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Text: As always, we appreciate your interest.
Brent Wood, our CFO, is also participating on the call.
We refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filings.
We hope everyone and their families remain well and out of harm's way.
Our third quarter results were strong and demonstrated the resiliency of our portfolio and of the industrial market.
The team produced another solid quarter with statistics such as funds from operations came in above guidance, up 6.3% compared to last quarter -- third quarter last year.
This marks 30 consecutive quarters of higher FFO per share as compared to the prior year quarter, truly a long-term trend.
Year-to-date FFO per share is up 7.8%.
Our quarterly occupancy, while below prior year, was high averaging 96.6% and at quarter end were ahead of projections at 97.8% leased and 96.4% occupied.
Our occupancy is benefiting from a healthy market with accelerating e-commerce and last mile delivery trends, also benefiting occupancy as a high 83% year-to-date retention rate.
Re-leasing spreads set a quarterly record at 28% GAAP and 16.1% cash.
Year-to-date leasing spreads were solid at 23.1% GAAP and 13.3% cash.
And finally, same-store NOI was up 3% for the quarter and 3.6% year-to-date.
In summary, during a choppy environment, I'm proud of our team's results.
Our strategy is evolving to not only include maintaining occupancy, cash flow and liquidity, as has been the case since March.
Today, we're responding to the strength in the market and restarting development.
Looking at each of our goals, I'm grateful we ended the quarter generally fall at 97.8% leased, our second highest quarter on record.
Houston, our largest market, at 13.5% of rents is 96.2% leased, with an eight-month average collection rate over 99%.
Companywide rent collections remain resilient.
For October, thus far, we've collected 97.6% of monthly rents.
There's still many unknowns about how fast and when the economy truly reopens and recovers.
We all, as a result, simply have less clarity than normal.
Brent will speak to our budget assumptions, but I'm pleased that in spite of the uncertainty, we're tracking toward $5.35 per share in FFO.
This represents a $0.07 per share increase to our July forecast and $0.05 per share above our pre pandemic expectations.
As we've stated before, our development starts are pulled by market demand.
So with the shutdown, we halted new starts.
Given the strength we're seeing in select submarkets, we're planning a few fourth quarter starts and pending permitting timing, these will continue into first quarter of 2021.
And to position us following the pandemic, we've also been working on several new land sites and park expansion.
More details to follow as we close on these investments.
Other strategic transitions -- transactions we've worked on include our 162,000 square foot value-add acquisition in Rancho Cucamonga, near the Ontario airport and dispositions, which hopefully continue toward closing in Houston and on our last property in Santa Barbara.
And now Brent will review a variety of financial topics, including our updated 2020 guidance.
Our third quarter results reflect the resiliency of our team and strong overall performance of our portfolio amid a very challenging year.
FFO per share for the third quarter exceeded our guidance range at $1.36 per share and compared to third quarter 2019 of $1.28 represented an increase of 6.3%.
The outperformance continues to be driven by our operating portfolio performing better-than-anticipated namely higher occupancy and strong rent collections.
From a capital perspective, during the third quarter, we issued $32 million of equity at an average price of $133 per share and earlier this month we closed on two senior unsecured private placement notes totaling $175 million.
The $100 million note was a 10-year -- has a 10-year term with a fixed interest rate of 2.61%.
The second note is $75 million on a 12-year term with a fixed interest rate of 2.71%.
That activity, combined with our already strong and conservative balance sheet, has kept us in a position of financial strength and flexibility, including the complete availability of our $395 million revolver as of today.
Our debt to total market capitalization is 19%, debt-to-EBITDA ratio is 4.9 times, and our interest and fixed charge coverage ratios are over 7.4 times.
Our rent collections have been equally strong.
We have collected 99% of our third quarter revenue and entered into deferral agreements for an additional 0.5%, bringing our total collected and deferred to 99.5% for the third quarter.
Last April, we reported that 26% of our tenants have requested some form of rent deferment.
In the six subsequent months, that only rose to 28% and deferral requests have basically ceased.
The agreed-upon rent deferrals thus far totaled $1.7 million, an increase of only $200,000 since our report in July.
That represents just 0.5% of our estimated 2020 revenues.
We have consistently stated the depth and duration of the pandemic and its impact on the economy is undeterminable.
However, the immediacy and degree of potential tenant financial stress and loss of occupancy we had budgeted for has not materialized.
As a result, our actual performance and revised assumptions for the fourth quarter increased our FFO earnings guidance from a midpoint of $5.28 per share to $5.35 per share or a 7.4% increase over 2019.
The revised midpoint exceeds our original pre-COVID guidance at the beginning of the year.
Among the budget changes were an increase in average occupancy from 96% to 96.5% and a decrease in reserves for uncollectible rent from $3.6 million to $2.3 million.
Note that the reserve for potential bad debt for fourth quarter of $600,000 is not attributable to specific tenants.
Our continued earnings growth directly contributed to increasing our quarterly dividend by 5.3% to $0.79 per share.
Our third quarter dividend was the 163rd consecutive quarterly distribution to EastGroup shareholders and represents an annualized dividend rate of $3.16 per share.
In summary, we were very pleased with our third quarter results.
We will continue to rely on our financial strength, the experience of our team and the quality and location of our portfolio to carry our momentum into next year.
Now Marshall will make some final comments.
In closing, I'm also proud of our third quarter results.
Our company and our team has worked through numerous downturns and, while different, will work through this one, too.
As the economy stabilizes, it's the future that makes me the most excited for EastGroup.
Our strategy has worked well the past few years.
And coming out of this pandemic, we foresee an acceleration and a number of positive trends for our properties and within our markets.
Meanwhile, our bread and butter traditional tenants remain and will continue needing last-mile distribution space in fast-growing Sun Belt markets.
These, along with the mix of our team, our operating strategy and our markets, has us optimistic about the future.

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q3 ffo per share $1.36.

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