CTO Realty Growth - Q2 2024
July 26, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CTO Realty Growth Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, John Albright, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the CTO Realty Growth Second Quarter 2024 operating results conference call. I am pleased to have Phil Mays, our new Chief Financial Officer, joining me this morning. Before we begin, I'll turn it over to Phil to provide the customary disclosures regarding today's call. Phil?
Phil Mays (SVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Thanks, John. I would like to remind everyone that many of our comments today are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. The company's actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward-looking statements, and we undertake no duty to update these statements. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other SEC filings. You can find our SEC reports, earnings release, supplemental, and most recent investor presentation on our website at ctoreit.com. With that, I will turn the call back over to John.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thanks, Phil. We had another strong quarter in all areas of our business. This morning, I will provide a brief overview of our second quarter results and highlight the strong leasing environment and investment opportunities we are seeing. As of quarter end, over 70% of our rents come from Georgia, Texas, and Florida, and we continue to see the benefits of owning a high-quality portfolio of shopping centers located in strong growth markets in the Southeast and Southwest. Starting with our operating business, we had another successful quarter of leasing activity.
In the second quarter, we signed 79,000 sq ft of new leases, renewals, and extensions at an average rent of $25.87 per sq ft, bringing our leasing activity to 183,000 sq ft at an average rent of $26.58 per sq ft for the first half of 2024. This leasing activity was spread across our portfolio, but heaviest at Ashford Lane in Atlanta and West Broad Village in Richmond. Our comparable lease spreads were 9% in the second quarter and 41% in the first half of 2024. As discussed on our last call, the 41% growth in the first half includes the significant impact of replacing Regal Cinemas at Beaver Creek Crossings in Raleigh with a fitness operator scheduled to open in mid-2025.
We ended the quarter with physical occupancy of 92.6%, an increase of 2.3% from year-end 2023, and leased occupancy of 94.6%. The 200 basis point spread between physical and leased occupancy represents almost $5 million of future cash rents in nearly 6% of our current in-place cash base rents. We will receive some earnings benefit from these leases in the second half of 2024, but most of the benefit will ramp up throughout 2025 as the new tenants take possession. We're also in negotiations to lease approximately 24,000 sq ft of the former Earth Fare store at The Collection at Forsyth, Atlanta, and 19,000 sq ft of the space formerly leased by WeWork at The Shops at Legacy in Plano, Texas.
Turning to investments, after an active first quarter, which included acquiring The Marketplace at Seminole Towne Center in Sanford submarket of Orlando, we had a relatively quiet second quarter, purchasing 1.4 acres of vacant land for $1.5 million for the future development within our West Broad Village property in Richmond. More importantly, we are optimistic that we will be successful with some acquisitions in our target markets, which we would expect to close in the third quarter. Accordingly, we have increased our outlook for investments for the full year of 2024 to a range of $200 million-$250 million. On the dispositions front, although no transactions were completed during the quarter, we have a non-refundable $18 million sales contract for Jordan Landing, our property in Utah, with closing scheduled in August.
We will continue to prioritize selling our few small remaining non-core assets for redeployment into attractive investment opportunities in larger format, open-air retail centers. Given the strong results our portfolio has delivered for the first half of 2024, along with a favorable transaction market we are seeing, we have increased the midpoint of our 2024 Core FFO guidance by 12% to a range of $1.81-$1.86. Phil will discuss our earnings and guidance in more detail, and I will now hand the call over to him.
Phil Mays (SVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Thanks, John. First, it is a privilege for me to join the team here at CTO Realty. The board and management have done a remarkable job transforming the company's property portfolio. The positive results from this transformed portfolio and strong management team are evident throughout this quarter's results to discuss on today's call. Currently, the company's property portfolio consists of 20 properties comprising 3.9 million sq ft, located in 8 states and 11 markets. More specifically, substantially all of these properties are located in business-friendly markets in the Southeast and Southwest, with demographics supportive of outsized long-term growth.... Accordingly, they benefit from strong tenant demand, as evidenced in occupancy, leasing spreads, and same property NOI growth.
As John previously mentioned, at quarter end, physical occupancy was 92.6%, and lease occupancy was 94.6%, with the spread between them representing almost $5 million of annualized cash-based rents that will primarily contribute to NOI and earnings growth in 2025. Same property NOI for the second quarter increased by 2% compared to the same period in the prior year. For the first six months of 2024, same property NOI growth was 4% compared to the first six months of 2023. The growth for the first six months of 2024 was driven by lease-up and additionally benefited from higher percentage rents received in the first quarter of 2024 from certain tenants that pay percentage rent on an annual basis after year-end. Moving to earnings.
