Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 12, 2024
Federal Realty Investment Trust misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.76 EPS, expectations were $1.64. Federal Realty Investment Trust isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Federal Realty Investment Trust Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Leah Brady, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Leah Brady: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for Federal Realty's fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call are Don Wood, Federal's Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Berkes, President and Chief Operating Officer; Dan G., Executive Vice President, Finance -- Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; Jan Sweetnam, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer and Wendy Seher, Executive Vice President, Eastern Region President. As well as other members of our executive team, they are available to take your questions at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. A reminder, that certain matters discussed on this call may be deemed to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements include any annualized or projected information, as well as statements referring to expected or anticipated events or results including guidance. Although Federal Realty believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, Federal Realty's future operations and its actual performance may differ materially from the information in our forward-looking statements and we can give no assurance that these expectations can be attained. The earnings release and supplemental reporting package that we issued tonight, our annual report filed on Form 10-K and our other financial disclosure documents provide a more in-depth discussion of risk factors that may affect our financial condition and our results of operations.
Given the number of participants on the call, we kindly ask that you limit yourself to one question during the Q&A portion of our call. If you have additional questions please re-queue. And with that, I will turn the call over to Don Wood to begin our discussion of our fourth quarter results. Don?
Donald Wood: Thanks, Leah. And good afternoon, everybody. Well, 2023 is in the books. With a strong $1.64 recorded in the fourth quarter, finish off what is an all-time record earnings year at $6.55 of FFO per share. That's happening, despite over $600 million of construction in progress not yet contributing and higher interest expense that cost the Trust an additional $0.27 per share when compared with the average rate in 2022. Yet, with comparable money cost between 2022 and 2023, FFO growth per share would have been 8%, right up there with our best pre-COVID years. It says a lot in terms of the power of the portfolio that has grown bottom line FFO per share at a compound annual growth rate of 4.5% over the last 20 years in addition to an average uninterrupted dividend yield of roughly 3% or better.
That includes the great financial crisis, that includes the global pandemic, it includes everything, a better portfolio to own for long term investors in our opinion. It also feels like we're getting closer to a time where accelerated acquisition activity coupled with our redevelopment and remerchandising expertise on new acquisitions could boost that growth rate over the next few years. As far as today’s environment demand continues to exceed supply for the highest quality assets in the closed-in suburbs and with the impacts of the pandemic in the rearview mirror and lack of new supply coming on, I don't see this positive supply demand dynamic changing anytime soon. Our average in-place rents portfolio wide are $31.60 per foot and the comparable retail deals we did in the fourth quarter were at $44.57 a foot and we're at $36.75 for the entire year.
I've been hearing that our rents are high and can't be pushed further for the better part of the last 20 years. And I guess on a relative basis they are. Better properties have higher rents. Better properties have higher tenant sales and profitability too. Frankly, it's obvious. Percentage rents are an interesting barometer on this topic. While we push for a strong fixed rent in nearly every lease, tenant sales above a threshold level equates to additional rent. Percentage rent and overage rent totaled $6 million in the fourth quarter and $19.3 million for the year, an all-time record, which broke the $18.8 million record from the year earlier. Fourth quarter retail leasing continued to crank with another 100 comparable retail deals done at 12% rollover on a cash basis, 23% on a straight line basis.
These comparable retail deals account for virtually all 98% of the total retail deals done in the quarter, making them representative of the entire portfolio, not just a fraction. It was a great leasing year, the third in a row where we exceeded 2 million square feet, roughly 25% more than the five year average during 2015 and 2019. Just to pound the point home, those cash basis rollover increases come on comp of leases that have had what I believe to be the highest contractual rent bumps throughout their term in the sector, making that rollover all the more impressive. Contractual rent bumps for the deals done in the fourth quarter were roughly 2.5% blended anchor and small shop, with new and renewal small shop at approximately 3%. The weighted average contractual rent bumps for the entire retail portfolio, anchor and small shop not just one quarter’s worth, but the whole thing approximates 2.25%.
Best in the business as far as we can tell. The sustained leasing volume and related economics bode well for the future, especially the contractual rent loss. We ended the year with overall portfolio leased at 94.2%, pretty strong but with room to grow. That breaks down between anchors at 96% leased and shop space at 90.7%. When you look at our occupancy possibilities going forward by looking at our past, it's reasonable to expect another 100 basis points of small shelf occupancy and another 200 basis points of anchor occupancy improvement in the coming 12 to 18 months, depending, of course, on the extent of future bankruptcies that we are not seeing today, they're not at all obvious. The residential and office product at our mixed use properties continues to outperform competing supply in non-mixed use environments and stood at 96% leased for both our comparable resi and comparable mixed use office product at year end, while commanding premium rents.
