Howard Hughes Holdings reports record Q3 2025 results, raising full-year EBIT guidance to $450 million amid robust land sales and strategic developments.

OPERATOR - (00:01:01)

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Howard Hughes third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question. Please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Joe Vilain, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Joe Vilain - General Counsel - (00:01:45)

Good morning and welcome to the Howard Hughes Holdings third quarter 2025 earnings call. With me today are Bill Ackman, executive chairman, David O'Reilly, chief executive officer, Ryan Israel, Chief Investment Officer and Carlos Olea, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to direct you to our website www.howardhughes.com where you can download both our third quarter earnings press release and our supplemental package. The earnings release and supplemental package include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures that will be discussed today in relation to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Certain statements made today that are not in the present tense or that discuss the Company's expectations are forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that these expectations will be achieved. Please see the forward looking statement disclaimer in our third quarter earnings press release and the risk factors in our SEC filings for factors that could cause material differences between forward looking statements and actual results. We are not under any duty to update forward looking statements unless required by law. I will now turn the call over to our CEO David O'Reilly.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:02:58)

Thanks Joe and good morning everyone. I'm going to start with a quick overview of the quarter and some highlights for Howard Hughes communities. Carlos will walk through guidance in our cash flow outlook before handing it over to Bill and Ryan to share updates on our holding company strategy. We delivered another strong quarter across every business segment, underscoring the strength of our real estate platform and the value of our transformation into a diversified holding company. Starting with our MPC segment, we had a record quarter generating 205 million EBT driven by strong land sales. In Summerlin, we sold 319 acres at roughly $795,000 an acre. That included a single 231 acre bulk sale of raw undeveloped land sold at a 75% margin but below our average price per acre. Since it required no upfront infrastructure. Excluding that one transaction, the rest of our land averaged about $1.7 million per acre. We earned more than 14.5 million in builder price participation, reflecting continued home price growth in Summerlin. In Bridgeland, land sales remain steady and we're gearing up for the grand opening of Terra Vallis in Phoenix later this month. Model homes are open, builders are active and momentum is strong at Florio. While broader national headlines point to slower home sales, we're once again seeing the opposite in our communities, delivering strong results to counter current headlines. Our perpetual cycle of value creation and self funding model combined with limited competition continues to give us a major edge. As a result, we expect to finish the year with record high residential land sales, record pricing and a record full year MPC ebt. Given this performance, we're once again raising our full year MPC guidance moving to operating assets Net Operating Income (NOI) grew 5% year over year to $68 million, driven by leasing momentum across the portfolio. Office Net Operating Income (NOI) was up 7% thanks to strong activity in Colombia and the expiration of some large abatements. We signed 55,000 square feet of new or expanded office leases and the stabilized office portfolio ended the quarter 89% lease. Multifamily Net Operating Income (NOI) grew 2% as new projects in Summerlin and Bridgeland continued leasing ahead of plan. Our stabilized multifamily portfolio is now 96% leased. Retail Net Operating Income (NOI) was up 9% year over year, led by great performance at Ward Village and Meriwether District. Our stabilized retail portfolio remains above 90% leased. Turning to strategic developments, we reached a new record with $1.4 billion in condo presales led by Malia and Alima. Our 12th and 13th towers at Ward Village both are off to an incredible start and already collectively 57% pre sold. The Lanoux in Ward Village and the Ritz Carlton Residences in the woodlands are now 68% and 74% pre sold respectively. Beyond condo sales, we broke ground on the Memorial Herman Medical Office Building in Bridgeland, the first step in what we expect will become a 1 million square foot medical district. And right after quarter end we completed 1 Riva Row, a 268 unit luxury multifamily property along the Woodlands Waterway. That project sets a new bar for multifamily living in the area and and will meaningfully contribute to Net Operating Income (NOI) once stabilized. What's most exciting is how the cash flow generated across our communities is reinvested right back into value, creating developments. Projects like Alima and Melia at Ward Village are one Riva Row in the Woodlands. Each one is a perfect example of how we recycle capital to grow both future cash flows and long term net asset value across our portfolio. It's been a busy and rewarding quarter across Howard U's communities and I couldn't be prouder of how our teams continue to execute. With that. I'll hand it over to Carlos.

