Q1 2017 LEG Immobilien AG Earnings Call

LEG.DE - LEG Immobilien AG
Q1 2017 LEG Immobilien AG Earnings Call
May 10, 2017 / NTS GMT 

==============================
Corporate Participants
==============================
   *  Burkhard Sawazki
      LEG Immobilien AG - Head of IR
   *  Eckhard Schultz
      LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO
   *  Holger Hentschel
      LEG Immobilien AG - COO and Member of Management Board
   *  Thomas Hegel
      LEG Immobilien AG - Chairman of Management Board and CEO

==============================
Conference Call Participants
==============================
   *  Thomas Carstairs
      Commerzbank AG, Research Division - Analyst
   *  Thomas Neuhold
      Kepler Cheuvreux, Research Division - Head of Research, Austria

==============================
Presentation
------------------------------
 Burkhard Sawazki,  LEG Immobilien AG - Head of IR   [1]
------------------------------
 Good morning, everyone. This is Burkhard Sawazki. I'm glad you could join us this morning for our Q1 earnings call. I'll mention board members, Thomas Hegel, Eckhard Schultz and Holger Hentschel, will walk you through our presentation and give you more details on LEG's Q1 figures and the business outlook. As usual, this will be followed by a Q&A session.

 With this, I'll hand over to Thomas Hegel.

------------------------------
 Thomas Hegel,  LEG Immobilien AG - Chairman of Management Board and CEO   [2]
------------------------------
 Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our Q1 earnings call. We had a good start to the year and this for at least for 3 reasons. We saw the expected accelerating organic rent growth. We have already gained visibility on expected capital growth as end of June. And we have made progress on acquisitions.

 After a calm year 2016, where we felt the pricing on several transactions that we were looking at was too aggressive, we can confirm that we are currently in the negotiation process for several midsized deals. We gained exclusivity on those deals, and there are reasons for optimism. At present, we can't disclose any further details, but the deals should be FFO per share accretive.

 At this stage, we can also guide for further positive momentum for capital growth. As you know, we will conduct the portfolio revaluation with our H1 results. Here we anticipate evaluation uplift in the region of a mid-single-digit percentage growth, and there will be more to come with our Q4 results. We are seeing an improving environment for accelerating rent growth and therefore also for value-enhancing investments into our portfolio.

 Against this backdrop, we are also going to extend our CapEx program, and we now expect a midterm like-for-like rent growth in the range of 3% to 3.5%. Moreover, we are analyzing an early repayment of another tranche of subsidized loans of around EUR 100 million. The positive net NAV impact of this this transaction should be around EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million. You see, we are working on all drivers for sustained operational outperformance, and we will give you more color on this later during this call.

 Let me now give you a brief overview of our sound operational and financial key metrics of the first 3 months. Including our cost rent adjustments, we saw an accelerating like-for-like rent growth of 2.9%, with strong growth of our free-financed units of 3.6%. Our like-for-like vacancy rates stayed at a low level at 3.2% like-for-like. In a traditionally weaker first quarter, we saw an increase of 30 basis points versus last year. But as discussed in our previous call, there were some temporary effects from last year's reorganization, which will diminish starting in Q2.

 Investments at the beginning of the year were at a low level of EUR 2.60 per square meter, but you can expect a substantial pickup in the coming quarters.

 Coming to the financials. We saw the expected very strong earnings growth with an FFO growth of 20.1% or by 19% on a per share basis. A boost of our operating margins, pre-maintenance cost of 220 basis points remains an important driver for this.

 Finally, our reported NAV stands at EUR 67.48 per share based on an attractive rental yield of 6.7%. As already mentioned, you can expect a noticeable increase already in Q2.

 With that, I would like to hand over to Holger.

------------------------------
 Holger Hentschel,  LEG Immobilien AG - COO and Member of Management Board   [3]
------------------------------
 Yes. Thank you, Thomas, and good morning from my side. I'd like to continue with the Slide 6, the portfolio overview. As already highlighted, we saw the expected growth acceleration for our like-for-like rents, with a rent growth of 2.9% for our entire portfolio and 3.6% for our free-financed units. In a low inflationary environment, the cost strength of our rent-restricted portfolio grew by 1.3% on a yearly basis. The structure had positive trends in our markets for this. We see a broad-based upswing in our markets. And we observed an accelerating positive momentum, especially in B cities that lie in the catchment areas of the economic centers.

