Simon Property Group - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered solid operational and financial performance: Real Estate FFO per share rose 3.7% year-over-year to $3.35, while consolidated revenue increased to $1,582.2 million; occupancy ended at 96.5%, base rent rose 2.5%, and portfolio NOI grew 4.5%.
• The board raised the common dividend to $2.10 for Q1 2025, up $0.15 year-over-year (+7.7%), reinforcing strong cash-return discipline amid ~$10.1B of liquidity at year-end.
• 2025 guidance: Real Estate FFO and FFO expected at $12.40–$12.65 per share; net income $6.95–$7.20; management assumes ≥3% domestic property NOI growth and a $0.25–$0.30 per-share headwind from higher net interest expense; guidance excludes Catalyst Brands (JCP/SPARC combination).
• Strategic catalysts: acquisition of two luxury outlets in Italy from Kering; robust mixed-use pipeline (residential, hotels, office JV projects); continued digital/tech initiatives (ShopSimon, nationwide holographic 3D ad network).
• Balance sheet advantage and deleveraging: net debt/EBITDA ended ~5.2x; A-rated unsecured profile and extended revolver underpin capacity for redevelopment and selective acquisitions.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong leasing and operating metrics: “We saw record leasing and retail sales volume and occupancy gains for the year,” with 5,500 leases and 21M square feet signed; Q4 occupancy reached 96.5% and base rent per square foot rose to $58.26.
• Durable FFO and NOI growth: Real Estate FFO/share increased 3.7% YoY to $3.35; domestic property NOI up 4.4% YoY in Q4 (4.7% for the year) and portfolio NOI up 4.5% YoY in Q4 (4.6% for the year).
• Strategic actions: completed acquisition of two luxury Italian outlet centers from Kering, described as NAV- and earnings-accretive; opened Tulsa Premium Outlets; advanced 16 redevelopment projects.

What Went Wrong

• Other Platform Investments (OPI) drag: management highlighted lower OPI contributions (e.g., SPARC/Forever 21), with Q4 including noncash items and Catalyst excluded from 2025 guidance until synergies and restructuring costs are clearer.
• Predevelopment write-offs and mixed-use timing: Q4 reflected a write-off of predevelopment costs on a California JV project; some signed-but-not-open (S&O) activity implies downtime as weaker tenants are swapped for stronger ones.
• Interest expense headwind into 2025: guidance embeds $0.25–$0.30 per-share higher net interest expense versus 2024, partially offsetting operating strength.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings and welcome to the Simon Property Group Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tom Ward. Thank you. You may begin.

Tom Ward (SVP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Matt. And thank you all for joining us this evening. Presenting on today's call are David Simon, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Brian McDade, Chief Financial Officer, and Adam Reuille, Chief Accounting Officer. A quick reminder that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. We refer you to today's press release and our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of the risk factors relating to those forward-looking statements. Please note that this call includes information that may be accurate only as of today's date. Reconciliations of Non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included within the press release and the supplemental information in today's Form 8-K filing.

Both the press release and the supplemental information are available on our IR website at investors.simon.com. Our conference call this evening will be limited to one hour. For those of you who would like to participate in the question-and-answer session, we ask that you please respect our request to limit yourself to one question. I am pleased to introduce David Simon.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Good evening. I'm pleased with our financial and operational results in the fourth quarter, concluding an exceptional year for our company. We reported record total funds from operations of $4.9 billion, or $12.99 per share. We generated $4.6 billion in real estate FFO, or $12.24 per share, which was growth of 3.9% year-over-year. We returned a record of more than $3 billion to shareholders in cash dividends, and now we have paid approximately $45 billion to shareholders in dividends over our history as a public company. We saw record leasing and retail sales volume and occupancy gains for the year. We completed last week the acquisition of the two well-known luxury outlet centers in Italy from Kering. We look forward to adding these high-quality luxury assets into our global portfolio while continuing to build upon their success.

We opened a new fully leased premium outlet in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we completed 16 significant redevelopment projects during the year. Development and redevelopment opportunities are growing within our portfolio. We levered our A-rated balance sheet, providing additional capacity and flexibility to fund future growth. I'm now going to turn it over to Brian, who will cover our fourth quarter results in more detail and provide our outlook for 2025.

