Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Dream Unlimited Corp's third quarter conference call for Thursday, November 10, 2022. During this call, management of Dream Unlimited Corp may make statements containing forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Dream Unlimited Corp's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained in Dream Unlimited Corp's filings with the securities regulators, including its latest annual form and MD&A. These filings are also available on Dream Unlimited Corp's website at www.dream.ca. Later in the presentation, we will have a question-and-answer session.
To queue up for a question, please press zero one on your touch-tone keypad. Your host for today will be Mr. Michael Cooper, CRO of Dream Unlimited Corp. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.
Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to our third quarter conference call. I think we put out a lot of information. I think it's relatively self-explanatory. What I would like to comment on is, you know, since the beginning of COVID, we've been very active. We've tried to do the best we can overcoming the adversity that we've all had to deal with. We've grown our asset management business. We've created a significant impact investing business. We've grown our assets under management, both public and private. We've really made big improvements on our affordable housing and development business. We're pretty pleased with it. This year, we did win the LeBreton Flats Library parcel, and we were awarded the Quayside.
We've really worked on increasing our liquidity, and we're gonna end the year with a fair amount of liquidity. You know, with the announcement on Monday regarding working with GIC, we've made a lot of progress on our asset management business. I'd also say that with 43 million sq ft of industrial buildings in Canada between the two companies, of which 60% is in Toronto and Montreal, we're becoming a very large industrial asset manager and property manager for Canada in the top three. I think there's a lot of synergies we're gonna get out of being able to have so many tenants and working with so many properties.
We also have 11 million sq ft of development properties coming, and we've got firepower to increase our development pipeline, as well as buying existing acquisitions through the arrangements that we've set up. I'm hopeful that very soon we'll complete the negotiations for Quayside. That's about a CAD 5.5 billion development. It's a very exciting development and one that will have a big impact on the city. Hopefully, we'll be going all out by the beginning of the new year to get it rezoned and get ready to go. That's all great. We've been buying back stock. For a number of reasons, we haven't bought back as much as prior years. One is to increase our liquidity.
The other one is we've been, you know, blacked out most of the year because of our activities. We expect to continue to buy back stock over the next few years, maybe not at the same rate that we have been. I think we wanna use some of our capital to create other opportunities, like buying the U.S. apartments to create an apartment business and other, you know, opportunities to create seed assets for our asset management business. Overall, all the developments underway are going very well. They're pretty much on time. They are on budget. In many cases, like Block 206 West Don Lands, we're gonna start leasing it soon. The apartment rents are gonna be very good. We've locked in interest rates a couple years ago.
The construction costs are in line, so I think that's gonna turn out good. Block 347 is coming. We mentioned Zibi. We're building Block 11 in Gatineau, which is an apartment building. Block 206 is the first apartment building in Ontario. They're both coming along. We're building quite a bit in Saskatoon. Altogether, it's a lot of rental properties. As we've mentioned, the Frank Gehry designed Forma has been, you know, we're very pleased with how well it's been received and how much sales. We've actually started construction this month, and we'll be going full bore within the next 4-6 weeks. There's a lot happening. We got a backdrop that's very uncertain.
Today, the markets were up 1,200 points because there was a slightly better CPI number than people expected. I think we're gonna continue to have a lot of volatility, but I would just say that there's opportunities in all markets, and we're gonna continue to look for more opportunities and take advantage of the opportunities we've been blessed with. Deb Stark is with me today. Do you wanna speak to the financials?
Sure. Thank you, Michael, and good afternoon. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, earnings before income taxes after adjusting for the fair value adjustments taken on Dream Impact Trust units held by other unit holders was CAD 82.7 million and CAD 172.5 million respectively, compared to earnings of CAD 16.3 million and CAD 51.8 million in 2021.
The increase over 2021 is primarily due to fair value gains on our multifamily rental portfolio, a gain on land expropriation and condominium occupancies at Canary Commons in the first half of the year, partly offset by lower equity accounting earnings and higher interest expense. We maintained a strong liquidity and managed risk with CAD 279 million in liquidity as of today and a conservative leverage ratio of 40% as of quarter end. I'll briefly go over results by operating segment now. In the third quarter, our recurring income segment generated revenue and net operating income of CAD 34.4 million and CAD 9.9 million, compared to CAD 21.2 million and CAD 3.8 million in 2021.