 The rent momentum in our stable markets in Q1 even exceeds the growth rates in our high-growth markets. But the impact from new figures in our growth markets, Cologne and Münster, should create some additional positive momentum also in our high-growth markets.

 Coming to Slide 7. Rents development. In total, we would like to highlight just a few local markets to illustrate the underlying rent dynamics in our portfolio. In our high-growth markets, we saw again a strong rent momentum in Düsseldorf with a growth rate of 3.7%. In the free-financed parts, rents even grew by 4.9%. In district of Mettmann within the catchment area of Düsseldorf, we saw again a very dynamic growth in Mannheim, where we own more than 3,400 units with a year-on-year growth of 4%. In the Wesseling region in the northern parts of North Rhine-Westphalia, the (inaudible) market remains a growth engine with a rent increase of 4.4%.

 In our stable markets, we achieved a very strong performance in our 3 largest markets, Dortmund, Hamm and Mönchengladbach, with a rent growth of more than 3% each. Top performer with a like-for-like rent growth of 4.4% was Mönchengladbach. The asset in this city and the catchment area for Düsseldorf were mainly part of the vital NRW portfolio we bought from Vonovia.

 Finally, in our higher-yielding markets, we achieved the strong rent growth of 3.5% in our important Duisburg market, where we manage more than 6,500 units. In the Märkisch district, we even increased rents by 5% due to investments into modernization and due to some stronger catch-up potential, which we saw in some locations.

 Let us now move to the Slide #8. Our vacancy, which is generally higher in the first quarter, increased slightly by 30 basis points to 3.2% on a like-for-like basis. As we have outlined in our last earnings call, we had some short-term capacity constraints due to the reorganization of our operating units. The new structures are in place, and the vacancy has already been slightly reduced compared to Q4. This means we are already seeing deferred catch-up effects. Accordingly, we ought to stick to our guidance of a rising like-for-like occupancy in fiscal year 2017.

 Coming to Slide 9, which illustrates our maintenance and CapEx spending. Traditionally, Q1 is a calm quarter for CapEx measure. Therefore, the EUR 2.60 per square meter we spend in the first quarter are not representative for the year as a whole. Additionally, we'll start our enhanced investment program in mid of 2017. Our guidance of around EUR 24 per square meter in 2017 remain unchanged.

 Moreover, we made further progress with our portfolio analyzers regarding an extension of the investment program. We have already identified additional investment opportunities. And therefore, you can expect a prolongation of the existing program.

 So with that, I'd like to go over to Eckhard to do financials.

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [4]
------------------------------
 Yes, thank you, Holger. Let us now have a look at financial key metrics on Slide 11.

 The strong financial performance in Q1 with an FFO per share growth of 19% also confirms that LEG's growth story is fully intact. We saw again significant project expansion of our operating margins. This remains a core element of our growth story also for the coming years.

 The structural advantages of originally concentrated portfolio, high synergies from acquisitions in our core markets and our strict cost discipline are key drivers of this, and they are becoming increasingly visible. A leading operating profitability in combination with a comparatively high rental yield forms the basis for very attractive cash returns for our shareholders.

 Adjusted for the volatility of maintenance expenses, our adjusted EBITDA margin pre-maintenance improved by around 220 basis points year-on-year. And also on the property management level, we've further improved the efficiency with a rising NOI margin pre-maintenance cost of 200 basis points.

 The first positive effect from our crafts business as a recent extension of our value-added services are also a contributor to this. As we have already illustrated in the past, there's a short-term drag from comparatively higher share rent-restricted units on our operating margins, which will vanish over time.

 If you compare apples-to-apples within the resi sector, adjusted for this effect, LEG's EBITDA margin even would be around 150 basis points higher.

