of same store NOI guidance as well actually exceeded that range from the initial point during the year. So it has been a great '24. If you look through to '25, we as George alluded to, we have very low expiries and a great pipeline. So we feel like we still got plenty of runway to continue to drive to George in '25.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We feel very comfortable in that 89% to 90% occupancy level. And given where the blocks are coming, you noted we have some large blocks coming back. That's the Ryan space, which we feel like we've got a backfill tenant, very close in that regard and we'll share more information on the next call. But then if you think about the remainder of 'twenty five, there's really just one other limited larger expiry in the fourth quarter in Minneapolis. So we feel like it's very manageable.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And so 'twenty five still feel very comfortable with 89% to 90%. If we look at 26%, we do have the Evershed fleet that will vacate in the second quarter. It will and I think be very positive received in the marketplace when we share some of the leasing activity that we've got out of the building. It's still a little early, but I feel very comfortable in saying that we'll have that backfill predominantly at higher rates and meaningful cash flow up. And then also within '26, we talked about the city.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We feel very good about maintaining them and keeping them in the space and occupancy for the substantial majority, if not all of the space. And then the remainder of '26 is still a little too early to tell once we get into the second half. But overall, yes, we feel very comfortable where the pipeline is. It's going to feed the known makings that we've discussed and continue to drive occupancy higher and cash flow ups as well will be very positive during that timeframe.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Great.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

And then just sort of touching on prospects for net effective rent growth. I mean, obviously, as you guys get closer to that 90% lease, it seems likely that and obviously, it's going to depend on specific submarket and assets. But I mean, do you guys see twenty twenty six thirteen in a question point in being able to push that effective rent growth across the portfolio?

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I think we're actually already the point where we're pushing that effective rent growth, particularly in our unbilled markets, where we're at 93%, ninety four % leased in some of those. And we continue to have top of market rents for our product, but still well below replacement cost and new construction rents.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

So we feel like we've got a great runway when it comes to the Sunbelt. I'd say suburban offices, suburban Minneapolis, they've been sluggish. We probably would have said they're flat in ERs. I probably would still say it's flat, maybe slightly positive as we ended '26. We are seeing again in Minneapolis.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

We're one of the few well heeled and equipped landlords to fund PIs and improve and create the modern workplace environment. So I think we'll continue to go very well there. We don't have a lot of vacancy overall in Boston. It's really just been one asset and that asset is really well positioned for growth. So in Boston, we'll continue to have net effective rent growth, again, modestly low single digits.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I'd say New York, we're pretty full. We're just focused on one week, not much to talk about there. And unfortunately, Norwood and Virginia doing pretty good and probably say again flat to slightly positive EHRs, but the district is structurally very challenging. We would expect there will be probably less than negative EDRs in that market overall. We continue to be very patient and I would remind investors and yourself that again it represents two projects and very small percentage of the portfolio that resides in the district.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

Again, it's about 5% of the overall ALR. And again, our GSA exposure is extremely limited. It's less than 0.5% of the portfolio. So with some of the decisions being made out of the new administration, we're expecting limited impact on the portfolio.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Have a good one.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Brent Smith for closing remarks.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

I want to thank everybody for joining us today. Happy Valentine's Day. We are really excited to share this track record of leasing and operational growth that we've been accomplishing. We've got the positioning and the platform for future growth. We're excited to share more of this at the P and E Conference if you happen to be there March in Florida.

[Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer at Piedmont Office Realty Trust]

And again, I would encourage investors if you haven't had a chance to come to Atlanta, see the portfolio and our strategies in person, we'd love to give you a tour. Please contact Sherry or Jennifer and thank you today, and if that is, if you would like a tour and or chance to sit down with management. And thanks for joining today.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Laura Moon, Chief Accounting Officer & Senior VP
• Brent Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer
• George Wells, Executive VP & COO
• Christopher Kollme, Executive Vice President of Investments & Strategy
• Sherry Rexroad, CFO & EVP

Analysts

• Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan
• Nicholas Thillman, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co
• Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC