DigitalBridge Group, Inc. Q3 FY2020 Earnings Call

Greetings, and welcome to the Colony Capital Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Severin White. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Colony Capital’s third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Speaking on the call today, from the company is Marc Ganzi, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jacky Wu, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to them, I’ll quickly cover the Safe Harbor. Some of the statements that we make today regarding our business, operations, and financial performance, including the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on those areas may be considered forward-looking, and such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. All information discussed on this call is as of today, November 6th, 2020, and Colony Capital does not intend and undertakes no duty to update for future events or circumstances. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our most recent form, 10-K filed with the SEC and in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2020. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marc Ganzi, our President and CEO. Marc?

Thanks, Severin, and thank all of you for joining us this morning and taking time to learn more about Colony Capital and the digital transformation we're currently undergoing. In terms of the agenda today, I'd like to start with a business update. I want to highlight some of our key accomplishments in the quarter, then turn it over to Jacky, who will walk you through our third quarter financial results and some of the progress we've made in our digital revenues and digital business. I will finish today with a case study from our digital playbook. I want to highlight progress we've made at DataBank, how we're creating value for our shareholders, and where we see that business continuing to grow on the edge. It has been an incredibly busy quarter, so without further ado, let's dive into the materials, and I'd ask you to turn to page 5. Before detailing the significant progress we've made in the quarter, I'd like to start by briefly reviewing our strategic plan, especially for investors who are new to the Colony 2.0 story. We've had a profound transformation underway, transitioning from a diversified REIT, managing real estate assets across many verticals, to a singular platform focused exclusively on digital infrastructure, which encompasses cell towers, data centers, fiber, and small cell infrastructure. The key rationale for this transition is detailed in the center of this slide. First, we want to align with powerful secular tailwinds that are driving consumer and enterprise demand for more, better, and faster digital connectivity. Second, I firmly believe in business simplification, which leads to a clearer narrative for our investors. Third, the key to this entire business plan is predictable digital earnings. This will be the engine that drives our stock forward in the coming years. Lastly, attractive returns on invested capital. I've been in the digital infrastructure space for over 26 years, and what ultimately drives value creation over time and through cycles are attractive risk-adjusted returns that this business can reliably generate. With that context, I'd like you to flip to the next slide and update you on two key highlights from this past quarter that exemplify our digital transformation and asset rotation. Over the summer, we completed significant work to strengthen the Colony balance sheet, positioning us splendidly to accelerate our digital transformation. This past quarter, we executed on both sides of the great rotation. This slide captures the story of Q3 in a nutshell. First, we signed an agreement to sell our hospitality business, which is a significant step in harvesting our legacy assets. We achieved positive equity value for Colony shareholders, despite the pressures facing the lodging sector today. Second, we reduced our consolidated debt by $2.7 billion. As many of you know, deleveraging the business is incredibly important to me as it positions us for success down the road. Finally, we're removing distraction from non-core assets. This business simplification is core to our narrative. On the right side, we can see the other side of this rotation, which is investing in digital infrastructure. We made considerable progress last quarter, leading DataBank's acquisition of zColo. This $1.4 billion deal transforms DataBank into a national scale edge data center operator with 29 Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets and 64 locations, tripling our footprint across the United States. It's not just about the square footage; it's about the cross-connects. We are increasing from 7,000 to 30,000 cross-connects. This is significant when you consider how networks are evolving and how our customers' architecture is changing. The deal was financed with $145 million of our balance sheet capital, maintaining our 20% ownership stake, alongside $500 million of new co-investment capital that pays us fee and carry, in addition to arranging over $600 million in debt financing to support the acquisition. This deal is highly accretive to the DataBank platform, which is critically important. We discussed our ability to acquire high-quality digital assets at attractive and accretive levels, and this is proof positive, which we'll explore further later in our presentation today. The hospitality sale tells a story about our business simplification. This deal represents a significant milestone for two key priorities: one, simplifying the business; and two, deleveraging the balance sheet. Between the sale of these portfolios and the resolution of our hospitality business, we are shedding $3 billion of debt, representing a 44% reduction. Our debt-to-asset ratio declined from 67% to 55%, reducing annual cash interest by over $110 million and generating over $7 million in annual G&A savings. Importantly, we successfully achieved positive equity value for Colony shareholders from the sale