Prologis Inc
Strategic Capital is Prologis' asset management business, which invests alongside institutional partners in logistics real estate and generates durable fee-based revenue while expanding the company's global presence and leveraging its operating platform. The business manages $102 billion in assets, including $67 billion of third-party capital. About Prologis The world runs on logistics. The world runs on logistics. At Prologis, we don't just lead the industry, we define it. We create the intelligent infrastructure that powers global commerce, seamlessly connecting the digital and physical worlds. From agile supply chains to clean energy solutions, our ecosystems help your business move faster, operate smarter and grow sustainably. With unmatched scale, innovation and expertise, Prologis is a category of one–not just shaping the future of logistics but building what comes next.
Carries 30.6x more debt than cash on its balance sheet.
Current Price
$137.19
-0.60%GoodMoat Value
$73.89
46.1% overvaluedPrologis Inc (PLD) — Q3 2016 Earnings Call Transcript
AI Call Summary AI-generated
The 30-second take
The company had a very strong quarter. Demand for their industrial warehouses is high, occupancy hit a record, and rents grew significantly. They are so confident in their business that they raised their financial outlook for the year and increased the dividend they pay to shareholders.
Key numbers mentioned
- Core FFO per share for the third quarter was $0.31.
- In-service occupancy was 97.3%, a 60 basis point increase.
- Rent growth on new and renewal leases for the quarter was 19%.
- Net absorption for the industrial market in the third quarter was 77 million square feet.
- Overall vacancy nationwide dropped to approximately 5%.
- Development starts guidance was raised to a range of $650 million to $750 million.
What management is worried about
- The primary concern is not the U.S. or real estate, but potential negative global macroeconomic events that could spill over.
- There is a noted inconsistency in transportation indices, though they are still reasonably positive.
- They are closely managing pre-leasing levels on new development starts to control risk.
- An office park sale had to be put on hold due to an M&A transaction involving the primary tenant.
- They acknowledge that maintaining a high same-store NOI growth rate will become more challenging as they have fewer lease expirations to recapture rent on.
What management is excited about
- The industrial market's momentum is very strong, with demand outpacing supply for the 25th straight quarter.
- E-commerce continues to be a very big driver of business both on the leasing and development side.
- They are confident in their ability to grow AFFO, as they have for the last five years.
- Their development pipeline is strong, with 21 projects under construction and 58% pre-leased.
- They believe their platform is in a very strong position to continue to capture growth.
Analyst questions that hit hardest
- Rich Anderson (Mizuho Securities) - Signals to slow development: Management gave a long answer comparing current conditions favorably to 2007-2008, emphasizing higher pre-leasing and e-commerce demand as reasons they feel secure.
- Ki Bin Kim (SunTrust) - Sustaining high NOI growth with fewer expirations: The response was somewhat evasive, stating it was difficult to imagine maintaining the current run rate and that guidance for next year wasn't ready, suggesting a potential future slowdown.
- Jamie Feldman (Bank of America) - Potential "noise" and changes for next year: Management gave a brief, dismissive answer, stating they were not planning to create any additional noise and were focused on growth, avoiding specifics.
The quote that matters
The strong supply-demand dynamics help contribute to same property NOI growth.
Jim Connor — President and Chief Executive Officer
Sentiment vs. last quarter
Sentiment remained positive and confident, consistent with last quarter. The emphasis shifted slightly to highlighting even stronger operational metrics (record occupancy, raised guidance) and expressing specific optimism about the 2017 outlook based on the current pipeline.
Original transcript
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here and welcome to the Duke Realty Quarterly Earnings Conference Call. At this moment, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will later have a question-and-answer session and provide instructions then. Also, please note that today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Ron Hubbard. Please proceed.
Thank you, Hart. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Jim Connor, President and CEO; and Mark Denien, Chief Financial Officer. Before we make our prepared remarks, let me remind you that statements we make today are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations. For more information about those risk factors, we refer you to our December 31, 2015, 10-K that we have on file with the SEC. Now, for our prepared statement, I’ll turn it over to Jim Connor.