Core FFO was $0.45 per share for the quarter, representing 5% growth when compared to the same period in the prior year, and AFFO was $0.48 per share for the quarter, consistent with the same period in the prior year. For the first six months of 2024, core FFO was $0.93 per share, and AFFO was $1 per share, representing growth of 13% and 10% respectively compared to the first six months of 2023. Core FFO growth for both the quarter and first six months of 2024 outpaced AFFO growth due to a $450,000 non-cash write-off of straight line rents receivable in the second quarter of last year, associated with our former food hall tenant at Ashford Lane.
As disclosed in our press release and other filings, our AFFO excludes non-cash items such as straight line rent that can cause short-term fluctuations in earnings with no impact on operating cash flows. For that reason, we present AFFO in addition to FFO. As we announced in May, we distributed a second quarter regular cash dividend of $0.38 per share, resulting in a Q2 2024 AFFO payout ratio of 79%, and an attractive current annualized yield of approximately 8%. Consistent with past practice, towards the end of August, we will announce our quarterly dividend amount for the third quarter. Now turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with net debt to total enterprise value of 48%, net debt to EBITDA of 7.5 times, $155 million of liquidity, and a staggered debt maturity schedule.
As previously announced, early in the second quarter, we issued 1.7 million shares of our Series A preferred stock for net proceeds of $33.1 million. Additionally, during the quarter, we issued almost 250,000 common shares under our ATM program for total net proceeds of $4.3 million. These combined proceeds of approximately $38 million, along with $15.2 million of proceeds received in connection with the repayment of one of our loan investments, were used to pay down a revolving credit facility and reduce its balance to $150 million outstanding at quarter end.
Further, as disclosed in our earnings release and supplemental reporting package, we have previously entered into SOFR rate swaps for notional amounts that cover all of our term loans and $150 million of our revolving credit facility, thereby leaving no floating rate interest exposure at quarter end. Lastly, a guidance update. With our strong first half results and current outlook, we are increasing our full year 2024 core FFO guidance to a range of $1.81-$1.86 per share, and AFFO guidance to a range of $1.95-$2 per share. At the midpoints, this represents a 12% increase to core FFO guidance and an 11% increase to AFFO guidance. Most of the assumptions underlying our 2024 guidance remain unchanged, except for investments.
As John discussed, we are optimistic about acquisitions in the second half of the year. Accordingly, we have increased our anticipated full year 2024 investments to a range of $200 million-$250 million, and an initial cash yield range of 8.5%-9%. As a reminder, our investment assumptions are inclusive of both properties and loans. Currently, we are not increasing our disposition range of $50 million-$75 million. However, should we land on the high end of our investment range, it is possible that we could exceed our disposition range as we would look to opportunistically dispose of one or more of our few remaining non-core assets. With that, I will now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our first question comes from the line of R.J. Milligan with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
R.J. Milligan (Managing Director)
Good morning, guys, and welcome, Phil. John, I was wondering if you could just talk about the environment today in terms of what gives you the confidence to increase the guidance and maybe a comment as to what we should expect in terms of the mix between loans and regular way investments?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Sure. Thanks, R.J. Yeah, so, I probably mentioned this on the last call. You know, we're seeing a fair amount of opportunities. We've been actively pursuing a lot of what we've been seeing are quality properties and good locations. We missed on one earlier this year that was fairly sizable based on due diligence, but we're able to. We have one right now in our line of sights that you know gives us confidence in this upward guidance of acquisitions. And then as far as your question, as far as the mix, you know-
...primarily it's, you know, core real estate, you know, power center shopping centers that we're looking to buy. I would say that out of the mix, it's 80% of it's core acquisitions, and then 20% is more structured investments.
R.J. Milligan (Managing Director)
That's helpful. In terms of, you know, obviously, a decent increase in guidance, and so I think that that might imply that you expect to close some of these transactions sooner rather than later. I'm just curious, number one, from a modeling perspective, if you could give us an idea on timing, expectations, and then funding sources.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, so I'd hope, you know, on a fairly sizable transaction for us, that we'd have something that we'd basically be able to close on in, let's call it 60 days. And we have the capacity of our line of credit facilities to do the acquisition. And as you know, you know, we, you know, obviously have been pretty good about, you know, recycling assets. So we, in addition to one property we have, you know, more or less going into the closing process, or under contract, we have other assets that we're looking to sell as well.
R.J. Milligan (Managing Director)
Okay. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gaurav Mehta with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is now open.
