Federal Realty Investment Trust - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, welcome to the Federal Realty Investment Trust Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Leah Brady, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Leah Brady (VP of Investor Relations)

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for Federal Realty second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call are Don Wood, Federal's Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Berkes, President and Chief Operating Officer; Dan Guglielmone, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer; Jan Sweetnam, Executive Vice President, Chief Investment Officer; Wendy Seher, Executive Vice President, Eastern Region President; and Dawn Becker, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, as well as other members of our executive team that are available to take your questions at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. A reminder that certain matters discussed on this call may be deemed to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include any annualized or projected information, as well as statements referring to expected or anticipated events or results, including guidance.

Although Federal Realty believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, Federal Realty's future operations and its actual performance may differ materially from the information in our forward-looking statements, and we can give no assurance that these expectations can be attained. The earnings release and the supplemental reporting package that we issued yesterday, our annual report filed on Form 10-K, and our other financial disclosure documents provide a more in-depth discussion of risk factors that may affect our financial condition and results of operation. Given the number of participants on the call, we kindly ask that you limit yourself to one question during the Q&A portion of our call. If you have additional questions, please re-queue. With that, I will turn the call over to Don Wood to begin our discussion of our second quarter results. Don?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Thanks, Leah. Good afternoon, everybody. Special thanks to David Simon for finishing his call more or less on time this afternoon. All-time record-setting quarter for Federal Realty this time, with a $1.67 second quarter FFO per share result, ahead of consensus, ahead of internal expectations, and ahead of last year's second quarter. By the way, last year's second quarter was helped by a large termination fee from Amazon as they exited their brick-and-mortar bookstores. Ex-termination fees, this quarter's bottom line, FFO per share growth grew 5%, despite significantly higher interest expense. It's a really strong quarter for us. Leasing velocity continues to be the highlight.

We signed 107 comparable leases for 576,000 sq ft at $35.34 a foot, 7% higher than the cash rent basis rent the previous tenant was paying in the final year of their lease, 19% on a straight-line basis. Demand was exceptional. When you include non-comparable leases, which, by the way, for us, largely relates to newly built-out space on our redevelopment and development projects. Along with our office leasing, we executed 135 leases in the second quarter for a very robust 652,000 sq ft, representing $23 million of newly contracted annual rent.

These are production numbers that lie well outside the averages, over our very long history, and will go a long way toward offsetting the lost Bed Bath & Beyond, and Christmas Tree Shops income stream in 2024, until they're re-leased and rent paying. In terms of Bed Bath, we lost one of our remaining nine, Bed Bath leases during the quarter. That lease, a 25,000 sq ft box at Mount Vernon Plaza in Northern Virginia, has been re-leased to Burlington at a 57% rent increase. Three more Bed Bath and Bath leases were rejected effective June 30th, and July rent was received on the remaining five. Two of the remaining five were buybuy BABY locations that were assumed by online baby retailer, Dream On Me, and we therefore expect to continue to receive rent to the future.

The remaining three leases were rejected in the third quarter, and accordingly, we'll have a hit to occupancy of about 1% and lost rent of $2.5 million or so for the balance of 2023, all of which has been considered in our guidance. Deals are in the works for all of our Bed Bath locations, and replacement rent will start to ramp up in late 2024. Both leased and physical occupancy continued to improve compared with the previous quarter and the previous year. 94.3% leased and 92.8% physical occupancy at quarter end are up 10 and 20 basis points, respectively, compared with the first quarter, and 20 and 80 basis points, respectively, year-over-year.

Small shop occupancy gains, in particular, continued their trend during the quarter and increased 20 basis points on a leased basis and 40 on an occupied basis. That's a total increase in small shop occupancy of 310 basis points since Q1 2022. The quality of our small shop tenants and the discerning way that we choose them at our properties is where we create a ton of value. All small shop vacancy, or tenancy rather, does not create equal. I've noted in the past couple of quarters that leasing productivity and rate that have occurred at the properties we've acquired over the past several years, has significantly exceeded our underwriting, and that has continued. Similarly, leasing productivity at properties that have recently undergone redevelopment and/or property improvement plans have outperformed our expectations, and we expect that to continue.

