TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–DREAM IMPACT TRUST (TSX: MPCT.UN) (“Dream Impact”, “we”, “our” or the “Trust”) today reported its financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022 (“third quarter”).
For the second consecutive year, the Trust is pleased to achieve a five-star rating from GRESB, the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, which is recognition of its placement in the top 20% global benchmark with an overall score of 88/100. The Trust’s score can be attributed to excellent performance in Leadership, Policies, Reporting, Targets and, Data Monitoring and Review. Annual participation in the GRESB assessment provides the Trust with the opportunity for a third-party assessment of our continued progress towards achieving the Trust’s impact/ESG related goals. Further details on specific ESG metrics will be disclosed as part of our 2021 Sustainability Update report, which will be published in November.
“We are pleased with the Trust’s steady progress to create a more resilient portfolio,” said Michael Cooper, Portfolio Manager. “As we add an additional 210 multi-family units to our recurring income segment in the quarter, and construction continues on our 1,863-unit rental buildings in the West Don Lands, we believe we are well positioned to weather ongoing market disruptions by investing in high-quality assets, and contributing meaningfully to important societal issues. While our pace of external acquisitions may slow in the near term, with the largest portfolio of net-zero development and our extensive residential pipeline, we have tremendous internal growth.”
Selected financial and operating metrics for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, are summarized below:
Three months ended September 30,
Nine months ended September 30,
2022
2021
2022
2021
Condensed consolidated results of operations
Net income (loss)
$
337
$
2,154
$
1,309
$
(5,509)
Net income (loss) per unit(1)
0.01
0.03
0.02
(0.08)
Distributions declared and paid per unit
0.10
0.10
0.30
0.30
Units outstanding – end of period
66,094,687
64,939,362
66,094,687
64,939,362
Units outstanding – weighted average
65,982,734
65,066,259
65,637,245
64,934,850
During the three months ended September 30, 2022, the Trust reported net income of $0.3 million compared to net income of $2.2 million in the prior year. The change in earnings was primarily driven by timing of fair value adjustments on our income properties and developments, upon milestone achievements, as well as higher interest expense. This was partially offset by the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations on the Trust’s investment in the U.S. hotel.
As at September 30, 2022, the Trust had $9.0 million of cash-on-hand, which included unused proceeds from the Trust’s convertible debenture issuance. The Trust’s debt-to-asset value(1) as at September 30, 2022 was 27.3%, an increase relative to 25.7% as of June 30, 2022, primarily due to draws on the credit facility. For similar reasons, the Trust’s debt-to-total asset value, inclusive of project-level debt(1) and assets within our development segment, including equity accounted investments, was 60.0% as at September 30, 2022, compared to 57.4% as at June 30, 2022. This includes long-term government debt at low interest rates and high leverage, providing financial benefits that help us pay for the social benefits we provide, including our affordable housing and sustainability programs within our communities. As at September 30, 2022, the Trust had drawn $24.8 million on its $50.0 million credit facility.
As part of the Trust’s ongoing risk management practices, the Trust monitors the impact of macroeconomic factors on the business. This includes assessing the impact of cost escalations on operations and construction projects, and the impact of rising interest rates on our portfolio. We continue to monitor our capital allocation on an ongoing basis, pursue refinancing opportunities which mitigate interest rate risk, and tender a significant portion of development costs prior to construction commencement which helps contain inflationary risk.
Recurring Income
In the third quarter, the Trust’s recurring income segment generated net income of $1.2 million, consistent with prior year, although the composition of earnings differed in each period due to transaction costs, fair value adjustments and occupancy rates across the portfolio.
Throughout the period, we have continued to see strong leasing momentum across our multi-family rental buildings, ending the quarter with in-place and committed residential occupancy at 93.5% as of September 30, 2022, up from 82.5% as of June 30, 2022. Notably, Aalto Suites, a 162-unit multi-family rental building at Zibi, ended the quarter with in-place and committed occupancy at 74.7%, up from 34.6% at June 30, 2022. Aalto Suites has 95% of its units designated as affordable and we anticipate achieving stabilization for the asset in early 2023.
In the third quarter, the Trust acquired a 50% interest in 70 Park, a 210-unit multi-family rental building adjacent to the Port Credit GO station and in close proximity to the Trust’s Brightwater development. The gross purchase price for the site was $105.5 million (at 100%), of which approximately $25 million was allocated to land slated for redevelopment on the site. Inclusive of 70 Park, the Trust’s multi-family rental portfolio is comprised of nearly 1,600 units of which 25% are considered affordable.
Based on the Trust’s current development pipeline, we have an additional 2,826 residential units and 153,000 square feet (“sf”) of commercial and retail (at 100%) with an estimated value on completion of $508.5 million that will be completed and contribute to recurring income over the next three years. For further details, refer to the “Three-Year Recurring Income” table in Section 2.1, “Recurring Income”, in the Trust’s MD&A for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022.
Development
In the third quarter, the development segment generated net income of $2.9 million compared to $4.2 million in the prior period. The decrease relative to prior year was driven by fair value gains recognized in 2021 within the Trust’s equity accounted investments, partially offset by higher foreign exchange gains on the Trust’s investment in the U.S. hotel this year.
In the period, we completed the acquisition of the Berkeley land assembly, which comprises five income properties adjacent to the Trust’s commercial asset, 49 Ontario, located in downtown Toronto. Inclusive of one property purchased in 2021, the Berkeley land assembly was purchased for $16.9 million, including transaction costs. The Trust has submitted a rezoning application for over 800,000 sf for this site and expects rezoning to be achieved by 2023. As of September 30, 2022, 49 Ontario was carried at $95.0 million per the Trust’s financial statements.
Other(2)
In the third quarter, the Other segment generated a net loss of $3.8 million compared to $3.3 million in the prior year. The increase was primarily driven by interest expense on the Trust’s convertible debentures and credit facility. Partially offsetting this was a deferred compensation recovery and decrease in the asset management fee as a result of fluctuations in the Trust’s share price.
Cash Generated from Operating Activities
Cash generated in operating activities for the three months ended September 30, 2022 was $1.5 million compared to cash generated of $4.3 million in the prior year, a decrease driven by proceeds received from a legacy development in the prior year and timing of deposits made on the Trust’s acquisitions.
Footnotes
(1)
For the Trust’s definition of the following specified financial measures: debt-to-asset value, debt-to-total asset value, inclusive of project-level debt, net income (loss) per unit, please refer to the cautionary statements under the heading “Specified Financial Measures and Other Measures” in this press release and the Specified Financial Measures and Other Disclosures section of the Trust’s MD&A.
(2)
Includes other Trust amounts not specifically related to the segments.
Conference Call
Senior management will host a conference call on Thursday November 3 at 2:00 pm (ET). To access the call, please dial 1-866-455-3403 in Canada or 647-484-8332 elsewhere and use passcode 24662328#. To access the conference call via webcast, please go to the Trust’s website at www.dreamimpacttrust.ca and click on Calendar of Events in the News and Events section. A taped replay of the conference call and the webcast will be available for 90 days.
About Dream Impact
Dream Impact is an open-ended trust dedicated to impact investing. Dream Impact’s underlying portfolio is comprised of exceptional real estate assets reported under two operating segments: development and investment holdings, and recurring income, that would not be otherwise available in a public and fully transparent vehicle, managed by an experienced team with a successful track record in these areas. The objectives of Dream Impact are to create positive and lasting impacts for our stakeholders through our three impact verticals: environmental sustainability and resilience, attainable and affordable housing, and inclusive communities; while generating attractive returns for investors. For more information, please visit: www.dreamimpacttrust.ca.
Specified Financial Measures and Other Measures
The Trust’s condensed consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”). In this press release, as a complement to results provided in accordance with IFRS, the Trust discloses and discusses certain specified financial measures, including debt-to-asset value, debt-to-total asset value inclusive of project-level debt, and net income (loss) per unit, as well as other measures discussed elsewhere in this release. These specified financial measures are not defined by IFRS, do not have a standardized meaning and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other issuers. The Trust has presented such specified financial measures as management believes they are relevant measures of our underlying operating performance and debt management. Specified financial measures should not be considered as alternatives to unitholders’ equity, net income, total comprehensive income or cash flows generated from operating activities, or comparable metrics determined in accordance with IFRS as indicators of the Trust’s performance, liquidity, cash flow and profitability. For a full description of these measures and, where applicable, a reconciliation to the most directly comparable measure calculated in accordance with IFRS, please refer to Section 6, “Specified Financial Measures and Other Disclosures” in the Trust’s MD&A for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022.
“Debt-to-asset value” represents the total debt payable for the Trust divided by the total asset value of the Trust as at the applicable reporting date. This non-GAAP ratio is an important measure in evaluating the amount of debt leverage; however, it is not defined by IFRS, does not have a standardized meaning, and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other issuers.