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, David. Real estate FFO was $3.35 per share in the fourth quarter compared to $3.23 in the prior year, 3.7% growth. Domestic and international operations had a very good quarter and contributed $0.18 of growth. During the quarter, we sold assets that resulted in a tax benefit, which partially offset a prior tax expense from our ABG sale and essentially offset a write-off of pre-development costs associated with a joint venture development project in California. Leasing momentum continued across the portfolio. We signed more than 1,500 leases for 6.1 million sq ft in the quarter. For the year, we signed a record 5,500 leases for more than 21 million sq ft. Approximately 25% of our leasing activity for the year were new deals. Malls and outlet occupancy at the end of the fourth quarter was 96.5%, an increase of 70 basis points compared to the prior year.

Our year-end occupancy is the highest level over the last eight years. The mills occupancy was 98.8%, an increase of 1%, and is at a record level. Average base minimum rent for the malls and outlets increased 2.5% year over year, and the mills increased 4.3%. Retailer sales per square foot was $739 for the year. Strong revenue growth across our businesses, combined with expense discipline, resulted in a 100 basis point increase year over year in our industry-leading operating margin. Our occupancy cost at the end of the year was 13%. Domestic NOI increased 4.4% year-over-year for the quarter and 4.7% for the year. Portfolio NOI, which includes our international properties at a constant currency, grew 4.5% for the quarter and 4.6% for the year. Fourth quarter funds from operations were $1.39 billion, or $3.68 per share, compared to $1.38 billion, or $3.69 per share last year.

Fourth quarter results include $0.20 per share of non-cash after-tax gain from the combination of JCPenney and SPARC Group. The mark-to-market fair value of Klépierre's exchangeable bonds increased year-over-year, which offset a lower contribution from OPI operations. As a reminder, the prior year results include $0.33 per share in gain from the sale of part of our interest in ABG last year. Turning to new development and redevelopment. This year, we will open our first premium outlets in Jakarta, Indonesia, in March and expect to begin construction on four to five mixed-use projects throughout the year. We expect to fund these redevelopments and mixed-use projects with our internally generated cash flow of over $1.5 billion after our dividend payments. Other platform investments. JCPenney and SPARC Group combined to form a portfolio of iconic retailer banners called Catalyst Brands.

Catalyst brings together SPARC's brands: Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Lucky, and Nautica, with JCPenney in its exclusive private brands. Catalyst sold Reebok in early January and is currently evaluating strategic options for Forever 21. We view the Catalyst transaction as a positive development that will create significant synergies with a solid balance sheet that will enable the company to drive EBITDA growth. Catalyst shareholders include Simon, Brookfield, Authentic Brands Group, and Shein. Turning to the balance sheet. During 2024, we completed $11 billion in financing activities, including issuing $1 billion in senior notes for the 10-year term and a 4.75% interest rate. We recast our $3.5 billion revolving credit facility with maturity extended to January of 2030 and no change in pricing or terms, and completed over $6 billion of secured loan refinancings and extensions.

Lastly, we delivered our balance sheet by approximately $1.5 billion in the year and ended the year at 5.2 times net debt to EBITDA. Our A-rated balance sheet provides a distinct advantage with more than $10 billion of liquidity at year-end. Additionally, today, relative to our dividend, we announced a dividend of $2.10 per share for the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 7.7%. The dividend is payable on March 31st. Now, moving on to our 2025 guidance. Our real estate FFO guidance range is $12.40-$12.65 per share. Our guidance reflects the following assumptions: domestic property NOI growth of at least 3%, increased net interest expense compared to 2024 of between $0.25-$0.30 per share, reflecting current market interest rates and projected cash balances compared to 2024. Lastly, our diluted share count of approximately 377 million shares and units outstanding.

Due to the recent Catalyst Brands transaction, we will not include Catalyst guidance at this time. We expect there will be significant savings and synergies from the combination that will be coupled with potential restructuring costs. We expect Catalyst will generate positive EBITDA in fiscal 2025 and roughly break-even FFO as they work through the combination. With that, thank you, and David and I are now available for your questions.