Thank you, Ron, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll start out with an update on the overall business environment and then transition into our third quarter results. Nationally, the industrial market’s momentum continues to be very strong. Demand outpaced supply for the 25th straight quarter. New supply in substantially all markets is in balance and demand for modern bulk space year-to-date continues to beat everybody’s expectations. Net absorption for the third quarter was 77 million square feet, that’s the most since the fourth quarter of 2005. Although 40% of this absorption was in five of our markets, those markets include Southern California, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, and Pennsylvania. On the supply side, new supply in the third quarter totaled 53 million square feet, the most since the fourth quarter of 2008, yet speculative deliveries were down 15% from the previous quarter. The net result was another 20 basis point drop in the overall vacancy nationwide to approximately 5%. Just from a historical perspective, the ten-year average is about 8% and the recession was about 10%. These positive fundamentals continue to drive strong rent growth; 40% of all markets nationally are expected to post double-digit rent growth in 2016. As we’ve stated on previous calls, demand has been broad-based even in the relatively slow 2% GDP growth environment. Containerized traffic flow, transportation industries and consumer confidence are all trending in a positive direction with regard to demand for industrial product. We’re seeing similar strength in our own portfolio with the completion of 4.4 million square feet of leasing for the quarter, which drove our in-service occupancy to 97.3%, a 60 basis point increase from the second quarter, which achieved another record high occupancy in the company’s history. Rents on new and renewal leases for the quarter grew by 19%, reflecting continued strong supply-demand fundamentals and our solid pricing power. A particular note was our continued success in leasing recently completed speculative projects. One notable transaction executed during the third quarter was a 615,000 square foot lease, for 100% of the space in our speculative project at our Camp Creek Business Center in Atlanta. This lease was signed by a major consumer products company for a term of 10 years. Overall, demand for space continues to be strong from traditional customers of industrial distribution space and of course the powerful direct and indirect demand forces of e-commerce. We believe our platform is in a very strong position to continue to capture this growth. The strong supply-demand dynamics help contribute to same property NOI growth with 12 months and three months ended September 30, 2016 at 5.1% and 5.7% respectively. On the development side of the business, momentum continues to be very strong, as I’ve alluded to in the last few calls. During the third quarter, we generated $183 million in starts across six industrial projects and two medical office projects, in aggregate totaling 3 million square feet and about 50% pre-leased. The industrial development projects were spread across markets such as Chicago, Baltimore, Tampa, Indianapolis, and Savannah. Many of you may recall hearing about the Savannah project which was in the news recently. The 1.4 million square feet build-to-suit with a national retailer, Floor & Decor, was for a lease term of 15 years. On the medical office side, we started two 100% pre-leased projects in Raleigh and Dallas totaling 72,000 square feet. Both transactions were with existing healthcare system clients of ours and both were for lease terms of 15 years. I’m also pleased to share with you that we have started three fully leased build-to-suit industrial projects after quarter end in early October with an expected cost of $113 million and an aggregate totaling nearly 1 million square feet. These deals were all executed with major brand name tenants. They were all executed on our land. These October starts are consistent with our increased 2016 guidance for development starts, which I’ll expand on momentarily. We’ve continued to see strong activity in our development pipeline, and our confidence will close at 2016 in strong fashion, and are optimistic about 2017 as of today. Our overall development pipeline at quarter end has 21 projects under construction, totaling 7.2 million square feet and a projected $575 million in stabilized cost at our share. We’re 58% pre-leased in the aggregate. We’ll continue to closely manage pre-leasing levels on new development start opportunities, as noted numerous times in the past. While our company has an excellent track record in competing for build-to-suit projects, we’ll also continue to strategically allocate capital to speculative developments. In fact, since the fourth quarter of 2014, we delivered 24 spec industrial projects that were initially 14% pre-leased. These projects are now 85% leased with strong prospects for the remaining space. Margins on the pipeline are expected to continue in the 20% range. We believe our strategy will continue to represent a solid risk-adjusted value creation engine for our shareholders. Turning to dispositions, we closed $227 million in transactions during the quarter at an overall average in-place cap rate of 7.4%. The largest component of these dispositions was the sale of an eight-building 1.2 million square foot office park in Indianapolis