Property Sales Dent Cousins' Net Income

The locally based REIT reports second-quarter net income of $45.7 million, or 91 cents per diluted share, compared to $143.5 million, or $2.92 per diluted share, in second quarter 2003. For the six months ended June 30, net income available was $56.5 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, versus $171.1 million, or $3.49 per diluted share, last year.

Funds from operations total $25.3 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, in the second quarter compared to $27 million, or 55 cents per share, in second quarter 2003. For the six months, FFO totaled $52.3 million, or $1.04 per share, versus $73.6 million, or $1.50, in the comparable 2003 period.

"Net income available and FFO decreased in the second quarter (by $6.1 million) due to the loss of net revenues from sold properties (and) were partially offset by net revenue (of $2.4 million) from recently developed and acquired properties," says Bell.

"It was a very busy quarter for Cousins as we continued to take advantage of the excellent pricing for the sale of high-quality office assets and also kicked off our largest Avenue (retail) project yet," the Cousins chief executive says.

He adds, "Our main focus right now is using this pricing environment to realize the value we've created in a number of our office assets. The marketing efforts to sell these office assets are drawing significant interest and offers."