Operator (participant)

Great. Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Jeff Spector from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Spector (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you. I know you'll get through some of the numbers through some of the other questions. I wanted to focus on some of the initiatives you have to bring people to the mall. I know you have the Tomorrow Stars, the Meet Me at the Mall when your traffic was up at malls, premium outlets. And can you talk a little bit more about some of the programs and initiatives that you're doing to, again, bring the shopper to the mall, and how did those programs go for the holiday season? Thank you.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Listen, I think we're leaders in this area. Our national advertising campaign is all about talking about how it's fun to go to the mall and hang out, just like in the '80s and '90s. We had a very good reception to it. We rebranded Simon Premium Outlets to Shop Simon. We're in the midst of creating our loyalty program. Then, obviously, we've got events, thousands of events that drive traffic through the year, whether it's breast cancer awareness programs, Valentine's Day, basically every major event that occurs within the U.S., we try to drive an event around that, Easter, down the road. I couldn't be prouder of our marketing efforts. They're very digital. They're very fun. They use new media in a lot of ways. I just expect more and more. More importantly, we're seeing return on investment.

We've got the data to prove that. Not that our peer group is wide and deep, but to the extent that it is, there's nobody doing more when it comes to data, digital commerce with Shop Simon, marketing, events. You put it all together, we're leaps and bounds compared to what else is out there.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is from Steve Sakwa from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)

Yes, thanks. Good evening. David, you guys obviously had a great year with 21 million sq ft of leasing, occupancy up. Given where you're sitting on the occupancy side, I'm just curious how the discussions that your leasing team are having with the retailers is kind of shifting and maybe talk about the pricing power and how that's kind of returned to the mall for the A's. And to tie that into NOI growth, you've talked about greater than 3%, but you've certainly beaten 4% for the last three years in a row. So what are we missing on the 3% front? And maybe just comment on pricing power. Thank you.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Let me just talk about the 3%. So look, as we did last year, we budget flat sales. Why? I don't really know, but that's what we do. And when you do that, we come up with a conservative number. To the extent that we have sales growth like we did this year, again, maybe not overall, but the retailers that matter, we generate over-rent, which obviously pops our NOI growth. So I hope we're being conservative. Obviously, there's pretty good animal spirits in the U.S. and its economy. We expect to participate in that. And again, I don't like the word pricing power. I just think we're able to we have deep relationships with our retailers, and we're able to generate a lot of new business.

We see new retailers approach us all the time and new uses all the time, which essentially allows us to, and one of the big things of growth, we're never stuck with the tenant mix that we have. So what, and I think Brian knows the number specifically, but I think 25% of our leases this year were new. So what's driving a lot of what we do is we're able to take the retailers that aren't doing the sales and replace them with ones that will. And that, because they'll do better volume, that drives rent growth. And I don't call that pricing power. I just think that's improving our mix and doing what we need to do to drive our business forward.

And as I said, I think last call is we still think we have an opportunity because, frankly, we've been organizationally very focused on the, for no better word, the A's. We do think there's real effort, focus, growth for us in the B's where we're investing our dollars. So that's a big program for us in 2025 and 2026. And just to cap off your question, we still feel, and again, it's hard to predict because there's always downtime, tenant bankruptcies, etc., but we still feel like we have upside in our occupancy. We're still not at our high. That was 1997-2001, if I remember right, in 2014. Tom Shagin has said yes. So we still, some message to my leasing team, if they're listening.

I don't mind if they're not, if they're making a lease, but assuming they're listening, let's get up to our record high in 2014, and then we'll take a deep breath, but we won't until then.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Maybe just following off the last one, right? The NOI expectation dropped from 4% last year and for the last several years down to 3%. So bridging the gap between those expectations, right? It sounds like some of that is retail sales, but it sounds like occupancy, there's still upside, but is there the same magnitude of upside? And then also, are you taking into account any sort of tenant bankruptcies or credit reserve in that as well, which is driving that by 100 basis points? Thanks.

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Michael, it's Brian. So I think first, we've historically put out at least 3% at the beginning of every year, including last year, and then have subsequently beat that, which we've repeated here. I think you just heard David talk about the overage component. We budgeted, assumed sales were flat, so there's a negative component to the overage mathematically in the subsequent year. You heard us just talk about mix. And so as we swap out tenants for new tenants, there is downtime specifically associated with our full-price business as we build out those stores. Last thing I would mention, you just mentioned bad debt. Our numbers in 2025 take into consideration our historical approach to bad debt. We did slightly better than that in 2024, but we've taken an appropriate expectation into 2025 relative to our standard approach.