As at
September 30, 2022
December 31, 2021
Total debt
$
203,585
$
133,150
Unamortized discount on host instrument of convertible debentures
1,152
809
Conversion feature
(345)
(357)
Unamortized balance of deferred financing costs
3,023
1,300
Total debt payable
$
207,415
$
134,902
Total assets
760,203
701,702
Debt-to-asset value
27.3%
19.2%
“Debt-to-total asset value, inclusive of project-level debt” represents the Trust’s total debt payable plus the debt payable within our development and investment holdings, and equity accounted investments, divided by the total asset value of the Trust plus the debt payable within our development and investment holdings, and equity accounted investments, as at the applicable reporting date. This specified financial measure is an important measure in evaluating the amount of debt leverage inclusive of project-level debt within our development and investment holdings, and equity accounted investments; however, it is not defined by IFRS, does not have a standardized meaning, and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other issuers.
September 30, 2022
December 31, 2021
Debt payable within our development and investment holdings, and equity accounted investments
$
622,683
$
493,217
Total assets
760,203
701,702
Total assets, inclusive of project-level debt
$
1,382,886
$
1,194,919
Debt payable within our development and investment holdings, and equity accounted investments
$
622,683
$
493,217
Total debt payable
207,415
134,902
Total debt, inclusive of project-level debt
$
830,098
$
628,119
Debt-to-total asset value, inclusive of project-level debt and assets within our development segment, including equity
accounted investments
60.0%
52.6%
“Net income (loss) per unit” represents net income (loss) of the Trust divided by the weighted average number of units outstanding during the period.
Three months ended September 30,
Nine months ended September 30,
2022
2021
2022
2021
Net income (loss)
$
337
$
2,154
$
1,309
$
(5,509)
Units outstanding – weighted average
65,982,734
65,066,259
65,637,245
64,934,850
Net income (loss) per unit
$
0.01
$
0.03
$
0.02
$
(0.08)
Forward-Looking Information
This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “outlook”, “objective”, “may”, “will”, “would”, “could”, “expect”, “intend”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “should”, “plans”, or “continue”, or similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events. Some of the specific forward-looking information in this press release may include, among other things, statements relating to the Trust’s objectives and strategies to achieve those objectives; the publication and details of the 2021 Sustainability Update Report; the resiliency of the Trust’s portfolio; the belief that the Trust is well positioned to withstand market disruptions by investing in high-quality assets; the expectation that external acquisitions may slow in the near term; the Trust’s internal growth potential; the expectation that long-term government debt at low interest rates will provide certain financial benefits; the Trust’s ongoing monitoring of capital allocation, pursuit of refinancing opportunities to mitigate interest rate risks, and tender significant portions of development costs prior to construction commencement to contain inflationary risk; the Trust’s ability to execute on transactions and successfully navigate markets; expected growth of the Trust’s recurring income segment; our development and redevelopment pipeline; expectations regarding rezoning applications and related square footage and finalization dates, including in respect of the Berkeley land assembly; the Trust’s ability to achieve its impact and sustainability goals, and implementing other sustainability initiatives throughout its projects; and the 2,826 residential units and 153,000 sf of commercial and retail (at 100%) with an estimated value upon completion of $508.5 million which are expected to be completed and contribute to recurring income over the next three years.
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 the Trust’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: adverse changes in general economic and market conditions; the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19 and variants thereof) pandemic on the Trust; risks associated with unexpected or ongoing geopolitical events, including disputes between nations, terrorism or other acts of violence, and international sanctions; inflation; the disruption of free movement of goods and services across jurisdictions; the risk of adverse global market, economic and political conditions and health crises; risks inherent in the real estate industry; risks relating to investment in development projects; impact investing strategy risk; risks relating to geographic concentration; risks inherent in investments in real estate, mortgages and other loans and development and investment holdings; credit risk and counterparty risk; competition risks; environmental and climate change risks; risks relating to access to capital; interest rate risk; the risk of changes in governmental laws and regulations; tax risks; foreign exchange risk; acquisitions risk; and leasing risks. Our objectives and forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions with respect to each of our markets, including that the general economy remains stable; the gradual recovery and growth of the general economy continues over 2022; that no unforeseen changes in the legislative and operating framework for our business will occur; that there will be no material change to environmental regulations that may adversely impact our business; that we will meet our future objectives, priorities and growth targets; that we receive the licenses, permits or approvals necessary in connection with our projects; that we will have access to adequate capital to fund our future projects, plans and any potential acquisitions; that we are able to identify high quality investment opportunities and find suitable partners with which to enter into joint ventures or partnerships; that we do not incur any material environmental liabilities; interest rates remain stable; inflation remains relatively low; there will not be a material change in foreign exchange rates; that the impact of the current economic climate and global financial conditions on our operations will remain consistent with our current expectations; our expectations regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and government measures to contain it; our expectation regarding ongoing remote working arrangements; and competition for and availability of acquisitions remains consistent with the current climate.
All forward-looking information in this press release speaks as of October 31, 2022. The Trust does not undertake to update any such forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is disclosed in the Trust’s filings with securities regulators filed on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (www.sedar.com), including its latest annual information form and MD&A. These filings are also available at the Trust’s website at www.dreamimpacttrust.ca.
DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apartment Investment and Management Company (NYSE: AIV) (“Aimco” or the “Company”), today announced that it has filed its definitive proxy materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in connection with its 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled to be held on December 16, 2022. Stockholders of record as of October 26, 2022, will be entitled to vote at the meeting. Aimco’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) strongly recommends that stockholders vote on the WHITE proxy card “FOR ALL” three of Aimco’s qualified and experienced director nominees, Jay Paul Leupp, Michael A. Stein and R. Dary Stone.
In conjunction with the definitive proxy filing, Aimco has also mailed a letter to the Company’s stockholders. Highlights from the letter include:
Aimco has implemented a clearly defined value creation strategy and a comprehensive transformation of the Company’s legacy business under the leadership of a reconstituted Board and new executive management team.
Since the December 2020 spin-off of Apartment Income REIT Corp., Aimco has delivered total stockholder returns of 45%1, significantly outperforming its identified developer peer group2, the FTSE NAREIT Equity Apartments Index, the MSCI US REIT Index, the S&P 500, and the Russell 2000.
The Company’s new, majority-independent and reconstituted Board possesses highly relevant experience and complementary skillsets to oversee its growth strategy.
Aimco’s Board and management team are focused on the future and have a clear plan to build on the Company’s progress and continue to drive growth and outsized returns.
The Aimco Board believes that the election of Land & Buildings’ candidates would remove expertise from the Aimco Board that is critical to the Company’s success.
Aimco’s definitive proxy materials and other materials regarding the Board’s recommendation for the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders can be found at https://investors.aimco.com.
1 TSR calculation as of September 30, 2022
2 Includes AHH, CLPR, CSR, FOR, FPH, HHC, IRT, JBGS, JOE, STRS, TRC, VRE, and WRE (per AIV 2021 10-K) represents simple average
The full text of the letter being mailed to stockholders follows:
October 12, 2022
Dear Fellow Stockholders:
Your Board of Directors and management team are committed to enhancing the value of your investment in Aimco and have been unwavering in our commitment to acting in the best interests of our stockholders. We have implemented a clearly defined value creation strategy and a comprehensive transformation of Aimco’s legacy business under a recently reconstituted, majority-independent Board (the “New Aimco Board” or the “Board”) and all-new executive management team.
Since the New Aimco Board and management team assumed their current roles following the Apartment Income REIT Corp. (“AIR”) spin-off in December 2020, Aimco has delivered total stockholder returns of 45%3, significantly outperforming its identified developer peer group4, the FTSE NAREIT Equity Apartments Index, the MSCI US REIT Index, the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000.
Aimco expects to continue to drive growth and outsized returns by:
Executing on its deep pipeline of real estate development opportunities in targeted high growth markets, investing when conditions are right and monetizing when advantageous.
Practicing disciplined capital allocation, directing capital to additional, multifamily-focused, real estate investments and acquiring Aimco shares opportunistically.
Funding investments through the recycling of Aimco equity and through joint venture partnerships.
Continuing to simplify the Aimco business through increasingly focused capital and geographic allocation.
The New Aimco Board and new management team executing this plan were put in place in connection with the 2020 spin-off of AIR, with the Company:
Appointing six new Aimco directors to replace resigning members of the prior Board, after a thorough search process assisted by a leading executive and board search firm with deep expertise in the real estate industry. As a result, six of Aimco’s eight independent directors have been added within the past two years. Aimco also retained three directors with complementary skillsets and important historical knowledge of Aimco’s business operations;
Appointing a new chief executive officer, chief financial officer and general counsel to replace the prior pre-spin management team; and
Separating Aimco’s Board chair and CEO positions and appointing a new chairman of the Board.
Despite Aimco’sclear momentum and the recent reconstitution of the Aimco Board, Land & Buildings Investment Management LLC (“Land & Buildings”) has initiated a proxy contest and is seeking to remove and replace two of your highly qualified directors. We have engaged with Land & Buildings to better understand its perspectives and have reviewed the qualifications of the candidates it has put forth. It is clear from our interactions to date, however, that Land & Buildings is primarily focused on historical issues and decisions made prior to the reconstitution of the Aimco Board and the replacement of the Aimco management team. While the New Aimco Board and management are open to continued dialogue with Land & Buildings, we believe that additional director turnover at this time is unwarranted. We also believe that the candidates proposed by Land & Buildings would not bring any relevant expertise that is not already well represented on the Aimco Board, and that election of Land & Buildings’ candidates would remove expertise from the New Aimco Board that is critical to our success.
