Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Mortgage REITs: Real Value in a Chaotic Market

Prologis (PLD), the world’s largest developer of commercial warehouse space, and a leading manager of REIT’s, has seen its shares collapse 94% from $65 to a low of $3.62 by last November. It is effectively trading as if the company has already gone bankrupt. The Denver based company employs 1,500, managing 2,898 properties, totaling 548 million square feet in 115 countries. It had been a highly leveraged call on the growth of international trade, which is now imploding with unprecedented speed. PLD listed $40.8 billion in assets on its balance sheet, and until recently, was one of the largest listed REIT’s. CEO Jeffrey Schwartz, a 14 year veteran at the company who spearheaded its growth into China, where it now has 3.3 million square feet, resigned on November 12 and will be replaced by CFO Walter Rakowich. Thus, the keys to (PLD) have been handed over from the visionary risk taker to the bean counter. On November 4, the company announced a Q4 dividend of 52 cents, giving the shares now trading at $3.78/share an effective annualized yield of 55%! The company refused to issue a forecast for 2009, which didn’t exactly inspire shareholders. PLD’s 5 5/8% bonds due in 2016 are trading at just 43 cents on the dollar, giving it a low grade junk yield of 16.7% over Treasuries. PLD is now clearly in survival mode. It has suspended development of the $8.4 billion of projects in the pipeline. It is dependent on rolling over $353 million of company debt and $1.46 billion of fund debt in 2009 in credit markets, which are now effectively closed. It hopes to carry out distressed sales of $2 billion of assets by next year to deleverage its balance sheet. On November 13 it told shareholders it would save $290 million by slashing its future dividends, and another $100 million in cutting administrative costs. The stock has clearly been pulled down by the general distress in the sector in an environment where leverage has become a dirty word. The default rate on commercial properties is expected to soar from this year’s 1% to as high as 5% next year. 18 publicly traded REIT’s have cut or suspended dividends so far this year. PLD was badly hurt by a deal with Lehman Brothers struck in July, 2007, at the absolute peak of the market, where it bought a $1.85 billion national portfolio of warehouses from Dermody Properties and the California State Teachers Retirement System. Lehman was unable to repackage and resell the debt. There are dozens of stocks like this out there now where share prices have fallen to the level of an undated, highly leveraged call option. It is a bet that we have a “V” type recession, not a “U”, and that credit markets recover rapidly next year. I give it a 50:50 chance of survival. But the risk/reward ratio is good. If you are wrong, you lose $3.75. If you are right, the stock could very quickly make it back up to $20, giving you a return of 533%. If you were running a portfolio, you would be buying these all day long, where the mathematics of venture capital applies. If four out of five go bankrupt, you breakeven. If only three out of five go under, you double your money. You need to buy five PLD’s, not just one.