Safehold - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered steady core results: revenue $97.7m, GAAP EPS $0.41; EPS excluding non-recurring losses rose to $0.44 (+$0.01 YoY), supported by higher asset-related revenue and percentage rent, offset by non-cash provisions and lower equity-method earnings.
• No new originations closed in the quarter amid rate volatility; pipeline strengthened with ~$386m in signed non-binding LOIs (11 ground leases ~$273m; 4 leasehold loans ~$113m), with early deals starting to close post quarter.
• Portfolio credit and structure metrics remained resilient: GLTV increased to 52% (office revaluations) while rent coverage held at 3.5x; liquidity was ~$1.31b, debt/equity 1.96x, and hedges generated ~$1.7m cash interest savings in Q1.
• Near-term stock catalysts: capital recycling/JV or asset sales to highlight public/private valuation gap, continued multifamily/affordable closings already underway in Q2, and active hedging and ratings momentum supporting cost of capital.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Pipeline acceleration with diversified sponsor/mix: ~$386m LOIs across 11 ground leases and 4 loans; majority multifamily including affordable, 9 new sponsors; early Q2 closings underway.
• Portfolio income drivers improving: percentage rent was $4.9m vs $4.6m YoY; EPS excluding non-recurring increased ~$0.01 YoY on higher asset-related revenue, despite provision and equity-method headwinds.
• Balance sheet strength and hedging: ~$1.31b liquidity; revolver swapped at ~3% SOFR produced ~$1.7m cash savings in Q1; treasury locks crystallized $13m cash gain in April with ~$17m remaining mark-to-market gain.

What Went Wrong

• Originations timing slipped: no new Q1 closes due to rate uncertainty and capital stack decision-making; multiple deals “left at the altar,” pushing activity to Q2/Q3.
• GLTV ticked up to 52% from 49% QoQ on office appraisals; management notes valuations can lag declines in office and other sectors.
• Non-recurring DC office preferred equity loss ($1.9m) reduced GAAP EPS YoY; non-cash general provision rose with increasing GLTVs; equity-method earnings decreased due to leasehold loan repayments.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to Safehold's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. If you need assistance during today's call, please press star zero. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. That's star one to ask a question. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the conference over to Pierce Hoffman, Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Finance. Please go ahead, sir.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Safehold's earnings call. On the call today, we have Jay Sugarman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Brett Asnas, Chief Financial Officer; and Tim Doherty, Chief Investment Officer. This morning, we plan to walk through a presentation that details our first quarter 2025 results. The presentation can be found on our website at safeholdinc.com by clicking on the investors' link. There will be a replay of this conference call beginning at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Time today. The dial-in for the replay is 877-481-4010 with a confirmation code of 52368. In order to accommodate all those who wish to ask questions, we ask that participants limit themselves to two questions during Q&A. If you'd like to ask additional questions, you may re-enter the queue.

Before I turn the call over to Jay, I'd like to remind everyone that statements in this earnings call, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking. Our actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and the risk factors that could cause these differences are detailed in our SEC reports. Safehold disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as expressly required by law. Now, with that, I'd like to turn it over to Chairman and CEO Jay Sugarman. Jay?

Jay Sugarman (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Pierce, and good morning to everyone joining us today. While many of the deals we hope to close in the first quarter were waylaid by market volatility, markets are beginning to adjust, and we're finding ways to provide the capital our customers need to lock down their deals. Rates remain high relative to forward inflation expectations, but it's hard to predict when markets will fully stabilize or when the rates backdrop will be more favorable. In the meantime, we're working closely with customers to find solutions to their needs and deploy capital that can represent attractive risk-adjusted returns to Safehold.

We have two goals in mind as we continue to build the business: reach a scale that starts to unlock the full value of the business for shareholders, and continue expanding the universe of customers who can benefit from the long-term lower-cost capital and stability that a Safehold ground lease can provide. We need to be aggressive and tireless in these efforts and believe the payoff will be well worth the significant investment of time and resources we are committing. All right, let me turn it over to Brett to review the quarter and full year in more detail.

