Chattanooga: CBL cuts costs

CBL & Associates Properties Inc., its stock down 23.4 percent to close at $7.60 a share Wednesday, is cutting costs to squeeze through the economic slowdown, officials said.

“Liquidity and maintaining earnings growth are our priorities,” CBL Chief Financial Officer John Foy told analysts Wednesday.

CBL on Tuesday announced it had lowered dividends for the year to $1.48 per common share from $2.18 per common share to generate about $80 million in cash flow annually.

CBL President Stephen Lebovitz said Wednesday the company is cutting back on renovations and maintenance to control costs. Nor will CBL start any new developments until the leasing environment improves, he said.

A portion of The Pavilion at Port Orange, a shopping center being developed in Daytona Beach, Fla., has been postponed, Mr. Lebovitz said.

A total of 40,000 square feet of retail space in the first phase has been delayed until a future date, said Katie Reinsmidt, director of corporate communications and investor relations. The remaining 450,000-square-foot first phase is 70 percent pre-leased, she said. The first phase will open in 2009, Mr. Lebovitz said.

This fall the Chattanooga-based shopping mall company implemented a hiring freeze as part of cost-controlling measures that also included across-the-board staff cuts at the corporate headquarters and at mall properties, Mr. Lebovitz said.

“We haven’t filled any vacancies,” he said. Cuts were “more across the board, and we asked each part of the company to tighten up.”

Late last month, CBL laid off an undisclosed number of staffers in its Chattanooga headquarters, citing “the current retail climate.”

CBL on Tuesday announced third-quarter funds from operations was $54.2 million, or 82 cents. That marks a 7.9 percent increase from FFO of more than $49.6 million, or 76 cents per share a year ago. Funds from operations is the company’s primary earnings gauge.

CBL will lose $3.4 million in rents from the closure later this quarter of nine Linens ’n Things and $182,000 from the closure of a Circuit City, Mr. Lebovitz told analysts.