Carlos Olea - Chief Financial Officer - (00:07:24)

Thanks David and good morning everyone. I'll start with the recent financings followed by guidance updates and our view on cash flow generation. We refinanced about 114 million of near term maturities during the quarter, pushing them out into 2026 and beyond, including loans at 3831 Technology Forest Wingspan and 6100 Merriweather. As a result, our 2025 maturities are down to just 76 million which we expect to refinance before the end of the year. Turning to guidance, strong land sales across our MPC has led us to raise full year EBT guidance to 450 million at the midpoint, up 20 million from prior guidance. 2025 will be another record breaking year. Now not every year will look like this, but it shows the power of model when all cylinders are firing. Land sales bring residents. Residents drive demand for retail and office and that demand pushes land values even higher. Operating assets also performed well this quarter, so we're reaffirming full year NOI guidance of 267 million which company record our ability to control supply within our MPCs with little to no outside competition continues to be a key advantage on condos. We're adjusting our full year revenue target slightly down 15 million to 360 million, reflecting a small timing shift for Ohana closings into early 2026. Ohana remains fully sold and is expected to deliver at break. Even more importantly, our future pipeline is stronger than ever. With 1.4 billion of presales this quarter across Melilla Ilima and the Ritz Carpent residents of Woodlands. This project will generate meaningful cash flows over the next five years. On GNA, we're maintaining guidance between 76 and 86 million with a midpoint of 81 million. That excludes approximately $13 million of anticipated non cash stock compensation, $10 million of severance expenses and $4 million related to Pershing Square variable advisory fee incurred year to date. However, it does include $10 million for Pershing Square's base advisory fee, which we've largely offset through earlier workforce reductions and other cost efficiencies. Finally, given our outperformance, we're Raising adjusted operating cash flow guidance to 440 million, or $7.86 per diluted share, up 30 million from our prior outlook. What's important is what we do with that cash flow. It's reinvested into our communities to generate even greater value. The projects David mentioned, from new condominium towers like Malia and Ilima to value creation developments like One River Row, are exactly where that cash goes, driving higher net asset value and future cash flow generation. With that, I'll hand it over to Bill and Ryan.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:10:34)

Thank you, Carlos. So my update is really an update about our progress in acquiring an insurance company that will become a base, really, for the transformation of Howard Hughes into a diversified holding company. Good news is that we've made substantial progress. We identified a target. We've done a significant amount of due diligence. We've come to an agreement on price. The seller has begun drafting definitive agreements. We are still deep in the due diligence process. It is possible that something would emerge that would cause us not to go forward. But based on the work we've done to date, I'm actually growing confidence that a transaction will be completed. And I would say we may be in a position to announce something as early as end of year or possibly in the first quarter. So we're pleased with that progress. I look forward to sharing more details, but a significant development for the company for sure, assuming we can execute on this transaction. That's really my only announcement. The only other point I would make with respect to what Carlos said. Our priority with respect to the cash flows that are generated from our real estate subsidiary are to invest whatever required to continue to build kind of the best places for people to live in the country. The good news is even after that reinvestment of cash into equity to build a downtown, office buildings, apartments, the next condominium project, we project that Howard Hughes will generate substantially the real estate subsidiary will generate substantially more cash, and we can even spend in that division of the business over time, that will generate cash that we can flow up to the holding company. That will give us more flexibility in building out our diversified holding company strategy. With that, why don't we open it for questions?

OPERATOR - (00:12:26)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Anthony Paolone from J.P. morgan.