Brett Asnas (CFO)

Thank you, Jay. Good morning, everyone. Let's begin on slide two. 2025 has been a challenging environment for new deals as the combination of interest rate volatility and market uncertainty has repriced capital and slowed decision-making for our customers. This impacted Q1 investment activity as several transactions we expected to close during the quarter were delayed, resulting in no new originations for the quarter. That said, our team remains highly engaged with both new and existing customers. The pace of signed LOIs has picked up, and our pipeline is further along today than at the same point last year. We have non-binding LOIs totaling approximately $386 million for potential commitments across 11 ground leases and four loans. While certain of these transactions have closed in Q2, there could be no assurances that the rest of these transactions will close. Credit metrics are strong at current base rates.

We're expecting contractual returns in the low 7% range before factoring in CPI and carrot, which we believe is highly compelling. Six of the 11 ground leases under LOI are in the affordable housing space, continuing our momentum in that sector, which we expect to be a meaningful growth contributor moving forward. We're working with 11 unique sponsors, nine of which are new to our program, which not only demonstrates the reach of our product but bodes well for our future business, as roughly 40% of our portfolio is repeat business. At quarter end, the total portfolio was $6.8 billion. UCA was estimated at $8.9 billion. GLTV was 52%, and rent coverage was 3.5 times. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.3 billion of liquidity, which is further supported by the potential available capacity in our joint venture. Slide three provides a snapshot of our portfolio growth.

In the first quarter, we funded a total of $20 million, which consisted of $16 million of ground lease fundings on pre-existing commitments that have a 6.7% economic yield, and $4 million related to our share of the leasehold loan fund, which earned interest at a rate of SOFR plus 386 basis points. Our ground lease portfolio has 147 assets and has grown 20 times by both book value and estimated unrealized capital appreciation since our IPO. We have 85 multifamily ground leases in the portfolio and have increased our exposure from 8% by count at IPO to 58% today. In total, the unrealized capital appreciation portfolio is comprised of approximately 36 million sq ft of institutional quality commercial real estate, consisting of approximately 20,000 multifamily units, 12.5 million sq ft of office, over 5,000 hotel keys, and 2 million sq ft of life science and other property types.

Continuing on slide four, let me detail our quarterly earnings results. For the first quarter, GAAP revenue was $97.7 million, net income was $29.4 million, and earnings per share was $0.41. The decline in GAAP earnings year over year was primarily due to an increase in other expense driven by a non-recurring $1.9 million loss on a preferred equity investment in a Washington, DC office leasehold interest. The leasehold was being marketed for sale with a portion of property taxes under appeal. We advanced funds to cover those taxes as we believed any unpaid amounts would have been an overhang on the sale process. The leasehold successfully changed hands recently, and we have a new tenant in place with a strong track record and fresh equity committed to the building.

Safehold will provide additional financing for building upgrades and leasing, and in return, we'll receive equity participation in the leasehold should it outperform. We believe this solution is a long-term positive for the asset. A portion of the taxes paid may be recovered in the future, but given our lack of visibility and confidence in the appeal process, we decided to write off our preferred equity investment. Excluding this one-time non-recurring loss, Q1 earnings per share increased slightly year over year, driven by higher net earnings on investment fundings and percentage rent, offset by an increase in our non-cash general provision, primarily driven by higher GLTVs, and lower earnings from equity method investments, primarily due to repayments in the leasehold loan fund. On slide five, we detail our portfolio's yields. For GAAP earnings, the portfolio currently earns a 3.7% cash yield and a 5.4% annualized yield.

Annualized yield includes non-cash adjustments within rent, depreciation amortization, which is primarily from accounting methodology on IPO assets, but excludes all future contractual variable rent, such as fair market value resets, percentage rent, or CPI-based escalators, which are all significant economic drivers. On an economic basis, the portfolio generates a 5.8% economic yield, which is an IRR-based calculation that conforms with how we've underwritten these investments. This economic yield has additional upside, including periodic CPI lookbacks, which we have in 83% of our ground leases. Using the Federal Reserve's current long-term break-even inflation rate of 2.2%, the 5.8% economic yield increases to a 5.9% inflation-adjusted yield. That 5.9% inflation-adjusted yield then increases to 7.4% after layering in an estimate for unrealized capital appreciation using Safehold's 84% ownership interest in Caret at its most recent $2 billion valuation.

