Regency Centers - Earnings Call - Q4 2017

Transcript

Speaker 0

Greetings, and welcome to the Regency Centers Fourth Quarter twenty seventeen Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd like to turn the conference over to your host, Laura Clark.

Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to Regency's fourth quarter twenty seventeen earnings conference call. I would like to begin by stating that we may discuss forward looking statements on this call. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual future performance, outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in forward looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in forward looking statements.

On today's call, we will also reference certain non GAAP financial measures. We've provided a reconciliation of these measures to their comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial supplement, which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Joining me today are Hap Stein, our Chairman and CEO Lisa Palmer, our President and CFO Matt Chandler, EVP of Investments Jim Thompson, EVP of Operations Mike Moss, Managing Director of Finance and Chris Leavitt, SVP and Treasurer. It was great seeing many of you in New York at our twenty eighteen Investor Day, and we sincerely appreciate the time you spent with us. Since not much has changed since then, we will be brief today.

For those of you that were not able to attend or listen to the live webcast, please reference the replay and presentation on our website. I will now turn the call over to Hap.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Laura. 2017 was truly a remarkable year for Regency as our people continue to demonstrate that they are the best professionals in the business. I'm extremely proud of Regency's 2017 accomplishments and how well positioned we are to continue to achieve our strategic objectives. To begin, in spite of the challenges in retail real estate, the team was able to push the same property portfolio to an impressive 96.3% leased and achieve same property NOI growth of 3.6%, which was the sixth consecutive year above 3.5%. This places Regency at the top of the shopping center sector for both of these metrics.

Even though store closures accelerated and expansions of some retailers were more deliberate, we are continuing to experience healthy demand from successful operators. During the year, our team continued to identify and start outstanding developments and redevelopments at compelling yields, bringing our in process projects to over $05,000,000,000 We also further fortified Regency's financial position. And in times of market volatility like today, this is a very poignant reminder of why a strong balance sheet remains a critical component of our strategy. In addition, we successfully completed the merger with Equity One, which has met or exceeded our high expectations. The merger not only made us a larger company, but a better company and that's the most important thing.

To further enhance the quality and NOI growth portfolio of our portfolio, we sold a number of lower growth assets and purchased premier centers with superior NOI growth prospects, some of which were highlighted at Investor Day. It is worth noting that given the existing quality of our portfolio, Regency's capital recycling strategy is flexible and very modest at an average of 1% to 2% of asset footings. Yesterday, we announced the implementation of a share repurchase program. This provides further flexibility to execute our capital recycling plan when pricing is compelling. The impact on leverage should be essentially neutral due to the modest size of the program and similar to acquisitions we'd be funding the share repurchases with the sale of lower growth assets.

Regency's combination of accomplishments was truly unequaled as evidenced by our superior shareholder returns over the last one, three and five year periods. As you can imagine, our successes in 2017 and over the last five years have been extremely gratifying. That said, given the ever changing and challenging environment in which we operate, we fully realize that we can't afford to rest on our laurels. Our commitment to staying relevant and to being best in class will enable our deep and talented team to continue to capitalize on our unequal combination of strategic advantages to execute our strategy and to grow shareholder value. Lisa?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Hat, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by echoing comments on Investor Day. Thank you all for taking the time to join us, whether in person or through the webcast. We are thankful for your support of Regency and hope you found the time spent valuable. 2017 demonstrated another strong year of performance as Hap said.

Full year results were driven by strong base rent growth of 3.5%, a testament to our premier portfolio. And looking to 2018, there have been no changes to the previously provided NAREIT FFO and operating FFO guidance ranges. As a reminder from Investor Day, operating FFO eliminates non recurring items items as well as certain non cash accounting adjustments. In our view, this metric better reflects the operating performance of our business and demonstrates our ability to grow cash earnings. While we will continue to discuss operating FFO with you, we do feel it is important to emphasize that NAREIT FFO is currently the better metric for comparability across the REIT sector given the standard definition.

Therefore, are asking the analyst community to report NAREIT FFO for consensus purposes going forward. As we've discussed, we believe our unequaled combination of strategic advantages will enable us to consistently deliver same property NOI growth of 3% and operating FFO growth of 5% to 7% over the long term. With 2017 operating FFO growth of nine percent and our projected growth this year, our two year compounded earnings growth will meet this objective. Our 2018 same property NOI growth guidance also remains unchanged. At Investor Day, I mentioned that this guidance incorporates some tenant fallout from move outs, store closures and bankruptcies.