Progress leasing up our mixed use office under development 915 Meeting Street at Pike & Rose and Santana West has been measurably stronger with 215,000 square feet newly leased or in the final stages of the LOI to sign the lease process. That includes the first signed deal at Santana West with Acrisure, the global FinTech leader to the insurance sector. With those deals complete, 915 Meeting Street at Pike & Rose will be 80% leased And Santana West will be nearly half leased up. I go through all this to really try to hammer home the obvious health of the business centered around leasing high quality retail centric properties in the closed-in suburbs of America's greatest cities. While bottom line results are and will continue to be muted by the higher, but certainly historically reasonable cost of capital that is stabilizing, rents will likely continue to adjust upward over time to that reality.
This is especially true for tenants in locations and affluent areas where customers can absorb higher costs. I hope that higher interest rates don't cloud investors appreciation of the strong underlying business fundamentals that exist today and likely tomorrow. With that backdrop, we're also really excited to add a substantial expansion to the 87 unit first phase of residential product that we built at Bala Cynwyd Shopping Center in suburban Philadelphia a few years back. The first phase opened strong and remains fully leased with growing rents. Strong supply and demand dynamics in this closed-in part of Philadelphia's mainline along with construction costs moderating means that we're able to build an additional 217 residential units, 16,000 feet of additional retail and the covered parking spaces to service it all.
On the former Lord & Taylor site at Bala Cynwyd. The shopping center features an expansive tenant roster including an LA fitness gym, a full service grocer, restaurants and necessary services, which are often cited as the reason residents are choosing it. Projects should get underway later this year beginning with demo of the old Lord & Taylor building which should yield a 7% cash on cost return when stabilized, throw out a double digit unlevered IRR based on the rent growth we've seen and expect and be funded from free cash flow. Okay. On to 2024 where we certainly expect another record earnings year with an energized team and a strong sense of optimism. Dan will go into a bunch more detail and I'll turn it over to him and then open it up to your questions.
Dan?
Dan Guglielmone: Thank you, Don. Hello everyone. Our reported FFO per share of $1.64 for the fourth quarter and $6.55 for the year were up 3.8% and 3.6% respectively versus 2022. POI was up 6.5% in fourth quarter, a more impressive 7.2% for the year. Primary drivers for the strong performance in 2023: first, POI growth in our comparable portfolio up almost 5% on a cash basis excluding prior period rents and term fees, driven by both higher rents and higher average occupancy over the course of the year, driven by continued strength, consumer traffic and tenant sales, particularly in our mixed use assets driving parking revenues and overage percentage rent higher. Effectively, controlling property level expenses and having a lower credit reserve than we originally forecast.
Second, contributions from our redevelopment and expansion pipeline, which came in at the upper end of our forecast. And lastly, continued focus on overall expense controls, the G&A came in below expectations. This was offset primarily by higher interest rate headwinds totaling $0.27. To reiterate Don's point earlier, with a consistent cost of debt versus 2022, FFO per share growth year-over-year would have been 8% in 2023. Reflecting an exceptionally strong year of growth at the property level. GAAP based comparable POI growth came in at 4% for the fourth quarter and 3.2% for the year. At a comparable cash basis, excluding the impact of prior period rent and term fees, growth was 5.2% for the fourth quarter and 4.7% for the year. As a reminder, this information including components of prior period rent, term fees and GAAP to cash adjustments can be found on page 12 of our quarterly 8-K supplement.
Our residential portfolio continues to be a source of strength despite headwinds in the broader residential sector. Same store residential POI growth was 5.8% in 4Q along with revenue growth for the quarter at 6%. We expect this strength to continue into 2024. The value proposition providing a premium residential offering on top of an attractive retail amenity base is driving outperformance across our targeted residential portfolio. Also a big driver of our growth in 2023 was continued stabilization of a large portion of our redevelopment and expansion pipeline as $18 million of incremental POI came online from our $750 million in process pipeline. And we expect that to be the case moving forward as well as we add new projects to the lineup and maintain that part of our business as a continued driver of growth.