of this business. It's worth noting that the transaction value of $2.8 billion was within 1% of our total carrying value on the balance sheet. I want to give special attention and credit to Dave Schwartz and the entire lodging team at Colony for getting this critical transaction done. Next slide, please. Let's dive deeper into the story of combining DataBank and zColo. Our acquisition of zColo is the defining story of the quarter in terms of building our exposure to high-quality digital assets. The table and the map presented here provide context on what a transformative deal this is. First, we are tripling our number of locations, which increases opportunities for our customers to work with us on the edge. Second, we gain a national footprint across 29 Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets. Third, this scale is increasingly significant as hyperscale technology and content companies place compute resources and nodes closer to their customers. DataBank has established itself as the edge colocation provider of choice. One of the most exciting aspects of this deal is to observe what Raul Martynek and his team can do with these assets, which were not core to Zayo, given their focus on fiber. The team at DataBank is focused on serving customers and building a premier edge data center company. They have experience in executing acquisitions and a consistent track record of posting organic growth year-over-year, as we've demonstrated in the past. As some of you know, we are also the controlling shareholder of Zayo. The seller, our Digital Colony Partners Fund, worked in concert with EQT to manage the sale process for zColo, given DataBank's interest. This transaction is a win-win for both parties. While DataBank can see scale-accretive growth, Zayo divested a non-core asset, generating $1.4 billion of additional liquidity to deleverage and fund future growth in their core fiber verticals. We’ve communicated to many investors regarding Zayo; the core thesis was based on simplification. It was about returning Zayo to its core roots, which include being the leading provider of connectivity services through long-haul, metro fiber, and enterprise fiber solutions for customers across the U.S. and Europe. There are many exciting developments happening at Zayo, including the announcement two weeks ago that Steve Smith will become our CEO. Steve's track record at Equinix was remarkable, seeing a 17-fold increase in equity value from $2 billion to $34 billion and an increase in revenues of over 10-fold from $400 million to $4.4 billion. We’re excited to see what Steve will accomplish at Zayo as he leads the company into its next growth phase. I’m honored and privileged to call Steve my partner, and I want to also thank Dan Caruso for his partnership. Dan will remain a vital member of our Board and as the founder of the business, we look forward to his contributions as Steve transitions into this new role. Ultimately, we couldn't be more thrilled with our leadership team: Raul Martynek, Steve Smith, and Dan Caruso are truly the driving forces behind Digital Colony today, leading great businesses. Next slide, please. I want to refresh our promises made, promises kept slide that many of you seem to appreciate. Let's discuss what we've accomplished in the quarter. First, we made progress in deleveraging. Many key corporate initiatives to strengthen our balance sheet announced last quarter were finalized during Q3. We paid down our revolver, which currently has $500 million available. We closed a $400 million strategic investment from Wafra, and we issued $300 million of 2025 convertible notes, using those proceeds to pay down the bulk of the January 2021 convertible notes. We successfully tendered for $81 million of the remaining January 2021 convertible notes; only $32 million remains and this yields significant interest savings for us. Second, we have continued to invest in high-quality digital assets. We closed the $190 million Vantage Stabilized Data Center portfolio, also known as Vantage SDC. Recently, Vantage SDC completed a landmark transaction in the financing markets, closing a $1.3 billion securitization at an all-in rate of 1.8%. This lower interest rate increases internal rates of return and provides increased annualized cash flows of $22 million per year for the entire portfolio. This increase in yield represents a significant accomplishment in executing on high-quality digital assets. Lastly, we've acquired zColo for $1.4 billion, investing $145 million from our balance sheet to lead this transaction, while generating $500 million of additional co-investments. Harvesting legacy assets and streamlining our organization, we have achieved $46 million in G&A savings year-to-date and expect to save $60 million, exceeding our original $40 million target. We have $430 million in year-to-date OP&D monetizations against a budget of $600 million to $700 million projected for full year 2020. Our hospitality sale drove that narrative, achieving $2.8 billion in hotels sold in the quarter, shedding $2.7 billion of debt, and reducing our debt load by 44%. Last but not least, I have emphasized organic growth and delivering on core digital growth, achieving $2.3 billion in net FEEUM raised year-to-date, representing 33% growth exceeding our 15% guidance and more than doubling our original expectations on this metric. Following June 30, 2020, we raised $1.3 billion in net FEEUM, all of which was co-invest capital that strengthens our balance sheet economics, as evidenced in Vantage SDC and DataBank. Within the quarter, we raised an additional $800 million from Vantage Europe, and we have $500 million in pending commitments for other co-investment vehicles. In summary, this was a great quarter focused on execution. From my perspective, execution is paramount, and all of this is about our key contributors delivering in each of their silos. I am proud of our progress in this quarter, and now I will turn it over to Jacky, who will walk us through the finance section of our presentation today. Thank you, Jacky.

