SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE:SLG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Michael Lewis: So I saw an interest to LIRR yesterday when I was on my weighted my Metro North train. I was actually kind of shocked. So you beat me to it because I was going to ask about that. I guess I never thought it would open either. So congratulations on that. My first question, I wanted to ask about an update on the properties or let missed this here. So Andrew mentioned to stand off in the market and he gave some color. But maybe you could just add to that. Is there a question of waiting on financing markets? Are there very different opinions of price? And then also, have you given any guidance in terms of expected transaction timing, particularly for the interest in 245 Park and in One Vanderbilt?

Andrew Mathias: No change in guidance on timing from December. I think just looking at the curve, you have short rates at 4.5% and long rates of 3.5%. So naturally, buyers want to borrow long and the providers of long debt right now are being very cautious about the deals that they choose and bond buyers are sort of slowly coming back to the CMBS market. So I think when you see that long market materialize and start to get more liquid on the debt side, you’ll see buyers reemerge for assets. It’s not — it’s less a matter of — there’s a big gap in the price people pay because sellers aren’t really entertaining offers until they know they can get realistic and they don’t want to sell at a time when there’s a real lack of financing available. So I think you’re just going to have to see the long financing come back, and then we’ll see where the market settles.

Michael Lewis: Okay. Great. And then second for me, a question about the financial leverage and how you’re looking at that. You fixed a lot of your debt now. And I’m wondering if that makes it — does it become less of a priority to kind of delever to the extent you want to? And does it change at all how you consider other uses for disposition proceeds relative to stock buybacks or other investments or other uses?

Matthew DiLiberto: For 2023, the answer simply is no. The fixing of debt was something that we very carefully choreographed the middle to later half of last year and the timing of the debt that we fixed coincides with our expected timing of asset sales, dispositions that — and other funding sources that allow that debt to get repaid. So what we laid out in December was a plan to reduce debt by $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion through dispositions in excess of $2 billion and other sources of capital, like the funding from our partners at One Madison to the extent any of that debt that we are repaying is floating, and we have swapped to fixed, we put swaps in place that coincide with our expected repayment timing. So it all lines up the fixing of the debt and the repayment schedule with what we said in December.

Operator: Our next question or comment comes from the line of Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan.

Anthony Paolone: Can you hear me?

Andrew Mathias: Yes, I can.

Anthony Paolone: So first question, I guess for Mark or Andrew, on the third-party capital side, can you give us a sense as to what type of return you’re pitching prospective investors on 245 Park and just a general sense as to maybe what kind of return that market requires right now for New York City office project.

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