Gaurav Mehta (Managing Director)
Yeah, thank you. Good morning. Wanted to follow up on the investment guidance questions. Wanted to get some more color on the cap rates as well. It seems like you raised the cap rate guidance as well to 8.5 from a lower cap rate expectation to previous guidance, and was wondering if that's specific to the acquisitions that you're looking at, or is that what you're seeing in the market?
John Albright (President and CEO)
A combination of what, you know, what we're pursuing and, and what we've been, you know, making some acquisition offers on and, and feel like, you know, where we know we can probably acquire assets, as and the combination of the structured investments. So it's a, it's a blend with the two, but, you know, definitely comprised of what, what we see that we think is transactable as far as our acquisitions.
Gaurav Mehta (Managing Director)
A follow-up on the early repayment of seller financing loan. Any color on what drove that early refinancing? Early repayment, I'm sorry.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Sorry, can you ask that again one-
Gaurav Mehta (Managing Director)
Yeah, I think, in the quarter, you had $15.2 million of early repayment of a seller financing loan. Just wanted to get-
John Albright (President and CEO)
Oh, yeah. So that was on the Sabal Pavilion office building we sold in Tampa. That's. I think we announced that in the, you know, second quarter, I believe. Or, sorry, in the last earnings call. And so that was one where we allowed the seller financing to close earlier for a little bit of a discount.
Gaurav Mehta (Managing Director)
Okay. Thank you. That's all I had.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Stevenson with Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open.
Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)
Good morning, guys. John, beyond the 24,000 sq ft in Atlanta and the 19,000 in Plano that you talked about in your comments, where are the other larger pockets of current or future vacancy that you're working on today, where there isn't a signed tenant yet?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah. So, I mean, those are some of the big ones, for sure. But, the balance of the WeWork space, the amount of, as mentioned, roughly 20,000 sq ft of the WeWork space, that's basically a third of it. So we still have some wood to chop there on the balance of the space. The good news is we're seeing increased activity in that market, which is great. And so, you know, love to see that. And then, as far as where the rest of the space is, you know, we have roughly 210,000 sq ft of vacancy throughout the portfolio, and everything else is fairly scattered, so smaller spaces.
There's not those, those are the two big ones, would be Earth Fare, which looks like we have the lease signed up, and, and then the WeWork space for sure, and that's what we've been working on pretty hard on getting that addressed.
Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)
Okay, that's helpful. And then, back to the acquisition sort of track. How aggressively are you guys pursuing mixed-use assets these days? Is the focus really retail only, and you'll do a mixed-use asset if it's a great deal and it falls into your lap, or are you still aggressively pursuing mixed-use assets going forward?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah. Right now, there's no mixed-use assets in the pipeline. It's, it's primarily our core, retail, open-air centers.
Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)
Okay, that's helpful. And then, Phil, main contributors to the increased guidance beyond just some of the better leasing, anything, any big slugs that drove up the outlook for the rest of the year?
Phil Mays (SVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah, you know, I think it falls into four buckets. You know, the first one being the investment activity, both loans and properties, and the second, as John touched on, timing of them also, right? I think, we're seeing acquisitions lead dispositions, so that also drives it. And then we've got, you know, the first half of the year behind us with very, very strong results. And then maybe, you know, initially a little conservatism and guidance early in the year, especially with the, you know, our CFO, just being kind of prudent early in the year.
Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)
Okay.
Phil Mays (SVP, CFO and Treasurer)
They kind of fall in those four buckets, and you can kind of spread the increased guidance across them.
Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)
All right, that's helpful. Thanks, guys, and have a great weekend.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thanks. You too.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Erdner with JonesTrading. Your line is now open.
Matthew Erdner (Managing Director)
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I'd like to follow up on the investment opportunities, and kind of the higher yield. You know, so in some of these open-air shopping centers, are you guys kind of targeting ones with maybe some lower occupancy or some, I guess, facilities that need some capital improvement to kind of get that increased cap rate?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, we certainly are seeing some properties that need some capital. Not, you know, incredible amount of capital, but definitely a fair amount of upfront capital to refresh the properties. We're not seeing on the acquisition side, more or less a lot of vacancy. There's vacancy, but it's not a big component of it.
Matthew Erdner (Managing Director)
Gotcha, that's helpful. And then turning to the loans, should we expect any other early payoffs, or was this kind of a one-time thing?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, nothing in front of us right now that's going to be paying off anytime soon.