Anthony Paolone - Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan - (00:12:54)

Great, thanks. Good morning. First question relates to just super pad sales. Those seem to be pretty successful in the quarter. And just wondering how do you think of the trade off of doing more of those and the NPV of just taking the discount and not having to do all the infrastructure and just letting those go versus holding them and taking them a little bit further down and selling more groups of lots as opposed. To the superpad.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:13:22)

Morning, Tony. Thanks for the question. It's David. Look, I think that this was a rare situation where we had a piece of land and if you remember from the time when you were in Summerlin, what we used to call the back bowl, it was due south of the Summit development. It was a particular piece of land that had a unusually high expense of bringing infrastructure to. And in this unique situation, by selling that super pad at a lower gross price per acre or lower gross price per acre, but higher gross price per acre, we were able to generate great cash flow for the company in general going forward. We don't have another parcel like that, so. So you should expect us to transact on super pads going forward consistent with the way we have the past several quarters at a much higher gross and gross price per acre.

Anthony Paolone - Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan - (00:14:15)

Okay, got it. And then just my other question just shifts more over to Bill and thinking about this insurance company that you've got teed up, should we anticipate that after. Doing a deal like the one you're. Contemplating that uses up the bulk of your capital today, or do you think you'll have more capacity thereafter to do more deals and just wondering kind of.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:14:43)

Where this leaves you? Sure. So we think so. One, it will consume the available cash that we've injected into the company. And our reason why we're focused on insurance as sort of our first initiative is it's a business that we can contribute very significant value to. If you look at again, if we take our Berkshire Hathaway model and look at Buffett has achieved over time, my estimate or estimate is something like 70 to 80% of the value of the company was created with the launch of insurance strategy and an approach to writing business that created a lot of flexibility for the insurer to I would say have more flexible investment approach. So Buffett historically wrote very little risk relative to capital and invested relatively small amount of assets relative to capital, but invested those assets about two thirds of those assets in common stocks and did so effectively. And the beauty of insurance business is insurance generates a lot of cash. You don't need to issue stock. Every time you do a deal insurance business, you write premium, you collect cash, and over time you invest that capital and Earn a return on the assets and hopefully make money on the insurance side of the business. If we can achieve both of those objectives, combining kind of Pershing Square's investment expertise with a talented management team running a diversified insurance company platform, we think that asset alone can compound to grow, become a material, very significant contributor to the growth of the company, the growth of our intrinsic value over time. And then as the real estate subsidiary generates cash that's not needed in the real estate business, that's what's going to give us flexibility to make investments in other assets over time. But insurance is clearly our first priority.

Anthony Paolone - Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan - (00:16:42)

Okay, thanks for that.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:16:44)

Sure.

OPERATOR - (00:16:46)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:16:56)

Hey, good morning down there. So, two questions. First, David, only 57% pre sold on the new condos in Hawaii, I would expect better out of you guys. Just kidding. As far as Ward Village goes, where do you stand on the existing entitlements? Meaning how many more can you build? And what is the status on phase 2? Is that something that you could see approvals for and launch in the next few years? Or phase two of Ward Village is something that's maybe five or ten years out?

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:17:32)

Morning, Alex. Great question. Look, I would say that we're thrilled with our 57% presale of over 1.4 billion this quarter and see continued momentum as those projects are very unique and on the best remaining development side on the south shore of Oahu. In terms of the initial entitlements we had through the master development agreement at Ward Village. Beyond these two towers, Malia and Alima, there is one more site that will use the remaining square feet. Beyond that, we do have approval for an incremental square feet. And that incremental square feet could be between 2 and 4 million, depending on the zoning upsizes we get by reinvesting into the community. So we're already well underway in pre development of incremental towers in addition to what we had by Wright under our original master development agreement.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:18:28)

Okay, that's helpful. And then Bill, following up on Anthony's question, I realize obviously there's a lot of confidentiality, but just big picture, can you just give us some color? Is this pure B2B as you described before? And is everything in this entity clean or are there businesses that you'd want to exit or any legacy policies or legacy lines that you know need to be settled or anything like that?