Means that maybe we can be a bit too conservative at times. The roughly 3,100 apartments that make up an important part of the revenue stream at our mixed use and other properties, remain a real differentiating bright spot for our portfolio and continue to add to both cash flow and to value. In the aggregate, our residential portfolio was 98% leased at June 30th and provided 11% more property operating income this quarter than compared with last year's second quarter. Resi is in a super important component of our mixed use neighborhoods, as is the office component, which is also 98% leased outside Santana West and the Choice headquarters building, which is under construction. We did, by the way, deliver the newly built out office space to Choice Hotels this quarter and expect them to finish their work and occupy the building by year-end.

Sodexo, in the same building, will follow right behind. I reported last quarter that inquiries and property tours have seen renewed life at Santana West. That has certainly continued. Even the Northern California press is citing lower layoffs and dramatic new investment and hiring in areas like AI, electric vehicles, and related technologies. Feels like Silicon Valley is stabilizing. Oh, I look back and I think about what it is that we're doing, and I kind of tell you that some of the country's most productive and well-known mixed-use communities sitting just outside San Jose, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Miami, seem to us, seem to me, to be the right, right on the mark as a product that is and will remain in high demand as resilient consumers continue to prove that to be so.

Let me turn it over to Dan before opening it up to your questions.

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

Thank you, Don, and hello, everyone. reporting a company record FFO per share of $1.67 is very satisfying, particularly given the interest rate headwinds we face, and is a testament to the continued strength of our business model. To reiterate Don's earlier comment, we beat our previous record of FFO in the quarter last year by 5% when adjusting for the outsized term fees that we had last year, and also posted 5% sequential growth versus the first quarter. A strong indicator of the health in our underlying business. With respect to this record performance, which significantly exceeded our expectations, we can point to the following drivers: higher property level POI than was forecast, driven by continued strength in rents, parking, specialty leasing, and percentage rent, coupled with lower operating expenses as well.

As a continued focus on cost controls at the corporate level, resulting in lower G&A. This was offset by the aforementioned higher interest costs. As you can see, a very strong quarter. With respect to our comparable metric, POI growth was 4.6%, excluding the impacts of term fees and prior period rent. On a cash basis, comparable POI growth, excluding term fees and prior period rent, was even better, 4.7%. Term fees in the comparable pool this quarter were down significantly to $1.6 million versus $5.5 million in the second quarter of last year, and prior period rent this quarter was $1.2 million versus $2.2 million in the second quarter of 2022. Again, please note, all of these figures are disclosed in detail in our supplemental 8-K on pages 10 and 11.

Year-over-year occupancy showed continued progress with our overall occupied metric growing 80 basis points year-over-year, from 92%-92.8%, and our lease percentage increasing 20 bips from 94.1%-94.3%. Small shop momentum continued year-over-year, with a 90.2% rate being up 90 basis points over the previous year, with a targeted lease rate for small shop of 92%. Our signed not occupied percentage in total stands at approximately 3% or $34 million, comprised of roughly $17 million of incremental total rent in our existing portfolio and an additional $17 million of total rent in our non-comparable pool, where leases are signed and the space is to be delivered. Our non-comparable, signed not occupied pool is an important differentiator of Federal's business plan, which is often overlooked.

Total comparable leasing volume for the quarter of 576,000 sq ft, a Federal record for a second quarter and the second highest volume for a quarter ever on a comparable basis. The rollover at 7% on a cash basis and 19% on a straight line basis highlights the straight line growth that's driven by sector-leading contractual rent bumps, which for our entire portfolio, average roughly 2.25% blended across both anchor and small shop. Now to the balance sheet. At June 30, we stood with $1.3 billion of total available liquidity, comprised of $1.2 billion available under our revolver and $100 million of cash.