Since that time, there have been several store closure announcements, including Toys R Us, and our exposure continues to be minimal. Announcements to date were incorporated in our guidance. I would like to reiterate that given what we know today, we still expect to finish in the upper half of our 2.25 to 3.25% range, which would represent maintaining occupancy in the 96% area. With Reed's prospects to grow operating FFO and free cash flow and given our low payout ratio, we increased our dividend, which would represent nearly 6% growth for the full year. As Hap said, 2017 was a remarkable year for Regency with the successful merger and integration of Equity One and another year of impressive results.

I can't say it enough how proud I am of our team over this past year. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we now welcome your questions.

Speaker 0

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question is from Ki Bin Kim from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 0

Could you so in your press release, you

Speaker 4

guys mentioned some of the heavier anchor leasing driving some volatility in TIs and perhaps rent spreads. Could you provide a little more color on that? And if there's anything any more similar items like that in the horizon?

Speaker 5

Key, this is Jim. I'll answer that. As you mentioned, the Q4 was relatively small sample size to begin with, but we did have high anchor activity. 60% of that activity was in the anchor side, which is about double what we normally expect to see. That equates really to nine transactions on the anchor side.

And just to kind of give you a flavor for the quality of those transactions, had two HomeGoods, a Dick's, Ulta and a Michaels. We did have one outlier in Louisiana, which was a negative 59% rent growth, backfilling a very difficult space. And the best news in all that is that that asset is now ready for disposition. On spreads, I step back and look at a full year in the full year context, we were 8% overall. If you break down new deals from shop space, it was a 10% growth, and new deal anchor was 12% when you net out the Hobby Lobby deal from earlier in the year we talked about in the backfield of Sports Authority.

So in general, I think

Speaker 2

rent spreads look pretty good overall.

Speaker 5

Looking at moderating TI, again, driven primarily due to that high anchor leasing activity. Anchors typically require a little higher TI, but in this particular subset we had some intricate white box work that needed to be performed as well. But overall, I would tell you that the quality of the retenanting is first and foremost in our minds, and we will continue to deploy capital astutely to ensure we get the best in class retailers to remerchandise our centers.

Speaker 3

And just to add a little bit of color, our outlook hasn't changed. You've heard us say this you know, when we announced the merger at Investor Day that one of the compelling factors in the Equity One merger was a lot of the inherent mark to market of near term expiring anchor leases and we still see that over the next two to three years.

Speaker 2

And if you combine those with the contractual rent increases that we're being able to generate, as Lisa said, I think that we're well positioned to achieve our strategic objective of three plus percent same property NOI growth over the long term.

Speaker 4

Okay. And just second question. I appreciate the share repurchase announcement. But if the environment, the cost of capital environment kind of stays this way, how does that change your thinking about underwriting at all or buying anything at all even though it's under 50,000,000 Does that change at all at a sub-five cap?

Speaker 2

I would say that like to start, our capital allocation and recycling plan is as follows, and we've been real consistent about this. We start with free cash flow. We sell 1% to 2% of lower growth centers and we reinvest that capital into compelling and outstanding development opportunities and acquisitions with superior NOI growth prospects. And we've added what we think is the flexibility to invest with the stock buyback announcement another compelling investment opportunity and that is to potentially buy back our stock. And when it makes sense to invest in the stock and repurchase shares in the stock, we'll do that.

I think it could be a very compelling investment opportunity. And we're going to do all of this in a way that's going to essentially be leverage neutral because I think more than anything else in a volatile environment, maintaining a strong balance sheet is critically important.

Speaker 3

And I would just I'd emphasize and have started with this in terms of being very consistent about our capital recycling strategy. It is an important part of our strategy and we do believe that our outperformance and our operating metrics and our NOI isn't by accident. And it is important for us to fortify that NOI growth to continually enhance our portfolio. It's something we've done for the past twenty one years and we will continue to do that.