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:18:58)

Look, it's a. I would say it's a very clean transaction. For us, it's a platform, you know, kind of a diversified insurance company platform that really fits our, the criteria that we've outlined. So no business lines that we need to exit. It's not a consumer facing insurer.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:19:15)

Yeah. And can you indicate whether it's domestic or, you know, Bermuda or somewhere offshore?

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:19:23)

I would say it's as many insurers are as a domestic practice and an offshore practice.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:19:31)

Okay, thank you, Bill.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:19:33)

Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:19:35)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Our next question comes from the line of John Peterson from Jeffries.

John Peterson - Equity Analyst at Jeffries - (00:19:57)

Great. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Curious if you could maybe just give. Us a little more commentary on the Ritz Carlton residences at the Woodlands and. How that is trending relative to your initial underwriting and then opportunities for other. Condo projects across the portfolio. Clearly, Ward Village has been a big. Success and you're kind of translating that. Over to the Woodlands. But where else might we see future.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:20:22)

Condo projects across your. I'll take the first part of your question. So this has been a bit of a tussle between me and David O'Reilly in the sense that the team designed an absolutely spectacular project, first of its kind in the Woodlands. And I took a look at this project and I said, we're giving it away at these prices. And I said, you know what? The community just needs to see this thing built before. So you know what? Don't sell any more than half the units. That was our deal. And then I stepped off as chair of the board. And unbeknownst to me, David's been sneaking out a few units because he achieved prices that he just felt he obligated to sell. Is that really the answer? No. We're hitting record high prices. Yeah. And so Dave has continued to look. I think it's tremendous value. So for the buyers in the market, I mean, I compare the, the quality is of what you might call Billionaires' Row quality, like 220 Central Park south, if you know the building. Also a Robert Stern design in New York City that achieved just massive, massive premium over everything else in the market. This is that kind of building, but it's really the first condominium built in the Woodlands. And we just felt that we should be very judicious about the way we sell units. We could have sold the entire project on a pre sale basis. And when you compare to Hawaii, you know, Hawaii, we're extremely well established. Everyone knows the quality of the product that we build. And, you know, while the team continues to kind of raise price, you know, weekly as we sell units, the general goal in Hawaii is to sell 100% of the project, or nearly 100% before we even put a shovel on the ground. Right. Whereas in. We just felt, in light of the fact we're delivering a first of its kind in the Woodlands, that we would achieve a better outcome if we were kind of slow walked units until the project is open. So I'm hoping David is going to keep some units so I can prove my point about what we're going to achieve when people can actually see the finished product.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:22:26)

No doubt we're about 75% sold now. We have a little over a year before we're ready to welcome our first units, our first residents into those units. And we're optimistic that, you know, the remaining units that we're holding back right now will be able to sell upon completion, when people can see, touch and feel the incredible quality that we're going to deliver. To the second half of your question, John, There are a couple of sites in addition to the Ritz Carlton site for future condo projects in the woodland, and we're evaluating those real time, determining where we think deep demand will be, what price price per foot, that is, what size of units are, et cetera. And we're also evaluating a couple of sites in and around Summerlin where we could leverage the expertise and skill of our team in Ward Village across the rest of our portfolio to deliver great cash flow results for the company.

John Peterson - Equity Analyst at Jeffries - (00:23:20)

Okay, all right, that's very helpful.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:23:22)

And then maybe I got a question for David. What's the spread in price per square foot we've achieved on the later-sold units versus the first sold units in the Woodlands? How much have the price per square foot have gone up on a kind of comparable unit?

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:23:39)

One of the challenging parts is that with a Bob Stern design, there are very few comparable units. In general, we've seen from kind of our initial sales to where we are today, about $350 to $400 a foot. Increase. Increase.

