Highwoods Properties, Inc. (NYSE:HIW) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brendan Maiorana: Hey, Peter, it’s Brendan. I would say, I mean, it’s on a cash basis we’ve been roughly kind of around flat for the pack really almost since the onset of COVID. So that’s probably a good marker and in the low double digits on a GAAP basis. So those are probably good markers. Again, a little bit difficult to forecast just given the mix of expirations and new lease signings and things like that. But I think if you use those guideposts that probably gets you to kind of where €“ that probably ought to be in line with what we’ve got included in our outlook.

Peter Abramowitz: Okay. Got it. And then I guess a slightly different way of asking something that was asked earlier, but a lot of your coastal competitors have talked about a pickup in activity pretty meaningfully since the New Year. Are you seeing any signs of that in your markets and €“ or generally kind of any signs of an inflection in terms of business confidence and business leaders being more willing to make decisions, or is it still kind of the same that they’ve been for the past year or so?

Brian Leary: Hey, Peter. Brian here. So a couple of things to that kind of comparison. Our markets, our submarkets or BBDs are buildings we’re already ahead of that curve. So that’s kind of the first thing. But €“ so again, our smaller and medium-sized and particularly suburban were first back then they came back kind of across the board. Now the start of this year, I do think the bigger corporates, the ones that you’ve read about their CEOs saying that they want to get their folks back. We have absolutely seen that. Now what the great thing I think and we hope that this is the case, the issues around the pandemic, which still were hovering a year ago just as a potential back, those are really kind of abated in terms of the reason why folks are not coming back.

So I think that’s a good thing. Hopefully, that’s in the rearview mirror. We have been a fairly consistent, ahead of the curve, that curves continue to go up, peak occupancy is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for sure, Fridays are quiet, you’re seeing more on Mondays than you did at the end of last year. But I do believe that to a company there is a plan now that folks are back in the office three days a week.

Peter Abramowitz: All right. That’s it for me. Thank you.

Operator: We have a follow-up from Camille Bonnel, Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Camille Bonnel: Hi. I just have one follow-up. Given the big debate on whether the weakness of CBD urban office is temporary or not, can you remind us of the breakdown of the urban versus suburban in your portfolio? And within that are you seeing any clear distinction between the operating performance between the two, whether it would be leasing activity, occupancy or rents?

Brendan Maiorana: Hey Camille, it’s Brendan. So, yes, I mean I would say I mean from a CBD — we kind of classify it in three different ways. So, CBD, infill, and suburban. So, suburban, they’re not quite evenly distributed. You might have a little bit maybe suburban is about a quarter infill is — and then evenly split between infill and CBD. So, that’s kind of the portfolio breakdown in terms of maybe in terms of performance. I’ll let that over to Brian or Ted to answer that.

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