 On Slide 12, to summarize the income statement also reveals the positive impact from our top line growth and from our margin expansion. There is a significant drop of our reported admin cost due to an acquisition-related one-off item in Q1 last year. Our recurring admin cost increased slightly just due to extraordinary personnel expenses and acquisition costs, which were not treated as onetime costs.

 Further down the P&L line, the net finance costs contain one-off cost of EUR 11.7 million for the early refinancing of loans in conjunction with the issue of our first bond. With the refinancing, we also achieved interest savings of more than EUR 3 million annually.

 On Slide 13, we present the FFO. This chart again shows the very dynamic development of our recurring underlying earnings. It reveals that we are improving our underlying margin across all lines. I would like to highlight the development of our operational staff cost with an increase of only 2% if you adjust for the impact of the insourcing of craftsmen. This is less than wage inflation, despite a double-digit volume growth over the same period. This impressive result demonstrates that we can actually realize a very attractive synergy with our acquisitions in our core markets.

 Also on the admin level, our reported staff cost grew marginally, but this is attributable to a onetime payment. The numbers of FTEs has been reduced. Our platform was able to absorb the volume growth with basically stable or even decreasing capacities, and therefore, with a high operating leverage. Moreover, the FFO result benefits from further reduced average cost of debt and lower interest charges despite the higher financing volume. As a result, we saw the jump in FFO I to EUR 75.2 million. On Chart 14, you find an overview of the drivers contributing to our FFO growth.

 On Slide 16, you find the calculation of our current reported NAV, which currently stands at EUR 67.48, taking into account the sound growth profile. And the rental yield is comparatively high level at 6.7% or 6.8% for our free-financed units. As announced, we are going to conduct an appraisal with our Q2 results. At current stage, evaluation uplift in the mid-single-digit percentage region appears to be a fair guidance for the expected outcome.

 Apart from the structural growth of our asset class, LEG's management platform is able to extract a superior value from this asset base due to our leading property management skills, the high cost efficiency and our value-added services, which are not reflected in the NAV number. Including the cost savings from the recent partial in-sourcing of craftsmen services, our stable service business generate at a discount rate of 6%, an additional value of EUR 3.40 per share. This is calculated without any growth component.

 Coming to Slides 18 and 19. Our LTV at the end of Q1 stands at 44.4%. That means even slightly below our current target LTV of 45% to 50%. This gives us some headroom for growth. Basically, we do not intend to use yield compression for gearing up our business. But again, there should be some potential to use a slightly higher LTV on acquisitions as we raised also some cash from disposals last year.

 The low LTV ratio is, of course, only one metric to assess the strength of the balance sheet. Moody's, for instance, also very much appreciates LEG among the larger peers comparatively low net debt to EBITDA ratio of around 10x, which is a result of leading EBITDA yield.

 The following Slide 20 gives an overview of our financing structure as at end of March. Also after completion of the refinancing with a partial repayment of subsidized loan, we maintained a long-term secured financing structure with an average maturity of 9.7 years and further decreased average financing cost of 1.95%. This secures a high visibility for long-term secured earnings growth also in an environment of potentially rising rate.

 With that, I would like to hand over to Thomas for the business update.

------------------------------
 Thomas Hegel,  LEG Immobilien AG - Chairman of Management Board and CEO   [5]
------------------------------
 Thanks, Eckhard. Let me now come to our business update with a summary on Chart 22. As we have shown in the past, our acquisitions in our core markets can add substantial value at a low risk due to the very high synergies we are able to generate of such deals.

 Therefore, we are happy that after a calm H2 last year, we are now seeing a quite attractive acquisition pipeline. This pipeline comprises several midsized deals, and we made progress on the last couple of weeks. This means, we gained exclusivity. And although the market environment for acquisition remains demanding, there are reasons for optimism.

 I think you can understand that we can't disclose any further details today, but it is fair to assume that these deals are expected to be accretive to our FFO per share.

 On Chart 23, we also provide an update of the operating performance of our acquisitions from the past. In addition to the attractive initial yield and the high synergies we achieved, we also generated substantial value for our shareholders by improving the operating metrics with our leading management platform.