Year to date, our recurring income segment generated revenue and net operating income of CAD 125.3 million and CAD 49.2 million, an increase of CAD 44 million and CAD 18.8 million over 2021. The change was primarily driven by our multifamily rental portfolio created over the past 12 months, a growing asset management base and strong results at A-Basin. Included in revenue for the 9 months ended September 30 is CAD 36 million relating to asset management and development contracts with Dream Industrial REIT, Dream Office REIT, Dream Residential REIT, our private asset management business and our partnerships, up from CAD 29 million in 2021. We expect these revenues to grow over time as we actively pursue new asset management opportunities.
In the third quarter, our development segment generated revenue of CAD 20.7 million and incurred negative margin of CAD 1.8 million, compared to CAD 24.9 million in minimal net margin in 2021. Year to date, revenue and net margin for the development segment was down from the prior year as 2021 included results from the sale of the multilevel auto plex at Riverside Square. To date, we've achieved 168 lot sales and sold 13 acres in Western Canada and have secured commitments for 650 lots and 25 acres that we expect to contribute to earnings in the fourth quarter. Earlier today, we announced a special dividend of CAD 0.50 per subordinate voting share and Class B share payable to shareholders on December 30.
We also hold a 38% interest in Dream Office REIT, 31% in Dream Impact Trust, and 12% in Dream Residential REIT, all inclusive of senior management's holdings. Year to date, we have received CAD 194 million in cash distributions from these holdings. As of November ninth, the market value of our interest in the trust is CAD 395 million, approximately 34% of Dream's current market cap. Now I'll turn it back over to Michael.
Thanks, Deb. Just to sort of summarize, our recurring income continues to increase. We're very pleased with that. Development properties are moving along and, we're creating value and, we're starting to see more and more turn into either income properties or properties that are sold. At A-Basin, we opened, I think on October 13. We're within a couple of weeks of finishing our high speed, six-seat new lift. That's gonna make a big difference for the ski area. Operations have started well. I think our numbers for 2022 will be the best we've ever had, and we're hopeful that 2023 will be even better. Western Canada, we've had a good year. House prices in the West did not increase the way they did in other parts of the country. Income growth is very good.
Although it slowed a little bit, we do hope that housing will perform better in Saskatchewan, Alberta than other parts of the country. In Saskatchewan, just like Ottawa and Toronto, our rental properties are very much in demand at high rents. Today we had a board meeting. The financial statements reflect what's happened the first nine months of the year. At our board meeting, well, let me go slower. We work on our business plan. The business plan goes from 2023 to 2026. We've done a lot of work on it. It looks very good, but it still only captures a small part of our business.
Today at the board meeting, management presented, and probably somewhere around 75% of what was presented would not even be in our business plan between now and 2026. We're very excited about the opportunities that we're working on. Our business, you know, it does take a while, but ultimately, you know, the projects that we work on, the new ideas that we have, it takes time, but then they happen and, you know, the results often are very good. Dream is what it is. I think in the last 10 years, we've had seven years with extraordinary events. Of the 10 years where we had seven with extraordinary events, every single one of them was positive.
This year, there's been a number of positive events, but it's nice that we run a business that when you have an extraordinary event, they're positive. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
If anyone has a question, you can press zero one on your touch- tone keypad. Once again, if you have a question, it's zero one on your telephone. Our first question comes from Sam Damiani from TD Securities. Go ahead, Sam.
Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to touch on your comments on A-Basin. Could you be any more, I guess, specific in terms of what you're seeing for the upcoming season in terms of, I guess, revenues and EBITDA relative to last year?
Yeah, I would base it on a couple things. One is, Ikon is our partner, and they've had a very good season selling seasons passes. The seasons passes were at a higher rate than last year. We've also reduced the number of blackout days, so we think there'll be probably an extra 10,000 skiers just from that. There's a lot of excitement about the new lift. We've already had pretty decent snow, a lot better than we did this time last year, and our own season tickets have been very strong. We think that those pieces put together are pretty good. Last year, we had about 75% of snowfall, which is pretty bad, you know, in December and January.
December especially, we were losing something like 25 people a day to Omicron. Traffic through the Eisenhower Tunnel was down by 20% from normal. By the way, we weren't allowed to have our restaurants open, and then when we were allowed to have them open, it was a highly restricted capacity. All of those negatives are gone, plus we have some positives. We're hoping that we'll do better. Even with all those things, last year was a great year financially.
