Sun Communities, Inc. (NYSE:SUI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

That being said, unfortunately, the opportunity in the U.K. has been impacted by really strong economic headwinds, even though the core of the business is performing. So with that being said, in very challenging times, we continue to really review all of our options, but we are very supportive of what the team is accomplishing there and we are very aware of those people, who have shared with us their thoughts on the capital invested in the U.K. Our goal really…

John Kim: Just one more final question for me.

Gary Shiffman: Our goal really is to maximize value for that investment and as we continue to perform and view the U.K., we are happy to share any thoughts that we have moving forward.

John Kim: Just one more final question on me. On the sales that you are planning in the U.S., what kind of cap rate should we expect? You have taken out mortgage debt at 5%, obviously, the interest rate environment is not helping, but what should we be modeling in for exit cap rates?

Gary Shiffman: So I am going to suggest we are going into the market next week with the first group and it would be best if we are able to report realize market data and not interfere with the process that’s taking place as we go out to the market.

John Kim: Great. Thank you.

Gary Shiffman: Okay. Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of James Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

James Feldman: Great. Thanks for taking my questions and I appreciate the commentary on the Board and management team focused on streamlining the company for growth. As I think about the last year, a big part of the Sun story for investors has really been just kind of surprises. Taking down U.K. Park Holiday guidance and then the loan — the U.K. loan. So as you are thinking about selling assets, deleveraging, I mean, that all makes sense. But like what can you say to like this process also making sure that there’s just not stuff that kind of catches people off guard or out of left field, that maybe you can’t see quite as clearly from the balance sheet or some of the reporting for the company?

Gary Shiffman: I am only going to suggest that there is a tremendous effort from the Board of Directors down to management to make sure that we provide as much transparency as we can. So that those type of surprises, although they weren’t economic headwinds in the U.K. came about very, very fast and had obviously dramatic impacts on these things that you are referencing. But I think what you are finding is that everything is clearly in disclosure and clearly open to discussion by the management team and we want nothing more than to be as transparent as possible. So that there aren’t any surprises going forward.

James Feldman: Okay. Thanks for that. And then as we think about — can you talk to what kind of pre-COVID run rates were for — whether it’s Marina business or even the MH business or even the U.K. business? Just to give us a sense of what we should expect in terms of longer term run rate for these businesses, once the COVID activity fade?

Gary Shiffman: I think that speaking to some communities, which has been public for 30 years. We have business lines that all have the same underlying fundamentals of high demand against very short supply and MH certainly affordable housing, which drives the high occupancies that historically performed very, very well in all economic times. And so when we share the fact that we have been able to get rental rate increases in excess of inflationary pressure throughout our history and have never delivered as a company, a fourth quarter period, where we didn’t have positive NOI growth. Our expectation and our goal with everything we are doing, with the rental increases, with the priorities that I shared with everybody, with the focus of the strategy that we have been implementing is to continue to get that same kind of same community growth and I have a drop down in an FFO per share basis to our shareholders.

So I think, historically, one has to look to how we performed and what we see as the outlook for certainly the rental rate increases that we have going forward and the high occupancies and demand is that we should be able to continue to grow and provide growth as we have historically done as a company. So we are optimistic about moving forward and we certainly have a lot of steps that we identified that we are taking to secure that kind of growth.

Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Anthony Powell with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Anthony Powell: Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I guess in terms of RV expenses, you have done a good job of reducing expenses, when you have had lower, I guess, transient demand. Are you able to leverage these lower expenses, let’s say, next year, if you have a recovery or stabilization there or do you think you would have to add back more expenses and create some surprises on the expense growth line there?

Fernando Castro-Caratini: I think, Anthony, we are always on the lookout for efficiencies and there are certainly things we are learning as an ops team to run our properties more efficiently. But, certainly, there is flex, right, as it relates to the variable rate or the variable expenses with transient and we are looking at another very strong year of transient site conversions over to the annual side. We are already at 1,800 sites converted as of the end of the third quarter and our — would expect that elevated level of conversions to continue into 2024, which will — which does continue to reduce transient revenue as a percentage of total revenues for the portfolio.

Anthony Powell: Got it. Maybe one more expense question on insurance. I guess, so far this year, I think, it’s been a less destructive hurricane season. I know we talked about some initiatives to reducing service expense increases at NAREIT in June. So maybe update us on how you are looking at expense growth for insurance next year and will you be able to maybe have a better outcome on that line item?