InvenTrust Properties Corp. Q3 FY2024 Earnings Call

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to InvenTrust's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Elliot, and I'll be your conference call operator today. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that today's presentation is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the investors section of the company's website at inventrustproperties.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Dan Lombardo, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending our call today. Joining me from the InvenTrust team is DJ Busch, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mike Phillips, Chief Financial Officer; Christy David, Chief Operating Officer; and Dave Heimberger, Chief Investment Officer. Following the team's prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. As a reminder, some of today's comments may contain forward-looking statements about the company's views on the future of our business and financial performance, including forward-looking earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of today's date, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call or that are in the quarterly financial supplemental or press release. In addition, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. The comparable GAAP financial measures are included in this quarter's earnings materials, which are posted on our Investor Relations website. With that, I will turn the call over to DJ.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning to everyone joining us today. I'm going to provide some highlights regarding our third quarter results, including our inaugural follow-on equity offering that was executed in September and the opportunities that lie ahead for InvenTrust. Mike will discuss our financial results and provide some color regarding yet another increase to our 2024 guidance, and Christy will end our prepared remarks with additional commentary regarding our leasing efforts and operations. Since listing the company in October of 2021, InvenTrust has executed on all fronts of its simple and focused strategy. The company has delivered above-sector average same-property NOI growth, above-average FFO per share growth, acquired nearly $500 million of assets, including the consolidation of our only joint venture, resulting in the entire IVT portfolio being wholly owned, received an investment-grade credit rating and completed a private placement debt offering. As many of you may recall, the company did not raise equity at the time of the listing. Simply put, our estimated cost of equity through an IPO was not going to be optimally aligned with external growth opportunities. Therefore, we chose to be patient, self-fund our growth with our low-levered balance sheet, prove to the public market that our simple and focused strategy in the Sun Belt can deliver above-sector average cash flow growth over a multiyear period and wait for our cost of capital to improve. After three years, we took advantage of a stronger capital market backdrop and raised roughly $250 million during the quarter through a follow-on equity offering. The offering was extremely well received by both existing and new shareholders. In addition to the equity offering, following the end of the quarter, the company increased the capacity on its unsecured credit facility by $150 million to $500 million, while extending the maturity to January of 2029. Through the equity raise and the upsized facility, InvenTrust effectively added nearly $400 million of additional liquidity, replenishing an already conservative balance sheet, and we're putting the fresh capital to work in an accretive manner. To that end, on the investment front, in the third quarter, we closed on our second property in the Phoenix MSA, Scottsdale North Marketplace, for $23 million. Subsequent to the quarter, we closed on our second property in the Richmond, Virginia, market, a Wegman's-anchored community center, for $62.1 million. Due to our increased optimism surrounding the improving transaction market, coupled with our additional capital, we have increased our net investment activity guidance for the year accordingly to a range of $159 million to $215 million. Moving to operations, lower bad debt and higher retention rates are once again fueling better than expected results. Leased occupancy climbed to 97% during the quarter, up both sequentially and on a year-over-year basis, setting another new high watermark for the portfolio. Blended spreads remained healthy in the high single digits with a retention rate of 93%. Strong operating results across the portfolio are driving the increase to both same-property NOI growth and FFO per share for 2024. Internal growth remains remarkably healthy and now will be supported by additional external growth efforts as we move from 2024 to 2025. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Mike to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, DJ. Same-property NOI for the quarter was $45.5 million, growing 6.5% over the third quarter of last year. The quarter-to-date increases were primarily driven by an increase in base rent of over 300 basis points, of which 150 basis points were embedded rent bumps. Net expense reimbursement contributed approximately 170 basis points to the increase for the quarter with better collections from revenues deemed uncollectible adding 150 basis points. Year-to-date, same-property NOI was $123.8 million, growing 4.2% over the first nine months of 2023. NAREIT FFO for the first nine months of the year was $91.8 million or $1.34 per diluted share, an increase of 7.2% over the same time period last year. Year-to-date, core FFO grew 4.8% to $1.30 per share compared to the same time period of 2023. Components of FFO growth are primarily driven by same-property NOI of $0.07 and NOI from acquisitions of $0.06, offset by interest expense, G&A and lower interest income of approximately $0.06. As DJ discussed, the successful capital raise strengthened and reloaded our balance sheet, providing us additional capital and flexibility to execute on our long-term strategy. InvenTrust's net leverage ratio dropped to 20%, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA is 3.6 times on a trailing 12-month basis. Our $72.5 million in variable rate debt was paid off, bringing our weighted average interest rate to 4% at the end of the quarter and our weighted average maturity to 3.6 years. Our remaining debt is now 100% fixed. Finally, we declared an annualized dividend payment of $0.91 per share, a 5% increase over last year. Moving to guidance, due to our strong operating fundamentals, we are raising our full year guidance again this quarter. The new guidance range for the company's 2024 full year same-property NOI growth is 4.25% to 5%. Our new NAREIT FFO guidance is now $1.74 to $1.77 per share, and our core FFO guidance is up to $1.70 to $1.73 per share. Full year details on our guidance assumptions are provided in our supplemental disclosure filed yesterday. And with that, I'm going to turn the call over to Christy to discuss our portfolio activity.

