Empire State Realty Trust Announces Third Quarter 2023 Results

– Net Income Per Fully Diluted Share of $0.07 –

– Core FFO Per Fully Diluted Share of $0.25 –

– $1.2 Billion of Liquidity, No Floating Rate Debt Exposure, No Debt Maturity Until Nov 2024 –

– 2023 Guidance Raised –

Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) is a NYC-focused REIT that owns and operates a portfolio of modernized, amenitized, and well-located office, retail, and multifamily assets. The company is the recognized leader in energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. ESRT’s flagship Empire State Building – the “World’s Most Famous Building” – includes its Observatory, Tripadvisor’s 2023 Travelers’ Choice Awards: Best of the Best the #1 attraction in the US for two consecutive years. Today the Company reported its operational and financial results for the third quarter 2023. All per share amounts are on a fully diluted basis, where applicable.

Third Quarter and Recent Highlights

• Net Income of $0.07 per share.
• Core Funds From Operations (“Core FFO”) of $0.25 per share in the third quarter. Core FFO guidance for full year 2023 was raised to a range of $0.85-0.87 per share.
• Signed approximately 248K rentable square feet of new, renewal, and expansion leases, inclusive of a 144K square foot lease with LinkedIn and a 25K square foot office lease with Starbucks.
• Manhattan office portfolio leased rate increased by 30bps sequentially and increased by 250bps year-over-year to 91.9%. Total commercial portfolio is 90.5% leased as of September 30, 2023.
• Same-Store Property Cash Net Operating Income (“NOI”) increased 8.8% year-over-year, excluding lease termination fees, primarily driven by cash rent commencement and increased tenant expense reimbursements. Same-Store Property Cash NOI guidance range for full year 2023 improved by 100 basis points.
• Empire State Building Observatory generated $28.1 million of NOI. NOI recapture (as a % of 2019) was 99% in the third quarter and 102% year-to-date.
• As part of capital recycling initiatives, completed the acquisition of a prime retail asset in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY for $26.4 million, funded by recent 1031 disposition proceeds, and cash from the Company’s balance sheet.
• Empire State Building was awarded the 2023 BOMA Grand Pinnacle Award and the New York Earth Building of the Year Award.
• Achieved the highest possible GRESB 5 Star Rating for the fourth consecutive year with a score of 92. ESRT’s overall score ranked first among all 115 listed companies in the Americas, first in the most competitive peer group within the U.S and scored the highest on its Public Disclosure Assessment.

Property Operations

As of September 30, 2023, the Company’s property portfolio contained 8.6 million rentable square feet of office space, 0.7 million rentable square feet of retail space and 727 residential units, which were occupied and leased as shown below.

Leasing

The tables below summarize leasing activity for the three months ended September 30, 2023. During the third quarter of 2023, the Company signed 21 leases in the total portfolio totaling 248,479 square feet. Within the Manhattan office portfolio, the Company signed 18 office leases totaling 235,438 square feet.

Total Portfolio

Manhattan Office Portfolio

Leasing Activity Highlights

• A 10-year 143,778 square foot lease with LinkedIn at the Empire State Building. LinkedIn will expand by 25,132 square feet and exercise its option to relocate 118,646 square feet, which will bring LinkedIn’s total leased square footage at the Empire State Building to 526,541 square feet.
• An 11-year 24,640 square foot office lease with Starbucks at the Empire State Building.
• After the quarter end, an 11-year 9,497 square foot new lease with Elemis, a L’Occitane subsidiary, at 111 W 33rd Street and an extension of L’Occitane’s existing 20,962 square foot lease at 111 W 33rd Street for approximately 5 additional years.

Observatory Results

Observatory revenue for the third quarter of 2023 was $37.6 million and expenses were $9.5 million. Observatory NOI was $28.1 million, a 14% increase year-over-year. This represents a 99% NOI recapture rate as a percentage of 2019 levels.