Matthew Erdner (Managing Director)
Gotcha. Thank you, guys. That's all for me.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Massocca with B. Riley Securities. Your line is now open.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Good morning.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
So it sounds like a lot of the investment pipeline is pretty far along at this point, and therefore, kind of, pricing on that was set a while ago. But maybe as you look beyond what's kind of close in the pipeline today, or even, some of the deals that are a little more up in the air that you have in the pipeline today, are you seeing any pressure on cap rates, given, some of the moves in interest rates we've seen over the last couple of weeks?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, I would say that the pressure on cap rates are kind of in the larger type of assets in major MSAs. You know, I would say more of the almost the $200 million sort of assets seem to get more of the pricing pressure. The assets that we're, you know, basically pursuing really we're trying to avoid the real core institutional capital that wouldn't be chasing these, and so trying to, you know, buy around the edges. So we're not seeing as much cap rate compression there yet. We expect it, so that's kind of why we're trying to get busy on the acquisition front.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. And then it probably, you know, extends to, to most of the disposition side of things, but are you seeing any loosening of kind of the banking market getting a little more active, if you will, in terms of financing transactions?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, it seems like the CMBS market has been very helpful for folks that are selling assets, or, you know, for the acquirers that look for secured debt. That's been really helping the transaction market for sure. So, you know, we don't like to see that because it brings in more competition from folks that are using leverage on the asset basis. But there is better leverage out there, and so that's been helping the transaction market for sure.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. And then in terms of kind of financing, you know, the investment pipeline, particularly on the debt side, what are you seeing in terms of your own cost of debt capital?
Phil Mays (SVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Well, you know, we're largely an unsecured borrower. So just in terms of maybe, you know, terming out the line or something, if it gets full or just doing another term loan, you know, five-year swaps have come in. They're under four now, and our spread's about 135 basis points, so we could probably do an all-in fixed five-year term loan, right in the neighborhood of 5% right now.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Would there be any interest in pursuing, you know, mortgages, depending on what the investment looks like? Or is it pretty much all going to be in the term loan market if you do permanently?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, we don't like to do, you know, secured debt, on, on the assets. It keeps us, you know, keeps the flexibility, 'cause if, if folks, you know, if we see something we wanna sell, it, it just makes it a lot, better transaction for us.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Gorman with BTIG. Your line is now open.
Michael Gorman (Managing Director)
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Just a quick question following up on the signed but not open pipeline, John, that you mentioned about the incremental, almost $5 million kind of coming online over the course of 2025. You know, how much of that, you know, how much of that will be a net add, versus how much should we think about there's kind of just the durable spread between leased and occupied space that'll always be there? So if we think about that 260 basis or 250 basis point gap, like, what would that normalize to as you think about the business?
John Albright (President and CEO)
You know, I mean, look, you know, the signed not open kind of pipeline is, I think, something that we've been, you know, really talking about in the last couple of quarters for sure, that, you know, that's what we feel like the market has been missing with us. That we've been doing a lot of leasing, and these tenants take a while to get open, and now we're finally seeing this, you know, bear fruit. So that, you know, that $5 million is obviously pretty big number with regards to, you know, our portfolio. But, you know, one thing is, beyond that, yes, we do have a lot of in-place tenants with low lease rates.
If you think about, you know, the average vintage of our assets, you know, being, call it, you know, they were built like 15 years ago, you know, these leases are below market, and so we hope to get back some of these spaces. One example I give quite a bit is the Tuesday Morning space in Beaver Creek in Raleigh, where we now have opened a Total Wine at over double the rent. And so, you know, that's as far as, you know, we... We love buying properties with a little bit of vacancy, where we can move up the numbers, but it's less to do with replacement rents.
But we, wherever we do see a replacement opportunity, there is uplift, but it's mainly new leasing.
Michael Gorman (Managing Director)
Okay, that's, that's helpful. And then maybe just an additional question on, on the financing front. Appreciate all the color around the debt side. Maybe, as you think about the equity here, obviously off to a good start in the third quarter, which is nice to see. Given the volatility that we've seen in the capital markets, just strategically, how do you think about opportunistically tapping equity markets and, and preloading the balance sheet for the, for the opportunity set as you start to think about 2025?
John Albright (President and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, obviously, we, as, as you know, you know, given that we've been public since 1969, and we've only done one follow-on offering in, in that time period, we, we've learned to live without the capital markets. But we certainly love to see the, the recent strength, especially for the small cap sector. And so, you know, for sure, if, if it makes sense, we'll be, you know, looking to grow the company, but we're, we're not trying to rely on, on the capital markets, given they can be very finicky for, these size companies.
You know, we love the backdrop and, obviously, you know, given the strength of our earnings and, you know, a lot of the people coming back into retail, you know, I think that's a great backdrop for us.
Michael Gorman (Managing Director)
Okay. Thanks, guys.
John Albright (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and I'm currently showing no further questions at this time. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.