The scale and skill set of our redevelopment program is a key differentiator for Federal. Notable updates to our in process pipeline, which will contribute an additional $9 million to $12 million of POI in 2024 include $115 million Darien Commons Projects in Connecticut where the residential is fully stabilized 98.4%, occupancy with rents above $4 per foot per month, well above underwriting. Tenant retention rates remain above 90% and the retail component approaches 90% leased. A testament to what a strong retail amenity base can bring to a residential project. At the $190 million 915 Meeting Street at Pike & Rose, Choice Hotels fully moved in as they opened in 4Q, plus they've taken additional space. Sodexo's U.S. headquarters is next on deck to open with multiple other tenants actively negotiating leases.
At Huntington Shopping Center on Long Island, this $85 million Whole Foods anchored redevelopment is over 90% leased with new anchor REI opening during the Q4 in addition to a number of small shops. We feel very good about the yield on this project, approaching the top end of our 7% to 8% return range. For those of you in the New York area, it's worth a trip out to Central Long Island later this year after Whole Foods opens to check it out. As well as the Melville asset a mile further south, both are exceptional retail redevelopments which truly highlight Federal skill set. Additionally in 2023, we incrementally invested over $120 million in properties we only partially owned previously at an effective 8.1% cap rate. No better risk adjusted investment than deploying capital accretively into assets we know extremely well.
Unlevered IRRs on these investments are in the double digits. Now to the balance sheet and an update on our liquidity position. As you all saw, we refinanced our $600 million bond maturities, which came due on January 15 for a combination of a $200 million secured loan on our Bethesda Row property at an effective 5% fixed rate for the first two years of the loan plus two one year extensions that are effectively a four year loan and a $485 million, 3.25% exchangeable notes offering due 2029 raised in early January at an effective 3.9% interest rate all in. Part of that transaction, we purchased a call spread to increase the effective strike price on the convert of 40%, up above $143 per share. So no incremental economic solution unless the common stock trades above that level as adjusted.
Pro forma of the most recent financings and dividends paid, our liquidity stands above $1.3 billion with an undrawn $1.25 billion credit facility and available cash on hand. Plus we have no maturities remaining in 2024 and no material maturities until 2026. Our leverage metrics continue to be strong as fourth quarter annualized net debt to EBITDA stands at 5.9 times and that metric should improve over the course of 2024 and hit our target of 5.5 times in 2025. Fixed charge coverage was 3.6 times at year end and that metric should continue to improve as incremental EBITDA comes online and interest rates fall over the second half of 2024. Now, on to guidance. For 2024, we are introducing an FFO per share forecast of $6.65 to $6.87 per share. This represents over 3% growth at the midpoint of $6.76 and roughly 5% at the high end of the range.
This is driven by comparable growth of 2.5% to 4% when excluding prior period rents and term fees, 3.25% at the midpoint. This assumes occupancy levels will increase from 92.2% at 12/31, up to roughly 93% by year end 2024. Although expect to step back in the Q1 due to expected seasonality post holidays. And then add in additional contributions from our redevelopment and expansion pipeline of $9 million to $12 million. For those modeling, let me direct you to our 8-K on Page 16, where we provide our forecast of stabilized POI and timing by project. Now this will be offset by modestly lower prior period collections expected to be roughly $3 million in 2024 versus $5 million in 2023, modestly lower net term fees forecasted $4 million to $7 million range in 2024 versus $7 million in 2023 and continued drag from higher money costs.
The recent $600 million of notes that we repaid last month at an effective rate of 3.7% versus the new blended cost on our two most recent refinancing of 4.3%. Other assumptions include $100 million to $150 million of spend this year on redevelopment expansions on our existing properties, G&A is forecast in the $48 million to $52 million range for the year and capitalized interest for 2024 is estimated at $18 million to $21 million. We've assumed the total credit reserve consisting bad debt expense, unexpected vacancy, incentive rent relief of 70 basis points to 90 basis points for 2024. More in line with pre pandemic historical averages. And as is our custom, this guidance does not reflect any acquisitions or dispositions in 2024. We will adjust likely upwards as we go, given our opportunistic approach to both.
Quarterly FFO cadence for 2024 is forecast that the Q1 being roughly in line with the fourth quarter of 2023 at a range of $1.60 to $1.65 with sequential growth each quarter thereafter. Please see the detailed summary of this guidance in our 8-K on Page 28 and in our press release. And with that, operator, please open the line for questions.
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