that included our corporate headquarters facility. I know there are notable dispositions that I alluded to on our last call with the closing of the user sale on the 936,000 square feet speculative industrial building in Indianapolis that had been placed in service but was yet unleased. A few other notes on this industrial sale: first, we sold this building for more than a 20% gain to a major retailer for its dedicated Midwestern regional e-commerce facility. If we exclude this sale from our third quarter dispositions, the reported aggregate in-place cap rate would be 8.2%. For the remainder of the year, we expect $140 million to $260 million of dispositions, reflecting a small reduction in the previous midpoint of our guidance. Part of this reduced guidance relates to an office park sale in Indianapolis that we had to put on hold until after an M&A transaction involving the primary tenant in the park is completed late in 2016 or early 2017. In addition, there were a few other assets that we expect to close late in the year, but could ultimately spill over into the first quarter. Overall, we are very pleased with our results for the year and we’re still progressing towards our target of completely exiting the suburban office business by year-end or shortly thereafter. Even with these dispositions, we continue to be confident in our ability to grow our AFFO just as we’ve done for the last five years. With this continued steady AFFO growth outlook, and with what we believe is a very defensive portfolio to handle cyclicality, we’re very pleased to announce a 5.6% increase in our regular quarterly dividend. Now, I’ll turn it over to Mark to discuss our financial results and the capital transactions for the quarter.
Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone. Core FFO per share was $0.31 for the third quarter of 2016 compared to $0.30 per share for the second quarter of 2016, and $0.29 per share for the third quarter of 2015. The increase in core FFO per share is due to our continued improvement in key operating statistics that Jim just touched on, as well as lower interest expense that resulted from our deleveraging activities over the last several quarters. AFFO for the quarter totaled $103 million, which was a 7.6% increase from the $95 million in AFFO reported last quarter. Our high-quality portfolio continues to produce positive AFFO growth and we’re still comfortable with our original full-year guidance of AFFO growth on a share-adjusted basis of approximately 5%. In the equity capital markets, we issued 3.7 million shares under our ATM program in August and September for net proceeds of $103 million at an average issue price of $28.07 per share. In considering our share price relative to net asset value, the increases in our development pipeline that Jim previously mentioned along with our growing list of future prospects, we determined that it was prudent to use our ATM to pre-fund development. We now raised all the capital necessary to fund the current pipeline as well as the next couple of quarters' worth of expected development starts from a few others on our prospect list and have less than $80 million of debt maturities through 2017. Our recent deleveraging transactions have significantly strengthened our balance sheet and resulted in ongoing reductions to interest expense. Along these lines, I’m pleased to note that in early October, Fitch Ratings upgraded our senior unsecured credit rating from BBB to BBB+ with a stable outlook. All of these capital transactions coupled with our operational performance resulted in improvements to our key financial metrics during the quarter. We expect to see further improvement during the remainder of the year resulting from disposition transactions and highly leased development properties being placed in service. This is reflected in our revised guidance. Now, I’ll turn the call back over to Jim.
Thanks, Mark. In review of the year-to-date results and outlook for the remainder of the year, yesterday we raised the low-end of guidance for core FFO by $0.02 per share, narrowing the 2016 range to $1.18 to $1.20 per share, and effectively raising the midpoint by $0.01. Given the strong outlook on our development pipeline, we raised the development guidance to a range of $650 million to $750 million, up $125 million from the previous midpoint. Also due to continued overall strong operating fundamentals, we raised our same property NOI growth guidance from a range of 5.2% to 6%, up about 70 basis points from the previous midpoint. Finally, given our capital recycling activities and recent debt pay downs, we changed the guidance for all three leverage metrics in a positive direction. We believe these improved leverage metrics put us firmly in position for continued ratings upgrades in the near future. As noted in yesterday’s earnings release, the full details on revisions to certain guidance factors can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website as well as on the back page of our quarterly supplemental. Let me reemphasize once again how proud we are to have the company repositioned with a rock-solid balance sheet, a low AFFO payout ratio, and positioned to support raising the regular quarterly common dividend by 5.6%. Now, we’ll open the lines up to the audience, and I would ask that participants keep the dialogue to one question or perhaps two very short questions, and you are, of course, welcome to get back in the queue. Thank you.