So those are the three major drivers that would get you kind of back from this year's number down to a 3% number for, again, as a baseline starting in 2025.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Craig Mailman from Citi. Please go ahead.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

Thanks. It's Nick Joseph here with Craig. David, just want to touch on the potential impact for tariffs. Obviously, the news keeps changing. But just broadly, what are you hearing from your retailers? How is it impacting their business and kind of the uncertainty there and the potential impact of the de minimis exemption going away?

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. Just our firsthand, I don't know where every retailer sources their goods. But if you take Catalyst as an example, they only source 20% of their goods with all the brands of about 20% in China. Okay? And when we talk to Catalyst, their view of it is with respect to China that they'll pass some of it on to the consumer, but also hope that the supplier tightens up the cost of goods sold. So many, many retailers have moved a lot of production out of China over the last several years. And the good news is where we had kind of the most exposure was shoes, which Reebok would have been more exposed. But as you know, we disposed of the Reebok operating business in January.

So, no one is really, honestly, it hasn't affected day-to-day decision-making, and it's a relatively reduced amount for the retailers. What's really going to be helpful to the American retailers and the non-Chinese retailers is to get rid of the de minimis rule, which basically exempts tariffs if you send a package over $800 to a customer. That's not a level playing field. That causes retailers to pay more that ship in bulk. And it's given real benefits to someone like Temu, where they've shipped purposely under the $800. Congress is taking it up. I know the president is taking it up. And that will absolutely be, if enacted, will give a real shot in the arm to retailers that don't purposely try to send their goods to get under the $800 limitation. Not only to say it's also more green, it saves packaging costs, etc.

It's good for our country. And I hope Congress and/or the president enact it. That, to me, is more material than any tariffs that are being talked about.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Floris van Dijkum from Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Floris van Dijkum (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Good to hear your voice, David. A couple of questions, but I guess I'm going to focus on your latest acquisition in Italy. I note that Kering just snuck into your top 10 list this past quarter prior to the acquisition. I'm curious if you can talk about that acquisition, the returns that you expect to achieve, how you might be able to manage those assets going forward. And also, what would Kering's percentage have been had they been included? I guess I know your top 10 is domestic only, but how much of an impact would that have on the top 10 if you were to include Kering's exposure in Europe as well?

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

On that particular point, you'll see that in our next supplement. It'll go up, but you'll see that in our next supplement. Look, I would say we're under a confidentiality agreement on the details other than the price. I will tell you we've been very, as you know, very selective on acquisitions, and we're only buying top stuff at the right price. This follows 100% of that strategy. It's top stuff at the right price. Kering will remain a long-term tenant in that they've had historically a very competent group that ran it for them, obviously, because that's not their main business, as you know. We've taken over that team. We'll help them with strategic guidance, and we think there's upside in the business. We think it's NAV accretive for us. We also think it's earnings accretive for us.

So it, again, is something we wanted to do years and years ago, but they weren't ready to do it. We're extremely excited about doing it. The location, Italy's in a renaissance. It's got one of the positive growths in the EU. And these are the kind of deals we want to do. Buy it at the right price. It's accretive to NAV, accretive to earnings, but it's also high quality with the right retailers. And we couldn't have picked a better asset in terms of this.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

Thanks, David.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Thank you, buds.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Greg McGinniss from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Greg McGinniss (Managing Director)

Hey, good evening. David, following up on your comment regarding the focus on B mall investments in 2025, 2026, are you able to talk about the types of investments that you make in those malls, whether it differs from how you would approach investing in an A mall, and then any detail on the magnitude of those investments and expected return? Thanks.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

I'll just be very generic. Brian can lay it out for you later, but to me, it's a whole combination of things. These are important assets in the communities. We've been focused on the bigger assets historically, so it's a combination of adding boxes, updating the look and feel of the place, restaurants, tenants, everyone changes a little bit differently, but I'll just take Smith Haven as an example. We're going to, I got to be careful because I don't know if I can announce it, even though the lease is signed, so I think an announcement's coming. This is in basically eastern Long Island where we're going to update, renovate the property, add a great retailer in a huge box. We just added Primark. The hospital just opened up one of their health facilities, and that will probably be about a 12% return over the next couple of years.