During the quarter, we successfully demonstrated access to the unsecured market at attractive levels with a $350 million, 5 and 3/8% green bond, our second green bond, highlighting our focus on sustainability and our commitment with respect to our overall ESG strategy. Make sure to check out our annual corporate responsibility report on our website that was published in early June. With respect to leverage, our net debt to EBITDA ratio continues to improve each quarter, and we fully expect to be back to our targeted level in the mid-5x in 2024.

Our in-process $750 million pipeline of active redevelopments and expansions has only $220 million remaining to spend against our $1.3 billion of available liquidity, with a large chunk of that remaining figure being leasing capital, which is good news when deployed. Now on to guidance. We are increasing our forecast for FFO per share for 2023 by $0.04 per share at the midpoint to $6.52, from a range of $6.38-$6.58 per share, to a new range of $6.46-$6.58 per share. Guidance now reflects 2023 FFO growth over 2022 of about 2%-4% or 3.2% at the midpoint.

We have managed through bankruptcies to date in the retail sector extremely well, collecting more rent from Bed Bath than we had forecasted and having relatively small exposure to other retailer fallout. As the Bed Bath bankruptcy winds down, we expect it will result in a 31 basis point hit for the year versus our initial credit reserve of 25-60 basis points. With respect to the balance of our tenancy, we are setting that reserve at 50-75 basis points. We will see a dip in occupancy next quarter as the impact of our lost Bed Bath locations and one Christmas Tree Shops become fully reflected, but expect to finish the year back in the low to mid 92% range.

Also, keep that impact in mind for the cadence of FFO per share for the balance of the year, with third quarter forecasted at $1.61 at its midpoint and a fourth quarter at $1.65 at its midpoint. From a comparable growth perspective, given a solid first half of the year, we are affirming the 2%-4% range for comparable POI growth, as well as our 3%-5% range on a cash basis, adjusting for prior period rents and term fees. Given our focus on cost controls, we lowered our G&A forecast from $54 million-$52 million, $52.5 million at the midpoint, and we increased our forecast for contributions from redevelopments and expansions to $16 million-$19 million, up from the previous range of $15 million-$18 million.

We have provided an update of updated summary of these key assumptions on our guidance page, guidance on page 27 of our 8-K. Before I close my prepared remarks, allow me to highlight that for the 56th consecutive year, Federal's board of directors increased our dividend, a REIT industry record. As the sole Dividend King in the real estate sector, we are extremely gratified to have stayed the course through yet another challenging economic cycle and continue providing our shareholders with comfort in a reliably growing stream of cash flow. Please note that the CAGR over this 56 years is 7% compounded. Now I'm finished with my prepared remarks, and let me turn it back to Don Wood, for the completion of his remarks.

Donald Wood (CEO)

Thanks, Dan. You know, as I listened to Dan's conversation and comments there, I, I thought of one more point that I really wanted to, I wanted to make. You know, there's so much conversation about, you know, the, the supermarket part of our business and, and part of the industry and how good that is, but I want you to know about our, our, our mixed-use communities. I spoke about the overall outsized performance of the four Big Four mixed-use communities last quarter, but it bears repeating, as its strength continued and helped drive the results in this second quarter. Taken together, Assembly Row, Bethesda Row, Pike & Rose, and Santana Row are a real company differentiator for Federal, as you know, and more in demand than ever before.

With retail leased occupancy at 98% and tenant sales well above 2019 levels, these properties are humming, with estimated foot traffic in excess of 30 million shoppers in the trailing 12 months. That's a big number, and it comes from the database of Placer.ai, which we think is well understated. In our estimation, this is the product and the market that consumers in a post-COVID world want the most. Despite the well-publicized bankruptcies of companies like Bed Bath and Christmas Tree Shops and the effects of higher interest rates on our business, I'm feeling pretty darn good about the way this year is playing out, and that's been the, the basis for which we could increase guidance by as much as we did this quarter. Let's now turn it over and open it up to your questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. If you have further questions, you may reenter the question queue. Once again, that was star then one to ask a question, and at this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster.