 We reduced vacancy by 30 basis points and achieved an impressive average rent CAGR of 3.9%. The 2 larger portfolios we bought from Vonovia, the Vitus and NRW portfolio and the Charlie portfolio, are clear outperformers in this respect. The rent in the Charlie portfolio increased by 6.5% within 1 year, and the rent CAGR of the Vitus portfolio amounts to 4.2%.

 As already mentioned during this call, today, we can become also somewhat more precise on the expected outcome of our interim valuation in Q2. Although we are still in discussions with our appraiser, the direction now seems clearer. For the fiscal year 2017, we expect that the 2 drivers, rent development and yield compression, will contribute to our capital growth. On the basis of this steadily improving environment in our markets, we're going to adjust the target rents in our cash flow models. This is not just a technicality, but this will also have a direct impact on our operating business. We observe a rising leeway for rent increases during relettings due to the positive demand trends and the still high affordability in most of our markets.

 This is a potential we are already clearly going to exploit. Furthermore, we are collecting the data points of the transactions in our markets. We continue to see a significant stretch between our in-place yields and most of asking prices in the market. We expect these drivers to be reflected in our asset evaluations step-by-step.

 And as Eckhard, who is responsible for the evaluation at the end, has pointed out for our Q2 valuation, we anticipate evaluation uplift in the mid-single-digit percentage range. And we anticipate that there is more to come in Q4.

 Given the improving fundamentals in our markets, our portfolio analysis also comes to the conclusion that we have potential for more value-enhancing investments. Therefore, we are going to prolong the period of enhanced investments of to now 5 years with annual total investments of around EUR 24 to EUR 29. With support from these investments, we expect a midterm like-for-like rent growth in the range of 3% to 3.5% annually.

 Finally, we are currently analyzing an early refinancing of another tranche of subsidized loans of EUR 100 million. The expected positive net NAV impact at year-end could be around EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million. You see, we are successfully working on all relevant drivers to maximize the value for our shareholders.

 Chart 24 is dealing with the outlook. And I'd like to conclude the presentation with a summary of our outlook for 2017 and 2018. Our earnings outlook remains unchanged for the time being. But as you know, our guidance does not contain any upsides from future acquisitions. Therefore, we are quite optimistic that we can adjust our guidance as soon as the acquisitions are contractually secured. Furthermore, I think we've provided some higher visibility on the organic growth potential with our midterm rent outlook. And we are also confident that our EBITDA margin should also have some more upside after 2018.

 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

==============================
Questions and Answers
------------------------------
Operator   [1]
------------------------------
 (Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Robert Woerdeman of Kempen & Co.

------------------------------
 Unidentified Analyst,    [2]
------------------------------
 This is [Robert Kempen]. Actually, I'm not really asking for a real guidance on evaluations, but I would like to hear your views on -- because you've gathered a lot of data points on transactions. If you compare your yield of 6.7% versus the data points that you have collected so far, what is, give or take, the difference?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [3]
------------------------------
 This is Eckhard speaking. I think the average spread between asking prices and in-place values, the gross rent is up 6.7% is currently around 15 percentage of capital transaction costs. So that's currently what we are seeing in the current market.

------------------------------
 Unidentified Analyst,    [4]
------------------------------
 Okay. That's clear. And then coming back to -- you indicated that you wanted to do value-enhancing acquisitions and that will be FFO accretive for that part in the same, because most probably, you finance it at what is lower than 1.5%. Do you feel comfortable that if you acquire, let's say, that 15% higher value that it is on the long run still basically showing the return that you want to have over longer term, so if you look at long-term IRRs that you can accomplish on those portfolio acquisitions?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [5]
------------------------------
 Well, maybe just not to get it wrong, so we are not -- usually we're not buying at a premium of 15% or -- as in the past. We're currently rejecting also lot of deals. And as you know and you can expect us, as we did in the past, we achieved an FFO per share accretion and we want to be roughly NAV neutral. As we take into account our low cost of debt, and of course, if we generally finance acquisitions with rough guidance 50% equity, we can use the premium NAV. But 15% usually is not accepted as a premium on the values if we acquire assets. And that's not the case -- that's certainly not the case for the acquisition Thomas had mentioned.