We believe unrealized capital appreciation in our assets to be a significant source of value for the company that remains largely unrecognized by the market today. Turning to slide six, we highlight the diversification of our portfolio by location and underlying property type. Our top 10 markets by gross book value are called out on the right, representing approximately 66% of the portfolio. We include key metrics such as rent coverage and GLTV for each of these markets, and we have additional detail at the bottom of the page by region and property type. Portfolio GLTV, which is based on annual asset appraisals from CBRE, increased quarter over quarter from 49% to 52%. This increase was not surprising as Q1 is our largest office revaluation quarter, with approximately two-thirds of the office portfolio getting reappraised.

We target low attachment points in our ground leases to avoid being impacted by these temporary fluctuations. Although property appraisals declined, rent coverage on the portfolio was unchanged quarter over quarter at 3.5 times. We continue to believe that investing in well-located,institutional-quality ground leases in the top 30 markets that have attractive risk-adjusted returns will benefit the company and its stakeholders over long periods of time. Lastly, on slide seven, we provide an overview of our capital structure. At year end, we had approximately $4.7 billion of debt comprised of $2.2 billion of unsecured notes, $1.5 billion of non-recourse secured debt, $0.7 billion drawn on our unsecured revolver, and $0.3 billion of our pro rata share of debt on ground leases, which we own in joint ventures. Our weighted average debt maturity is approximately 19 years, and we have no corporate maturities due until 2027.

At quarter end, we had approximately $1.3 billion of cash and credit facility availability. We are rated A3 with stable outlook by Moody's, A- with stable outlook by Fitch, and BBB+ with positive outlook by S&P. We have benefited from an active hedging strategy and remain well-hedged on our limited floating-rate borrowings. Of the $712 million revolver balance outstanding, $500 million is swapped to fixed SOFR at 3% through April 2028. We receive swap payments on a current cash basis each month, and for the first quarter, that produced cash interest savings of approximately $1.7 million that flowed through the P&L. We also have $250 million of long-term treasury locks at a weighted average rate of approximately 4.0% and current gain position of approximately $30 million.

Of this $250 million, $100 million notional was unwound in April and crystallized at a $13 million cash gain, and the remaining $150 million notional is active and outstanding with mark-to-market gain of approximately $17 million. These treasury locks are mark-to-market instruments currently recognized on the balance sheet, but not the P&L. They can be unwound for cash at any point through their designated term. However, only when they are applied to long-term debt would they then be recognized in our P&L over time. We are levered 1.96 times on a total debt-to-equity basis, which was flat versus last quarter. The effective interest rate on permanent debt is 4.2%, and the portfolio's cash interest rate on permanent debt is 3.8%. To conclude, despite a difficult market, the team is finding success sourcing new deals and expanding our customer base.

We expect these efforts to translate into increasing investment activity in the near term, and if markets remain choppy or there is a more significant downturn, we believe owning a diversified pool of ground leases is an attractive place to be. Growth has always been a driving force in our valuation, but at the current share price, we think it's worth highlighting what investors own because the discount to what we believe is fair value has grown so large. We have a balance sheet with no near-term maturities, valuable in-place hedges, and significantly below market debt locked in for 19 years. At market discount rates, we believe there's approximately $10 or more of per-share value in this debt on our balance sheet alone. On the asset side, we own a diverse pool of high-grade credit instruments, call-protected, and contractually compounding.

We also typically own eight to nine free options on CPI in our leases, which will increase returns and protect value should inflation remain sticky, plus a free option on the future underlying real estate currently appraised at nearly $9 billion, which we believe over time will return many multiples of our invested basis. Part of the challenge in operating in a less traditional sector in the public market is there are no direct comps, and investors typically have less experience with ground leases than they do other asset classes. At the current share price, we believe the portfolio is a mispriced asset. While scaling the business remains our top priority, we are actively evaluating opportunities to take advantage of what we believe is a public versus private valuation disconnect on the existing portfolio, and we look forward to keeping the market updated on our progress.

With that, let me turn it back to Jay.

Jay Sugarman (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Brett. Let's go ahead and open it up for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one at this time. We will take as many questions as time permits. Once again, please press star one to ask a question, and we will pause a moment to assemble the roster. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Ronald Camden with Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.

