Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE:SKT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE:SKT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 16, 2024
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Ashley Curtis: Good morning. I'm Ashley Curtis, Assistant Vice President of Investor Relations, and I would like to welcome you to Tanger Inc.'s Fourth Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Yesterday evening, we issued our earnings release as well as our supplemental information package and investor presentation. This information is available on our IR website, investors.tanger.com. Please note this call may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those projected. We direct you to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties. During the call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G.
Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and in our supplemental information. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast for a period of time in the future. As such, it is important to note that management's comments include time-sensitive information that may only be accurate as of today's date, February 16, 2024. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared comments, the call will be opened for your question. [Operator Instructions] On the call today will be Stephen Yalof, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Bilerman, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer. In addition, other members of our leadership team will be available for Q&A.
I will now turn the call over to Stephen. Please go ahead.
Stephen Yalof: Thank you, Ashley, and good morning. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter that closed out a milestone year for Tanger. We realized robust organic growth, the same center NOI grew 5.4% for the quarter and 6.2% for the year, which was ahead of our expectations. This was driven by record leasing velocity and positive rent spreads. We delivered earnings ahead of expectations with core FFO of $1.96 per share, which was 7.1% ahead of last year. In the fourth quarter, we executed on our external growth initiatives, adding three new centers to our portfolio in Nashville, Tennessee; Asheville, North Carolina; and Huntsville, Alabama. These assets are consistent with our long-term strategy of investing in dominant open-air retail centers in markets that benefit from outsized residential and tourism growth and can immediately benefit from Tanger's leasing, marketing, and operating platforms.
Tanger Outlets Nashville, our new development in the fast growing city of Nashville, Tennessee, open to strong retailer and customer response in October. This 291,000 square foot open-air center offers shopping and dining across seven retail buildings complimented by the green, a unique place making community space. Tanger Nashville reflects our commitment to diversifying and enhancing the shopping experience for our customers with nearly one quarter of the center's dynamic assortment new to Tanger's portfolio or first to the outlet channel. In November, we acquired Tanger Outlets Asheville, a 382,000 square foot open-air shopping center in Asheville, North Carolina, a dynamic and growing tourism driven market. The center is currently occupied by a diverse mix of brands that include leading home furnishings providers as well as iconic apparel, footwear, and accessory brands.
The center's sales at the time of this acquisition put this property in the bottom quartile of our portfolio. However, we believe there is great upside opportunity as Tanger Asheville will greatly benefit from the market's growth and infrastructure investments combined with the impact of our branding, marketing, leasing, and operations over time. In late November, we acquired Bridge Street Town Centre, an 825,000 square foot open-air lifestyle center that is part of a larger mixed use development in Huntsville, Alabama, which is one of the fastest growing markets in the country. The center comprises over 80 retail stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues and serves as the dominant shopping destination in the market. With occupancy just below 90%, we believe we have the opportunity to lease and merchandise the center with elevated brands and traffic generating uses leveraging the Tanger brand and platform.
We continue to see positive trends across our business. Leasing activity remains strong as we grew our portfolio with new and existing tenants. Eight consecutive quarters of positive leasing spreads reflect both the value of our properties and the demand from retailers. We've maintained high occupancy as we successfully backfilled vacant spaces and elevated our tenant mix across all categories. Our diverse tenancy continues to contribute to driving more shopper visits, longer dwell times, and bigger spends, while adding to the vibrancy of our centers and enhancing the overall shopping experience. Year-end occupancy was 97.3% compared to 97% at year-end of 2022. Occupancy was down 70 basis points versus last quarter driven by the acquisitions of Tanger Asheville and Bridge Street Town Centre in the fourth quarter.
2023 was a record year for leasing productivity. We executed 544 leases totaling over 2.3 million square feet, which is 9% greater than 2022. We accomplished this while elevating and diversifying our tenant mix and driving strong rent spreads. Blended average rental rates were 13.3% up 320 basis points year-over-year with 37. 5% spreads on re-tenanted space and 11.2% on renewals. Our high occupancy and strong tenant demand allows us to be proactive and asset manage our centers, creating additional value while optimizing the tenant mix and center configurations. In 2024, we will continue this focus on tenant and brand elevation with an aim to drive our assets revenue growth while enhancing the overall center utility and shopper experience and adding amenities, restaurants, and entertainment to our user profile.
In this connection, we will proactively re-tenant and select stores with more productive brands rather than renew the existing user. This may have a near-term impact on our renewal metrics, but we believe the strategic asset management is important to drive long-term sustainable rent growth while we continue to elevate the quality and value of our centers. December sales and traffic comps were positive continuing the trend of improvement we realized during the quarter and culminating with a strong holiday retail season year-over-year. Retailers employed promotional activity to create value for consumers and shoppers responded positively to these offers. While athletic, athleisure, and family apparel saw continued gains, discretionary categories were more challenged.