------------------------------
 Unidentified Analyst,    [6]
------------------------------
 Okay. And the reason for that being that it's perhaps a bit more complex acquisitions? Or what is the reason that you can do, let's say, acquisitions at lower prices than where the market is right now?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [7]
------------------------------
 Yes, I think there are certainly more complex structures, that's right. But there are also other aspects. I think certainly, price is one very important aspect, but also reputation. Personal relationships also play an important role in these processes.

------------------------------
 Unidentified Analyst,    [8]
------------------------------
 Okay, that's clear. And the last question then on your CapEx strategy. You significantly increased that with the full year results, EUR 24 to EUR 29 a square meter. Is -- one of the reading is correct, do you actually state that acquisition opportunities in a market dry up a little bit or at least accretive acquisitions opportunity with the exception of you, and that's why you're boosting up your CapEx program? Or is that a wrong reading of it?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [9]
------------------------------
 Well, I think the most important aspect is and we highlighted this in the past that we see a broad-based upswing in the market. So we see improving rent. And against this backdrop of increasing rent, more and more modernization measures make sense. And as we can achieve an IRR of 6%, I think that's the main reason for this adjustment of our CapEx strategy. So it's not the case that we're seeing drying pipeline. And as we said, there is a reason for optimism on the acquisition side. But at the same time, we expand our CapEx program. I think that's a clear sign that this expansion is more based on, yes, well, on the upswing and robust and stable trend in our markets.

------------------------------
Operator   [10]
------------------------------
 The next question comes from the line of Thomas Neuhold with Kepler Cheuvreux.

------------------------------
 Thomas Neuhold,  Kepler Cheuvreux, Research Division - Head of Research, Austria   [11]
------------------------------
 2 key topics basically, which I wanted to discuss in more detail. The first is on the increased CapEx program. I was wondering if you can give us an indication how many apartments you plan to modernize in total over the next 5 years? And what roughly the CapEx is per square meter in the apartments which you'll modernize? And what kind of rent uplift you expect for the modernized apartments versus the in-place rents? And the second question or topic is on the acquisition pipeline. I understand you cannot provide us with a lot of details at the current stage. But can you at least tell us in which subsegments the acquisitions could take place? Is it high-growth, stable or high-yielding markets mainly? And then also about the size of the potential acquisitions, do you think you can fund it internally? Or is it also possible that you might go for a capital increase?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [12]
------------------------------
 Yes. So I would take the first part of the question regarding CapEx, and I'll pass over to Thomas. So I think we -- already in the last call, we guided for increase of our CapEx program by EUR 200 million, EUR 40 million in 2017, EUR 80 million each in '18 and '19. Approximately 10,000 units are related to this expansion, the first step. And then the second step, I can't give you now a concrete number for apartment. Roughly speaking, we said that the lion's share, 75% is allocated to our high-growth markets, 75% to energy improvements, facade installation, et cetera, heating systems, windows. And 25% are related to balcony programs, bath modernization. So I think it's difficult really to be very precise about how much goes -- flows into the apartment, how much of flows into the building. So 90% of all the measures are building related. Only 10% are related to the apartment. And that has an advantage, because then we can do and can execute this CapEx program without creating additional vacancy or fluctuation. So that's the background. And EUR 24 per square meter, that is an increase by EUR 40 million, EUR 29 by $80 million. The impact, as we guided last year, 50 basis points in 2018, 90 basis points in 2019. And so we have now identified also for the following 2 to 3 years concrete projects, which generate an IRR of 6%. And an IRR of 6% means that the yield on cost is slightly higher if you take into consideration the different lifetime modernization. So that's the return we expect. Does that answer your question?