Our first question will come from Alexander Goldfarb of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thank you, Don, for moving the call to avoid the overlap. Appreciate it.

Donald Wood (CEO)

You're welcome, Alex.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Question, I guess, you know, on the mixed use, you guys had a recent. There was an article on you guys with Federal Plaza West, which I guess is not too far from Pike & Rose, that you got approval for some residential additions. Maybe a bit more color on this. I don't think you're anticipating on doing another Pike & Rose, you know, mega redevelopment, but maybe, you know, your thoughts on the apartments here. Then in general, are you feeling better about sort of ramping back up, adding more apartments across your shopping center, you know, portfolio? Or is your view from a capital perspective that you'll do maybe a few of these at a time, but you're not planning to roll out, multiple projects, just given again, cost of capital?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Thanks, Alex. First of all, I'm really impressed that you're reading Montgomery County, Maryland, press releases and getting to the detail of what's going on at Federal. It's pretty cool. Yeah, we did get full entitlements for apartments at Federal Plaza. I think I've talked for quite some time about, you know, using the downtime to get our development team and keep our development team working on entitlements that can be put to work as the economy changes. You know, I know a lot of people talk about residential. Resi, resi is a really important part for us, and it's not just resi at the mixed-use properties, which is also, obviously, an important part of what we do.

We right now, not only have just gotten Federal Plaza entitlements, there's 500 units that are shovel-ready that we could do today, we're really looking hard at the capital allocation and the numbers to see how much, you know, what we really need to get done there and what we can underwrite at Santana Row and at Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. In addition to that, there's another dozen properties, another 3,000 units. Like, 3,500 units for which we are actively working on entitlements at our shopping centers. These are places, you know, you wouldn't necessarily think about them particularly, like Friendship Heights, like The Avenue outside of Baltimore, like, like Hoboken in New Jersey, you know, Pan Am Shopping Center. It's a bunch of them.

When you think about us, we've done this stuff before. We've been doing it for 20 years. Look at the back of Congressional Plaza, Towson, Chelsea Shopping Center, previously at Bala. We do a lot of this stuff, and we try to do it with our own capital when the numbers make sense, so that it moves the needle. Doing stuff, you know, with the capital that we can put to work and get it, get an above average return, will move the needle for Federal, and it's one of the key differentiators, given our experience, that we look at and will look at over the next five and six years. Some of those projects don't pencil today. No surprise to anybody. What? Get the entitlements, increase the value of the land, be ready to put money to work when it makes sense.

That's a key part of our growth.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Juan Sanabria of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Juan Sanabria (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Real Estate Analyst)

Hi, Don. Thank you. Just curious if, as you think about getting bigger and, and, and looking for new opportunities, which you've talked about in the past, just how you're thinking about funding. Would you consider any joint venture of, of any of the Big Four properties that help differentiate you, or how are you thinking about kind of?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Yep

Juan Sanabria (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Real Estate Analyst)

... the push and pull of growing fund that, funding that?

Donald Wood (CEO)

You know what? It's a great question. Let's talk, you know, holistically about how we fund the company and where we move forward. I think one of the big differentiators of this company is that we have a ton of equity effectively tied up, if you will, in the Big Four. I've talked about it in the past, and today's not the right day to, you know, take in a joint venture partner on Assembly or on Santana, but those markets will open up, and we want to be ready to be able to do that. I do think that when you think about the long-term plan of Federal, that harvesting, if you will, some of the great work that we've done... I'm sitting here right now at Assembly Row.

This is where we had our board meeting today and looking out this window, and we're real proud of what we created here, and it's a ton of value. Yes, on the over the medium term, that is a critical source of funding and one that is, I believe, will, will trade, will show it when we show it, when we can, we can do that, at well under what this, you know, what, what issuing common stock would effectively be at, because I don't think we're getting paid for the value that we did here. That's a critically important part. In addition, when you talk about the nearer term funding plan, Dan can talk about, you know that the capital markets are open to us and have been open to us even in the worst of times.