Against this backdrop, you now face an important decision regarding the future of your investment and go-forward Board of Directors. Your Board has three directors up for re-election who have highly relevant skills and expertise and are important contributors to Aimco’s ongoing success. To protect your investment, we strongly recommend that you vote the enclosed universal WHITE proxy card today “FOR” all three of Aimco’s qualified and experienced director nominees: Jay Paul Leupp, Michael A. Stein and R. Dary Stone. Please vote today to ensure your voice is heard at the Company’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders (“Annual Meeting”) on December 16, 2022.
PROTECT THE VALUE OF YOUR INVESTMENT.
USE THE UNIVERSAL WHITE PROXY CARD TODAY TO VOTE FOR ALL THREE
OF AIMCO’S QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED DIRECTORS
AIMCO IS SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTING ITS VALUE ADD STRATEGY
For the past 21 months, Aimco has been successfully executing a growth strategy focused on value add, opportunistic, and alternative investments, targeting the U.S. multifamily sector.
As part of this strategy, we’ve taken decisive actions to drive stockholder value, by:
Creating $100 million of value from the monetization of successfully executed development and redevelopment projects;
Securing significant, high-quality, future development opportunities, more than tripling Aimco’s controlled pipeline to a total potential of more than 15 million square feet, located in high-growth markets;
Retiring or refinancing more than $1 billion of near-term liabilities, eliminating substantially all of our floating rate exposure;
Entering into a strategic capital partnership with Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation providing core equity capital for up to $1 billion of Aimco-led multifamily development projects and creating the opportunity to earn third-party management fees and incentive income;
Unlocking $265 million of asset value by selling three stabilized multifamily assets at prices above the values in Aimco’s internal Net Asset Value (“NAV”) estimate and by selling a partial interest in our passive minority investment in the life science developer, IQHQ, generating a greater than 50% internal rate of return;
Eliminating various legacy entanglements with AIR through the early repayment of the $534 million purchase money note, the reduction of leasehold liabilities from $475.1 million down to $6.1 million, and the amendment of key provisions of the master leasing agreement with AIR;
Acquiring approximately 742,164 Aimco shares at a weighted average price of $5.93 per share in the first half of 2022 and increasing the Company’s share repurchase authorization from 10 million to 15 million shares; and
Building and maintaining a highly qualified and dedicated team of real estate investment professionals, achieving an all-time Company record employee engagement score of 4.52 out of 5, based on independent third-party surveys.
AIMCO HAS DELIVERED SIGNIFICANT VALUE FOR STOCKHOLDERS
Since the December 2020 spin-off, Aimco has significantly outperformed its identified developer peer group, real estate market indices, and broader market indices, as evidenced in the following chart.
From an operating perspective, we have generated significant value across our stabilized portfolio and our development pipeline. For example, during the first half of 2022, we increased net operating income by 14.9%, and since the start of 2021, we have nearly tripled the Company’s future development pipeline.
Importantly, we have a clear plan to build on this progress and drive continued growth. We will remain primarily focused on multifamily housing with an increased allocation to value add and opportunistic investments. We will also continue to leverage the Company’s best-in-class platform, existing portfolio of value add and stable core properties, and an investment pipeline that leads to superior risk-adjusted returns.
Despite these strong results and clear and actionable strategy, the New Aimco Board is not standing still. We routinely consider all viable options to enhance and unlock stockholder value and remain committed to doing so going forward.
NEW AIMCO BOARD AND MANAGEMENT TEAM HAVE ENGAGED CONSTRUCTIVELY
WITH STOCKHOLDERS, INCLUDING LAND & BUILDINGS
Aimco is committed to open and constructive engagement with all stockholders, including Land & Buildings. Aimco has held more than 80 individual meetings with more than 35 current and prospective stockholders in the past 13 months, including stockholders that own in the aggregate more than 80% of Aimco’s outstanding shares of common stock, as well as multiple meetings with Land & Buildings, as described in the Company’s proxy statement. The New Aimco Board has demonstrated that we value and act on the feedback we receive.
The New Aimco Board and management team are focused on the future, executing a clear and effective strategy to enhance the value of your investment, while Land & Buildings’ complaints primarily relate to decisions made almost two years ago by the pre-spin Board of Directors and management team.
THE DIRECTORS ON AIMCO’S MAJORITY-INDEPENDENT, RECONSTITUTED BOARD
BRING HIGHLY RELEVANT SKILLS AND FRESH PERSPECTIVES
Aimco is seeking your support to vote FOR ALL of its three highly qualified, experienced directors at this year’s Annual Meeting: Jay Paul Leupp, Michael A. Stein and R. Dary Stone.
The New Aimco Board is purpose-built, and its composition reflects our commitment to closely aligning the skill sets and experience of the Company’s directors with the needs of the Company and its stockholders. Importantly, the Board works closely with management and has been—and will continue to be—a significant agent of change overseeing the continued improvement of Aimco’s performance and valuation.
We are confident that our three highly-qualified nominees seeking re-election are the better choice to build on the success that Aimco has delivered. Aimco’s three director nominees bring highly relevant expertise and complementary skillsets, and our Board is unanimous in recommending that stockholders vote for our three nominees.
Mr. Leupp, an independent director and the Chairman of Aimco’s Audit Committee, has been an integral part of our Board since his appointment in December 2020 and brings capital markets, investment and finance, real estate, and development experience gained through his over 28 years as a Portfolio Manager and Managing Director focused on investments in publicly traded real estate securities and publicly traded REIT board service. Mr. Leupp is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Current Managing Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager, Real Estate Securities, Terra Firma Asset Management.
Previously served as the Managing Director and Portfolio Manager/Analyst, Global Real Estate Securities, Lazard Asset Management. Prior to Lazard, was the lead equity research analyst at Royal Bank of Canada and at Robertson Stevens & Co.
Currently serves on the board of directors of Health Care Realty and Marathon Digital Holdings.
Currently a member of Aimco’s Compensation and Human Resources, Nominating, Environmental, Social, and Governance, Investment, and Aimco-AIR Transactions Committees, in addition to serving as Chairman of the Audit Committee.
Mr. Stein, an independent director and Chairman of Aimco’s Investment Committee, is a seasoned executive who brings real estate investment and finance, financial reporting, accounting and auditing, capital markets, and business operations experience, gained through his experience as a director of five publicly traded companies and Chief Financial Officer of three publicly traded companies. Further, having served on Aimco’s Board since October 2004, Mr. Stein has significant institutional knowledge of Aimco.
Served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ICOS Corporation, a biotechnology company based in Bothell, Washington from January 2001 until its acquisition by Eli Lilly in January 2007.
Previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nordstrom, Inc. and served in various capacities with Marriott International, Inc., including Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Currently a member of Aimco’s Audit, Compensation and Human Resources, and Nominating, Environmental, Social, and Governance Committees, in addition to serving as Chairman of the Investment Committee.
Mr. Stone, an independent director and Chairman of Aimco’s Nominating, Environmental, Social, and Governance Committee, is an experienced leader and has served on Aimco’s Board since December 2020 and brings investment and finance, real estate, development, property / asset management and operations, and capital markets experience gained through his over 30-year career investing and developing a variety of projects and joint ventures, including the management of one of the country’s largest master planned developments. He also brings publicly traded REIT board service.
Accomplished executive who served as President of multiple real estate development companies and ultimately as President and Chief Operating Officer of Cousins Properties, an NYSE listed REIT.
Currently a member of the board of directors of Cousins Properties and Audit Chairman of Tolleson Wealth Management, a privately held wealth management firm, and Tolleson Private Bank.
Former Chairman of Baylor University Board of Regents and Chairman of the Banking Commission of Texas (previously known as the Texas State Finance Commission).
Currently a member of Aimco’s Audit, Compensation and Human Resources, and Investment Committees, in addition to serving as Chairman of the Nominating, Environmental, Social, and Governance Committee.
PROTECT THE VALUE OF YOUR INVESTMENT AND AIMCO’S FUTURE GROWTH PROSPECTS.
USE THE UNIVERSAL WHITE PROXY CARD TODAY TO VOTE FOR ALL THREE
OF AIMCO’S QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED DIRECTORS
The New Aimco Board is active, engaged and focused on continuing to grow Aimco and providing enhanced value for all our stockholders. We strongly recommend that stockholders vote FOR the Company’s three director nominees on the universal WHITE proxy card: Jay Paul Leupp, Michael A. Stein and R. Dary Stone.
Your vote “FOR” our director nominees will help ensure that you, as an Aimco stockholder, have a Board acting in your best interest at all times.
On behalf of the New Aimco Board, we appreciate your investment and support.