Speaker 2

And we've done it on an incremental basis to where we don't have to do it on a significant basis. And on that incremental basis is paid dividends from an NOI growth standpoint and from a portfolio quality standpoint.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Christy McElroy from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning. This is Katie McConnell on for Christy. Given many of your peers are pulling back on acquisitions in this environment, can you talk a little bit about your willingness to continue to be a buyer today? And can you also talk about any changes you're seeing in market pricing and the buyer pools that are coming to the table today?

Speaker 2

Well, I'll start with the capital allocation. As I said, I think we've been pretty clear about this, is when it makes sense to sell assets and reinvest those proceeds into acquisitions, we'll do that. But we now have the flexibility of rather than doing that, it may be a more compelling investment to buy our shopping centers. You look at our implied cap rate today, somewhere north of 6% of the quality of our portfolio, that seems very, very interesting to us. And that's part of the reason that we decided to put in place a stock buyback program.

And I'll turn it over to Mac to respond to what may be happening in the market for shopping centers.

Speaker 6

Sure thing. Really what we're seeing is starting with the a quality centers, the types of centers that we're looking to acquire, still tremendous amount of demand for centers in with productive dominant grocers in the best markets. And part, there's really very little supply coming to the market and that we saw that in '17 and probably we'll see that again in '18. So that scarcity is also driving the demand there for the highest quality centers. In the B category, sort of the B shopping centers, Transactions are still clearing, but buyers are a little more skeptical and a little bit of softening there on pricing.

Buyers are pricing in some risk whether that's real or perceived more so than than say a year ago. And then further down the scale when you get down to power centers, some further softening there and I'd say fewer buyers in that product type out there.

Speaker 1

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Next question is from Jeremy Metz from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning. Mac, just following up on your comments on the shifting pricing environment, especially for the noncore low growth stuff. Any chance you can better quantify how much it's really moved in the past call at sixty to ninety days?

Speaker 6

Jeremy, it's it's always a tough question to to answer because it's so dependent on the grocer, the market, even down at the intersection. So and I think what I would say is as you get as you get closer to the larger centers, you know, 50,000,000 and above, probably the gap is is more so than the smaller less than $50,000,000 center. So I know it's not a very specific answer, but, you know, 50 to 75 basis points over not sixty, ninety days, but but over, say, six months. But it's it's one of those questions that's tough to be very specific. We we we see different shades of demand and transactions in different markets.

Speaker 7

No. That that's helpful. And then, you know, you guys mentioned getting a couple of those Toys R Us leases back. You know, once you get those back, would you look to release those as is or possibly break them up? And then just what's the mark to market on those today in their current configuration?

Speaker 5

Jeremy, we expect to get of our five toys, we expect to get two of them back. Quite frankly, toys reached out for rent reduction, which we declined, and we'd rather control our real estate and upgrade our merchandising. On one of those locations, we are engaged with a tenant for reletting. The other asset is in Boston, well merchandised center. So we'll look at breaking boxes up.

I think the Boston space is a pretty good sized box so that we'll look at all opportunities. What we're looking for is, again, best in class merchants, and we'll do, we think, an astute job of trying to select that backfill opportunity at the right market rate.

Speaker 7

That's probably fair to assume a pretty significant mark to market.

Speaker 8

Is that fair?

Speaker 5

As you can expect, the we didn't get back, we think there's a significant opportunity. The ones that they rejected were the higher rent deals. Think we're $14.50 dollars roughly $14.38 rent. So I suspect there may be a little moderation, but it depends on how whether we end up breaking up boxes or or going full full refill.

Speaker 7

And last question for me, Hap. I know we're only about a month removed from your Investor Day, so not a lot of time has obviously passed. I wonder if you feel any different today with regards to the retail environment post tax reform. Are you feeling more encouraged today or generally the same as you did a few weeks ago?

Speaker 2

I think it's too early to tell. I mean, what we've seen is related to tax reform is I think it feels like there's more growth in the economy, but we're also seeing more volatility in the capital markets and how that's going to play out remains to be seen. But we continue to see robust demand from the better operators which I think is good. I wouldn't say the demand has picked up but it certainly hadn't slackened off. We're 96.3% leased, 92 almost 92.5% on shop space.

So we're starting from a pretty strong position. And so the underlying fundamentals of the business appear to be extremely healthy.

Speaker 8

Thanks for your time.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jeremy.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Craig Schmidt from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi. This is Justin on for Craig this morning. I just wanted to go back to market transactions for a second. If we look at the cap rate that you have in your guidance assumptions of 7.25, Can you give us an indication of how wide that range could be?