Portfolio Transaction Activity

In the third quarter of 2023, the Company closed on the acquisition of a prime retail asset located at the northeast corner of North 6th Street and Wythe Avenue in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, for $26.4 million. The transaction was funded by proceeds from a recent non-core asset disposition in a 1031, tax deferred exchange, and cash from the Company’s balance sheet.

In aggregate, since December 2021, the Company has disposed of five non-core suburban assets and redeployed proceeds into the acquisition of approximately $0.5 billion of NYC multifamily and retail assets in tax deferred exchanges.

Balance Sheet

The Company had $1.2 billion of total liquidity as of September 30, 2023, which was comprised of $354 million of cash, plus $850 million available under its revolving credit facility. At September 30, 2023, the Company had total debt outstanding of approximately $2.2 billion, no floating rate debt exposure, and a weighted average interest rate of 3.9% per annum. The weighted average term to maturity was 5.7 years and the Company has no debt maturity until November 2024. At September 30, 2023, the Company’s ratio of net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 5.5x.

Share Repurchase

The stock repurchase program began in March 2020 and through October 24, 2023, approximately $293.7 million has been repurchased at a weighted average price of $8.18 per share. There were no share repurchases during the third quarter.

Dividend

On September 29, 2023, the Company paid a quarterly dividend of $0.035 per share or unit, as applicable, for the third quarter of 2023 to holders of the Company’s Class A common stock (NYSE: ESRT) and Class B common stock and to holders of the Series ES, Series 250 and Series 60 partnership units (NYSE Arca: ESBA, FISK and OGCP, respectively) and Series PR partnership units of Empire State Realty OP, L.P., the Company’s operating partnership (the “Operating Partnership”).

On September 29, 2023, the Company paid a quarterly preferred dividend of $0.15 per unit for the third quarter of 2023 to holders of the Operating Partnership’s Series 2014 private perpetual preferred units and a preferred dividend of $0.175 per unit for the third quarter of 2023 to holders of the Operating Partnership’s Series 2019 private perpetual preferred units.

2023 Earnings Outlook

The Company updates the 2023 Core FFO guidance range to $0.85 to $0.87 per fully diluted share. This reflects an improvement in the 2023 same-store property cash NOI outlook. The Company’s guidance does not include the impact of any significant future lease termination fee income or any unannounced acquisition, disposition or other capital markets activity. Key assumptions are included in the table below.

The estimates set forth above may be subject to fluctuations as a result of several factors, including continued impacts of pandemics on our business and our market, our ability to complete planned capital improvements in line with budget, costs of integration of completed acquisitions, costs associated with future acquisitions or other transactions, straight-line rent adjustments and the amortization of above and below-market leases. There can be no assurance that the Company’s actual results will not differ materially from the estimates set forth above.

Investor Presentation Update

The Company has posted on the “Investors” section of ESRT’s website the latest investor presentation, which contains additional information on its businesses, financial condition and results of operations.

Webcast and Conference Call Details

Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. will host a webcast and conference call, open to the general public, on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 12:00 pm Eastern time.

The webcast will be accessible on the “Investors” section of ESRT’s website. To listen to the live webcast, go to the site at least five minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register and download and install any necessary audio software. The conference call can also be accessed by dialing 1-877-407-3982 for domestic callers or 1-201-493-6780 for international callers.

Starting shortly after the call until November 2, 2023, a replay of the webcast will be available on the Company’s website, and a dial-in replay will be available by dialing 1-844-512-2921 for domestic callers or 1-412-317-6671 for international callers. The passcode for this dial-in replay is 13739121.

The Supplemental Report and Investor Presentation are additional components of the quarterly earnings announcement and are now available on the “Investors” section of ESRT’s website.

The Company uses, and intends to continue to use, the “Investors” page of its website, which can be found at www.esrtreit.com, as a means to disclose material nonpublic information and to comply with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD, including, without limitation, through the posting of investor presentations that may include material nonpublic information. Accordingly, investors should monitor the “Investors” page, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, presentations and webcasts. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our website is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this document.