Thank you, Marc, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, in addition to the release of our third-quarter earnings, we filed a supplemental financial report this morning, which is available within the Public Shareholders section of our website. Starting with our third-quarter results on Page 11. The company has continued to make progress in its digital transformation. Digital assets under management increased to 50% of total AUM at the end of the third quarter, and over 55% on a pro forma basis, including pending digital transactions and the anticipated sale of the hospitality portfolio. For the third quarter, reported total revenues were $317 million, reflecting a 10% increase from second-quarter revenues of $287 million. While this marks a significant improvement from the last quarter, it still represents a 12% decrease from the same period last year, primarily due to the COVID pandemic's impact on our legacy business and legacy asset sales. GAAP net loss attributable to common stockholders was $206 million or $0.44 per share. The notable sequential improvement was primarily thanks to our recognition of a $2 billion impairment charge on our legacy assets in the second quarter. Total company core funds from operations, excluding gains and losses, was $5 million in the third quarter, up from a $19 million loss last quarter, driven by continued digital growth and improved performance of our legacy assets. Turning to Page 12. As we simplify our business and advance the digital transformation, we are streamlining our financial disclosures for the legacy businesses while emphasizing our growing digital results. The previous digital segment has now been divided into three segments: digital investment management, digital operating, and digital other. We have also introduced additional digital disclosures in this quarter's supplemental financial package. First, the digital investment management segment consists of our recurring IM and performance fees generated through the management of our third-party equity capital. Second, the digital operating segment includes our balance sheet investments in DataBank and Vantage Stabilized Data Centers. We will grow this segment as we continue to deploy capital into future direct balance sheet investments. Lastly, digital other comprises the equity method earnings of our inaugural Digital Colony Partners Fund and our digital listed securities investment vehicles, held at fair value. On the legacy side, we will continue to report a separate wellness infrastructure segment, while combining the other investment management, Colony Credit Real Estate, and other equity and debt segments into a new segment named 'other'. Similar sub-segment disclosures will continue, but this change illustrates the business's digital focus moving forward. Hospitality is no longer a segment and is categorized under discontinued operations due to the pending sale transaction Marc discussed earlier. Moving to Page 13. During the third quarter, the company rebounded from COVID's impact, generating positive core FFO, excluding gains and losses, of approximately $5 million. The core FFO improvement was driven by the continued execution of our corporate strategy. First, we continued to grow our digital assets, contributing $3 million of incremental earnings in the period. We realized $2 million in incremental savings from our G&A reduction plan and $3 million in reduced corporate interest expense due to our deleveraging efforts. Turning to Page 14. Consolidated digital revenues increased to $119 million, fueled by the acquisitions of DataBank at the end of last year and Vantage Stabilized Data Centers in July of this year. On the right side of the page, consolidated digital fee-related earnings and adjusted EBITDA increased to $54 million during the third quarter. While our digital fee-related earnings slightly declined due to investments in personnel to support fundraising efforts and recent and future growth in digital fee-earning equity under management, our recurring margin still improved to 46%, up 500 basis points over the prior quarter. Turning to Page 15, we are reiterating our 2023 digital growth guidance. We aim to achieve digital fee revenues of $150 million to $200 million by 2023, along with digital fee-related earnings of $80 million to $110 million. Additionally, we expect to achieve $175 million to $225 million of digital operating EBITDA and $150 million to $200 million of digital operating core FFO. Our acquisition of Vantage Stabilized Data Centers, along with our recently announced acquisition of zColo, exemplifies our commitment to these goals. Turning to Page 16, we have made significant progress this year in our digital transformation. Digital AUM has grown by $12 billion year-to-date, increasing digital AUM from 32% to 55% of total AUM. Notably, since the inception of Digital Colony, Colony Capital has rotated over $45 billion in AUM, boosting digital to over $25 billion AUM while transitioning $20 billion of legacy assets. Moving to Page 17. Including our pending and announced transactions, we will have achieved a 33% increase in digital fee-earning equity in 2020, significantly surpassing our initial 15% guidance set forth earlier this year. In summary, we raised over $700 million of fee-earning equity for the Zayo acquisition at the start of the year. Moreover, we raised over $900 million of net fee-earning equity for our Vantage data center platform through the third quarter. We also expect to gain an additional $500 million of net fee-earning equity in the fourth quarter for pending transactions, which involve zColo and additional fundings for our Vantage platform. With these fourth-quarter pending transactions, our digital fee-earning equity under management will be approximately $9.1 billion, with much more on the horizon, as our fundraising and M&A pipeline remains robust. Turning to page 18, our execution of a new revolver facility, the elimination of our original 2021 convertible note maturity, and our partnership with Wafra have mitigated liquidity risks, allowing us to accelerate our digital transformation and deploy capital toward digital acquisitions. Our current financial position is strong, showing a 29% reduction in corporate liabilities. I am pleased to announce we have virtually eliminated all near-term debt maturities. Additionally, our ending liquidity is projected to be between $650 million and $750 million by year-end, reflecting a $25 million increase over last quarter's estimate. This improvement is driven by our continued expectation to monetize $200 million to $300 million of legacy assets in the fourth quarter, with over 50% of those already under contract. I am thrilled that our higher guidance still includes anticipated digital acquisitions such as zColo and our expanding M&A pipeline. With that, I will turn it back over to Marc, where he will outline additional details on our digital playbook. Thank you.