You know, the, the, the notion of using all of the arrows in our quiver over the next year or so is what you should expect as we normally would run the company. Longer-term, there's a special lower cost of capital tied up in this company that's gonna really help us grow over the medium-term.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Michael Goldsmith of UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Good afternoon, good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Questions on Santana Row, you know, and more specifically, Santana West. What's the latest and greatest on the leasing conversations that you're having there? You know, as you talk to tenants, are, are they thinking through return to office and, and how, you know, return to office looks at a mixed-use center versus, you know, a traditional office setting? Is that part of the conversations there? Is that driving momentum as the kind of return to office kind of continues to amplify? Thanks.

Donald Wood (CEO)

Yeah, Michael, that's a, that's a great question. Let me, let me give you a little bit here, and then, and ask Jeff or, or Jan to expand to the extent there's something else to say. The, the, the important thing to understand here, I do believe there's a stabilization, happening in, in the valley. I think if you lived out there or saw the press and, and everything out there, you'd, you'd say, "Huh, maybe we are getting to some sort of a period of time where things can start happening." We are in some earnest and frankly, advanced negotiations, with tenants for, for space right now that are looking at our space simply because of where it is at Santana Row. Simply because that it's a brand-new product that, is, is, fully amenitized.

You know, look, I've been snake bitten a couple of times before, so I'm certainly careful about this, but I'm, I'm pretty confident that we'll have some leasing success in the relatively near future. Hope I'm right. If I'm not, you can say I was wrong, but, but it feels palpably different in the Valley than it has, has over the last year or two. You know, and I know that from a product standpoint, this is the stuff that, that I mean, we're getting the views because of the type of product that we have, because of the fully amenitized mixed-use environment. This is where it's at.

Jan Sweetnam (EVP, Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, I think the only thing I would add, Michael, this is Jan, is that, we're seeing more than our fair share of looks right now in the marketplace. The very reason that Don laid out, everyone we're talking to wants to have the carrot to bring their people back into the office where they want to go to work. Those are the type of tenants we're talking to right now, it's been real positive.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Greg McGinniss of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Greg McGinniss (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good evening. Just hoping you could touch on what you're seeing in terms of acquisition opportunities within the market today, whether, you know, you're starting to see a narrowing of bid-ask spreads and whether there's properties out there, of the quality that you'd be looking to acquire.

Jeffrey Berkes (President and COO)

Hey, Greg, it's Jeff. Yeah, the market's starting to pick up a little bit. There's been a handful of trades, or maybe slightly less than a handful of trades, in our West Coast markets, at cap rates that start with a five. There's probably another couple handfuls of deals in the marketing process, on both the East and West Coast, you know, where we would, we would look to buy and the expectations there are sub six. We're starting to see more stuff come to the market and the bid-ask spreads start to narrow. As you know, we have a very active team. We're always in the market.

We're always trying to source stuff before it, it gets into an auction process, and, we're looking at a lot of stuff, but we're selective too, and, you know, don't really have anything to talk about at this point, but, definitely out there, definitely looking and, you know, starting to see more activity. Hopefully, we'll have something, good to report in coming quarters in that regard.

Greg McGinniss (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, Jeff. If I could just follow up on Santana West on a more modeling-based question. When do you have to stop capitalizing interest on that property? Is there gonna be any sort of disconnect between when a tenant is moving in and the interest that's being capitalized there?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Yeah, we, we fully expect to be able to capitalize, you know, based on our build-out plan for, you know, the floor by floor, and, and the timing and so forth, through the end of 2024. We expect to replace, you know, the, you know, we expect to have income starting, as we bring that, that capitalized interest, down. We don't expect the disconnect at the moment, but we'll know more as we get, as we get, leases signed and as we, as we continue to build out and see on the success of the multi-tenant approach that we've had in the building.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Haendel St. Juste of Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Ravi Vaidya (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Hi there, this is Ravi Vaidya on the line for Haendel St. Juste. Hope, hope you guys are doing well. Just 1 question here. Can, can you comment on your watch list? What would you what would you estimate it to be on an ABR basis, and what would you estimate the embedded market would be on, on that subset?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Look, we've done very well with regards to the watch list so far. I mean, I think that, you know, with the exception of Bed Bath, we've had very little exposure to the failing retailers that we've had, to date. I think that, you know, just generally, those that are on our, you know, people's radar, whether they be JOANN or At Home or other names like that, we have very limited exposure there. I think, you know, Wendy, I don't know if there's comments?