Speaker 2

Mac, you want to

Speaker 0

answer Sure that

Speaker 6

thing. Jeff, some of it really depends on an asset by asset selection. I'll give you an example. When you look at what we sold in 02/2017, what affected our aggregate cap rate greatly was Westwood Towers. And that was really an apartment building tower within our Westwood project in which the lessee had a fixed option to buy the property at a fixed price.

And so that cap rate actually skewed quite a bit the aggregate, just, you know, cap rate there. So when it comes to, 2018, it'll depend so much somewhat on the product mix. So probably too soon to say exactly what what the range is gonna be. But, you know, we're we're we're seeing good activity on these on the properties that we wanna sell. It does shift a little bit as the year goes on.

We we constantly are adjusting sort of what we take to market and what clears. So can't get much more clear at this point. It really is an asset by asset selection, and they eventually all roll up and, you know, that's why we give that plus or minus guidance there.

Speaker 9

No. That's fair. And can you remind us which geographical regions you want to remain in and and grow in versus shrink?

Speaker 2

Sure. And Matt can follow back up on this. But we went through, and I think we went over this at Investor Day in detail, and you might it might be worth your while to go back. But we did a we worked with CoStar to do an extensive market study to look at underlying demographics in the various markets, to look at supply constraints, and to look at opportunities to have a meaningful platform. And the good news is that 95 of our capital is now deployed in the markets where we want to be long term.

And that includes gateway markets, that includes STEM markets, that includes growth markets. And it's a in our mind, it's in eighteen hour cities, you know, like Atlanta and Dallas. So we've got a wonderful canvas on which to invest in. We did identify we have identified two markets where it may make sense for us to add a presence to. We're going to be evaluating that in the months to come.

But we've got enough, you know, the target markets we're in right now where we have a presence, we've got enough to say grace over. If we can find opportunities and ability to build a platform in those two other two markets, great. If not, we're gonna be fine. So

Speaker 3

And the other 5% isn't necessarily concentrated in any one market that we're going to be exiting a market per se. When we talk about our capital recycling strategy and our property sales, as Hat mentioned, we're targeting our lower growth assets. So it's an asset by asset selection rather than market selection.

Speaker 2

Correct. I think that's important to note. Because a a number of those 5% are that are in outside of what you might call our core markets are of those are still really good shopping centers. I mean, I I think offhand of a Publix anchored center in Tallahassee, Florida where Publix's performance is extraordinary. And I think the center is close to 100% leased.

And we have a number of assets like that that we can still effectively manage and are still good long term assets but they're not in the markets that we've identified from a target standpoint. Is there anything you want to add to that, Mac?

Speaker 6

No, I think that covers it. We haven't made any public announcements of us exiting one specific market, nothing like that. It's really an asset by asset selection, as mentioned.

Speaker 9

All right. Thank you, and congrats on a great year.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Brian Hawthorne from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi. So just kind of building on the geographical analysis, can you talk about where you're seeing the most demand by region? And then also, can you talk about the hardest space to lease, whether it's by geography, size or location in the center?

Speaker 2

Jim?

Speaker 5

We're seeing good solid demand really across the country. I couldn't really rifle shot any any particular weakness or or outstanding performer, but across the board, I'd I'd say our our demand is there. Within a shopping center, you know, there's always there's always there's always boxes that are unusual in size, and that's when we get creative and create the right box, whether we tear down the back portion to create a box that is relevant in today's perspective. But generally I think we can get pretty creative to make sure that we create the right sized boxes for what the market demands today.

Speaker 2

And, you know, the other part of our which we went over at Investor Day was what we called our DNA analysis. And we're you know, we we had a market study that identified the markets we wanna be in. We also did a study of what are the where are the corners that we want to be in the trade areas that have, you know, the right demographics, right purchasing power, average household income plus population density, you know, the right education level, those factors and supply constraints. And so, you know, our capital is deployed in premier shopping centers that are in great locations throughout the country.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Nick Yueko from UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Good afternoon. This is Greg McGinniss on with Nick. I'm just looking at the Hewlett Crossing purchase. GLA seems a bit smaller than usual, but in a very dense area. Should we expect a redevelopment opportunity there?