Operator
And our first question comes from the line of Kyle McGrady at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc. Please go ahead. You’re open.
I’m going to get back in the queue, let me ask – let me get my ducks in a row, call on us in 15 minutes.
Operator
We have a question from the line. You are open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks, guys. Just a quick question, Page 22 of the supplemental, you reported growth in net effective rent slightly differently this quarter, where you wrapped up both the new and renewal leases for medical office and bulk industrial. What was the breakdown by those different property types for a growth in net effective rent for this quarter?
Yeah, Tom, this is Mark. In our effort can try to provide enhanced and better guidance for everybody, we’ll admit we inadvertently kind of omitted that. So we’ll work on this page for the future and get that back in. But I would tell you two things on that. The medical office piece is just a small piece of the overall pie. It really doesn’t move the needle. So if you look, for example, the third quarter number of 19.3% that’s right about what the bulk was. We only had just a few thousand square feet, 23,000 square feet of medical deals signed in the quarter compared to 2 million square feet on the industrial side. So the medical is just not moving those overall numbers. So the overall numbers are pretty closely industrial, I would tell you the medical is probably slightly lower than that and it was just a mix, but nothing out of the ordinary there.
Completely fair. And then just one more quick one from me. Acquisition guide was bumped up for the full year. This is kind of bucking trends we’ve seen from other companies in the sector, everyone else seems to be slightly taking down their acquisitions just based on pricing for core assets being still very strong. What was it about? What you guys see in the market right now that led you to bump up the acquisition guide?
Yeah. We’re probably seeing the same things most overall. But I would tell you the reason we have ours – that we raised it is really related to a joint venture transaction that we planned on executing here. So in some existing relationship we have, we already have a part ownership in these assets and we’re just going to take our partner out this quarter. So that’s where most of that fourth quarter activity is going to come from.
Operator
And we have the line of Manny Korchman from Citigroup Global Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. So, Jim, if I go back to your comments on spec building, you said over the last couple of years, you’ve done a bunch of projects. If I had to rank your confidence now in starting a new spec project today versus if we sat here two years ago, so in October 2014, where would you be more confident in getting a spec project off the ground?
Well, I think we’d be more confident today, just given the surprisingly strong numbers that we’ve seen year-to-date from both the demand and the supply side. I think it was particularly interesting that spec deliveries in the quarter were actually down quarter-over-quarter by about 15%. And there has been some speculation that the Fed has tightened the reigns a little bit on the money center and regional banks on construction lending, so that that was going to perhaps put a crimp in some of the local developers that were developing spec projects. I don’t know if we’ve really seen that come to pass. But I would tell you sitting here today, we’re very confident given the track record we’ve had in getting this space leased. And I think you see that by the fact that we announced four spec projects last quarter.
Great. And then Mark on that the – I guess the JV buyout, it sounds like that you’re thinking about, what would sort of a cap rate be on that, is that pre-negotiated?
Yeah. It’s a pre-negotiated cap rate, Manny. I won’t disclose it individually, but I would tell you that we believe it’s a cap rate or it’s in a yield, it’s in excess of the cap rate. So we think that there is some good value there that we’re buying.
So if we’re just thinking about the modeling your total acquisition pool, where would that be now?
Yeah. Total acquisition pool is probably going to be close to 7%, I would say.
Yep.
Sure.
Operator
Our next question comes from Jeremy Metz. Please go ahead, Jeremy. You’re on.
Hey, guys. I’m just wondering your industrial occupancy is over 97%, so I’m just wondering how you’re thinking about this in terms of are you really pushing rents hard enough and then as we think about it going forward should we expect to see that occupancy actually start to tick down as you push rent?