Wendy Seher (EVP, Eastern Region President)

Yeah, I mean, we're, we're constantly reevaluating the list, and, and it's not just a watch list, but it's who's, you know, going up in size, who's going down in size, and how are we managing what, what that means to us in the long term. If you look at what bankruptcies, I'm feeling pretty good about what I see on our watch list. If you look at the bankruptcies we've had, David's Bridal, both of our leases were assumed. Party City, we have short-term leases with them, and we have one lease out for signature to backfill the one location, and the second location has two letters of intent on it. Tuesday Morning, we had three locations with them. Two of them are already signed leases, and one is in lease documentation to be executed this quarter. Feeling pretty strong.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Samir Khanal of Evercore. Please go ahead.

Samir Khanal (Analyst)

Hey, Dan. I guess similar to last question, just on sort of the watch list. I know, I know you've put in this sort of a general reserve. I think you said about, if I recall, it's 50-75 basis points. Just trying to, you know, knowing that it's sort of August here, and is that you just being a little bit conservative, or do you expect some fallout into the back half of the year? Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Any, any hints or any comments you can provide into maybe even next year, right? I mean, where do you think that general reserve would be? Do you think it'll be higher, lower, similar to, to this year? Thanks.

Donald Wood (CEO)

Yeah, look, kind of the first half of the year outside of Bed Bath & Beyond, we had about 50 basis points of credit reserve impact. I think, you know, we, as I, you know, stated, we're gonna end up with or expect to end up with on Bed Bath, about 31 basis points for the full year, okay. Then with regards to the second half of the year, you know, the 50-75 basis points, there may be some conservatism in there, but right now we're probably... You know, we initially came out with 100-130 basis points to start the year. It's probably more in the 80-100 basis points. We've made some real progress there. Hopefully, we'll, we'll do better than that 50-75.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Craig Mailman of Citi. Please go ahead.

Craig Mailman (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, Dan, I just wanna kind of go through you, there's a $0.06, essentially, sequential dip, which I think is about $4.9 million from 2Q FFO to 3Q FFO. I know you already kind of called out the $2.5 million, from the three Bed Bath rejections. Could you just kind of bridge the balance of the sequential decline, for us?

Donald Wood (CEO)

Yeah. A big hit there is gonna be the interest expense. Yeah, we refinanced our, our bonds in the second quarter, repaid them effectively on June 1. We're gonna see the full, full quarter there. You know, the Fed continues to raise rates. Yeah, we do have a little bit of exposure on the floating rate side. That's, that's probably the, the, the lion's share in addition to the Bed Bath impact in 3Q.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Lizzy Doykan of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Lizzy Doykan (Analyst)

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me on. You, you did comment on leasing productivity, and that's continued to outperform expectations. Can, can you talk about the, the spread that you used on the, the leases that executed, executed this quarter? It just look, looked like that moderated, particularly on renewals. Just want to get some more color on, you know, what tenants are still willing to take and kind of comment on the outlook for the trend on, on spreads going forward.

Donald Wood (CEO)

You know, Liz, I hear you. I, I really still believe very much that, you know, looking at a 7% spread on a re-leasing spread with the type of bumps that we have inherent in our lease, it's really the equivalent of 16% of a company with you know, inherent bumps, 100 basis points less than ours. I think that's a really important thing that we've been talking about over the last few quarters. When you see seven, and you compare that to somebody else who doesn't have the contractual bumps of 11 or 12, we still have better economics. I don't think that's understood all that well. I don't think it's a deceleration. It's simply a matter of the, you know, mix in the particular quarter.