Sincerely,
The Aimco Board of Directors
3 TSR calculation as of September 30, 2022
4 Includes AHH, CLPR, CSR, FOR, FPH, HHC, IRT, JBGS, JOE, STRS, TRC, VRE, and WRE (per AIV 2021 10-K) represents simple average
If you have questions or require any assistance with voting your shares, please contact the Company’s proxy solicitor listed below:
MacKenzie Partners, Inc.
1407 Broadway, 27th Floor
New York, New York 10018
Call Collect: (212) 929-5500
or
Toll-Free (800) 322-2885
Email: proxy@mackenziepartners.com
Forward Looking Statements
This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical statements of fact and those regarding our intent, belief, or expectations, including, but not limited to, the statements in this document regarding future financing plans, including the Company’s expected leverage and capital structure; business strategies, prospects, and projected operating and financial results (including earnings), including facts related thereto, such as expected costs; future share repurchases; expected investment opportunities; and our 2022 pipeline investments and projects. We caution investors not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements.
Words such as “anticipate(s),” “expect(s),” “intend(s),” “plan(s),” “believe(s),” “plan(s),” “may,” “will,” “would,” “could,” “should,” “seek(s),” “forecast(s),” and similar expressions, or the negative of these terms, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, condition or results, and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, among others, that may affect actual results or outcomes include, but are not limited to: (i) the risk that the 2022 preliminary plans and goals may not be completed in a timely manner or at all, (ii) the inability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the pipeline investments and projects, and (iii) changes in general economic conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we believe that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements, which are based on management’s expectations and estimates, are reasonable, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be attained.
Risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations include, but are not limited to: the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the Company’s business and on the global and U.S. economies generally; real estate and operating risks, including fluctuations in real estate values and the general economic climate in the markets in which we operate and competition for residents in such markets; national and local economic conditions, including the pace of job growth and the level of unemployment; the amount, location and quality of competitive new housing supply; the timing and effects of acquisitions, dispositions, redevelopments and developments; changes in operating costs, including energy costs; negative economic conditions in our geographies of operation; loss of key personnel; the Company’s ability to maintain current or meet projected occupancy, rental rate and property operating results; the Company’s ability to meet budgeted costs and timelines, and, if applicable, achieve budgeted rental rates related to redevelopment and development investments; expectations regarding sales of apartment communities and the use of proceeds thereof; the ability to successfully operate as two separate companies each with more narrowed focus; insurance risks, including the cost of insurance, and natural disasters and severe weather such as hurricanes; financing risks, including the availability and cost of financing; the risk that cash flows from operations may be insufficient to meet required payments of principal and interest; the risk that earnings may not be sufficient to maintain compliance with debt covenants, including financial coverage ratios; legal and regulatory risks, including costs associated with prosecuting or defending claims and any adverse outcomes; the terms of laws and governmental regulations that affect us and interpretations of those laws and regulations; possible environmental liabilities, including costs, fines or penalties that may be incurred due to necessary remediation of contamination of apartment communities presently or previously owned by the Company; activities by stockholder activists, including a proxy contest; the Company’s relationship with each other after the consummation of the business separation; the ability and willingness of the Company and their subsidiaries to meet and/or perform their obligations under any contractual arrangements that are entered into among the parties in connection with the business separation and any of their obligations to indemnify, defend and hold the other party harmless from and against various claims, litigation and liabilities; and the ability to achieve some or all the benefits that we expect to achieve from the business separation.
In addition, the Company’s current and continuing qualification as a real estate investment trust involves the application of highly technical and complex provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and depends on the Company’s ability to meet the various requirements imposed by the Internal Revenue Code, through actual operating results, distribution levels and diversity of stock ownership.
Readers should carefully review the Company’s financial statements and the notes thereto, as well as the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and in Item 1A of the Company’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended March 31, 2022 and June 30, 2022, and the other documents the Company files from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements reflect management’s judgment as of this date, and the Company assumes no (and disclaims any) obligation to revise or update them to reflect future events or circumstances.
We make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of any projections, estimates, targets, statements or information contained in this document. It is understood and agreed that any such projections, estimates, targets, statements and information are not to be viewed as facts and are subject to significant business, financial, economic, operating, competitive and other risks, uncertainties and contingencies many of which are beyond our control, that no assurance can be given that any particular financial projections or targets will be realized, that actual results may differ from projected results and that such differences may be material. While all financial projections, estimates and targets are necessarily speculative, we believe that the preparation of prospective financial information involves increasingly higher levels of uncertainty the further out the projection, estimate or target extends from the date of preparation. The assumptions and estimates underlying the projected, expected or target results are inherently uncertain and are subject to a wide variety of significant business, economic and competitive risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the financial projections, estimates and targets. The inclusion of financial projections, estimates and targets in this presentation should not be regarded as an indication that we or our representatives, considered or consider the financial projections, estimates and targets to be a reliable prediction of future events.
Glossary and Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Financial and Operating Measures
This document includes certain financial and operating measures used by Aimco management that are not calculated in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States, or GAAP. Aimco’s definitions and calculations of these Non-GAAP financial and operating measures and other terms may differ from the definitions and methodologies used by other REITs and, accordingly, may not be comparable. These Non-GAAP financial and operating measures should not be considered an alternative to GAAP net income or any other GAAP measurement of performance and should not be considered an alternative measure of liquidity.
NET OPERATING INCOME (NOI) MARGIN: Represents an apartment community’s net operating income as a percentage of the apartment community’s rental and other property revenues.
PROPERTY NET OPERATING INCOME (NOI): NOI is defined by Aimco as total property rental and other property revenues less direct property operating expenses, including real estate taxes. NOI does not include: property management revenues, primarily from affiliates; casualties; property management expenses; depreciation; or interest expense. NOI is helpful because it helps both investors and management to understand the operating performance of real estate excluding costs associated with decisions about acquisition pricing, overhead allocations, and financing arrangements. NOI is also considered by many in the real estate industry to be a useful measure for determining the value of real estate. Reconciliations of NOI as presented in this document to Aimco’s consolidated GAAP amounts are provided below. Due to the diversity of its economic ownership interests in its apartment communities in the periods presented, Aimco evaluates the performance of the apartment communities in its segments using Property NOI, which represents the NOI for the apartment communities that Aimco consolidates and excludes apartment communities that it does not consolidate. Property NOI is defined as rental and other property revenue less property operating expenses. In its evaluation of community results, Aimco excludes utility cost reimbursement from rental and other property revenues and reflects such amount as a reduction of the related utility expense within property operating expenses. The following table presents the reconciliation of GAAP rental and other property revenue to the revenues before utility reimbursements and GAAP property operating expenses to expenses, net of utility reimbursements.
Segment NOI Reconciliation
Twelve Months Ended (in thousands)
December 31, 2021
December 31, 2020
Total Real Estate Operations
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Total (per consolidated statements of operations)
$
169,836
$
67,613
$
151,451
$
61,514
Adjustment: Utilities reimbursement
(3,022
)
$
(3,022
)
(2,163
)
(2,163
)
Adjustment: Non-stabilized and other amounts not allocated [2]
(30,629
)
(21,158
)
(18,528
)
(17,676
)
Total Stabilized Operating (per Schedule 6)
$
136,185
$
43,433
$
130,760
$
41,675
Segment NOI Reconciliation
Three Months Ended (in thousands)
June 30, 2022
June 30, 2021
Total Real Estate Operations
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Total (per consolidated statements of operations)
$
50,697
$
19,708
$
40,418
$
16,403
Adjustment: Utilities reimbursement
(1,347
)
(1,347
)
(1,128
)
(1,128
)
Adjustment: Assets Held for Sale
(1,823
)
$
568
(1,798
)
634
Adjustment: Other Real Estate
(4,383
)
$
1,317
(3,138
)
1,090
Adjustment: Non-stabilized and other amounts not allocated [2]
(10,040
)
(9,825
)
(4,589
)
(7,056
)
Total Stabilized Operating (per Schedule 6)
$
33,104
$
10,420
$
29,765
$
9,943
Segment NOI Reconciliation
Six Months Ended (in thousands)
June 30, 2022
June 30, 2021
Total Real Estate Operations
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Revenues,
Before Utility
Reimbursements [1]
Expenses,
Net of Utility
Reimbursements
Total (per consolidated statements of operations)
$
100,691
$
38,929
$
80,222
$
33,345
Adjustment: Utilities reimbursement
(2,903
)
(2,903
)
(2,473
)
(2,473
)
Adjustment: Assets Held for Sale
(3,628
)
1,159
(3,503
)
1,265
Adjustment: Other Real Estate
(9,378
)
(2,822
)
(6,324
)
(2,127
)
Adjustment: Non-stabilized and other amounts not allocated [2]
(19,455
)
(13,696
)
(8,903
)
(9,871
)
Total Stabilized Operating (per Schedule 6)
$
65,327
$
20,667
$
59,018
$
20,139
[1] Approximately two-thirds of Aimco’s utility costs are reimbursed by residents. These reimbursements are included in rental and other property revenues on Aimco’s consolidated statements of operations prepared in accordance with GAAP. This adjustment represents the reclassification of utility reimbursements from revenues to property operating expenses for the purpose of evaluating segment results and as presented on Supplemental Schedule 6. Aimco also excludes the reimbursement amounts from the calculation of Average Revenue per Apartment Home throughout this Earnings Release and Supplemental Schedules.
