Douglas Emmett, Inc. (NYSE:DEI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

I mean we’re still facing some downsizing from large tenants that we mentioned. And so far, the trend has still been slightly negative. So we just need to see that turnaround. We need to see the confidence change in the small guys and the larger guys feel more comfortable about growing again.

Jordan Kaplan: But what you said about the leasing group is something we’ve said in good markets. We’ve spent a ton of money building a very, very sophisticated leasing platform in order to obviously make the highs higher and make the lows less low. And I mean, we’re doing — if you look at just the amount of leasing, we’re doing an incredible amount of leasing. We’ve had now 2 quarters that were close to 1 million fee, that’s a lot of leasing. I mean, I look at our peers are 3x our size, 4x our side for doing more leasing than they’re doing. So we’re — there’s a ton of activity, and we have a platform that’s designed properly to really capture our fair share and more than our fair share of that activity. And as Peter alluded to, and as I said, I really do believe this is a function of the larger tenants doing exactly what the Fed has asked them to do, which is shrink back.

I mean they’re making capital more expensive. They’re trying to shrink the economy. They said, we know there’s going to be a lot of pain. We want to — we want to address inflation. And people running large companies that would normally be saying I’m opening this new division. I’m doing this new thing. I’m going to do this whatever this new movie or whatever it is, are all in the mode of — here’s how I’m cutting expenses. And when I read outside of our industry, I’m constantly reading about people’s plan for cutting expenses. So of course, it’s impacting these guys. But that is as the cyclical effect of a recession. That’s the point I was trying to make in my prepared remarks. Wow, are you using like a 1970s typewriter?

Camille Bonnel : I like the mechanical typewriters. It’s good feedback. I guess the point is from a liquidity standpoint and granted, yes, you’re doing a lot of leasing activity, but there’s still occupancy pressures going forward just based on your lease expiration schedule. So how do you balance that liquidity and the flexibility you have on the balance sheet with the declining or risk of declining income versus opportunistic investments in this type of market.

Jordan Kaplan: Well, we’ve been balancing it for the last 3 or 4 years, same way we’ve been doing it. We have plenty of cash flow to do our leasing. So that’s not really an issue. Even in excess of the dividend and everything else. I mean — and even after we finished all our leasing and paid all our TIs, we still have plenty of cash flow.

Operator: And our next question will be a follow-up from John Kim with BMO.

John Kim : I wanted to get an update on the bad debt that you had during the quarter. A lot of your multifamily peers talked about this quite extensively this quarter? And also, if Barrington has had an impact on bad debt, I can imagine some of these tenants being kicked out, maybe bad actors?

Peter Seymour: Yes. It’s Peter. I mean we’re really not seeing anything out of the ordinary in terms of bad debt on the multifamily side. So I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to with the other companies, but we’re seeing good payment good collection trends on the multifamily side. And I don’t think there’s a meaningful impact from Barrington.

John Kim : Would you say bad debt has come down in the second quarter?

Peter Seymour: Well, we never.

Jordan Kaplan: As a percent of our collections in the quarter.

Peter Seymour: We’ve handled that much bad debt on the multifamily side to begin with that. Yes.