Ronald Camden (Head of U.S. REITs)

Hey, just two quick questions. I think you talked about sort of the pipeline a little bit here on the non-binding LOIs. Just wondering if you could give a little bit more color just on the sponsors, sort of the markets, and just what your expectations on the ability to sort of close this and in what time frame.

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Sure. Hey, it's Tim.

As you can see, there's a very robust pipeline here with the 11 deals, and we'd say that the majority are in multifamily. That includes existing deals that we're helping recap, construction deals on market rate, as well as affordable. As you heard from Brett, a lot of new clients here, also repeats, which we see a lot of from our existing portfolio. Location-wise, also very diverse. We have West Coast, Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, all in this pipeline. From our standpoint, it's a great pipeline, and it shows that the diversity of deals we can close on.

Ronald Camden (Head of U.S. REITs)

Great. My quick follow-up is just on the difference between the ground lease versus a leasehold loan value.

Just maybe talk us through sort of the benefits of that to you guys as well as the borrowers, and how much capacity do you have to do these sort of leasehold loans when you're doing the ground lease? Thanks.

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Hey, Ron, thanks for the question. As you know, we've selectively used leasehold loans in the past. We have relatively little dollars outstanding right now, but we think it can be a useful tool when the markets are volatile, and when we see an opportunity where certainty can win deals, it's certainly an arrow in our quiver. We think it's a way to kickstart some transactions that are either sitting on the sidelines because they just can't line everything up. That's a great place for us to step in.

We're going to keep it to a small percentage of the balance sheet, obviously, but we think it's a tool that our customers definitely benefit from knowing they've got a deal locked down as opposed to having to watch the market every day.

Ronald Camden (Head of U.S. REITs)

Great. That's it for me. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Your line is live.

Caitlin Burrows (VP and Analyst)

Hi there. Maybe just a quick follow-up on the first part of Ron's question on the LLI deals. It sounds like some of those may have already closed, so I was wondering if you could quantify that and then give us an idea for expected timing.

To the extent that you do not want to comment on these exact deals, could you give some color around by the time a property generally enters the LOI stage, how long it could take to actually close?

Jay Sugarman (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. I will take the last one first. Time frame ranges on a construction deal versus a recap deal. Obviously, construction deals just take more time to put things together. On the recap deals, those are largely fairly quick. Our pipeline, what we expect is the majority of all these deals will close this year, but because of the timing with the construction versus stabilized deals, it will vary over the time frame of the quarter. We feel great about what the build-up of the pipeline is.

Caitlin Burrows (VP and Analyst)

Okay. Got it. It sounds like then no comment on what has already been agreed upon or closed?

Jay Sugarman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Or you want to take it?

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah. I mean, the earliest deals are starting to close, so we're hopeful that the momentum continues.

Caitlin Burrows (VP and Analyst)

Okay. At the end there, you guys mentioned the public versus private market disconnect. Wondering if you could comment on that a little bit more. Are you suggesting that you would consider potentially selling a ground lease or more to prove value or something else?

Brett Asnas (CFO)

Sure, Caitlin. It's Brett. Yeah. We mentioned on our last earnings call that for our 2025 goals, capital recycling was near the top of the list. We want to make sure that we are standing behind the stock and making sure that we are closing the gap. We certainly believe that we are trading at a discount.

When we start thinking about the opportunity set of what we have within the existing portfolio, whether that means selling assets, finding joint venture partners, etc., we're underway in processes to figure out how to create the best execution so that we can continue to deploy capital as well as stand behind the stock. We'll continue to update the market accordingly as those processes unfold.

Caitlin Burrows (VP and Analyst)

Got it. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Handel St. Just with Mizuho. Your line is live.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Analyst)

Hi there. I wanted to confirm whether everything in the LOI that are in the non-binding LOIs were related to multifamily or affordable housing.

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. As I mentioned, the majority of it is in multifamily, and it's a good mix of market rate construction, market rate recap, as well as affordable. We do have a hotel transaction as well.

The majority is still multifamily.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Analyst)

Got it. As you evaluate your current capital stack, what is the appetite to potentially source maybe another joint venture with a large institutional partner? Maybe that would help with the capital deployment.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah, Handel. I think, as I said in my opening remarks, the goal here is to scale. Right now, the scarcity of deals makes it more likely we are going to try to keep stuff for ourselves. Certainly, as deal flow ramps up and if our cost of capital is not where we would like it to be, that is an alternative we always consider as potentially one we can use. As Brett said, we have a couple of processes underway just to think about other sources of capital that could be more accretive to the company, but nothing to report right now.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Analyst)

Just one more here.