[2] Properties not included in the Stabilized Operating Portfolio and other amounts not allocated includes operating results of properties not presented in the Stabilized Operation Portfolio as presented on Supplemental Schedule 6 during the periods shown, as well as property management and casualty expense, which are not included in property operating expenses, net of utility reimbursements in the Supplemental Schedule 6 presentation.
About Aimco
Aimco is a diversified real estate company primarily focused on value add, opportunistic, and alternative investments, targeting the U.S. multifamily sector. Aimco’s mission is to make real estate investments where outcomes are enhanced through its human capital so that substantial value is created for investors, teammates, and the communities in which we operate. Aimco is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as AIV. For more information about Aimco, please visit its website www.aimco.com.
LOUGHTON, England — After nearly two decades of renting in one of the world’s most expensive cities, the Szostek family began the week almost certain that they would finally own a home.
Transplants to London who fell in love as housemates, Laetitia Anne, an operations manager from France and her husband, Maciej Szostek, a chef from Poland, had long dreamed of being homeowners. They had waited out the uncertain pandemic years and worked overtime shifts to save up for the deposit for a mortgage on a three-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood outside London. Their 13-year-old twins were excited they could finally paint the walls.
That was before British financial markets were upended, with the pound briefly hitting a record low against the dollar on Monday and interest rates soaring so rapidly that the Bank of England was forced to intervene to restore order. The economic situation was so volatile that some mortgage lenders temporarily withdrew many products.
By Tuesday evening, the Szostek family learned the bad news: The loan that they were close to securing had fallen through. Suddenly, they were scrambling to find another lender as interest rates climb higher.
loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys.
What causes inflation? It can be the result of rising consumer demand. But inflation can also rise and fall based on developments that have little to do with economic conditions, such as limited oil production and supply chain problems.
Is inflation bad? It depends on the circumstances. Fast price increases spell trouble, but moderate price gains can lead to higher wages and job growth.
Can inflation affect the stock market? Rapid inflation typically spells trouble for stocks. Financial assets in general have historically fared badly during inflation booms, while tangible assets like houses have held their value better.
Rising home prices and income inequality priced many out of the market, but for strivers who aspired to homeownership, the latest ruptures to the economy hit hard. The release of the new government’s sweeping plan for debt-funded tax cuts led to a big uptick in interest rates this week that roiled the mortgage market. Many homeowners are calculating their potential future mortgage payments with alarm, amid soaring energy and food prices and a general cost-of-living crisis.
Before they were informed they were no longer eligible, the family had been in the final stages of applying for a five-year fixed-rate mortgage on an apartment priced at £519,000, or around $576,000, in the leafy parish of Loughton, a town about 40 minutes north of London by train where the streets fill with students in the afternoon and the properties span from lower-end apartments to million-pound mansions.
according to the Financial Conduct Authority. And more than a third of all mortgages are on fixed rates that expire within the next two years, most likely exposing those borrowers to higher rates, too. By contrast, the vast majority of mortgages in the United States are locked in for 30-year fixed terms.
And the abrupt surge in interest rates could threaten to set off a housing market crisis, analysts at Oxford Economics wrote in a note on Friday, adding that if mortgage rates stayed at the levels now being offered, that would suggest that house prices were around 30 percent overvalued “based on the affordability of mortgage payment.”
“This just adds a significant further strain to finances in the order of hundreds of pounds a month,” said David Sturrock, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, adding that the squeeze on household budgets will affect the broader economy.
Uncertainty and even panic was clear this week, with many homeowners seeking financial advice. Mortgage brokers said they were receiving a higher volume of inquiries than normal from people stressed about refinancing their loans.
“You can feel the fear in people’s voices,” said Caroline Opie, a mortgage broker working with Ms. Anne who said she had not seen this level of worry in a long time. One couple this week even called her the morning of their wedding, she said, to set an appointment to refinance their mortgage next week.
the war in Ukraine. “Something has got to give,” he said. “Prices are too high anyway.”
To save for the deposit, Mr. Szostek, 37, picked up construction shifts and cleaning jobs when restaurants closed during Covid-19 lockdowns. A £5,000 inheritance from Ms. Anne’s grandfather went into their deposit fund. At a 3.99 percent interest rate, the mortgage repayments were set to be about £2,200 a month.
“I wanted to feel at home for real,” said Ms. Anne, adding she would have been the first in her family to own a property. Mr. Szostek called it “a lifelong dream.”
On Wednesday night, that dream still seemed in reach: The mortgage dealer Ms. Opie had found another loan, which they rushed to apply for.
The higher interest rate — 4.6 percent — will mean their new monthly mortgage payment will be £2,400, the upper limit of what the Szostek family can afford. Still, they felt lucky to secure anything at all, hoping it will mean their promises to their children — of bigger bedrooms, more space, freedom to decorate how they like — will materialize.
They would wait to celebrate, Mr. Szostek said, until they had the keys in hand.
These are among the many battle-style slogans that Beijing has unleashed to rally support around its top-down, zero-tolerance coronavirus policies.
China is now one of the last places on earth trying to eliminate Covid-19, and the Communist Party has relied heavily on propaganda to justify increasingly long lockdowns and burdensome testing requirements that can sometimes lead to three tests a week.
The barrage of messages — online and on television, loudspeakers and social platforms — has become so overbearing that some citizens say it has drowned out their frustrations, downplayed the reality of the country’s tough coronavirus rules and, occasionally, bordered on the absurd.
citywide lockdown in Shanghai this spring, Jason Xue had no more food left in his fridge. Yet when he clicked on the government’s social media account, he noticed that a top city official had vowed to “make every possible endeavor” to address food shortages.
Government assistance didn’t show up until four weeks later, Mr. Xue said.
“I was extremely angry, panicked and despairing,” said Mr. Xue, who works for a financial communications firm. He eventually turned to neighbors for help. “The propaganda was resolute and decisive, but it was different from the reality that we didn’t even know whether we could have the next meal.”
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has made controlling the virus a “top political priority.” Thousands of state media outlets and social media accounts have echoed Beijing’s “zero Covid” policy and praised the sacrifice of workers trying to control Covid-19.
at least 120 Covid-related propaganda phrases have been created since the beginning of the pandemic.
blocking them from seeking safety.
Videos of the episode were posted online and quickly deleted by censors, who said people should “at least bring masks before escaping from buildings,” even when an earthquake is “highly destructive.”
For some, the video was a reminder of how the government had used the pandemic to tighten its grip on their private lives, telling them when they can leave their apartments, what kind of food they can buy and what hospitals they can enter.
Kong Lingwanyu, a 22-year-old marketing intern in Shanghai, was upset that officials used the phrase “unless necessary” when describing restrictions around things like leaving the home, dining out or gathering with others.
Ms. Kong said a local official responsible for carrying out coronavirus policies had told her that she should not “buy unnecessary food.” She said she asked the official what standards the government used to determine what kind of food was necessary.
“Who are you to decide the ‘necessity’ for others?” she said. “It’s totally absurd and nonsense.”
On state television, Beijing’s “nine storm fortification actions” around the pandemic are frequently repeated to keep people in line with Covid policies. The nine actions are: neighborhood lockdowns, mass testing, contact tracing, disinfection, quarantine centers, increased health care capacity, traditional Chinese medicine, screening of neighborhoods and prevention of local transmission.
Yang Xiao, a 33-year-old cinematographer in Shanghai who was confined to his apartment for two months during a lockdown this year, had grown tired of them all.
“With the Covid control, propaganda and state power expanded and occupied all aspects of our life,” he said in a phone interview. Day after day, Mr. Yang heard loudspeakers in his neighborhood repeatedly broadcasting a notice for P.C.R. testing. He said the announcements had disturbed his sleep at night and woke him up at dawn.
“Our life was dictated and disciplined by propaganda and state power,” he said.
To communicate his frustrations, Mr. Yang selected 600 common Chinese propaganda phrases, such as “core awareness,” “obey the overall situation” and “the supremacy of nationhood.” He gave each phrase a number and then put the numbers into Google’s Random Generator, a program that scrambles data.
He ended up with senseless phrases such as “detect citizens’ life and death line,” “strictly implement functions” and “specialize overall plans without slack.” Then he used a voice program to read the phrases aloud and played the audio on a loudspeaker in his neighborhood.
No one seemed to notice the five minutes of computer-generated nonsense.
When Mr. Yang uploaded a video of the scene online, however, more than 1.3 million people viewed it. Many praised the way he used government language as satire. Chinese propaganda was “too absurd to be criticized using logic,” Mr. Yang said. “I simulated the discourse like a mirror, reflecting its own absurdity.”
Spoofing Chinese propaganda:
His video was taken down by censors.
Mr. Yang added that he hoped to inspire others to speak out against China’s Covid policies and its use of propaganda in the pandemic. He wasn’t the only Shanghai resident to rebel when the city was locked down.
