Business Segments

6 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2016

Segment Reporting [Abstract]

Business Segments

(3) Business Segments. Following the completion of the spin-off of the transportation business, management conducted a strategic review of the Company’s real estate operations.  As a result of this review, it was determined that the information that the Company’s chief operating decision makers regularly review for purposes of allocating resources and assessing performance, had changed. Therefore, beginning with the quarter ending March 31, 2015 (with prior periods adjusted accordingly), the Company is reporting its financial performance based on three reportable segments, Asset Management, Mining Royalty Lands and Land Development and Construction, as described below.

The Asset Management segment owns, leases and manages warehouse/office buildings located predominately in the Baltimore/Northern Virginia/Washington, DC market area.

Our Mining Royalty Lands segment was unaffected by the change in segments and owns several properties comprising approximately 15,000 acres currently under lease for mining rents or royalties (this does not include the 4,280 acres owned in our Brooksville joint venture with Vulcan Materials).  Other than one location in Virginia, all of these properties are located in Florida and Georgia. 

Through our Land Development and Construction segment, we own and are continuously monitoring for their “highest and best use” several parcels of land that are in various stages of development.  Our overall strategy in this segment is to convert all of our non-income producing lands into income production through (i) an orderly process of constructing new warehouse/office buildings for us to own and operate or (ii) a sale to, or joint venture with, third parties.

Subsequent to the Spin-off, the Company is receiving certain services from Patriot (e.g. executive oversight, accounting, information technology and human resource services) which are billed to the Company on a monthly basis in accordance with the Transition Services Agreement entered into and made effective as of the date of the Spin-off. As was the case prior to the Spin-off, these costs (excluding stock compensation) are included in the Company’s corporate expense and are fully allocated to the business segments. Certain other corporate expenses (primarily stock compensation, corporate aircraft and one-time Spin-off related expenses) are reported as “unallocated” on the Company’s consolidated income statement and are not allocated to any business segment. As a result of the Spin-off the former transportation segment of the Company is reported as a discontinued operation and thus is not allowed any corporate overhead allocation. Hence, all corporate overhead of the transportation group through the date of the Spin-off is included in “corporate expense” on the Company’s consolidated income statements herein. Reclassifications to the appropriate prior period line items and amounts have been made to be comparable to the current presentation.

Operating results and certain other financial data for the Company’s business segments are as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months ended						Six Months ended
	March 31,						March 31,
	2016			2015			2016			2015
Revenues:
Asset management	$	7,574			7,330			14,489			14,087
Mining royalty lands		1,778			1,335			3,437			2,679
Land development and construction		263			283			512			484
		9,615			8,948			18,438			17,250
Operating profit:
Before corporate expenses:
Asset management	$	3,423			3,187			6,811			6,573
Mining royalty lands		1,649			1,191			3,174			2,391
Land development and construction		(555	)		(739	)		1,864			(1,267	)
Corporate expenses:
Allocated to asset management		(520	)		(497	)		(898	)		(797	)
Allocated to mining royalty		(75	)		(526	)		(130	)		(844	)
Allocated to land development and construction		(413	)		(295	)		(712	)		(471	)
Unallocated to discontinued operations		—			(162	)		—			(1,081	)
		(1,008	)		(1,480	)		(1,740	)		(3,193	)
	$	3,509			2,159			10,109			4,504
Interest expense:
Asset management	$	415			620			896			1,065
Depreciation, depletion and amortization:
Asset management	$	1,835			1,776			3,633			3,562
Mining royalty lands		31			30			65			61
Land development and construction		63			72			127			138
	$	1,929			1,878			3,825			3,761
Capital expenditures:
Asset management	$	473			382			9,710			1,287
Mining royalty lands		4			—			4			—
Land development and construction		479			309			1,781			1,142
	$	956			691			11,495			2,429

	March 31,		September 30,
Identifiable net assets	2016		2015
Asset management	$	157,566		151,023
Mining royalty lands		39,479		39,300
Land development and construction		57,365		60,682
Cash items		1,175		419
Unallocated corporate assets		557		1,054
	$	256,142		252,478