Well, Jeremy, that’s – we’re in a really interesting time. I would tell you that I see the final terms of all of the major deals that we’re doing. And I would tell you, I’m comfortable. I think that’s backed up by 19% rent growth for the quarter. So, yeah, we’re comfortable where it is. I think it’s reasonable to expect that that’s going to come down. I think we could come down 100 basis points and we’d still be in a very, very good spot. I don’t anticipate that that’s going to happen because given the volume of leasing that we’re seeing out there. I just think it’s very unlikely that we’ll have an off quarter or two where we’ll bring a bunch of spec projects in that aren’t substantially pre-leased. And I think we’re seeing great renewal activity in our portfolio. So, we’re not anticipating getting any major vacancies backed this year or early next year that we can handle with our normal leasing volume.
Okay. And then just one on the development front, you mentioned the strong build-to-suit pipeline. I was just wondering if there is anything in particular that’s driving that increased activity and then maybe can you talk about what markets those opportunities are really coming in, is that how much of it is maybe e-commerce related?
E-commerce – I’ll answer the second question first, Jeremy. E-commerce continues to be a very big driver of our business both on the leasing and on the development side. And you just think about it logically, we positioned the company, particularly the industrial portfolio, focused on the modern large bulk products and that’s what e-commerce users need today. With the exception of some of the smaller infill last mile, which we’re doing a little bit of most of the fulfillment centers today we’re looking at are 800 square feet to 1.2 million square feet that brand new state-of-the-art 36 foot and 40 foot clear and that’s really in our sweet spot. So, we’ll continue to do a lot of business with the e-commerce companies and they will continue to be a great driver of our business.
Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Mike Mueller. Please go ahead. You are open.
Hi, quick question. On your GAAP rent spreads, they’re running at about two times the 2015 level. And I was wondering in terms of the drivers of the increase from the nine to ten to the high-teens now, would you say it’s primarily higher rates driving it or other dynamics and lease terms changing such as you’re getting bigger bumps longer term? I was just wondering can you give us a little more background on that?
Yeah, I would tell you it’s really all the above. It’s just overall better quality leases. We’re getting as good or better bumps, we’re getting better starting rents. It’s really all the above. It’s not really lease vintage driven, if you will. We’re doing about a third of the leases right now that are rolling or what I consider to be in the trough period. That’s about the same percentage we were running at last year. The overall amount of leases rolling are getting smaller, because their overall expiration schedule is pretty light. But as far as the percentage of the leases rolling, the vintage of them are pretty consistent from 2015 to 2016. So, that doubled the increase, if you will, and that net effective rent growth is really just overall rent growth that we are driving, whether it be starting rent or rent bumps, or truly all the above.
Yeah, Mike, the only point I would add to that is and you touched on it in your question is lease term. Two things, the more really large deals we do, always tend to have longer terms, 10-year and 15-year lease terms. So that clearly helps there. The other side of it is with our portfolio as well leased as it is, we are doing very, very few short-term leases. Historically, it’s not uncommon to get a tenant to come to us and say, I’m just not really sure what my business is going to do, I want to renew for 12 months or I want to renew for 18 months. And the truth is, we’re not doing very many of those leases. Today, kind of the short-term for us is three years and we’re really looking a lot of tenants up for the longer term, while we’ve got some leverage, so we can push rents and escalation. So, I think it’s all of those things but that’s one point I wanted to add.
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Jamie Feldman. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. I guess starting with the guidance, can you talk about – you did some deleveraging activity, so like if you would just move your guidance on your kind of core operations, how much you would have increased it and then what was the drag from some of the deleveraging you did?
Jamie, you mean the drag on earnings from deleveraging?
Yeah.
I would say that really nothing in what we reported. There may be a little drag in the fourth quarter, because we’re sitting on cash in October until we can get that redeployed in the bonds that we bought back just last week in our development pipeline. So you may be looking at a penny drag in the fourth quarter, but it really didn’t have any impact on the numbers we reported, nor would I say it would have an impact as we look forward to next year because it will all be fully redeployed by then. And then as far as the leverage metrics that we are at, I would tell you that they’re a little bit low because of raising the capital that we did in the third quarter to prefund. So, as an example, that debt-to-EBITDA number really close to 5.0. As we look out in the 2017, we’ll probably be closer into the mid-5s. We won’t need to raise any additional capital to fund all of this that I talked about. So that leverage metrics will naturally move up closer to the mid-5s. But I would also point out that without any additional delivering fixed charge will continue to get better because we have high coupon debt that continues to burn off. So, fixed charge will get better and debt-to-EBITDA will be kind of in the mid-5s.
