UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON D.C. 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE
SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
October 25, 2000
Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported)
MID-AMERICA APARTMENT COMMUNITIES, INC.
(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Charter)
TENNESSEE 1-12762 62-1543819
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(State of Incorporation) (Commission File Number) (I.R.S. Employer
Identification Number)
6584 POPLAR AVENUE, SUITE 340
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE 38138
(Address of principal executive offices)
(901) 682-6600
Registrant's telephone number, including area code
(Former name or address, if changed since last report)
Item 5. Other Events
The following comments were issued to the public by the Company regarding the
recent market activity:
October 25, 2000
Since a peer company announced at the end of September that it was facing
several serious issues, the share price of MAA (NYSE) has dropped by 9%. Their
problems are their own; they did not speak (nor, we are sure, intend to speak)
for Mid-America, although theirs are some of the same issues that we have
addressed and communicated in the past. Their issues:
1) Tough market conditions. The southeastern and Texas markets have been
and will continue to be demanding and highly competitive - but there is
nothing new about this. They also remain the highest job formation areas in
the country, which over long periods helps assure our continuing success.
We've been calling these markets accurately, on a quarterly basis, for a
long time and will be giving our next update on November 2, with our third
quarter earnings release (call information below).
2) Sharp curtailment in their new development pipeline; development
disappointing in some areas; development climate deteriorating; and they'd
be selling assets in part to fund development. We made a major cutback in
our own pipeline over a year ago in view of the growing risks; we have not
been a contributor to deterioration of the development climate. We also
announced in 1999 an asset sale plan to fund our development pipeline and
which has further permitted us to repurchase over 1.7 million of our
undervalued shares.
3) Issues pertaining to interest rate exposure related to their high
proportion of variable rate date. This issue is barely relevant to MAA. We
dealt with it earlier, sharply reducing our variable rate exposure (9% of
our debt is conventional variable rate, and we have another 4% of tax-free
variable rate debt). Over the past year, during a period in which the Fed
Funds rate increased 150 basis points, our aggregate interest rate has
increased only 15 b.p. to 7.15% as we simultaneously reduced our variable
rate risk.
4) Slow new development deliveries. We also dealt with this issue,
especially in 1999, announcing on a regular quarterly basis any
difficulties we faced in capturing forecast revenues - for differing
reasons, varying by property, and including slow construction delivery,
weather delays, higher concessions than forecast, and higher marketing
costs. Most of those such issues are behind MAA now. Our development
investment will have added materially to share value upon maturity of the
present pipeline in 2003.
We'll be providing detailed MAA particulars in our November 2 earnings
release and in our November 3 telephone conference call: 10AM Central time;
888-843-8954, conference ID either Mid-America Apartment Communities or 2954342,
through 11/10/00. The replay will also be available on our web site at
www.maac.net. Please join us.
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the
registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned thereunto duly authorized.
MID-AMERICA APARTMENT COMMUNITIES, INC.
Date: October 26, 2000 /s/ Simon R.C. Wadsworth
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Simon R.C. Wadsworth
Executive Vice President
(Principal Financial and
Accounting Officer)