Also, with expensive pricing for A quality assets or acquisitions, it's generally going to be centered around redevelopment opportunities.

Speaker 6

Mac? Yeah. Happy happy to take that one. In that particular Hewlett project, we're expecting a modest redevelopment. It it's not a large scale one that the property performs very well today.

It's a it's a you know, needs a little bit of a refresh, but not a full blown one by any stretch. It is a smaller asset, but we like it. It's got great growth. It's in the neighborhood. We think it's got great competitive advantages over the long term.

There's there's very little product in that market. Got parking which other sort of street retail doesn't have. So we like that a lot. I'd also say that we love acquisitions where there is a major redevelopment component on it because we compete really well. Some of the institutions don't have the platform that we have and even our peers don't have the platform that we do.

So we love opportunities like that. Town and Country that we discussed at the Investor Day is a great example of that. And that's where the the family that owns it really recognized our platform and our ability to transform the property. And that was a significant factor for them when they brought us into their partnership. So we we relish those opportunities to use our platform to our advantage.

Speaker 2

And reiterating on that is from a investment and capital allocation standpoint, priority one are value add redevelopments and developments, and then outstanding acquisitions with superior NOI growth prospects. But value add redevelopments and developments are priority one from where we're gonna prioritize the investment of capital.

Speaker 10

And you mentioned Town and Country. Is that still looking like it's probably gonna be a year out from now?

Speaker 6

Yes. Still still holding with that schedule.

Speaker 10

Okay. And during during the investor day, highlighted Toys and Sears as the potential occupancy risks. And were the two toys rejected in line with your expectations? And what are your thoughts on potential closures from the five, Sears and Kmart leases?

Speaker 3

I'll I'll just take that from just higher level and how it's incorporated into our guidance. And, you know, Jim is welcome to add some some specific color if he'd like. But just reiterating again, the the the 100 basis point range in our same property NOI guidance of two and a quarter to three and a quarter does incorporate, store closures, move outs, bankruptcies. And the fact that we say that we're comfortable with we're still comfortable with the high end, the upper end of that range, which equates to about 96% leased. And the fact that we've already we know we've gotten two toys boxes back would tell you that, yes, that was incorporated into our guidance.

And, you know, the lower end of the range, we think is reasonably conservative, but not necessarily what we're expecting, in terms of how many of those we we might get back. And and again, so it it's incorporated. You know, in 02/2017, bankruptcies impacted our same property NOI growth by 20 basis points, and our guidance for 2018 incorporates more than that.

Speaker 10

Alright. Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate that. Just final question for me, regarding the potential buyback. Is this more likely that if you dispose, you know, a $150,000,000 in assets and there's not an equivalent level of acquisitions that might be funded?

Or is it if there's the potential for more disposition sales, then that that money might be spent on the buyback?

Speaker 2

I don't wanna keep giving you the same answer, but I but I will, is is that our plan is free cash flow of about $160,000,000 dispositions to enhance the quality of the portfolio and our NOI growth rate of one to 2% of lower quality assets a year. And then we'll reinvest that capital in developments first and secondly acquisitions. And now we have the flexibility to substitute investments in a great portfolio with great NOI growth prospects at compelling pricing and that's Regency's stock. And having that flexibility does remind me of a book that one of our directors, Dave O'Connor, mentioned recently that he wants to write at some point in time in his life which is Optionality is the key to life. And I think that applies that flexibility and optionality applies.

And we have that optionality now. And I think that's important given the volatility in the

Speaker 6

market and where it could be

Speaker 2

a compelling use of our capital.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you. And I I agree with the optionality comment as well.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Vince Tibone from Green Street Advisors. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hey, guys. Because I was hoping to drill down a little bit more on the, occupancy guidance. Are you able to provide a little bit more color, between anchor and small shop in terms of where you think, you know, some of the bankruptcy and store closure list reside, risk resides? Is it all in the anchor space, or is there some you know, you you see occupancy maybe falling a little bit on the shop side as well?

Speaker 3

Move outs and store closures have happened across all the spectrum the full spectrum of store sizes. And don't expect it to be much different than what we've experienced in the past. So it really is. It it it's it is almost kind of pro rata in how you think about what makes up our portfolio. So we will we are projecting that the lower end of that occupancy guidance is a combination of SHOP loss as well as some anchor loss.