------------------------------
 Thomas Hegel,  LEG Immobilien AG - Chairman of Management Board and CEO   [13]
------------------------------
 So I would like to take the question about acquisitions. So let me start with a hint or with a summary expressions about what we are -- what we have in the pipeline at the moment. You know that we can say that today, we pointed out that we are negotiating several midsized deals. Midsized deals, according to our internal definition, means that it starts around 1,500 to 2,000 units. And this maybe should give you some indication regarding the total volume we are talking about. When you're asking in which regions we are dealing at the moment and the pipeline is dealing with, that means that we are -- that we have represented the portfolios we are dealing with are represented in all regions of North Rhine-Westphalia. And you might understand that we could not -- that we are not able to talk about details at the moment. You know this, and I mentioned it several times before, that we don't want to come under pressure and that we don't want to talk about more details than necessary at the moment just as long as we are in the phase of negotiation. The other part of your question was about the financing of those acquisitions. We are taking into account our cost of capital, our implied rental yields, all those. We have some firepower or general guidance that we're going to finance future acquisitions with 50% equity remains unchanged. Accordingly, a larger acquisition would require a tailor-made equity financing. This message is also taking into account an equity raise, and we expect a positive FFO per share impact. Does that answer your question?

------------------------------
Operator   [14]
------------------------------
 (Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Mr. Burkhard Sawazki for closing comments. Excuse me, sorry to interrupt. We just have a question from the line of Tom Carstairs with Commerzbank.

------------------------------
 Thomas Carstairs,  Commerzbank AG, Research Division - Analyst   [15]
------------------------------
 Apologies, because I missed the beginning of the call. But I wondered if you could give us an indication of the -- any kind of contributions from the Mietspiegel that we've seen so far year-to-date in the 2.9% like-for-like rental growth?

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [16]
------------------------------
 Well, you mean what part the Mietspiegel contributed to the expected rental growth for 2017?

------------------------------
 Thomas Carstairs,  Commerzbank AG, Research Division - Analyst   [17]
------------------------------
 Yes.

------------------------------
 Eckhard Schultz,  LEG Immobilien AG - Vice Chairman of Management Board and CFO   [18]
------------------------------
 So our guidance is roughly rental growth between 3.0% and 3%. Approximately 180 basis points comes from Mietspiegel adjustment, approximately 50 bps from relettings. From modernization, we expect 40 basis points. Then we have also seen already a larger expiry of rent restrictions, approximately 2,000 -- 200 units of rent restriction. And generally 20 basis points contribution to the rental growth. And then we have also the regular adjustment of the rent-restricted units that contributes the remaining part. So I think the message is if you compare that with previous quarters, with previous years, we see a steady increasing importance of Mietspiegel adjustments, 180 basis points. If I remember correctly, that was in the past between 150, 160 basis points.

------------------------------
Operator   [19]
------------------------------
 There are no further questions. I hand back to Burkhard Sawazki for closing comments.

------------------------------
 Burkhard Sawazki,  LEG Immobilien AG - Head of IR   [20]
------------------------------
 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. As you know, the IR team and I are available also after the call to answer your questions. So please feel free to give us a call or send us an e-mail. Thank you, and goodbye.




------------------------------
Definitions
------------------------------
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT: "Preliminary Transcript" indicates that the 
Transcript has been published in near real-time by an experienced 
professional transcriber.  While the Preliminary Transcript is highly 
accurate, it has not been edited to ensure the entire transcription 
represents a verbatim report of the call.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT: "Edited Transcript" indicates that a team of professional 
editors have listened to the event a second time to confirm that the 
content of the call has been transcribed accurately and in full.

------------------------------
Disclaimer
------------------------------
Thomson Reuters reserves the right to make changes to documents, content, or other 
information on this web site without obligation to notify any person of 
such changes.

In the conference calls upon which Event Transcripts are based, companies 
may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding a variety 
of items. Such forward-looking statements are based upon current 
expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ 
materially from those stated in any forward-looking statement based on a 
number of important factors and risks, which are more specifically 
identified in the companies' most recent SEC filings. Although the companies 
may indicate and believe that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking 
statements are reasonable, any of the assumptions could prove inaccurate or 
incorrect and, therefore, there can be no assurance that the results 
contemplated in the forward-looking statements will be realized.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN EVENT TRANSCRIPTS IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION
OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S CONFERENCE CALL AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO
PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS,
OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE CONFERENCE CALLS.
IN NO WAY DOES THOMSON REUTERS OR THE APPLICABLE COMPANY ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER
DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN
ANY EVENT TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S
CONFERENCE CALL ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S SEC FILINGS BEFORE
MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS.
------------------------------
Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------