Thanks, Jacky. In this final section, I'd like to discuss how Colony is growing at the edge by taking you through a case study on DataBank. I believe this demonstrates the opportunities we're focused on, the value we bring to our portfolio companies, and the value we create for you as Colony shareholders. Next slide, please. First, let's establish some context. Everyone has been discussing the edge for the better part of the last 18 months. For us, we aim to break down the edge and explain its significance. Starting in the upper left of this slide on page 20, while compute power has grown rapidly over the past decade, the exceptional growth in demand is still to come. In the next five years and beyond, as AI systems and IoT applications are deployed, machine-to-machine communications will drive demand for computing to skyrocket. Moving to the upper right, we see that demand increasingly comes from the edge, a trend that has only been amplified by COVID. It's where the consumer and enterprise customer interacts with the network in real-time. This is not a short-term trend; it's part of a multi-decade cycle where compute will migrate back to a distributed model at the edge of networks. The lower right highlights how this shift to decentralized computing forces changes in network architecture. New use cases require lower latency, faster speeds, and improved device efficiency. These applications cannot afford the time to send all data back to a central HQ; therefore, we need compute resources close to the end user. This encapsulates the very definition of the edge. As displayed in the lower left graphic, Cowen estimates that edge servers will support 10% of cloud workloads globally over the next eight years, up from just over 1% today. This represents a considerable opportunity for DataBank, our edge data center portfolio company, and it's this opportunity driving the transformative acquisition of zColo that we facilitated alongside DataBank's remarkable management team. Next slide, please. I've previously outlined the transformative nature of this transaction, but let's cover the benefits to Colony shareholders. Last quarter, we detailed our accretive DataBank acquisition strategy, and here it is in action by the numbers. The zColo deal will reduce our effective multiple to 15 times on a blended basis, well below our public peers and our original entry multiple of around 22 times. Importantly, the 15 times multiple doesn’t fully encapsulate the true economics for Colony shareholders. Beyond solid core investment economics associated with our $145 million equity investment, we’ve raised $500 million of fee and carry-bearing co-investment capital, similar to our strategy with Vantage Stabilized Data Center Co. These investment management earnings boost our returns, increasing our core FFO yield from 8% to 10% from day one. As core FFO stabilizes over the next couple of years, the yield will exceed 10%. Achieving this in today's market, where digital infrastructure assets are trading at all-time highs, is notably challenging. From my perspective, it's a hybrid model designed to benefit our shareholders, with high-quality balance sheet growth enhanced by asset-light investment management earnings. Next slide, please. The case study here focuses on creating value, a topic we’ve discussed previously. It's our Digital Colony value-add playbook. The position of zColo illustrates how we create alpha in our strategies today. Since 2016, the Digital Colony team has transformed DataBank from a regional Midwestern data center operator into a national-scale edge data center provider by adding value in three key areas. First, we've strengthened the management team. I've noted Mike Faust, the co-founder of Digital Realty, as our adviser since inception, and he's now the Chair of DataBank. Our key operating partner, Raul Martynek, has been the CEO since 2017. Raul is committed to customer service, organic growth, and effective integration of acquisitions. We’ve also recruited most of the senior