Okay. And then, I guess as you think about next year, big picture activity, like any big dispositions you think we might do, like how you guys are thinking about MLP now? I’m just trying to think about, I mean your core seems like it’s improving, but what are the noise might we see next year? Do you guys continue to make some changes to the business to the balance sheet?
Well, Jamie, I don’t think we’re, at this point in the year, we are not planning to create any additional noise next year. I think the bulk of the heavy lifting will be done. I think we’ve really positioned the company to grow. And I think that’s really what we’re focused on as we start to look forward to 2017.
Operator
And next, we have a line of Sumit Sharma. Please go ahead. You’re open.
Thank you. So thanks for the commentary and all of the disclosure and commentary this quarter. I see that the GAAP rents, but it’s had me confused too, but Ron was instrumental in clearing that up. But I guess it sounds like NOI’s growth is accelerating into fourth quarter, which is great and this may be an early indicator that 2017 could look a lot like 2016, maybe get some comments on that. But more importantly, as an owner and manager of industrial real estate, I guess where are you guys most cautious, because if you think about the investor mindset, they’re all trying to say, we’re all trying to figure out well, this is a little too good.
No, guys, it’s not too good. You know, it’s good, you should enjoy it. Well, let me take your first question about 2017. Sitting here, kind of towards the end of October, I would tell you we feel fairly optimistic about 2017. There is nothing in the macro drivers of the industrial business, so called storm clouds on the horizon that would really give you pause. We’ve been in a slow growth market, but that’s been really good for the industrial business. Consumer confidence is still up, although as I referenced earlier in my earlier comments the transportation indices are a little inconsistent, but by and large, they are all reasonably positive. I think we look at the particularly the supply and demand equilibrium in the marketplace. I think that we’ve had a fundamental change in the industrial business that is here for the foreseeable future, which is e-commerce. And if you look at the pace at which e-commerce is growing and the amount of space they need to support that business and most of that is in the form of new big boxes. I think we’re positioned very, very well for the future. In terms of what worries us in the future, I would tell you it’s not the U.S. and it’s not real estate. I think you got to go global macro to anticipate anything that could really put the U.S. economy in a bad spot or have some really negative trickle over into our market right now. But thankfully we don’t see that right now. So we’re fairly optimistic.
Thank you so much. If I may just ask one follow-up to that, I mean, if you were just thinking about it from – like you mentioned bulk distribution, in fact you categorized your industrial portfolio as a bulk distribution portfolio. What if in 2018 or going into 2019, it’s not about the bulk and it’s more about such a smaller, closer to last-mile in-fill kind of assets. How are you prepping for that, how are you getting into new markets, any commentary on that?
Sure. I’ll give you a couple of data points. First of all, that’s a business we are in and we have been in for many years. And it probably doesn’t get talked about enough and that’s our fault. But Duke has a long track record of redevelopment, brownfield redevelopment, we’ve done a number of these projects in major metropolitan areas all over the country. So we do that, we’re doing business with some of our favorite e-commerce companies, and some of our transportation and 3PL companies right now. So, A, we are addressing that business. The second point is the last mile, which has gotten a lot of attention in our industry of late, is really fairly small. If you look at and do research on Amazon, for example, they have about two million square feet of these last mile facilities. They average about 50,000 square feet or 60,000 square feet a piece, right. They have 70 million square feet, a fulfillment center. And you need the fulfillment centers to drive this huge volume; I mean this is a company that has 30% market share of the e-commerce business in the U.S., it is growing at 15% or 16% a year. They’re not going to be able to keep up that growth by focusing on 50,000 square foot in-fill, that’s just really small piece of the equation. You look at the number of projects that they have in the pipeline, that are debated out there in the different public forum, they have twice as many of these major fulfillment centers, which average about one million square feet as compared to the number of the last mile. So, it’s an important piece of their business and it’s an important piece of e-commerce going forward. But, quite candidly, it’s just not going to move the needle.
Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck. Please go ahead, you’re open.