Maybe this is a bit more big picture in nature, but I understand the volatility with interest rates in the past and now the volatility with tariffs and the trade war. This has really impacted the acquisition set and the capital deployment opportunity. I think it's fair to say that the volatility will persist here for a little bit. I guess, what are some of the deals you're looking to structure, and how are those maybe different than maybe what we're approaching in the past?

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

This is Tim again. I would say that there has been some volatility, of course. I think the range of the volatility has tightened. If you look back over the last 24 months of what the—we pay attention a lot to the 30-year treasury, the highs and the lows from 6 to 24 months back, now 6 months back only.

That's allowed sponsors to start to have a clearer view of what their long-term capital costs are. I think that's why you're also seeing the pipeline build up here. Sponsors are now able to make decisions on transactions. Sure, the latest noise is tariffs, which does impact transactions. We use the construction for an example. Deals that started to pencil, some of those probably had to go pencils down. In the high-quality markets with good growth and lower supply than others, which there's good examples of around the country, even with tariffs, those transactions can start to occur, which you're seeing come through in our pipeline.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah. One thing we've seen that I think is a little bit new is customers actually asking to lock rate early and/or have some sort of floor and cap and not just have a floating spread all the way up till they close. That has been one response we've seen from customers is they're looking for certainty. They need to put the stacks together. At least with our piece, we can give them a little bit more certainty. That has been helpful.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Mitch Germain with Citizens Capital Markets. Your line is live.

Mitch Germain (Analyst)

Thank you. I wanted to circle back about some of the discussion around joint venture partners.

Obviously, you can lock in some new capital for deals, but I think when Brett had suggested joint ventures as a way to unlock value of the portfolio, I'm assuming you would be contributing assets to existing properties to a venture. Is that the way to think about creating some price discovery around the portfolio itself?

Brett Asnas (CFO)

Yeah, Mitch, exactly. I think from our perspective, both from where do ground leases trade, right? They come for sale very often, right? It's really episodic. What we're going out and doing is creating them. Having a scarce product and one that is very low beta, especially in a choppier market, should be an attractive proposition for folks. To Jay and Tim's point, we certainly want to scale and grow.

In thinking about activity moving forward throughout the course of the year in terms of our own capital structure and what we can do to continue to tighten costs, looking for the right partners, whether that be direct sales or JVs, are on the table. In terms of go-forward capital, if you remember, we still have our joint venture with our sovereign wealth partner. We have capital tools or other tools in the toolkit here to ensure that if the cost of capital for us is not where we'd like it to be, we can participate at the right levels. We certainly want to be doing as many deals as we can in this rate environment, but we certainly have to look at our cost of capital as well.

It's a little bit of a moving target quarter to quarter, but we feel really good about our liquidity as well as, I mentioned in my remarks, the hedges that we currently have in place that are well in the money.

Mitch Germain (Analyst)

Gotcha. It's been a while since I think you guys a couple of quarters ago cleaned up your carrots, or at least the original tranche that you sold. Has there been any consideration to use that instrument as a price discovery tool as well? Or given the decline in the unrealized appreciation pool, is that kind of off the table right now?

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

I wouldn't say it's off the table, but it's a much better story when that UCA number's growing quickly. I think you see as the pipeline starts to come through, I think we can be just a better story for investors.

We still have a lot of thoughts about how to use that to create capital, but I think giving ourselves the time through the end of the year to really pick a spot when the story is strongest is probably the wisest thing to do.

Mitch Germain (Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Harsh Hamdani with Green Street. Your line is live.

Harsh Hamdani (Analyst)

Thank you. It sounds like a couple of deals might have closed post-quarter end. Could you give us some color on whether these or the split in the closed deals between the four under LOI with a leasehold loan versus the seven without a leasehold loan? I'm trying to understand if the certainty that comes with that leasehold loan makes it easier to close versus maybe just the ground lease.

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Sure. Yeah.

