Boston, MA 04/30/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW), a $3.6 billion real estate investment trust, reported Q12014 earnings results that missed Wall Street expectations. However, the company announced that it expected fiscal 2014 to be a good year for its operations. Therefore, the management adjusted this year’s earnings expectations upward.
Highwoods Properties reported funds from operations (FFO), the REIT profitability measure that is the equivalent of earnings per share of $0.66 per share. The company realized $0.67 in the column in the same period last year. However, analysts expected the company to report $0.71 per share in the latest quarter.
The impact in the latest quarter was linked to the harsh winter weather and competition in the market. However, having noted improving trend in occupancy, the company expects the rest of 2014 to be strong. Therefore, Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW) expects occupancy at the end of the current year to come between 91.3 and 92.5 percent. That will be an improvement from the occupancy range of 90.8 and 92 percent that was previously anticipated.
The company expects earnings per share in the current year to come between $2.86 and $2.94. That will be an improvement from the previous range of between $2.82 and $2.94 per share.
Although Q12014 failed to match expectations, Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW) leased a bigger office space in the latest quarter compared with the same period a year ago. As such, it leased about 1.2 million sq ft in the quarter compared with 0.95 sq ft in Q12013.
Executive comment
According to Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW) CEO Ed Fritsch; the robust leasing activity should more than offset the challenges that impacted the company due to the harsh weather. As such, the CEO believes that the company will lease more vacant space. This year compared with last year. The company acquired $549 million worth of space in 2013.
Board changes
In addition to the Q12014 results, Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW) announced last week looming changes in its board of directors. The changes were that the long-serving director Thomas Adler, 73, will retire his position, and the company nominated Charles A. Anderson, 53, to replace him.