In June, dozens of residents protested against the police and Covid control workers who installed chain-link fences around neighborhood apartments. When a protester was shoved into a police car and taken away, one man shouted: “Freedom! Equality! Justice! Rule of law!” Those words would be familiar to most Chinese citizens: They are commonly cited by state media as core socialist values under Mr. Xi.
The Federal Reserve’s determination to crush inflation at home by raising interest rates is inflicting profound pain in other countries — pushing up prices, ballooning the size of debt payments and increasing the risk of a deep recession.
Those interest rate increases are pumping up the value of the dollar — the go-to currency for much of the world’s trade and transactions — and causing economic turmoil in both rich and poor nations. In Britain and across much of the European continent, the dollar’s acceleration is helping feed stinging inflation.
On Monday, the British pound touched a record low against the dollar as investors balked at a government tax cut and spending plan. And China, which tightly controls its currency, fixed the renminbi at its lowest level in two years while taking steps to manage its decline.
Somalia, where the risk of starvation already lurks, the strong dollar is pushing up the price of imported food, fuel and medicine. The strong dollar is nudging debt-ridden Argentina, Egypt and Kenya closer to default and threatening to discourage foreign investment in emerging markets like India and South Korea.
the International Monetary Fund.
Japanese yen has reached a decades-long high. The euro, used by 19 nations across Europe, reached 1-to-1 parity with the dollar in June for the first time since 2002. The dollar is clobbering other currencies as well, including the Brazilian real, the South Korean won and the Tunisian dinar.
the economic outlook in the United States, however cloudy, is still better than in most other regions.
loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys.
What causes inflation? It can be the result of rising consumer demand. But inflation can also rise and fall based on developments that have little to do with economic conditions, such as limited oil production and supply chain problems.
Is inflation bad? It depends on the circumstances. Fast price increases spell trouble, but moderate price gains can lead to higher wages and job growth.
Can inflation affect the stock market? Rapid inflation typically spells trouble for stocks. Financial assets in general have historically fared badly during inflation booms, while tangible assets like houses have held their value better.
A fragile currency can sometimes work as “a buffering mechanism,” causing nations to import less and export more, Mr. Prasad said. But today, many “are not seeing the benefits of stronger growth.”
Still, they must pay more for essential imports like oil, wheat or pharmaceuticals as well as for loan bills due from billion-dollar debts.
debt crisis in Latin America in the 1980s.
The situation is particularly fraught because so many countries ran up above-average debts to deal with the fallout from the pandemic. And now they are facing renewed pressure to offer public support as food and energy prices soar.
Indonesia this month, thousands of protesters, angry over a 30 percent price increase on subsidized fuel, clashed with the police. In Tunisia, a shortage of subsidized food items like sugar, coffee, flour and eggs has shuttered cafes and emptied market shelves.
New research on the impact of a strong dollar on emerging nations found that it drags down economic progress across the board.
“You can see these very pronounced negative effects of a stronger dollar,” said Maurice Obstfeld, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of the study.
central banks feel pressure to raise interest rates to bolster their currencies and prevent import prices from skyrocketing. Last week, Argentina, the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Britain and Norway raised interest rates.
World Bank warned this month that simultaneous interest rate increases are pushing the world toward a recession and developing nations toward a string of financial crises that would inflict “lasting harm.”
Clearly, the Fed’s mandate is to look after the American economy, but some economists and foreign policymakers argue it should pay more attention to the fallout its decisions have on the rest of the world.
In 1998, Alan Greenspan, a five-term Fed chair, argued that “it is just not credible that the United States can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world that is experiencing greatly increased stress.”
The United States is now facing a slowing economy, but the essential dilemma is the same.
“Central banks have purely domestic mandates,” said Mr. Obstfeld, the U.C. Berkeley economist, but financial and trade globalization have made economies more interdependent than they have ever been and so closer cooperation is needed. “I don’t think central banks can have the luxury of not thinking about what’s happening abroad.”
Flávia Milhorance contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.
RICHMOND, Va. — In late July, Norman Otey was rushed by ambulance to Richmond Community Hospital. The 63-year-old was doubled over in pain and babbling incoherently. Blood tests suggested septic shock, a grave emergency that required the resources and expertise of an intensive care unit.
But Richmond Community, a struggling hospital in a predominantly Black neighborhood, had closed its I.C.U. in 2017.
It took several hours for Mr. Otey to be transported to another hospital, according to his sister, Linda Jones-Smith. He deteriorated on the way there, and later died of sepsis. Two people who cared for Mr. Otey said the delay had most likely contributed to his death.
the hospital’s financial data.
More than half of all hospitals in the United States are set up as nonprofits, a designation that allows them to make money but avoid paying taxes. Although Bon Secours has taken a financial hit this year like many other hospital systems, the chain made nearly $1 billion in profit last year at its 50 hospitals in the United States and Ireland and was sitting on more than $9 billion in cash reserves. It avoids at least $440 million in federal, state and local taxes every year that it would otherwise have to pay, according to an analysis by the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
In exchange for the tax breaks, the Internal Revenue Service requires nonprofit hospitals to provide a benefit to their communities. But an investigation by The New York Times found that many of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital systems have drifted far from their charitable roots. The hospitals operate like for-profit companies, fixating on revenue targets and expansions into affluent suburbs.
borrowing tricks from business consultants, have trained staff to squeeze payments from poor patients who should be eligible for free care.
John M. Starcher Jr., made about $6 million in 2020, according to the most recent tax filings.
“Our mission is clear — to extend the compassionate ministry of Jesus by improving the health and well-being of our communities and bring good help to those in need, especially people who are poor, dying and underserved,” the spokeswoman, Maureen Richmond, said. Bon Secours did not comment on Mr. Otey’s case.
In interviews, doctors, nurses and former executives said the hospital had been given short shrift, and pointed to a decade-old development deal with the city of Richmond as another example.
In 2012, the city agreed to lease land to Bon Secours at far below market value on the condition that the chain expand Richmond Community’s facilities. Instead, Bon Secours focused on building a luxury apartment and office complex. The hospital system waited a decade to build the promised medical offices next to Richmond Community, breaking ground only this year.
‘Glorified Emergency Room’
founded in 1907 by Black doctors who were not allowed to work at the white hospitals across town. In the 1930s, Dr. Jackson’s grandfather, Dr. Isaiah Jackson, mortgaged his house to help pay for an expansion of the hospital. His father, also a doctor, would take his children to the hospital’s fund-raising telethons.
Cassandra Newby-Alexander at Norfolk State University.
got its first supermarket.
according to research done by Virginia Commonwealth University. The public bus route to St. Mary’s, a large Bon Secours facility in the northwest part of the city, takes more than an hour. There is no public transportation from the East End to Memorial Regional, nine miles away.
“It became impossible for me to send people to the advanced heart valve clinic at St. Mary’s,” said Dr. Michael Kelly, a cardiologist who worked at Richmond Community until Bon Secours scaled back the specialty service in 2019. He said he had driven some patients to the clinic in his own car.
Richmond Community has the feel of an urgent-care clinic, with a small waiting room and a tan brick facade. The contrast with Bon Secours’s nearby hospitals is striking.
At the chain’s St. Francis Medical Center, an Italianate-style compound in a suburb 18 miles from Community, golf carts shuttle patients from the lobby entrance, past a marble fountain, to their cars.
after the section of the federal law that authorized it, allows hospitals to buy drugs from manufacturers at a discount — roughly half the average sales price. The hospitals are then allowed to charge patients’ insurers a much higher price for the same drugs.
The theory behind the law was that nonprofit hospitals would invest the savings in their communities. But the 340B program came with few rules. Hospitals did not have to disclose how much money they made from sales of the discounted drugs. And they were not required to use the revenues to help the underserved patients who qualified them for the program in the first place.
In 2019, more than 2,500 nonprofit and government-owned hospitals participated in the program, or more than half of all hospitals in the country, according to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
in wealthier neighborhoods, where patients with generous private insurance could receive expensive drugs, but on paper make the clinics extensions of poor hospitals to take advantage of 340B.
to a price list that hospitals are required to publish. That is nearly $22,000 profit on a single vial. Adults need two vials per treatment course.
work has shown that hospitals participating in the 340B program have increasingly opened clinics in wealthier areas since the mid-2000s.
were unveiling a major economic deal that would bring $40 million to Richmond, add 200 jobs and keep the Washington team — now known as the Commanders — in the state for summer training.
The deal had three main parts. Bon Secours would get naming rights and help the team build a training camp and medical offices on a lot next to Richmond’s science museum.
The city would lease Bon Secours a prime piece of real estate that the chain had long coveted for $5,000 a year. The parcel was on the city’s west side, next to St. Mary’s, where Bon Secours wanted to build medical offices and a nursing school.
Finally, the nonprofit’s executives promised city leaders that they would build a 25,000-square-foot medical office building next to Richmond Community Hospital. Bon Secours also said it would hire 75 local workers and build a fitness center.
“It’s going to be a quick timetable, but I think we can accomplish it,” the mayor at the time, Dwight C. Jones, said at the news conference.