leadership team to support Raul. Second, strategic development and financing have been integral to DataBank's transformation. The Digital Colony Capital Markets team has raised over $1.4 billion in equity and co-invest capital and arranged $1.5 billion in debt over the past four years, laying the groundwork for DataBank to grow. The team’s expertise and relationships are crucial as we complete the zColo acquisition. Lastly, our senior team has helped source and execute five acquisitions within the DataBank platform, with zColo as number six. We've utilized our insights to finalize this transformative deal. We also facilitated DataBank's investment in EdgePresence, a micro data center company that we've just invested in. These two deals strategically position DataBank for the future of edge computing. Next slide, please. This is a narrative about executing on converged networks. The strategic investments Colony is enabling today position DataBank to lead the evolution of next-generation converged networks. From the zColo acquisition to partnerships with EdgePresence and Vertical Bridge, all of whom are part of our Digital Colony portfolio, we are deploying infrastructure that benefits customers while providing integrated solutions—this is the future of digital REITs. My conclusion is straightforward: the breadth, power, and value of the Digital Colony platform are fully evident. Edge computing presents a tremendous opportunity, and we’re helping DataBank capitalize on it while building value for Colony shareholders. Next slide, please. I want to finish where we concluded last quarter, with my commitment to continue delivering on our promises. This is the best service we can provide as management for our shareholders. This is a slide we will revisit as we did last quarter. Let's summarize where we are in our commitments: First, we addressed near-term corporate debt maturities and strengthened our liquidity. We paid down 2021 convertible notes, issued $300 million of new 2025 notes, amended our revolver, and cleared the path for our digital transformation. This mission has been achieved. Second, we committed significant capital toward digital infrastructure growth. We've deployed over $530 million between DataBank, zColo, and Vantage SDC in the past year. We are prepared to identify another substantial balance sheet investment over the next six months. Our pipeline is strong, filled with opportunities, and we are diligently pursuing high-quality assets that deliver investment-grade, long-term predictable earnings for you, our shareholders. Third, we’ll continue delivering on core digital investment management growth, where we have surpassed our earlier FEEUM growth expectations by over 100% through three quarters. We still have another 90 days left in the year to further outperform this number. Our focus will be on growing our flagship digital equity and emerging credit franchises within our investment management platform. We have the leading digital fundraising team globally, and we will persist in raising new capital to support our initiatives. Lastly, simplification and the monetization of legacy assets, alongside cost reductions, are fundamental to my strategy for turning around our story. We have achieved $430 million in legacy asset monetization to date, with the hospitality business now under contract. We have also realized $46 million in run-rate G&A savings year-to-date. By year-end, we project total legacy asset sales to reach $600 million to $700 million and will strive to generate $6 million in run-rate G&A savings by year-end. It has been a remarkably busy quarter, with 60 days remaining in the year to continue executing. Ultimately, the narrative remains unchanged: it is a story about execution and our commitment to building long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you for your time today, for your trust, and for being part of this transformative journey as we lead Colony into becoming the premier digital infrastructure company globally. Thank you.