I don't think you should draw any, you know, trend lines associated with that. I gotta tell you, ma'am, You know, I think something like, I'm making up a number here, I'm not sure I, I get this right, but it's, it's like three out of four of our leases have, have 3% or better bumps in them, and that includes anchors. That is a, that is a big number, and I don't think anybody else can say that. I don't know, because nobody discloses it, I get it. When you look at 7%, bumps here, let me tell you, the economics of that are significantly better because of those bumps.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Ki Bin Kim of Truist. Please go ahead.

Ki Bin Kim (Managing Director of US REIT Equity Research)

Thanks. Good, good evening. Your equity issuance guidance is lowered. I was just curious how much impact that made to your overall FFO guidance. Second, from a realistic standpoint, is issuing $100 million very realistic? I'm just giving where your stock price is. When you talked about some of the acquisition opportunities at sub six, potentially, I guess, how is that more attractive than maybe buying back your stock, which is trading at, you know, mid to higher 6s? I realize that's only one spectrum of, you know, how you make decisions, but just curious overall.

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

No, the very good question, very good question. Look, with regards to the equity, you know, that's just an assumption that we layer in for our guidance. It doesn't make a huge difference between the $200 million that we, I think, we had previously. I wouldn't read too much into that. I think that it's just a number that is in there to, you know, for the, an assumption to get to that midpoint of $6.52, and the range that we have. With respect to, you know, buying back stock, I mean, look, I don't think it's, you know, a, you know, particularly attractive use of our capital today. Given we've got, you know, potentially, you know, we wanna preserve our dry powder for better opportunities, you know, currently.

And think that, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll focus on acquisitions and, and, and redevelopments given where we're currently trading.

Donald Wood (CEO)

Keep in, I guess, one more time. You know, you certainly hear lots of companies that say they're gonna buy back stock, and share repurchases are great and all, but I gotta tell you, unless you're doing it in size to really, you know, change the capitalization of the company and effectively have a broader notion of that, doesn't move the needle. The idea of, you know, unless it's deeply, deeply discounted and stays deeply, deeply discounted for a long period of time.

kind of what we see on the horizon here and the opportunities that, that we'd like to put money to work on, you know, driving up leverage by buying back stock doesn't, doesn't make sense for us in the long-term, even if it does, you know, provide a little bump. again, how much in the short-term?

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

To the extent we don't like where our stock is trading, we've got a pool of assets that we'll, you know, opportunistically look to, to sell in the market and try and obtain more attractive pricing than, than where our stock is trading. We've got multiple arrows in the quiver to fund the business going forward.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Dori Kesten of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Dori Kesten (Executive Director and Senior Equity Real Estate Analyst)

Thanks. Good evening. What, what refinancing options are you considering for your 2024 maturities, and then where is that pricing today?

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

With regards to the $600 million that we have coming due in January, you know, look, we, we are, we're in the market, you know, assessing it. It's not particularly opportunistic today. We raised $350 million back in April. I think, we feel pretty good about that, at 5 and 3,8 coupon for $350 million. Look, we've got access to the market. I think today it would be kind of in the upper fives if we were to access the market today, and we don't particularly find that attractive, but we've got time. So we've got multiple arrows in the quiver there as well, and options, and we'll look to be opportunistic.

Who knows where we'll be, you know, over the next several months, but, we'll, we'll get it done.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Mike Mueller of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Michael Mueller (Senior Analyst)

Yeah, hi, just a quick follow-up on the rent bump discussion. What's the average portfolio escalator for the overall portfolio? Then if you look at first half of the year leasing, how did the bump on those leases compare to the overall portfolio?

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

Yep, blended, it's in and around, roughly 2.25 across the entire portfolio, anchors and small shop, okay? This quarter was kind of in line with that, maybe a little bit, a little bit shy. That's retail only. Obviously, you know, to the extent that we have other commercial leases, they tend to be higher, and they tend to have annual bumps that drives that blended spread up.