As you see, four of the 11 have the leasehold loan, so a minority of those transactions. Obviously, when we have the loan as well as the ground lease, there is more certainty because we are in more control of the capital stack. Those deals do have a higher level of certainty. However, our experience on LOIs is the vast majority of these will close. It is just timing to get those done, whether it be the capital of the LPGP or the leasehold lender taking time. We do feel comfortable with the certainty of this pipeline closing over the year. As we said, the leasehold loans do provide a little bit more certainty than the other transactions.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah.

As you know, when we prop a ground lease, that customer still has to go out and get typically a leasehold loan and their LP capital lined up, and all three kind of move around. You have multiple parties at the table. Wherever we see a chance to narrow that window is an opportunity to think through with the customer what is the best way to move forward. Again, selectively using it, but it is a tool that gives them the ability to move forward. That is a good tool to have.

Harsh Hamdani (Analyst)

Got it. That is helpful. Maybe taking a step back on the pipeline, right? What is under LOI over $250 million on ground leases, it is already more than what originations were in 2024. Are you maybe a two-part question? The first is, how has the pipeline evolved maybe after all the volatility in April?

Given what you're seeing on the ground today, do you think this is sort of a sign of a recovery in the ground lease market, or do you feel like you need more time to be confident in that?

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. As I mentioned prior, the volatility in rates is less so than it was over the previous couple of years, which has again helped people make decisions longer term, whether that be mostly on the construction and acquisition side, obviously what their decisions are and recaps as well. Yes, as you mentioned, our pipeline now, the total on the ground leases is more than we originated last year. Again, the certainty becoming a little bit more clear.

Obviously, there's still some volatility out there, but it is a good sign that things have reached a point where sponsors can make these decisions and therefore our pipeline and transaction flow will increase.

Harsh Hamdani (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Steven Kim with Truist. Your line is live.

Steven Kim (Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning. Just going back to the topic of potential new JV partners, I know the current one is more geared for larger scale deals. Just what is the level of interest you're seeing for potential new partners? And would this be more for new deals going forward or past deals?

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah. As Brett said, the process on trying to use the existing portfolio is one we've been thinking about. I think on the new transactions, if it's of scale and size, certainly our existing partner is our go-to.

We have shown them some very, very large transactions to really see where their return parameters are these days. I will say it's hard to talk to people when they can deploy billions of dollars into data centers and other areas about our very safe, very long-term, very attractive returns, but at obviously lower nominal return levels. We're saving our firepower with them for the largest deals. That seems to be where they want to engage. Right now, that's our focus with them. Brett's working on the other half of the equation, which is can we use our existing portfolio to create other partnerships that might be advantageous to us?

Steven Kim (Analyst)

Are there any type of restrictions on because if you did sell some assets, your carrot size would decrease. Do you have any kind of restrictions that would prohibit you from selling down assets?

Brett Asnas (CFO)

No, there's no restrictions. I think, again, when you think about a structure of a venture, we want to be thoughtful as well as any prospective partner in terms of desires and needs from both sides. For us, we certainly believe that these assets are quite valuable, both the contractual compounding cash flow streams, but the inflation strips that we have in each of these, as well as, to your point, the UCA, the value that sits above our ground lease. We want to be thoughtful about the opportunity set there, both in what the give and take is near term as well as what the ending outcomes could be longer term. There's always trade-offs, and we want to make sure that we're creating value for our stakeholders that can come in different forms.

As I mentioned, those thought processes as well as endeavors are along the way right now, and we will update the market as we have more detail.

Steven Kim (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Rich Anderson with Wedbush Securities. Your line is live. Sorry, Rich, you may be on mute, sir.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Analyst)

I'm good. Thank you. One day, I'll get this figured out. Dovetailing off of a previous observation or question, the $273 million in an LOI, to me, it is a good number. We talked about how that compares versus last year. I'm wondering why you are not sounding more sort of optimistic about the progression of 2025 in light of the fact that that is not certainty of close, but good chance a lot of that will close.

Why not a little bit more effervescence in your tone given that pace that we're seeing right here and right now?

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. I apologize. We are excited about the pipeline. It's been a great beginning of the year here going into Q2. I guess I need to just change the tone of the answer. No, look, the 273 is a great number. The diversity of the, I guess I should have sounded a little more excited about the diversity of the sponsorship and the location, the asset classes. I guess I just need to add a little more emphasis on the end of my sentences there.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

I think what you're hearing, Rich, is these guys are in the trenches every day.