Fantastic. Switching to Toronto on the condo side, what are you seeing in the sales trends recently, sort of real time? How do you feel about the trajectory now versus, let's say, three months ago?
It's a market different than what I've ever seen before. The Forma project is going great, and we've really picked up momentum over the last 10 weeks or so. I guess we expect to be at 70% sold by the end of the year. That's an amazing number considering how big the building is in only six months. We understand like 8 Elm was released and that building did very well. I've heard there's one other building that's done very well. For the most part, in other areas it's been slow. We have some standing inventory in the Canary District, that's been slow. Brightwater's coming along. We're selling some. It really is different depending on where you're at.
It's been amazing to see that, you know, some projects when they're launched create a lot of excitement and are selling well at the highest prices ever. I mean, I think the numbers are that new sales are down quite a bit, but because there's a delay, the cost of interest hasn't had the same impact on buying pre-sales as it might, you know, buying a house or something like that.
Got it. Just listening to the press release that was put out about a month ago or maybe three weeks ago about the legal settlement, and now we have a little more color on it. Would you say your outlook for pre-tax earnings for Q4 is the same as it was back in October?
Yeah. Q4 will be what we expected.
Okay. Last question for me, and just on the land settlement gain. Is whatever tax that was required has already been provisioned in Q3, or would there be a tax?
Yeah.
Okay.
It would be in Q3.
In Q4. Okay, great. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Sam.
Once again, if you have a question, it's zero one on your touch-tone phone. Our next question comes from Chris Koutsikaloudis from Canaccord Genuity. Go ahead, Chris.
Hi. Hi, Michael and Deb. Good evening. Just wondering, maybe for my first question if you could justify or help us understand the special dividend versus buying back stock.
I think that firstly we're blacked out. We continue to be blacked out. We've been blacked out probably since July first. We will be buying back stock. Secondly, the stock has been so volatile, we thought we would reward our shareholders with some cash. I think we're probably going to be a little bit more balanced between providing dividends and buying back stock in the future. I think it's just more balanced. We've put a tremendous amount of capital into buying back stock in the past. We're gonna continue buying back some. I think we're also going to focus on providing a decent stream of dividends to our shareholders.
Okay. Got it. Just on the Summit transaction, I realize you're limited in what you can say at this point, but when would you expect the asset management fees associated with that deal to begin hitting the P&L? Would it be fair to assume Q2 of next year?
The asset management fees should start to go through our income statement when the deal closed and we're responsible for providing the services. I think the expectation is that sometime in February the deal should close. That's just an expectation. I think the circular's coming out in a couple weeks. There'll be a ton of information in that. I mean, subject to any surprise. By the way, obviously we need a vote to go in favor of the sale, but we should have income in the first quarter.
Okay. Got it. Just last one for me here. You know, as we look out over the next few years, beyond the developments you have underway, what do you need to see, if anything, to move forward on new projects? I'm thinking of Quayside in particular. What do you need to see to break ground in terms of rent growth or other factors, or, you know, as far as you're concerned, are those projects, you know, kind of ready to go as soon as you get the zoning?
Yeah. Quayside, we will start the zoning within weeks, and as soon as we're ready to develop that, we will go ahead with it. It's been sized and priced with all the current assumptions, so we'll be ready to go with that. You know, it's really hard to get approvals. I think. By the way, I think Quayside should do pretty well getting approvals through the city. It's a project the city wants. They've been involved in it so far. Most projects when they're finished, we'll go with them. We're ready to go. Now keep in mind, we do a lot of affordable housing. We do a lot of relatively complex financial structuring, and that really does give us an advantage to be able to start projects in this market.
Having said that, I mean, Forma started at a bad time. We've had great numbers. It looks like construction prices are moderating, becoming a little bit more predictable, and we would definitely start condos now and if we got the pre-sales, we would build them.
Okay. Thanks very much. I'll turn it back.
Thank you.
We have no more questions in the queue. I'll turn it back to Mr. Cooper for final comments.
Just gonna point out that Chris is the only analyst that is covering our company at this minute until Sam comes off restriction. We just view Chris as consensus. Chris, if there's anything you wanna talk about, give us a shout. To everybody else, you're also very important. Thank you for your interest and feel free to reach out to Deb and I if you have any further questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.