Donald Wood (CEO)

By the way, Mike, congratulations to those Orioles. They look fantastic.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Floris van Dijkum of Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Floris van Dijkum (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, guys, thanks. By the way, I, I ran into Mike at one of your competitor centers the other night, and he was wearing his Orioles cap, so he's not afraid to flaunt his success this year. Yankees...

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

He shouldn't be there.

Floris van Dijkum (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

The Yankee fans, unfortunately, we have to suffer this year. Look, I think you guys are one of two shopping center companies that have raised your guidance where the midpoint is above consensus, if I'm not mistaken. Again, that should be, you know, pretty, pretty positive. There are some, some, you know, as obviously, financing is gonna be a, potentially an issue that everybody has to deal with at, at higher rates. I was actually encouraged by the green bonds. One of the things I, I'd love to get some more detail on this because I think it's sort of a virtuous cycle, if you will, because I think maybe talk about the rate differential of those green bonds relative to regular bonds, probably not as much today.

But also talk about-

... what you need to do to qualify for that, and what kind of return on investments, and, and, and sort of, lasting power that will have on the overall portfolio in terms of, you know, energy efficiency, you know, et cetera, and, and water usage?

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

Look, I just with regards to pricing, look, you know, we don't do it for the, for the incremental pricing. You could say that there's probably incremental demand, and what that means for pricing with the bonds and so forth, I think is, is, is difficult to quantify in today's market. We do it because honestly, we like to highlight the fact that when we develop in our mixed-use communities, we develop at LEED Gold or better. We've got a LEED Gold certified neighborhood designation at Pike and Rose, which is one of only 12, I think, in the country. You know, ESG is an important part. I think, you know, I think Dawn Becker should maybe kind of, you know, highlight what we, what, you know, some of the more specifics.

Look, we do the green bond because I think it kind of showcases, what we do, but it also expands just the universe of potential investors. If it gives us better pricing, that's great, but it just, it, it, it enhances execution, and I think that's the most important thing.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Linda Tsai of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Linda Tsai (Senior Vice President and Equity Analyst)

Hi. The comparable at signed not occupied pipeline of, I think, $34 million and then non-comp of $17 million, what's that cadence of the about $50 million coming online?

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

Well, it's not 50, it's 34. I mean, the total is 34. There's 17 in the existing portfolio. There's 17 in the non-comparable portfolio of space to be delivered. That'll come online, about 45% or $15 million is scheduled to commence the balance of this year. The remainder of $19 million, the lion's share of that, almost all of it, will come on in 2024. It's a little bit more weighted in the fourth quarter than it is in the third quarter this year.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from Paulina Rojas of Green Street. Please go ahead.

Paulina Rojas Schmidt (Senior Analyst, Head of Strip Center Research)

Hello. I'm looking at your disclosure on capital expenditures, and I see maintenance CapEx is down significantly, year-to-date versus, last year and also other prior years. Can you provide some background on, on what is, driving that, lower maintenance CapEx?

Dawn Becker (EVP, General Counsel, and Secretary)

The lower CapEx that you're seeing this quarter?

Paulina Rojas Schmidt (Senior Analyst, Head of Strip Center Research)

Yeah, specifically maintenance, that I think you're, you're at $8.7 million year to date versus, I don't know, $14 million-$15 million last year. It's down significantly.

Dawn Becker (EVP, General Counsel, and Secretary)

Yes, Paulina, you know, we are having a hard time hearing you. I don't know if it's the connection or not. We're gonna try to answer this, I guess, on the capital. If we're not giving you what you want, please give us a call directly. You know, call Dan or Melissa after this, and we'll get you specifically what you want. We're gonna take a shot, I guess, at where we're going.

Dan Guglielmone (CFO)

Yeah, the numbers that you're referring to, I'm not quite sure. You know, we'll follow up with you after the call to kind of follow up on this. One thing to notice, yes, capital is down on the quarter. I think that, you know, we feel good about that. But we can, we can answer your specific question. We'll follow up, this evening.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Leah Brady for any closing remarks.

Leah Brady (VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks for joining us tonight. Hope you have a great rest of the summer. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.