Today, physical therapy and doctors’ offices overlook the football field at the training center.
On the west side of Richmond, Bon Secours dropped its plans to build a nursing school. Instead, it worked with a real estate developer to build luxury apartments on the site, and delayed its plans to build medical offices. Residents at The Crest at Westhampton Commons, part of the $73 million project, can swim in a saltwater pool and work out on communal Peloton bicycles. On the ground floor, an upscale Mexican restaurant serves cucumber jalapeño margaritas and a Drybar offers salon blowouts.
have said they plan to house mental health, hospice and other services there.
a cardiologist and an expert on racial disparities in amputation, said many people in poor, nonwhite communities faced similar delays in getting the procedure. “I am not surprised by what’s transpired with this patient at all,” he said.
Because Ms. Scarborough does not drive, her nephew must take time off work every time she visits the vascular surgeon, whose office is 10 miles from her home. Richmond Community would have been a five-minute walk. Bon Secours did not comment on her case.
“They have good doctors over there,” Ms. Scarborough said of the neighborhood hospital. “But there does need to be more facilities and services over there for our community, for us.”
The Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates again is hardly a positive development for anyone with a job, a business or an investment in the stock or bond market.
But it isn’t a great shock, either.
This is all about curbing inflation, which is running at 8.3 percent annually, near its highest rate in 40 years. On Wednesday, the Fed raised the short-term federal funds rate for a third consecutive time, to 3.25 percent, and said it would keep increasing it.
“We believe a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain later on,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said. He acknowledged that the Fed’s rate increases would raise unemployment and slow the economy.
last time severe inflation tested the mettle of the Federal Reserve was the era of Paul A. Volcker, who became Fed chair in August 1979, when inflation was already 11 percent and still rising. He managed to bring it below 4 percent by 1983, but at the cost of two recessions, sky-high unemployment and horrendous volatility in financial markets.
around 6 percent — and had set the country on a path toward price stability that lasted for decades.
The Great Moderation.” This halcyon period lasted long after he left the Fed, and ended only with the financial crisis of 2007-9. As the Fed now puts it on a website devoted to its history, “Inflation was low and relatively stable, while the period contained the longest economic expansion since World War II.”
mandates — “the economic goals of maximum employment and price stability”— as new information arrived.
Donald Kohn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, was a Fed insider for 40 years, and retired as vice chair in 2010. With his inestimable guidance, I plunged into Fed history during the Volcker era.
I found an astonishing wealth of material, providing far more information than reporters had access to back then. In fact, while the current Fed provides vast reams of data, what goes on behind closed doors is better documented, in some respects, for the Volcker Fed.
That’s because transcripts of Fed meetings from that period were reconstructed from recordings that, Mr. Kohn said, “nobody was thinking about as they were talking because nobody knew about them or expected that this would ever be published, except, I guess Volcker.” By the 1990s, when the Fed began to produce transcripts available on a five-year time delay, Mr. Kohn said, participants in the meetings “were aware they were being recorded for history, so we became more restrained in what we said.”
What the Fed’s Rate Increases Mean for You
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A toll on borrowers. The Federal Reserve has been raising the federal funds rate, its key interest rate, as it tries to rein in inflation. By raising the rate, which is what banks charge one another for overnight loans, the Fed sets off a ripple effect. Whether directly or indirectly, a number of borrowing costs for consumers go up.
Consumer loans. Changes in credit card rates will closely track the Fed’s moves, so consumers can expect to pay more on any revolving debt. Car loan rates are expected to rise, too. Private student loan borrowers should also expect to pay more.
Mortgages. Mortgage rates don’t move in lock step with the federal funds rate, but track the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, which is influenced by inflation and how investors expect the Fed to react to rising prices. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have climbed above 6 percent for the first time since 2008, according to Freddie Mac.
Banks. An increase in the Fed benchmark rate often means banks will pay more interest on deposits. Larger banks are less likely to pay consumers more, and online banks have already started raising some of their rates.
So reading the Volcker transcripts is like being a fly on the wall. Some names of foreign officials have been scrubbed, but most of the material is there.
In a phone conversation, Mr. Kohn identified two critical “Volcker moments,” which he discussed at a Dallas Federal Reserve conference in June. “In both cases, the Fed moved in subtle ways and surprised people by changing its focus and its approach,” he said.
Congress, financial circles and academic institutions. Economics students may remember Milton Friedman saying: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
For Fed watchers, the change in the central bank’s emphasis had practical implications. Richard Bernstein, a former chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch who now runs his own firm, said that back then: “You needed a calculator to figure out the numbers being released by the Fed. By comparison, now, there are practically no numbers. You just need to look at the words of Fed statements.”
The Fed as Psychologist
The Fed’s methods of dealing with inflation are abstruse stuff. But its conversations about the problem in 1982 were pithy, and its decisions appeared to be based as much on psychology as on traditional macroeconomics.
As Mr. Volcker put it at a Federal Open Market Meeting on Oct. 6, 1979, “I have described the state of the markets as in some sense as nervous as I have ever seen them.” He added: “We are not dealing with a stable psychological or stable expectational situation by any means. And on the inflation front, we‘re probably losing ground.”
17 percent by March 1980. The Fed plunged the economy into one recession and then, when the first one failed to curb inflation sufficiently, into a second.
unemployment rate stood at 10.8 percent, a postwar high that was not exceeded until the coronavirus recession of 2020. But in 1982, even people at the Fed were wondering when the economy would begin to recover from the damage that had been done.
The Pivot in 1982
The fall of 1982 was the second “Volcker moment” discerned by Mr. Kohn, who was in the room during meetings. The Fed decided that inflation was coming down — although in September 1982, it was still in the 6 to 7 percent range. The economy was contracting sharply, and the extraordinarily high interest rates in the United States had ricocheted around the world, worsening a debt crisis in Mexico, Argentina and, soon, the rest of Latin America.
Fed meeting that October, when one official said, “There have certainly been some other problem situations” in Latin America, Mr. Volcker responded, “That’s the understatement of the day, if I must say so.”
Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma had collapsed, a precursor of other failures to come.
“We are in a worldwide recession,” Mr. Volcker said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.” He added: “I don’t know of any country of any consequence in the world that has an expansion going on. And I can think of lots of them that have a real downturn going on. Obviously, unemployment is at record levels. It is rising virtually everyplace. In fact, I can’t think of a major country that is an exception to that.”
It was time, he and others agreed, to provide relief.
The Fed needed to make sure that interest rates moved downward, but the method of targeting the monetary supply wasn’t working properly. It could not be calibrated precisely enough to guarantee that interest rates would fall. In fact, interest rates rose in September 1982, when the Fed had wanted them to drop. “I am totally dissatisfied,” Mr. Volcker said.
It was, therefore, time, to shift the Fed’s focus back to interest rates, and to resolutely lower them.
This wasn’t an easy move, Mr. Kohn said, but it was the right one. “It took confidence and some subtle judgment to know when it was time to loosen conditions,” he said. “We’re not there yet today — inflation is high and it’s time to tighten now — but at some point, the Fed will have to do that again.”
The Payoff
The Fed pivot in 1982 had a startling payoff in financial markets.
As early as August 1982, policymakers at the central bank were discussing whether it was time to loosen financial conditions. Word trickled to traders, interest rates fell and the previously lackluster S&P 500 started to rise. It gained nearly 15 percent for the year and kept going. That was the start of a bull market that continued for 40 years.
In 1982, the conditions that set off rampant optimism in the stock market didn’t happen overnight. The Volcker-led Fed had to correct itself repeatedly while responding to major crises at home and abroad. It took years of pain to reach the point at which it made sense to pivot, and for businesses to start rehiring workers and for traders to go all-in on risky assets.
Today, the Fed is again engaging in a grand experiment, even as Russia’s war in Ukraine, the lingering pandemic and political crises in the United States and around the globe are endangering millions of people.
When will the big pivot happen this time? I wish I knew.
The best I can say is that it would be wise to prepare for bad times but to plan and invest for prosperity over the long haul.
I’ll come back with more detail on how to do that.
But I would try to stay invested in both the stock and bond markets permanently. The Volcker era demonstrates that when the moment has at last come, sea changes in financial markets can occur in the blink of an eye.
America’s first commercial railroads were built almost two centuries ago. Freight rail has been a symbol of the nation’s economic might and ingenuity ever since.
In recent years, some of the biggest names on Wall Street have made significant investments in railroads, reaping big stock gains as railroads reported higher profits. But the underlying strategies that strengthened railroads’ bottom lines have caused friction with customers, regulators and particularly workers — giving rise to a contract dispute that threatened a nationwide shutdown of the railway system.
After losing ground to trucking in the mid-20th century, the rail industry managed to recover through decades of consolidation and a push for efficiency. Critics say those same dynamics created a system with thin staffing and minimal competition, making it particularly vulnerable to shocks like the coronavirus pandemic.
Those complaints were at the center of the contract impasse that left tens of thousands of workers prepared to walk off the job last week. A strike could have been economically devastating, paralyzing shipments of grain, chemicals and other cargo.