Thanks. Good afternoon. So, I guess just back on the topic of acquisitions you guys have, the best balance sheet, you guys have had in a long time and there have been some pretty significant industrial portfolios on the market. So, if there was an opportunity to expand your presence in target markets with a substantial portfolio acquisition, would you guys consider it or do you think pricing is still at a place that might keep you from kind of chasing a deal like that?
Blaine, if you got one, call me afterwards, we’ll work on the deal. No, guys, the truth is we look at every deal that comes down the pipeline, every deal. And the ones that we talked about in this last quarter, it’s a combination of the quality of the portfolio, the location of the real estate and the pricing. And all the ones that we looked at, we passed on for a variety of reasons. If the right portfolio came along, particularly if it was heavily weighted into the markets that we want to grow in, we know what a reasonable price is. I think we’d certainly try and be willing to pay up for that. And given where our stock has been trading and our balance sheet, I think our currency is strong and we’ve got the ability to stretch. So when we find the right one, I think we’ll certainly try and make it happen. We just haven’t found the right thing. And it’s like you tell your kids, just because you got money in your pocket doesn’t mean you got to go spend it.
Yeah.
Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Rich Anderson. Please go ahead, you’re open.
Thanks. Good afternoon. So, earlier in the call given the sort of problems emerging in the industrial space kind of made you chuckle a little bit and I get it, you guys are in great shape, no argument. But in previous past cycles, not so much in industrial, but other sectors, REITs did a really poor job of no one went to walk away from the Blackjack table. So – speaking specifically about development, you’re expanding development, what are you looking for, if everything is just track record driven and you’re feeling great and you’re adding to the pipeline, what are you looking for as a signal to get to be early before it’s too late and you have some real problems. I’m not saying that’s now, but what are the some of the tell-tale signals that you’re looking for this time around?
Well, Rich, I think we can all reflect back on what the market looked like in 2007 and 2008, and there were comparable levels of supply coming on the market. It was much less preleased. So the entire market had much more spec risk out there. And I don’t have the numbers right off the top of my head. But I would go on memory; I think we were 10% or 15% preleased as an industry last time. And now we’re in the 35% or 40% range. So I think that’s one of the factors that we look at. The fact that demand has continued to outpace supply, and I think the fundamental difference this time and we’ve been talking about it on the last several calls is e-commerce and the changes that has fundamentally made to our business. You could step back and look at all kinds of projections and forecasts out there for that side of the business. The most conservative ones I’ve seen have it growing at 8% to 10% a year. The more aggressive ones are 15% to 18% a year. So I think that bodes very, very well for us. But on the outside, we’re looking at the supply-demand fundamentals, both from a macro perspective and a local perspective, and even when you get to a local perspective we’re drilling down into specific submarkets. And then we’re looking at our portfolio. We’ve committed to you guys and our investors that we’re going to keep our development pipeline, whatever size it is, at least 50% preleased. We’re going to manage our risk much better this time. And some people have from time to time, but a little critical and said we might be leaving some opportunity at the table and if that’s the case, so be it. And we continued to perform very well and keeping that prelease percentage up and today the pipeline is roughly 58% and I think in actuality, that may go up in the fourth quarter, given the build-to-suit volume compared to the timing on some spec projects, but that remains to be seen a little bit. So that’s kind of how we’re thinking about it and the things that we’re trying to manage.
Okay. So 58% is not quite the floor, but kind of close to the floor, you wouldn’t want to see the overall pipeline go much below that, before you would get some leasing done and then add to it, is that the right way to think about it?
Yeah. I mean I would say, we think the floor is 50% and in the last I think three years, we dipped below that one time and I want to – I made a point of telling you guys a quarter in advance that it was going to happen and why. And in that particular case, it was simply just the timing from one quarter to the next of a number of spec projects and yeah, a lot of the markets that we deal in you can’t build in 12 months a year, you can do that in Texas and you can do that in Florida, but in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Chicago, you can only build about nine months a year or so. There is some of those instances. But yeah, the magic number for us is 50% that we’re trying to stay above.
