JULY 19, 2021 / 12:00PM GMT, Kite Realty Group Trust and Retail Properties of America Inc Strategic Merger
Conference Call
Steven P. Grimes Retail Properties of America, Inc. -
CEO & Director
Sure. Ill take a shot first and then if John wants to chime in.
Yes, John and I have known each other for years, I would say, dating back to several years ago pre, even, IPO. And conversations that weve had over time, just being Midwest guys who have a lot of familiarity and similarity in terms of our
operational styles and, ultimately, the portfolios weve created. Weve had dialogue over the years, not necessarily specific of this nature. But as we look to coming out of COVID and the opportunity set for both companies, conversations
did increase and obviously led us to this point.
The timing is pretty compelling. And if you think about it, when you think about the merits of the deal
and all that information is out there on the joint presentation, the question of why now may come up. And many of you know that over the years, Ive talked about M&A and that I do believe that there needs to be fewer players in the space
and that scale really does matter.
Furthermore, Ive stated that with balance sheets fixed and portfolios cleansed, combinations of this nature need
to make strategic sense. So as you have time to digest the release and the presentation, you will see very clearly the strategic merits of this combination. So wrapping all this together, our collective balance sheet is in great condition. Portfolio
cleansing is for the most part complete. And our collective strong rebound from COVID and value-add expansions makes this deal timing ripe for the opportunity to grow together with scale in a very meaningful
way. And yes, it may seem to have come together very quickly, but I think its the right transaction for both sets of shareholders.
John A. Kite Kite Realty Group Trust -
Chairman & CEO
Yes. I mean, look, I cant add a lot to that, Floris. That was, I
think, excellent and really does paint the picture that weve been talking about for a while here. And I think as Steve just said very eloquently, this was a very unique situation where this combination, and we strongly believe that 1 plus 1 is
5 here. The things that weve both done historically to get us to this point, it just matched up very, very strongly. I think you do need to spend some quality time with the investor presentation, and you will see in there that you really just
cant find a particular part of it that doesnt make sense. And were super excited.
I think culturally, its a really big deal. As
Steve said, weve known each other for a long time, and we have very similar kind of outlooks on this business. And Im very excited to have Steve as a partner. And were going to take were absolutely taking the combined
company to the next level. And with our kind of track record in development, our track record in operations, I think we can bring a lot to the table to really increase the value going forward. And also, most importantly, against a much bigger
company, a much bigger platform such that not any one thing is going to be material as it is today. So this is really just a great opportunity and great timing.
Floris Gerbrand Hendrik Van Dijkum
Compass Point Research & Trading, LLC, Research Division - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Maybe if you can follow up, you are now this brings you into 2 new markets, 2 key markets, D.C. and Seattle. Maybe if you can comment on that. And also,
I guess, one of the questions that some people might have is in terms of the development, particularly the development pipeline for RPAI was quite a bit bigger than it was for at least pre-COVID was
substantially bigger than it was for KRG. If you can talk about how you think about the development going forward...
John A. Kite Kite Realty Group Trust -
Chairman & CEO
Sure. Well, lets start with the markets. And its why I
mentioned that weve toured 90% of these properties. So and I think you know we really view ourselves as old-school real estate people, very focused on the dirt, and its exceptional. And I
can tell you, everywhere we went, we came away from that feeling really good. You mentioned a couple of the markets. But remember that as we said in the preamble there, 40% of our revenue is Texas and Florida. I mean, for example, just looking at
Texas, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, those markets are about 25%. So yes, we are entering new markets such as Seattle and D.C. that you mentioned and New York.
And I can tell you from our tours, being in the Seattle suburbs a few weeks ago on a midday week, I mean these properties are humming, very well located, very
well positioned, definitely have some upside, so we are very, very excited about that. And by the way, we have been in Seattle previously when we were private. We did a lot of
build-to-suit development in Seattle and Portland, but this is just Seattle. So were very happy with that. And its a strategic gateway market in our mind,
and its very complementary. And Ill talk about each one of these. Same can be said about Washington, D.C., the D.C./Baltimore market, extremely important. This is where retailers retailers, frankly, customers our customers,
they want us to have multiple opportunities for them right now. They are expanding. They are doing
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