Speaker 2

But I think it's important to note, as Lisa said earlier in answer to a question, that, and I, in the prepared remarks, that we hope and we think there's a reasonably good chance we could end the year in the 96% leased standpoint. Which would mean we'd maintain occupancy across the spectrum of anchors and shop space.

Speaker 11

Okay. Great. Thanks. And then one more just on I know it's early, but any specific change in tenant behavior you've noticed since the passage of the tax reform bill?

Speaker 5

No. This is Joe. I would I would say no. You read you read different articles about some excitement from from business small business owners, but really have not seen any indication at this point.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thanks. That's all I have.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Steve Sakwaite from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Thanks. Good morning. Obviously, with bond yields up and stock price is down, cost of capital has changed. And I'm just curious if you guys have changed your kind of unlevered IRR hurdles for kind of both acquisitions and developments.

Speaker 7

In

Speaker 2

a sense, yes. But number one, from a development standpoint, our our returns on invested capital and our IRR returns are well in excess of whatever kind of cost of capital that you might attribute to that. So that's number one. And secondly, I think it does start with you got a $160,000,000 of free cash flow. We're going to sell 1% to 2% of assets to enhance on a long term basis the quality of the portfolio and NOI growth.

And it's where do you reinvest that capital? Do you reinvest that capital in acquisitions with superior NOI growth prospects? Or now do you reinvest that capital into buying in our stock? And I think what we're saying is we see some visibility to where it may make compelling sense rather than buying acquisitions to buy and to repurchase our shares.

Speaker 12

Right. I guess it makes sense that the unlevered IRR on the stock is better than an unlevered IRR on a Class A asset, I guess, you can find in the market today.

Speaker 2

I think there's a there's a good chance that that may be the case. But Okay.

Speaker 3

Also do but do wanna remind you also that it doesn't appear that we're contradicting what we're saying. We do have an asset under contract, and we will honor the contract. We're excited about that opportunity.

Speaker 2

Correct. And the other thing that I think we need to keep in mind is that you can't not continue to be in the market. We may be in a situation where we don't buy because we're reinvesting the available capital. And as I said, key thing is we're going to essentially do this on a leverage neutral basis. We may be in the market and we'll stay in the market because it is a volatile market and that that may change also.

So we're we're gonna take the capital from the sales and invest that as astutely as as makes sense.

Speaker 3

And that we have under contract is the Northeast opportunity that we've talked about that we also settled our forward equity offering in December to fund that.

Speaker 2

And up $70 plus per share.

Speaker 12

Okay. And then I guess, Lisa, mean, you sort of touched on this a bit. So as it relates to just kind of your tenant watch list and things that have fallen out, I realize there's still a little bit of time until maybe the kind of bankruptcy, at least early window in the year kind of maybe closes or we get a little bit more finality on that. But just how are you sort of feeling about the things that were on your shadow pipeline or shadow close list or or kinda watch list today versus, say, a month or six weeks ago?

Speaker 3

We it our outlook really hasn't changed since then. Toys did happen, and it was within our expectations, which is why, you know, we still feel really comfortable at the upper end of our range for both same property NOI as well as occupancy. And obviously, there's others that are will come this year, and we're expecting that some will come this year. And our outlook has not changed from a month ago. But as you said, Steve, it's still early.

And, you know, Sports Authority did surprise a lot of people, with the fact that they gave all of them back. And, you know, that surprise could happen which is why we have incorporated more conservatism into the lower end of our range.

Speaker 2

And I would say, Steve, it's a timing issue because long term we're gonna be able to refill the boxes even the ones that that we don't haven't closed, whatever whatever they whatever the flag may be. And more often than not, it will be to a better retailer at better rents, not all the time, but more often than not, will be those things. And long term, because of the quality of the portfolio, because of the embedded mark to market opportunities and the contractual rent growth that we're getting, we expect to be able to generate three plus percent NOI growth. And that is part of our strategic plan. Doesn't mean it's guaranteed.

Doesn't mean there may not be a little bit of short term pain if some of the stuff accelerates from a timing standpoint. But those tenants that are on the watch list have been on the watch list. And if it happens it's it's more spread out, we'll we'll be at the upper end of the range this year. But long term, that growth rate will be in the 3% plus range.