And it'll be a renovated, rejuvenated asset that, because of all the progress we've made in the bigger ones, we're able to kind of re-energize our focus on an asset like that. But the list of those is long. So Brian can go through it, but that's just one that kind of jumps to top of mind. And to my team, I'm supposed to see a press release on that, but I haven't seen it. So please move that along.

Greg McGinniss (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Phone one disconnected.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Hello.

Operator (participant)

I'm sorry. Next question is from Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. Good evening, David. Good to hear you. And I'm sure the people out at Smithtown will appreciate the dollar spent. Question on your guidance for '25. Obviously, very good versus expectations despite the headwinds on the interest expense that Brian laid out. So my question is, is this back to sort of the old Simon days, pre-pandemic, where you guys just had strong internal growth that was accelerating, or is this more about removing OPI drag from the future? I'm just trying to understand if this is just all the signed, but not yet leases taking effect, or if truly the underlying portfolio is accelerating and we're going back to where you guys used to be pre-pandemic when the core portfolio was really just humming along.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

The $12.40-$12.65 excludes Catalyst. The other investments in OPI are small. So they're, and again, they're neither. FFO is probably the wrong way to look at those investments, but they run through FFO anyway because they're one's an asset management company and then one's an e-commerce marketplace and an e-commerce retailer. And so FFO is the least important metric on those, but they run through our numbers. So Catalyst is outside of that number. And I don't like the word old, Alex, but yeah, no, we're growing the portfolio. We said at least 3%. I think we said at least 3% the last two years, maybe three. I don't remember. Three years, Brian's saying. So hopefully, we can beat that. And that's basically all the stuff that leads to that, which is leasing, focused operational margins, events, Simon Brand Ventures, replacing boxes, restaurants, all of the basics.

We still see that. I think we've had a pretty good run. Forget the big juice that we got back from getting back to business after we were unreasonably shut down by various state governments. We've been clipping along 4-plus%, even though we guided to 3%. Let's see how this year transpires. We've got a lot going for us, and the biggest of which is a great team, leasing's focused. We feel that there's upside in the portfolio across the board, but primarily in our historical bread and butter properties. We're going to do smart deals. We're prudent. We've got a hell of a balance sheet. I think, and we're lease, lease, lease. I think it's not overly complicated.

And then Catalyst, it's obviously a big six months as they go through it, and we'll have a better sense of kind of it will be positive, even though for sure, we'll have a better idea of FFO as the year progresses. But just to be clear, it's not in our number as of what we've guided to in the 1,240-1,265.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Good to see the magic.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Thank you, babe.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Juan Sanabria (Managing Director)

Hi. Great to hear your voice, David, as well. Just a question on the leasing. Looks like about 5% is still month to month. I think that's still kind of above where you were pre-COVID in 2019. So just curious on how you think that will evolve over time. And it's just like a second or part B of a question. How has the SNO pipeline changed, if at all, over time? And could you just give us where it is as of year-end, please?

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Juan. It's Brian. SNO at the year-end was about 250 basis points as we brought occupancy on in the fourth quarter, and you saw that in the numbers. Month to month, as we move leases through our leasing process, ultimately, not everything gets signed at the same time. So we put that into that category. Nothing there. We're in the process of renewals in year-end leasing, and so ultimately, we would expect that number to come down throughout the year.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

I just would say.

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

For the life of me, I don't understand why it takes so long, but put that aside.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

We do get our leases signed up, and we are slightly ahead of where we were last year on our renewals and signings, I should say,

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

But we've got commitments on a lot of them.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Vince Tibone from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

Hi. Good evening. I have a few questions related to the mixed-use projects you mentioned earlier. So what is the expected pro-rata spend on the four to five mixed-use projects that you break ground in 2025? And also, what's the common structure? Are you doing this primarily on your own balance sheet or using joint venture partners and the non-retail components? And then also, is it mostly residential, or what are some of the other non-retail property types in there? Sorry for the multiple questions.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. I'm sorry to interrupt you. So it'll be around $400 million-$500 million. And again, when I look at the ones that we're expecting to start this year, they're all JBs, and they will run from residential to a couple of hotels to office. And just to give you a sense of what's in that category, we expect to start a hotel in Roosevelt Field, a big residential project in Brea, office at Clearfork, and we're expanding a hotel at The Domain in Austin, Texas. Those are all pretty much planned for. I would expect Vince to add to that this year. As you know, we've got Northgate under construction. We are going to somewhat accelerate if we can. Anything we're planning in California, I am very nervous about construction costs there given the horrific events in Southern Cal.