About Empire State Realty Trust

Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) is a NYC-focused REIT that owns and operates a portfolio of modernized, amenitized, and well-located office, retail, and multifamily assets. The company is the recognized leader in energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. ESRT’s flagship Empire State Building – the “World’s Most Famous Building” – includes its Observatory, Tripadvisor’s 2023 Travelers’ Choice Awards: Best of the Best the #1 attraction in the US for two consecutive years. As of September 30, 2023, ESRT's portfolio is comprised of approximately 8.6 million rentable square feet of office space, 0.7 million rentable square feet of retail space and 727 residential units across three multifamily properties. More information about Empire State Realty Trust can be found at esrtreit.com and by following ESRT on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). We intend these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are including this statement for purposes of complying with those safe harbor provisions. You can identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “aims," "anticipates," "approximately," "believes," "contemplates," "continues," "estimates," "expects," "forecasts," "hope," "intends," "may," "plans," "seeks," "should," "thinks," "will," "would" or the negative of these words and phrases or similar words or phrases. For the avoidance of doubt, any projection, guidance, or similar estimation about the future or future results, performance or achievements is a forward-looking statement.

Forward-looking statements are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond our control, and you should not rely on them as predictions of future events. Forward-looking statements depend on assumptions, data or methods which may be incorrect or imprecise, and we may not be able to realize them. We do not guarantee that the transactions and events described will happen as described (or that they will happen at all).

Many important factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, and future events to differ materially from those set forth, implied, anticipated, expected, projected, assumed or contemplated in our forward-looking statements, including, among other things: (i) economic, market, political and social impact of, and uncertainty relating to, any catastrophic events, including pandemics, epidemics or other outbreaks of disease, natural disasters and extreme weather events, terrorism and other armed hostilities, as well as cybersecurity threats and technology disruptions; ; (ii) a failure of conditions or performance regarding any event or transaction described herein, (iii) resolution of legal proceedings involving the Company; (iv) reduced demand for office, multifamily or retail space, including as a result of the changes in the use of office space and remote work; (v) changes in our business strategy; (vi) changes in technology and market competition that affect utilization of our office, retail, observatory, broadcast or other facilities; (vii) changes in domestic or international tourism, including due to health crises and pandemics, geopolitical events, including global hostilities, currency exchange rates, and/or competition from recently opened observatories in New York City, any or all of which may cause a decline in Observatory visitors; (viii) defaults on, early terminations of, or non-renewal of, leases by tenants; (ix) increases in the Company’s borrowing costs as a result of changes in interest rates and other factors; (x) declining real estate valuations and impairment charges; (xi) termination of our ground leases; (xii) changes in our ability to pay down, refinance, restructure or extend our indebtedness as it becomes due and potential limitations on our ability to borrow additional funds in compliance with drawdown conditions and financial covenants; (xiii) decreased rental rates or increased vacancy rates; (xiv) our failure to execute any newly planned capital project successfully or on the anticipated timeline or budget; (xv) difficulties in identifying and completing acquisitions; (xvi) risks related to any development project (including our Metro Tower potential development site); (xvii) impact of changes in governmental regulations, tax laws and rates and similar matters; (xviii) our failure to qualify as a REIT; (xix) environmental uncertainties and risks related to climate change, adverse weather conditions, rising sea levels and natural disasters; (xx) incurrence of taxable capital gain on disposition of an asset due to failure of use or compliance with a 1031 exchange program; and (xxi) accuracy of our methodologies and estimates regarding ESG metrics and goals, tenant willingness and ability to collaborate in reporting ESG metrics and meeting ESG goals, and impact of governmental regulation on our ESG efforts. For a further discussion of these and other factors that could impact the company's future results, performance, or transactions, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and any additional factors that may be contained in any filing we make with the SEC.

While forward-looking statements reflect the Company's good faith beliefs, they do not guarantee future performance. Any forward-looking statement contained in this press release speaks only as of the date on which it was made, and we assume no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statement to reflect changes in underlying assumptions or factors, new information, data or methods, future events, or other changes after the date of this press release, except as required by applicable law. Prospective investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which are based only on information currently available to the Company (or to third parties making the forward-looking statements).

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