Our first question comes from Jade Rahmani with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you very much. You talked about the investment pipeline. How does it split between what you might call proprietary deal flow—deals in which Digital Bridge may have a legacy investment or some history or interest—and de novo originations? Generally speaking, where do you think the economics are better from a Colony shareholder perspective, considering what you mentioned with respect to elevated valuations in the digital space?

Hey, Jade, it’s Marc. How are you?

Great. Thanks.

Our pipeline has never been busier Jade; we have about 31 deals in the pipeline today, accumulating a total enterprise value of about $20 billion. Five of these deals are currently being finalized or have already been executed. All five of these deals, which will happen next quarter, are proprietary; there was no banker involved or broker—a result of sourcing these transactions through our Digital Colony proprietary pipeline. From my perspective, the best way to create value for our shareholders is not to run to overheated auctions, but rather to maintain strong relationships with CEOs in our sector. We make the case to them that we are the partner of choice because of our relationships, experience, and capital access, which has proven effective. If you look at the progress of Fund 1—ten investments were made in Fund 1; eight of those ten transactions were proprietary. So as we look at the next five deals, they are all proprietary. This team has a great history and track record of creating proprietary deal flow. This does not mean we ignore auctions; we certainly look at many big auctions that were completed this quarter. But we believe this is the right moment to be price disciplined. Our focus is on a large pipeline and proprietary deal flow while maintaining a high degree of discipline.

When you think about capital priorities and current liquidity, how much capital is available for investments? How do you allocate that between new investments and raising third-party capital to supplement your capital base? And what are your thoughts about potentially redeeming preferreds or finding other ways to reduce leverage versus making new investments?

Thanks. I don’t mean to be evasive, Jade, and we can certainly dive into further details later. To start, we always evaluate the best way to deploy capital across various methods. Initially, when we joined the scene alongside Tom Barrack, Mark Hedstrom, Jacky Wu, and myself, we prioritized deleveraging the balance sheet, which we began executing last year in the fourth quarter, continuing into the second and third quarters. We've achieved remarkable success in selling assets—carefully and strategically, nothing has been a fire sale. We've taken the time to identify the right buyers, and we’ve successfully rotated cash back into the balance sheet. At present, as Jacky mentioned in our presentation, we enjoy close to $900 million in total liquidity, factoring in our revolver. The question now is how we deploy that cash and identify the best opportunities. We've demonstrated our approach in the last two quarters through investments in Vantage Stabilized Co, DataBank, zColo, and EdgePresence. We're ready to deploy our balance sheet intelligently. By 'intelligently,' I mean we assess opportunities carefully. If we identify a great idea and opportunity, we leverage our balance sheet to secure it. After controlling it and navigating through the closing process, we optimize the balance of balance sheet capital and third-party capital for funding. If an idea suits a specific investor—say one seeking yield, like Vantage Stabilized Co—we target that group of investors and undertake fundraising. For DataBank and zColo, which are growth-oriented, we focus on raising capital from investors interested in such investments. There are various ways to deploy our balance sheet alongside our partners' capital while preserving liquidity. As you’ve heard Tom Barrack say in prior quarters, cash is king. With strong cash flow and opportunities before us, we will consistently invest in high-quality assets. We will continue to allocate cash to new GP commitments, supporting our growing digital equity, credit, and liquid securities platforms. We want to ensure we’re deploying cash prudently. Not to constrict you to a set formula, we don’t operate strictly by percentages; rather, we seek opportunities that align well with our cash. Ultimately, all we do focuses on growing long-term predictable digital revenues, and this quarter reflected fantastic progress. In terms of digital EBITDA growth and total digital revenues, we are achieving phenomenal quarterly growth that we believe positions us as the fastest-growing digital REIT in terms of revenue.

Jade, one more point to add is that on page 18, where I walk over the liquidity to our ending liquidity balance for the year, the expected $650 million to $750 million already nets out pipeline deals such as zColo that have been announced. We continue to guide for $200 million to $300 million in monetization in the fourth quarter, which will enhance our available liquidity to between $1 billion and $1.1 billion. This amount reflects gross liquidity available for deals, net of any minimum cash.