We are encouraged by the recent sales and traffic growth and are optimistic that this trend will continue into 2024. The Tanger Digital Loyalty app that launched in 2023 continues to be an important initiative for us. Usage continues to grow and we are encouraged by the program's ability to personalize offers, drive additional shopping visits, and provide us with important information about our shoppers that helps us target our marketing more efficiently and improve the shopping experience. As we continue through 2024, our priorities remain consistent. Deliver organic growth driven by strategic leasing and proactive asset management. Maximize traffic and shopper engagement through measurable and relevant digital communications and compelling offers in collaboration with our tenants.
Further intensify our real estate over time, including out parcel activation and unlocking additional other revenue opportunities. And selectively pursuing the acquisition and development of additional open-air centers, leveraging the strength of the Tanger platform and balance sheet. We are proud of the value we've generated for our shareholders and tenants. Our track record of positive results underscores our ability to unlock embedded opportunities within our existing portfolio and to selectively pursue external growth. We remain steadfast in our commitment to delivering value, fostering strong tenant relationships, and maximizing returns for our investors. I'd like to offer my sincere appreciation to our unmatched team, as well as our customers and our shareholders for their continued support.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Michael.
Michael Bilerman: Thank you, Steve. Today, I'm going to discuss our financial results, which came in ahead of our full year guidance, our strong balance sheet position, our external growth initiative, and I'm going to end with our 2024 guidance. Our fourth quarter results came in ahead of expectations with Core FFO of $0.52 a share compared to $0.47 a share in the fourth quarter of the prior year. For the year, Core FFO was $1.96 versus $1.83 in the prior year. The upside versus our recent guidance was the result of higher core growth and our external growth activity. Same center NOI increased 5.4% for the quarter and 6.2% for the year driven by gains in occupancy and strong rent spreads with higher base rents and higher expense recoveries, minor contributions from out-of-period income, as well as continued operating efficiencies and the benefits of a milder winter.
Our proactive balance sheet management and focus on liquidity supported our accretive investment capital deployment. In total, we invested more than $400 million on three new centers, almost $300 million of which was deployed during the fourth quarter. We funded these transactions through cash on hand, our available liquidity, and common shares issued under our ATM program. During the fourth quarter, we sold 3.4 million common shares at a weighted average price of $25.77 per share, generating gross proceeds of $87.3 million. Post the transactions and our capital markets activities, our balance sheet remains well positioned to support our internal and external growth initiatives with low leverage, a largely fixed rate balance sheet, minimal debt maturities until late 2026, and ample free cash flow after dividends.
At the end of the year, we had $1.6 billion of pro rata net debt and $507 million of availability on our unsecured lines of credit. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA at pro rata share was 5.8 times for the 12 months ended December 31st. The sequential increase in this ratio reflects the external growth spending that was deployed in the fourth quarter without the commensurate benefit of a full year of earnings from those assets. Pro forma for a full year of EBITDA from the three new centers, we estimate that our leverage ratio would be between 5.2 and 5.3 times, still one of the lowest in the retail and REIT sectors. In terms of our interest rate hedges, $325 million of new forward starting swaps commenced on February 1st of 2024, the date that $300 million of our prior swaps had expired.
These new swaps fixed the adjusted SOFR at a weighted average base rate of 4% compared to the prior rate of 0.5%. Since our last call, we added $75 million of swaps. And in aggregate, the $325 million of new swaps have varying maturities through January of 2027, so we've effectively fixed this debt for another two and a half years on average. And including this activity, over 1.5 billion or 95% of our debt is fixed rate and we have no significant debt maturities until late in 2026. Our quarterly cash dividend remains well covered with a continued low payout ratio providing free cash flow to support our growth. Now turning to our guidance for 2024, we expect core FFO per share in a range of $2.02 to $2.10, which is up 3% to 7% over 2023, reflected continued organic growth and the contribution of the external growth activity that we completed in 2023, moderately offset by higher interest rates from the expiring swaps.
We expect same center NOI to be in the range of 2% to 4%, which benefits from the strong leasing activity to date and the impact of the proactive re-tenanting that Steve discussed, which could result in some short-term downtime. We expect recurring CapEx in the range of 50 million to 60 million, reflecting a higher re-tenanting rate in 2024 and the continued investment in our portfolio. For additional details on our key assumptions, Please see our release issues last night. And finally, we are greatly looking forward to seeing many of you at upcoming investor and analyst events later this month as well as into March. We are participating in Wolf Research's Virtual Real Estate Conference on February 28th, Citi's Global Property CEO Conference in Florida from March 4th to the 6th, a tour and management discussion at our newest development, Tanger Outlets Nashville on March 11th as part of ICR's Nashville Multi-Property REIT tour together with Highwoods, MAA, Ryman and Peak.
In addition, we'll be touring Tanger Outlets National Harbor in connection with Evercore ISI's Multi-Property DC REIT tour on March 25th, and we'll be participating in BofA's New York City Retail REIT headquarters tour on March 27th. Please reach out to the respective firms if you'd like to join and meet with us at any of these events. I'd now like to open up the call for questions. Operator?
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