Okay. And for Mark, if you could just answer a quick modeling question, maybe we could do this offline, if it’s not right at your fingertips. But FFO from unconsolidated, it bounces around from quarter to quarter, but you are going to have a deal in the fourth quarter. Can you give me sort of sense of what the run rate should be – on a kind of a go-forward basis and if that’s not a question you can answer now, maybe offline?
Yeah, Rich, I could probably answer now, but I may not answer it correctly. So let’s try to do that offline.
Okay. No problem.
I think I have an idea, but I would prefer to check.
Operator
Next we have a line from Ki Bin Kim. Please go ahead, you are open.
Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Mark, you briefly mentioned that you have fewer lease expirations ahead compared to your peers, which is quite noticeable because of your longer leases. How do you expect to sustain a 4% to 5% same-store NOI growth when there is less to recoup, even though rent growth is stronger? I understand you have around 2.5% cash rent step-ups, but it appears that maintaining a high same-store NOI run rate might be more challenging due to having less to work with.
Yeah, Ki Bin. I mean, like I had mentioned earlier, I think we need to finish lowering our budget up for next year before we give guidance for next year on this number. I guess my point there is I’m not giving guidance, I’m saying that I think it is difficult to imagine we can see this run rate next year. But somewhere, half of that give or take, I think we can get there, there are always efficiencies you can try to drive out of your portfolio as well. We’ve done a good job at doing that, so that’s on top of the rent bumps, that’s on top of the rent growth. So it’s somewhere in that, call it close to 3% range give or take, I think a pretty good baseline to start out and then we’ll just see when we roll everything up how much north or south of that it is.
Okay. And now just quickly on G&A, you’re going to exit the office portfolio completely by year-end, it sounds like. But your G&A is just – actually been increasing over the past couple of years. So I’m just curious if there is anything we can expect in the efficiencies on that line item?
No, not really Ki Bin, I mean, we’ve already really driven all the efficiencies out of G&A I think for the most part that we can. Most of the any additional I should say cost savings that come out of the remaining dispositions we have are really sitting up in property NOI, it’ll be property level efficiencies that we have, what I would call the relatively slight increases we’ve had in G&A, the last couple of years are just kind of what I call cost of being a public company, they’re just rising greater than inflation. I would point out that if you look at our G&A load relative to probably any of our peers, one of the metrics we look at is G&A as a percentage of gross revenues or G&A as a percentage of gross assets. While I’d acknowledge our G&A has increased a little bit over the last couple of years, I’d still put us best in class.
And just a last quick one. Are you – our cash lease price generally as a rule of thumb about half of the GAAP lease spreads, how do I think about that?
No. We don’t really calculate that Ki Bin. I would tell you it’s probably less than half. Because the GAAP lease spreads, the lease term matters, so if you got a five-year lease, you may have to divide that number by five even.
Okay.
So, it’s probably, if you’re at 20%, it’s probably closer to the mid-single-digits give or take.
Operator
Yeah. We have a follow-up question from the line of Eric Frankel. You’re open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I have a follow-up question about future asset sales and asset recycling. You have a non-core pool of assets that you plan to sell and use for fund development. If, for any reason, your share price is not as attractive in a year or two compared to today, do you have a plan for self-funding development or capital allocation opportunities in the future?
Well, Eric, that’s just the last we talk about our stock price like that. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, I think we can always recycle assets. I think, as I alluded to earlier, we’d like where the portfolio is. We’ve done obviously all of the heavy lifting as it relates to the office portfolio, but we’ve also harvested some gains, we’ve sold a couple of Amazon buildings, we’ve liquidated a couple of joint ventures. We’ve proven some industrial assets here and there. So, if we need to, we can certainly look at that as an opportunity to raise capital. Sitting here today, Mark will tell you we’ve got the vast majority of our development and borrowings for the next year, pretty well covered. So, even if we don’t like where the price is from an equity perspective, I think we’re pretty well covered next year.
Operator
And since no one else has queued up, please proceed.
Thanks, Hart. I’d like to thank everyone for joining the call today. We look forward to reconvening during our fourth quarter call, tentatively scheduled for January 26, 2017, and hope to see you many of you at May REIT next month. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and thank you for using AT&T executive teleconference service. You may now disconnect.