The last piece about preferred equity redemption—I know we amended our revolver facility earlier this year, adding some delay in preferred redemptions. However, as we continue performing well, we will explore the possibility of redeeming preferred shares, weighing the best returns against digital opportunities. Well, I applaud the swift actions the management team has taken. I appreciate the transparency; it’s great to see progress. I wanted to ask about a potential Rubik's Cube, which is CLNC. There’s an overhang in the mortgage REIT space since people are viewing commercial real estate as a long cycle to recover, along with possible impairments and loan losses on the credit front. This presents a challenge. Secondly, there’s the liquidity necessary to manage that. Finally, potential capacity to invest remains in question. When you look at stocks like CLNC, as well as others like Tier TX and Ladder, they are trading at 40% to 50% of book value. This could suggest the prospect of a dilutive capital raise. Since CLNY owns 37% of CLNC, this raises the question: Could CLNC potentially buy back some of those shares at a premium to their trading value, creating significant accretion to their book value? This would also alleviate the overhang of CLNY’s 37% stake, as investors would wonder about those shares' liquidity; it might also give CLNY fresh capital to accelerate the digital transformation. How do you view this as a potential option for both CLNY and CLNC?

Jade, it sounds almost as if you’ve bugged our investment committee! First, I want to commend Mike Mazzei, Andy Witt, and David Palame. For those who had a chance to tune into that earnings presentation, it’s another example of transformation and execution. When we brought Mike Mazzei onboard to run that business unit, we were clear on objectives: stabilize our loans facing challenges, enhance liquidity with repo lines on two loans, and return cash to the balance sheet. Mike has successfully accomplished this, and now their business is poised for offense. I don't get too involved in what Mike and his team do since they handle execution incredibly well. As one of their largest shareholders, we are very satisfied with the progress at CLNC. When you consider its peer group, CLNC promptly addressed issues, stabilized operations, and rotated cash. We are in a strong position where we can play offense selectively, and we will continue to recover book value. You may have noticed shares performed well after market last night and today. We're confident in this management team's capability. We're open to various options, and no option is off the table for CLNC, as we've made clear in previous quarters. While we rotate to digital, if good opportunities arise to harvest the hard work done at CLNC, we will actively consider all proposals. In the meantime, we prioritize execution. We’ve moved past fire sales. We have cash reserves, patience, and a solid execution plan across our business units.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Thanks, Jade.

Thanks, Jade.

Hey, good morning. Thanks. This is a good segue into what I’d like to discuss, which is the legacy asset sale expectations you have for the fourth quarter based on the sources and uses slide, especially the monetizations column.

Sure, Randy. I’ll let Jacky provide the detailed insights. In general, when discussing legacy silos, lodging is in process, being sold to Highgate. We wish them the best; lodging performed well in Q3 and will recover and yield good results. Wellness infrastructure has exceeded our expectations, generating solid performance. We have an open ear to different ways to harvest that portfolio. Now that lodging is behind us, CLNC and healthcare are in sharper focus. Both business units perform better than anticipated. Furthermore, our OE&D vertical continues to achieve above-expectations performance, thanks to Jonathan Grunzweig, our CIO. We plan three to four more monetizations in Q4. As they arise, we will issue press releases with details. We are committed to reaching the higher end of our guidance for OE&D monetization this year while under-promising and over-delivering for investors.

We are guiding for $200 million to $300 million in the fourth quarter. As Marc indicated, we are focused on the higher end of that range. With three to four deals anticipated, we have sufficient coverage for the lower end and plan to achieve our guidance with additional smaller transactions.

To clarify, the $200 million to $300 million is net to CLNY, correct? That would be the amount after paying down asset-level debt?

Yes, that’s correct, Randy.

What does the narrative look like for 2021? For the source and uses to observe continued digital investments similar to the zColo deal, this would mean leveraging legacy sales right on the margin. Our model anticipates ongoing OE&D liquidation in 2021 and seeks insight on what those assets look like, closer to book value. Will selling these assets become increasingly challenging, especially with remaining lodging and energy assets that are possibly harder to sell? Please provide us with a glimpse into the expectations for the ongoing OE&D liquidation process in 2021.