Bill Ackman - Executive Chairman - (00:23:52)

And the average sale price now is what, per square foot? Really high. Okay. It's a precise number. You understand the point. This is the kind of asset that I think to generate the. Maximize the profit. You know, we don't have. We're not like a typical developer that has to sell all the units before you can get a construction loan. So for us, we can be thoughtful about the pace of sale to maximize the Net Present Value (NPV) of the project.

John Peterson - Equity Analyst at Jeffries - (00:24:17)

Okay, all right. That makes Sense. And then Terra Vallis. I was in the Phoenix airport recently. Saw you guys have some advertisements up there to lure people out to that community. I'm just curious, just remind me, what. Should we be expecting in terms of MPC land sales maybe in 2026 or. Maybe if you want to give me a multi year outlook, just remind me on where you guys are at on rolling that out.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:24:41)

Yeah, absolutely. So we're in a great spot right now. We've sold about 1,000 lots year to date in Terravallis and that will be enough to keep us busy for the near term future. I think you may be able to see us sell some incremental lots in 2026, but 2027 will probably be a year where we re up after those lots that we sold this year end up in the hands of residents and home buyers. We're excited. This Friday we have our official grand opening at Terravallis. We've already sold our first few lots to different residents that will be constructing their homes right now. And we're incredibly excited with the progress that we've seen and how fast this community's come together. Sounds great.

John Peterson - Equity Analyst at Jeffries - (00:25:26)

Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:25:28)

Thanks, John. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:25:31)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:25:43)

Thank you for taking a follow up, David. I realize that it's not the fourth quarter and we have to hold off on guidance, but still the pace of your increases, especially in the land business, has been pretty incredible this year. And is there something sort of a ballpark? I think you're tracking 440 million at the midpoint for 25. Is there something that we should be thinking of for 26? So either one, we don't get too far ahead of ourselves or maybe the pace that you've delivered this year is sort of a new run rate, is something sustainable?

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:26:20)

Alex? I think it is pretty early right now to feel comfortable providing any sort of guidance on 2026 land sales. I think that 2025 has been remarkable. We've raised guidance twice. Clearly we didn't expect to see this strength when we gave guidance a little bit less than a year ago. I think that at this point I would not advise anyone to extrapolate this year's results into growing further into the future. We're going to take it quarter by quarter. We're going to see how many homes we sell in our communities and we're going to sell just enough land to keep up with that at the highest price per acre we possibly can.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:26:57)

But it's not going to hurt if rates come down, obviously continue to come down.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:27:01)

No, I think that we've achieved these results given the quality of our community as people chase higher quality of life, shorter commutes, more connectivity to nature into these master planned communities despite higher rates.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:27:14)

The more states like New York and California move socialist, the more that people want to go to capitalist states like Texas and Las Vegas. Been strong, Bill. I'm impressed. It only took 26 minutes for that. But David, as you look at your inventory, you feel right now there's a good balance between what the builders have bought versus their ability to deliver. Or you think they're a little long on land or a little short on land. I'm just trying to get a sense of the appetite from the home builders to buy more.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:27:48)

Right now I would tell you that we are selling land to the home builders only to keep up with underlying home sales in our communities. And that strategy won't change. We try to keep them at a appropriate supply, which I would argue is between 12 and 18 months of finished lots or vacant developed lots. They're a little bit undersupplied right now, but you know, we like to be a little bit under supplied then a little bit oversupplied when we have the opportunity.

Alexander Goldfarb - Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler - (00:28:20)

Thank you.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:21)

Thanks, Oliver.

OPERATOR - (00:28:24)

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to David O'Reilly for closing remarks.

David O'Reilly - Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:31)

Want to thank everyone again for joining us today. As always, if there's any follow up or any questions we weren't able to get to, we are always available and look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you. Thanks so much. Bye bye.

OPERATOR - (00:28:43)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.