We have been left at the altar a couple of times on deals we thought were right at the finish line. That sort of breaks your heart for a little bit. You have to get back on the horse and go out there again and do it. We are pleased that the persistence is starting to pay off. This is not a great market in terms of customers having clarity. We are seeing that across the board. You have seen what has happened in CMBS spreads blow out, then they come back in, then they blow out again. Everybody is trying to grapple with the variables and figure out what should I do and when should I do it. That is a harder market for our guys to really get people to sign on the dotted line and close their deals.

Again, we're only one part of their capital stack. I think you're hearing just a little bit of the frustration that our customers want to do business with us. We want to do business with them. Unless we can control the entire stack, which we sometimes can but rarely can, it's really hard to get deals done in a market where things change overnight. Hopefully, we're moving into a more stable period where it's just our solution versus other solutions, which is a place we like to compete. What we can't compete with is external factors and geopolitical and political factors that move around so much that freezes the market. We're still not seeing new acquisition activity pick up to the pace we would hope.

You're seeing refis start to kick in, even some new development, but I don't think we're anywhere near sort of a stabilized market.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Analyst)

Yeah. I can appreciate the heartbreaking component to the behind the scenes. Jay, maybe you can comment. When you guys were doing deals in the billions per year, what was the negotiating sort of difference then in terms of binding versus non-binding LOIs? I mean, how has the market shifted in favor of potential customers today versus when you were kind of a little bit more in the driver's seat to get deals done?

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Yeah. I'll let Tim answer because he's on the ground every day. Here's my just 30,000-foot view: when customers think the Fed's about to raise rates, they want to lock in long-term capital.

When markets think that the Fed's going to lower rates, they're more hesitant to lock in long-term capital. We're going to develop a rhythm with our customers to help them navigate these kind of markets. A lot of it is just how and when do they want to lock in what we think is a very beneficial long-term capital source. When we were doing billions, it was a sort of double-barrel. It was a better solution, and they were worried the world was going to get much worse. I think stability helps us across the board.

I do not know what the Fed's going to do today, but the presumption is tariffs are going to have an impact, and customers are starting to go, "Hey, maybe I should just lock in right now." I think there are a lot of variables outside our control, but our goal is just to line up against their alternatives and say, "Ours is better. You should really consider it." The more shots we get at that conversation, the better we are going to do.

Tim Doherty (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. Matt, I agree with him. Okay. Sure. Good to him. I would just say that, look, I think the consistency of our capital is also ringing true to the clients, right? Every time they have called us over the past eight years, we have been in a similar position in terms of what spread we are to the cost of the indexes.

That certainty has helped a lot, as you can see with the repeat sponsors and even now with the growing list of new sponsors as well. I think that is an important add-on.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Analyst)

Okay. Great. Last for me to Brett: what is the conversation like with S&P in terms of potentially getting them over the hump with the other two? I am just curious if that is something that is on the radar screen. I am sure it is at some point down the road. Thanks.

Brett Asnas (CFO)

Yeah, Rich, I certainly think that the momentum we had over the last 12 to 18 months with the other agencies has helped people realize that this is a solid single-A company. I think S&P, as you know, the engagement with them came further along. We got the rating public late last year. We are in that positive outlook review period.

We have an annual review coming up. Over the course of 2025, we're going to continue to have dialogue with them. Typically, these processes take 18-24 months. Some a little less, some a little longer. For us, we keep a foot to the pedal on this is a very safe asset class. We're capitalizing in a very prudent way. If we continue to find ways to deploy and originate for new deals as well as make the spreads and margins that we desire, and that's through thoughtful rate moves and hedging as well, that steady as she goes. We're having dialogue with them, and our hope is to get that third single-A.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Mr. Hoffmann, we currently have no further questions.

Pearse Hoffmann (SVP and Head of Corporate Finance)

Thank you. If you do have additional questions, please feel free to contact me directly.

Operator (participant)

Operator, would you please give the conference call replay instructions once again?

Yes, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, the dial-in for the replay is 877-481-4010 with the confirmation code of 52368. This concludes today's call. You may disconnect at this time, and we thank you for your participation.