The Macerich Company (NYSE:MAC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Kingsmore: And Todd, just refer to the disclosures we have on our pipeline. Those will actually get a little bit better than the one we had over Investor Day because of the improved leasing demand that we continue to see. But you can take a look and see what the incremental pipeline is by year.

Todd Thomas : Okay. That’s helpful. And how much of the $62 million or that leasing pipeline, how much of that is in the same store?

Scott Kingsmore: The vast majority of it is same-store. We don’t have a lot of development — ongoing development projects that are significant where we pull anything out north of 95%.

Todd Thomas : Okay. And just last question. On the occupancy specifically, you’re looking to sort of be in that 93.5% to 94% range by the end of the year. Just in terms of seasonality, you talked about sort of low levels of bankruptcy. And last year was obviously very muted in terms of what occupancy was lost after the holidays. Do you have visibility on what that sort of seasonal occupancy decline might look like early this year, whether that will be similar to ’22 or more of a historical sort of average if we think about that occupancy trend throughout the year?

Scott Kingsmore: Yes. We’re really going to see occupancy — physical occupancy tick up by the time you get to the end of the year. Today, when we looked at physical versus leased occupancy at the end of 2022, it was approaching nearly 3%, which is pretty elevated for us, Todd. As our pipeline continues to get built out, the new stores start to open and start to pay rent, we’ll see that gap start to narrow. So I expect physical occupancy will really start to pick up in the latter half of the year, which certainly sets up a good backdrop for cash flow and NOI growth in 2024.

Todd Thomas : What about seasonally moving from 4Q ’22 into early ’23, right, 4Q to 1Q, sort of 1Q to 2Q, are you expecting any seasonal occupancy loss? Or do you expect this to be another year where there’s just very little muted sort of levels of occupancy loss early in the year?

Scott Kingsmore: You’ll always see a drop after the fourth quarter. January is typically when leases roll, you’ve obviously got the temporary tenancies, which are seasonal in nature, and those guys may roll off. So you’ll always see a little bit of a tick down from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. It could perhaps be a little bit less. We’ll see how that pans out. But that’s just traditional with our business.

Tom O’Hern: Yes. Historically, if you go back over the last 15 or 20 years, it’s been a range of 20 basis points to 60 basis points decline between the fourth quarter and end of the first quarter. And I would expect that it would be very similar this year.

Scott Kingsmore: Yes. If I recall, Tom, last year, it was about 40 to 50.

Tom O’Hern: Yes. correct.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mike Mueller with JP Morgan.

Mike Mueller : Scott, what is the actual retailer valuation income assumption in the ’23 forecast? I think you said it was about $0.05 higher year-over-year, but what’s the number?

Scott Kingsmore: It’s about $0.01 in aggregate, very small. Very hard to predict also where these market valuations are going to be, but it’s nominal in 2023 to be conservative.

Mike Mueller : Got it. Okay. And then on some of the densification opportunities that you talked about, can you just run through some rough time lines?

Tom O’Hern: It’s — those are really going to run — some happened — the ones I mentioned relating to multifamily, it takes a little while to get the entitlement perfected and move forward. Those are going to mostly hit in ’24 and ’25. As it relates to the retail projects such as Scheels Sporting Goods and Arte Museum, those will be open late ’23 or into ’24. So it is a variety. We expect to spend about $150 million, Mike, in ’23. And I would expect to like them out ’24 to get those entitlements up and going. Biltmore might be a little further out there as we perfect the entitlement there. That’s probably more like a ’25 opening, ’24, ’25.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ki Bin Kim with Truist.