So we're looking at a couple of projects there that we might push before what's going on there. But I would expect us to add more to the pipeline. But those are kind of the ones that were pretty much don't even got a shovel on the ground and they over. But those are all pretty much baked in the cake. And in this case, they all happen to be JBs, but that could change.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

No, that's really helpful. If I can maybe squeak in one more clarification. When you say joint ventures, is Simon typically like a 10% or 20% partner in the non-retail portion, or are you an 80% owner of the non-retail? Just trying to get a sense of appetite for non-retail.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. No, no, no. Vince is usually 50/50.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

Yeah. Great. Thank you.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. No problem. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Mike Mueller from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Mike Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. I know you can't talk about the cap pricing, but what's your sense as to how pricing on a comparable quality U.S. assets would compare today? Do you think it'd be similar, stronger, or weaker?

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

Probably U.S. asset. I missed the question. So can you say it one more? I didn't understand. Can you rephrase it?

Mike Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. So yeah, I was saying on the Italy purchase, we know you can't talk about the cap rate and the economics, but just curious as a hypothetical, if you have something comparable quality in the U.S., how would you imagine the pricing would compare to what you were in for in Italy? Do you think it would be stronger, higher cap rate, lower cap rate, something similar? Just curious of the thoughts there.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

It's a good question, and I'm trying to think if I can answer it. I'll try to be artful. I would say let me do a macro statement about Italy. Usually, macro or that, even though properties are powerful and comparable, they'll tend to have higher cap rates than they would to the U.S. And obviously, that calculus is important as to how we think about things.

Mike Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

How was that?Okay. How was that?

Mike Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

That was good. I think you pointed in the direction. There you go. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Caitlin Burrows (Managing Director)

Hi, everyone. Maybe just another question on kind of acquisitions or capital allocation generally, but it sounds like you were targeting the Catalyst acquisition for a while, and I imagine there are many other deals that you've assessed over the past couple of years. So I was wondering if you could talk about the rest of the acquisition properties that might be out there that could be attractive to you and how you're balancing perhaps buying those versus your stock versus more redevelopment versus increasing the dividend, realizing that you're kind of doing a little bit of all of that.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. Listen, I would say, Caitlin, that there's no big deal that is on the drawing board. So we're still interested in a few high-quality transactions. We're working on them. There's no guarantee. But I think since there's no big deal, we're going to do it all. And that's kind of my philosophy right now. So we may, if there were a big deal to do, you can define big deal, but several billion dollars, billions of dollars, let's say, then we might have to readjust our thinking. But I think we're going to the mindset right now is we can do it all. Remember, we delevered. And so we're still working on a couple high-quality transactions, but they're not going to tip the scales from a leverage or financial consequence or capacity point of view. And as you know, development, redevelopment is a three-year project.

Just, you build a house, you buy a house, it's one thing. When you build it, you got three years to write the check every year or every month, unless you have a really nice contractor. So honestly, I think we're going to do it all. Redevelop. We don't mind buying our stock back. Obviously, subject to market conditions, we have the capacity to do so. And then I think redevelopment, development. We announced Nashville. We're really excited about that land. It's in the growth corridor. It's on an interstate. Great, great egress, visibility. Terrific long-term 100-acre site. So we got stuff going on in Asia on development. Nothing really on new development in Europe. So just maybe a couple of things here or there. But we're also looking at expanding some of our better assets like a Woodbury or a Toronto Premium Outlet or Desert Hills, etc.

That stuff is high priority. So right now, obviously, things change, but right now, we're planning to keep operating the same way we're operating. A little bit of everything.