Speaker 3

And if I may reiterate one more time because I enjoy saying it. Our exposure is low, and that is not an accident. And we really do believe that that is a result of our strategy and the consistent discipline that we have exercised in executing that strategy with a very modest amount of sales annually that enables us to keep that NOI, growth, a very quality NOI stream.

Speaker 2

That cumulative impact is meaningful. And if I can pile on, it's also worth noting that we have released well over 95% of the bankruptcy, the recent bankruptcy spaces that we've gotten back and store closures that we've gotten back, which speaks to the quality of the of the portfolio.

Speaker 3

And if I can say more no. I'm I'm

Speaker 2

I'm surprised you didn't kick me underneath

Speaker 3

the table. Okay.

Speaker 12

Thanks. That's it for me.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Steve. I wish we could say that was it for us. Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Collin Mings from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Thanks. Good morning. Just one question from me. Just as far as the development and redevelopment activities and the platform you touched on, just as you continue to bring additional projects into the mix, can you maybe just update us on what you're seeing on the cost side? Again, we're obviously seeing some labor pressures in terms of wages, things like that.

And just how that's impacting maybe which projects you're moving forward with at this point?

Speaker 0

Matt?

Speaker 6

Sure. Colin, I'd be happy to answer that. We're seeing the same cost increases that you mentioned, pretty much everyone is. I think we budgeted for them accordingly. So we haven't had any tremendous surprises.

And if you look at pipeline that's in process, we've really been able to manage our costs and our returns very well. As you look for that in the pipeline, you may see some returns drop a little bit, but when we evaluate whether we wanna go forward with those, we we look at long term growth, we look at quality, and we look at the very encouraging spreads to our development returns versus acquisitions. So every project stands on its own, Are we going to get let a small reduction in return kill a project that we believe in long term? Probably not, but we're going to look very we look very hard at every one of those. So you'll see as we have more starts throughout the year, our returns in aggregate are pretty consistent with past years.

What you will see is a probably a bigger shift in the mix between redevelopments versus developments. It's probably closer to fiftyfifty this year. And in past years, it's been more maybe seventythirty developments to redevelopments. So that's one of the compelling reasons why we like the equity one merger is this embedded pipeline of redevelopment opportunities and we're very encouraged over the next five years plus as we start some of these projects.

Speaker 0

Okay. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Chris Lucas from Capital One Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Good morning, everybody. Just two quick ones for me, I think. On the toys, on the three remaining toys that you have, were there any changes to the lease terms as it relates to either lease duration, rents or expense reimbursements?

Speaker 5

No. We did not enter into any dialogue on modification leases. And as I indicated, we would cherish to get our real estate back on the other three.

Speaker 14

Okay. Thank you. And then I guess maybe more a bigger picture context question. I think maybe three years ago on one of your calls, the tenant fallout was essentially historically low. And I guess I'm trying to understand, environment, how would you rate the level of tenant fallout compared to sort of a longer time frame?

Or is this a normalized level? Is this an elevated level? Or is this below average?

Speaker 0

Over

Speaker 2

Over a twenty year period.

Speaker 3

You know? Yeah. No. No. Time.

If I if I look really long term, it's still below the long term average. But over the you know, with the increased closures and bankruptcies of the past year, it did tick up a little bit. And and we are again forecasting it to be slightly higher than last year's levels in terms of as a percentage of your GLA. But long term, at least for Regency, that trend was was declining and it stayed low and has stayed low. And I think that that is a result of the quality of our portfolio.

And the fact that we really have I mean, if you go back to, you know, early mid two thousands and compare that portfolio, what we own then to what we own today, we've significantly enhanced the quality of our portfolio and the quality of our tenant and merchandising mix.

Speaker 0

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Just further a little bit color on that. We are not immune to the disruptions and the store closures that are out there, and we don't wanna anything we say to we're not gonna be immune to that, but we do think that the port the quality of the portfolio and the focus of our talented operations team and it's reinforced by the recycling further insulates us from some of that that's occurring out there that will continue to occur. And that's what our expectation is, is that It's

Speaker 3

a normal part of the business.

Speaker 2

It's a normal part of the business.

Speaker 14

Great. Thank you. Appreciate your time this morning.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much, Chris.

Speaker 0

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing comments.

Speaker 2

We appreciate your time this morning and your interest in Regency and wish that you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

This concludes today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.