It was averted with less than a day to go when the Biden administration helped to broker a tentative agreement that addresses some of those issues and will be put to a vote of the rail unions’ members in the coming weeks.
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The freight rail industry says it has worked hard to adapt to rapid changes — including the pandemic and, before that, a decline in demand for coal, a critical source of business.
“The industry has had to continually evolve to grow its other services,” said Ian Jefferies, the president of the Association of American Railroads, an industry group. To make up for the decline in coal, freight shippers have tried to transport more grain, truck trailers, shipping containers and other goods, he said.
according to the Surface Transportation Board, which monitors and regulates rates.
Prices started to increase in the early 2000s, driven by rising costs for labor, fuel, materials and supplies as well as a growing focus on profitability. From 2002 to 2019, long-distance trucking rates increased by 40 percent, according to a Transportation Department report published this year, while rail rates grew by 96 percent, though they are still well below historical levels, adjusted for inflation.
won a proxy battle for Canadian Pacific in 2012 and installed Mr. Harrison to lead the company.
Mr. Harrison brought his approach to Canadian Pacific, then to CSX in 2017, before his death that year. Other freight carriers and Wall Street increasingly took notice, and the practice has spread throughout the industry.
Many freight rail experts say P.S.R. brought necessary reforms to the industry, but they also say some practices, which can differ greatly among carriers, went too far or were poorly executed. Unions say the system has created miserable working conditions.
letter to shareholders.
“I’ll venture a rare prediction,” he wrote in February. “BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.”
Peter S. Goodman and Clifford Krauss contributed reporting.
A strike might have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.
President Joe Biden announced Thursday that a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a nationwide strike that could have been devastating to the economy before the pivotal midterm elections.
Railroads and union representatives had been in negotiations for 20 hours at the Labor Department well past midnight to hammer out a deal, as there was a risk of a strike starting on Friday that could have shut down rail lines across the country.
The president brought business and union leaders to the Oval Office on Thursday morning, then hailed the deal in remarks in the White House Rose Garden.
“This agreement is validation of what I’ve always believed, unions and management can work together — can work together — for the benefit of everyone,” President Biden declared.
President Biden made a key phone call to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at 9 p.m. Wednesday as the talks were ongoing after Italian dinner had been brought in, according to White House officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss the conversations. On speakerphone, the president told the negotiators to get a deal done and to consider the harm to families, farmers and businesses if a shutdown occurred, the officials said.
Related StoryPossible Railroad Worker Strike Could Upend U.S. Supply Chain
What resulted from the back and forth was a tentative agreement that will go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks. One union had to wake up its board to move forward on the agreement, which involved 50 calls from White House officials to organized labor officials.
In the Oval Office, a beaming President Biden joked that he was surprised everyone was “still standing” after the late night and that they should be “home in bed.”
The strike would also have disrupted passenger traffic as well as freight rail lines, because Amtrak and many commuter railroads operate on tracks owned by the freight railroads. Amtrak had already canceled a number of its long-distance trains this week, and said the rest of its long-distance trains would stop Thursday ahead of the strike deadline.
Following the tentative agreement, Amtrak said it was “working to quickly restore canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate on first available departures.”
The five-year deal, retroactive to 2020, includes the 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses that a Presidential Emergency Board recommended this summer. But railroads also agreed to ease their strict attendance policies to address some of the unions’ concerns about working conditions.
Railroad workers will now be able to take unpaid days off for doctor’s appointments without being penalized under railroad attendance rules. Previously, workers would lose points under the attendance systems that the BNSF and Union Pacific railways had adopted, and they could be disciplined if they lost all their points.
The unions that represent the conductors and engineers who drive the trains had pressed hard for changes in the attendance rules, and they said this deal sets a precedent that they will be able to negotiate over those kinds of rules in the future. But workers will still have to vote whether those changes are enough to approve the deal.
Related StoryBiden Intervenes In Railroad Contract Fight To Block Strike
The threat of a shutdown had put President Biden in a delicate spot politically. The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could damage the economy ahead of the midterms, when majorities in both chambers of Congress, key governorships and scores of important state offices will be up for grabs.
That left him in the awkward position on Wednesday. He flew to Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, to espouse the virtues of unionization, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers.
As the administration was trying to forge peace, United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced President Biden at the Detroit auto show as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sit-down strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.
In the speech that followed, President Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”
But without a deal among the 12 unions in talks back in Washington, President Biden also knew that a stoppage could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.
Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could have extended to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit, said a rail worker strike was “an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people.”
President Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel — how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what’s best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.
Union activism has surged under President Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.
With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s goal was to keep all parties so a deal could be reached. President Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.
Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment.
“No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House,” he said. “No one wants it this close to the election.”
Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it.
The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday.
“We’ve been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, told reporters. “There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. … There are critical products to keep our water clean.”
By 5:05 a.m. Thursday, it was clear that the hard work across the government, unions and railway companied had paid off as President Biden announced the deal, calling it “an important win for our economy and the American people.”
A strike might have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.
President Joe Biden said Thursday that a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a strike that could have been devastating to the economy before the pivotal midterm elections.
Railroads and union representatives had been in negotiations for 20 hours at the Labor Department on Wednesday to hammer out a deal, as there was a risk of a strike starting on Friday that could have shut down rail lines across the country.
President Biden made a key phone call to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at 9 p.m. as the talks were ongoing after Italian dinner had been brought in, according to a White House official insisting on anonymity. The president told the negotiators to consider the harm to families, farmers and businesses if a shutdown occurred.
What resulted from the back and forth was a tentative agreement that will go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks.
“These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned,” President Biden said. “The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”
Related StoryPossible Railroad Worker Strike Could Upend U.S. Supply Chain
The threat of a shutdown had put President Biden in a delicate spot politically. The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could damage the economy ahead of the midterms, when majorities in both chambers of Congress, key governorships and scores of important state offices will be up for grabs.
That left him in the awkward position on Wednesday. He flew to Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, to espouse the virtues of unionization, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers.
As the administration was trying to forge peace, United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced President Biden at the Detroit auto show on Wednesday as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sitdown strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.
In the speech that followed, President Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”
But without a deal among the 12 unions in talks back in Washington, President Biden also knew that a stoppage might have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.
Far more was at stake than sick leave and salary bumps for 115,000 unionized railroad workers. The ramifications could have extended to control of Congress and to the shipping network that keeps factories rolling, stocks the shelves of stores and stitches the U.S. together as an economic power.
That’s why White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking aboard Air Force One as it jetted to Detroit on Wednesday, said a rail worker strike was “an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people.” The rail lines and their workers’ representatives “need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues, and come to an agreement,” she said.
Related StoryBiden Intervenes In Railroad Contract Fight To Block Strike
President Biden faced the same kind of predicament faced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 with coal and Harry Truman in 1952 with steel — how do you balance the needs of labor and business in doing what’s best for the nation? Railways were so important during World War I that Woodrow Wilson temporarily nationalized the industry to keep goods flowing and prevent strikes.
Inside the White House, aides don’t see a contradiction between President Biden’s devotion to unions and his desire to avoid a strike. Union activism has surged under President Biden, as seen in a 56% increase in petitions for union representation with the National Labor Relations Board so far this fiscal year.
One person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations on the matter, said President Biden’s mindset in approaching the debate was that he’s the president of the entire country, not just for organized labor.
With the economy still recovering from the supply chain disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s goal was to keep all parties so a deal could be reached. The person said the White House saw a commitment to keep negotiating in good faith as the best way to avoid a shutdown while exercising the principles of collective bargaining that President Biden holds dear.
President Biden also knew a stoppage could worsen the dynamics that have contributed to soaring inflation and created a political headache for the party in power.
Eddie Vale, a Democratic political consultant and former AFL-CIO communications aide, said the White House pursued the correct approach at a perilous moment.
“No one wants a railroad strike, not the companies, not the workers, not the White House,” he said. “No one wants it this close to the election.”
Vale added that the sticking point in the talks was about “respect basically — sick leave and bereavement leave,” issues President Biden has supported in speeches and with his policy proposals.
Sensing political opportunity, Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to pass a law to impose contract terms on the unions and railroad companies to avoid a shutdown. Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, blocked it.
“If a strike occurs and paralyzes food, fertilizer and energy shipments nationwide, it will be because Democrats blocked this bill,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The economic impact of a potential strike was not lost on members of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based group that represents CEOs. It issued its quarterly outlook for the economy Wednesday.
“We’ve been experiencing a lot of headwinds from supply chain problems since the pandemic started and those problems would be geometrically magnified,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, told reporters. “There are manufacturing plants around the country that likely have to shut down. … There are critical products to keep our water clean.”
The roundtable also had a meeting of its board of directors Wednesday. But Bolten said Lance Fritz, chair of the board’s international committee and the CEO of Union Pacific railroad, would miss it “because he’s working hard trying to bring the strike to a resolution.”
By 5:05 a.m. Thursday, it was clear that the hard work across the government, unions and railway companies had paid off as President Biden announced the deal, calling it “an important win for our economy and the American people.”