Caitlin Burrows (Managing Director)

Sounds like a lot of opportunity. Great. Thanks.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Haendel St. Juste from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director)

Hey there. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question, and good to hear you, David. My question, I guess, I wanted to go back a bit more to your plan on investing a bit more in your B assets here. I guess I'm curious how you're able to generate the 12% returns versus, I think, the 8% and 9% we've seen in more of your A projects here the last couple of years. Is it the lower rent bases? Are you seeing, I guess, any sense of stronger demand for space in any of those B malls? And is 12% more of an anomaly or more the norm for these B mall investments you're making? Thanks.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. I think the simple thing is right now we have little to no income. But when we always give you a number on return, we're always backing out existing income. But in this case, if you have an empty box or empty space, there's no existing income. And that really drives kind of the incremental return. That's the biggest element of it. And they're not all the 12%, I kind of refer to what we see at Smith Haven, but they're not all that way. But in a lot of cases, it's just empty space or an empty box, and it's income. Basically, there's no offset against it because there's no existing retailer, and then it's just the capital we have to put in to do it.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director)

Got it. I appreciate that. And just thinking about that 12%, is that kind of reflective of the incremental risk return or risk premium perhaps for some of these assets? Just curious how that perhaps would.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

I think that's a good point, but I would recharacterize. So let's say there's a and again, our B malls are probably some people's better than A malls. But let's just take a B mall, and where we think the value very simplistically is an A cap rate, okay? We wouldn't want to invest in that asset at a 6, okay, return because that would be diluted to NAV. So part of what you're going to see and are seeing is we really look to improve that kind of portfolio is if we can't make NAV accretive investments, we won't do it. So we're better off in that case just managing the cash flow to the best of our abilities. So I understand your point. I kind of recharacterized it not because of risk. It's not really risk adjusted.

It's more what's the value of the asset, and will this add to the value of that asset? Follow what I'm saying?

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director)

Absolutely. And that's partly what I was getting at. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Linda Tsai from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Linda Tsai (Senior Analyst)

Yes. Hi. Regarding the comment that you buy only really good stuff, after carrying, do you see more opportunities abroad or domestically?

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

I would say mostly domestic just because it's got to be really unique, which is what we saw the mall, which is rare. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I think I talked to them hard to remember, but it was definitely a couple of years pre-COVID. So I just think there's very few jewels like that in Europe that make sense with what we do in Europe, if you understand what I'm saying. So we're not going to buy a mall in Europe just to have one mall in Europe. So the outlet business, we view a little differently. So I would say because of that, that'd be really unique and more domestic. I'd say more domestic.

Linda Tsai (Senior Analyst)

Thanks. And then, how are you feeling about the consumer right now? And high versus low-end, U.S. versus Europe?

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

I think they're very cautious in Europe. The U.S. consumer, I'm still nervous about the lower-end consumer. They're better to the upper income. I feel pretty confident about that. A lot of whipsaw is going on left and right, so it's very hard to predict. Generally, still concerned about the lower-end, pretty bullish on the upper to high-end consumer.

Linda Tsai (Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from Ronald Kamdem from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem (Managing Director)

Great. Hey, if we could just go back to sort of the strong performance last year, wondering if we could dig in a little bit between sort of the outlets and the mall business, any sort of call out what drove the performance? Is it traffic? Is it higher ticket prices, so on and so forth? And the second part of the question is really, are you seeing any impact from the strong dollar on tourist centers? Thanks.

Brian McDade (EVP and CFO)

So, Ron, it's Brian. There wasn't a big bifurcation kind of between asset classes. I think all three platforms performed exceedingly well. You did see the outlets and the mills, which generally skew a little bit more value-oriented, outperform a little bit in the fourth quarter. It wasn't really kind of an anomaly, just kind of expected performance. And we've not seen any real-time impact yet to the tourist-oriented centers, but we're February 4th, so still early in the year. But we would expect to see, or if we continue to see dollar strength, can see some impact over the course of the year, certainly in our translations of our foreign earnings.

Ronald Kamdem (Managing Director)

Thanks so much.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Yeah. And I would just say when we talk about re-energizing on the assets, don't just think malls. Think outlets, think a few of our mills. So it's a wide portfolio focus. Not just when people talk B, they always think malls, but for us, it's across our entire domestic portfolio.

Ronald Kamdem (Managing Director)

Helpful. Thank you.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to David Simon for any closing comments.

David Simon (Chairman, CEO and President)

Okay. Thank you, everybody, and look forward to talking in the future. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.