The way I perceive it—starting with your last question—where we believe monetizations sit is based on recent data from potential third-party buyers. In our supplementals, you’ll see the total net equity value around $1.5 billion in the other equity debt line. We believe we can get close to that amount, providing a basis for our marks. Regarding 2021, we anticipate performing similarly to 2020. By 2023, we hope to have rotated these assets, if you take a straight-line approach, we should achieve that. We've demonstrated our ability to outperform sales expectations.

That’s great information, and I have one last question. Have you disclosed the GAAP book value for the quarter? While I appreciate the substantial new disclosures, we’re still looking for that number.

No, not yet.

Thanks, Randy.

Great, thank you. This is my first time on the Colony call. I have questions related to digital portfolio construction. One of the segments of digital infrastructure that’s currently absent from your portfolio is the residential broadband side. Is that something you're actively pursuing, and can we expect to see that included in your portfolio someday? Secondly, while there’s priority on bolstering the digital aspect of the business and selling off legacy sections, could selling some digital assets be considered a potential move to effectively recycle capital? What are your thoughts on that?

Thank you, Colby. We hope this isn't your last call! Let’s start with fiber to the home. For the last five years, we’ve examined all Fiber-to-the-Home opportunities across Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. There are generally two models in Fiber-to-the-Home. One model involves cooperation with a telecommunications provider or CableCo to own their infrastructure and enter into long-term agreements for wholesale network infrastructure. We followed this approach in our Beanfield acquisition, performing well due to the right pricing. We've now expanded capacity through Beanfield, leasing that fiber to other operators, maintaining growth. So we’re confident in that wholesale model. Regarding the second approach, consumer-facing businesses operate without long-term contracts and exist amidst a highly competitive landscape. Recently, we evaluated Astound, which represents a consumer-facing business without a long-term contract. However, at over $400,000 per route mile, we found it quite unfavourable compared to our standards, which prioritize close-to-replacement costs. Our investment in Zayo yielded approximately $12.6 billion, or a bit over $100,000 per route mile, reflecting about 1.3 times replacement cost. The opportunity in fiber becomes complicated; one must consider underwriting quality and cost effectiveness. We’re good at building, so our operational background enables us to manage and build effectively. Our operational experience provides a significant advantage that many of our competitors lack. We’ve been successful in building new towers, data centers, and fiber routes while forging long-term relationships with investment-grade customers and ensuring quality infrastructure and network. So that effectively answers your question on Fiber-to-the-Home. Regarding selling digital assets, we acknowledge the current market is indeed a prime time to be a seller, especially having realized four investments in the last 16 months. We've performed strong mark transactions while managing to operate cautiously to create high returns for investors on specific assets, including Vertical Bridge, DataBank, Vantage, and ExteNet. We actively focus on these rotations so that we can generate attractive returns for our investors, maintain balance sheet positioning, and enhance growth.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to pass the floor back over to management for any additional closing comments.

Thank you. I could not be more satisfied with the quarter, which is all attributed to our people. This quarter has seen strong execution, which is what you can consistently expect from this team—keeping our heads down and focused on our goal of rotation. We remain committed to continuing our efforts of adjusting the cost structure, raising capital, and ultimately delivering high-quality long-term earnings. None of this is achievable without our dedicated professionals at Colony Capital, and I have tremendous appreciation for their hard work. The progress since we carried out the Digital Ridge merger last July has been significant; we’ve rotated approximately $45 billion in assets within 1.5 years. This is likely one of the largest AUM rotations in REIT history. Yet, such achievements arise from our people’s dedication. I extend my gratitude to all Colony employees and partners globally for their daily efforts. I also want to thank you, our shareholders, for your trust. Our commitment remains to continue delivering for you. We aim to maintain momentum as we head into a busy fourth quarter, with more deals lined up and ongoing opportunities. Let’s keep at it, continue the rotation. Have a great weekend, everyone, and thank you for your time today. Take care.

Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.