Thanks, Mike. Our portfolio continues to benefit from the positive fundamentals in the strip center space and the migration to and growth in the Sun Belt markets. As a reminder, 97% of our ABR is generated from Sun Belt assets with the goal of getting to 100% in the future. Additionally, supply remains limited, creating increased demand for high-quality retail space. As retailers struggle to find new space to satisfy their internal growth plans, they continue to look for creative ways as it relates to the store size and location within our centers. All of these conditions allow the InvenTrust team to remain focused on transforming retailer leasing demand into increased ABR and additional portfolio occupancy at our properties. For the nine months ending in September, our total portfolio lease occupancy ended at 97%, up 60 basis points from last quarter, and at an all-time high. Our anchor space lease occupancy finished at 99.8%, an increase of 70 basis points from last quarter, also at an all-time high, and our small shop leased occupancy ended the quarter at 92%. Our signed-but-not-open pipeline is 280 basis points, which equates to about $7.2 million of additional income coming online into our portfolio over the next several quarters. As of September 30, InvenTrust's total portfolio ABR was $19.83, an increase of 2.4% compared to 2023. For the quarter, we posted blended comparable leasing spreads of 9.8%. Spreads for new leases were 14.2% and renewals were 9.2%. The retention rate was 93%, and 90% of our renewals have embedded rent escalators of 3% or higher. Year-to-date, our blended comparable leasing spreads were 10.4%. We signed 160 leases for over 1,094,000 square feet so far this year, with additional leases in our pipeline at various stages of negotiation. Tenants signed during the quarter include Ulta and Skechers. Currently, our portfolio is nearly at 100% occupancy for anchor tenants, with only one available space being kept offline for redevelopment and retaining opportunity in the future. These opportunities exist throughout our portfolio, and we will be focused on executing these accretive strategic remerchandising and redevelopment projects for the next several years. In closing, I would like to take an opportunity to update you on recent weather events. As many of you are aware, we have had several hurricanes and significant storms in the South over the past several weeks. Thankfully, all InvenTrust's employees in the affected area made it through the storms safely. IVT was fortunate that our assets only sustained minimal damage and debris cleanup. We continue to provide aid and stand by our communities and tenants to support their needs and help them recover. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks, and you can open the line for questions.

First question comes from Andrew Reale with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Just one on the acquisition market and external opportunities. Just curious if the reversal in interest rates since the time of your equity issuance has put a damper on the number of external opportunities you're seeing? And also curious, in your view, has the election uncertainty stalled any potential sellers?

Yes. Thanks, Andrew. Our acquisition pipeline and what you see that's implied in the guidance is things that we've been working on for quite some time. So the reversal of interest rates hasn't had an impact on what we're currently chasing from an acquisition standpoint. And really, to be honest, in our markets, with the type of product that we're looking at, we haven't seen much change given the recent movements. Going into this week or next with the election, it tends to traditionally be more quiet. I would expect that transaction market to open back up after there's a little bit more certainty, but that's just speculation. But going back to what I said, the types of markets and the types of product that we're looking at, we've actually seen more products hit the market, but also more potential buyers as well, which, to us, is a pretty healthy environment, and I would expect that to continue in 2025, which is why you saw the changes that we made as it relates to our expectations.

Okay, thanks. And just another one for me. Bad debt overall has been trending favorably, but would be curious if you could just talk a bit about your tenants and more discretionary categories, home goods, hobby, maybe full-service restaurants, too. Just curious on how sales and traffic are holding up? And how do you think about renewals in some of those categories if consumers continue to pull back on discretionary spend?

No, it's a great question. Anecdotally, within our portfolio, we haven't seen much of a change. Sales have definitely stabilized after some impressive growth over the last couple of years. The value areas continue to perform very well. In the hobby category, many banners have been looking to expand their presence. Regarding food service and full-service restaurants, the types of restaurants in our portfolio are generally middle-income, lower price point establishments, even when prices are higher. We don't have many high-end, fine dining restaurants. Well-capitalized chain restaurants are still doing quite well. Fast food and quick service continue to perform strongly and remain one of the best performers in our portfolio. The occupancy cost ratios in that category are very healthy. While some restaurants, franchises, and chains have struggled, our most valuable and in-demand space is second-generation restaurant space because it requires lower capital investment to get started.

Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you.

We now turn to Dori Kesten with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks, good morning. A few of your peers have started to put up some guardrails around 2025 same-store NOI growth. Do you have any interest in adding your early thoughts to that?

We noticed that, Dori. Thanks for the question. One of our goals over the past couple of years has been to establish a sustainable model that supports consistent growth in same-property NOI and, more importantly, cash flow. We believe we are in a strong position. I can share that we have nearly 70% of our leasing efforts completed for next year. Unless there are significant changes in bad debt, we anticipate a similar growth trajectory to what we have experienced over the last two years.

So with the current portfolio, where do you put that more normalized bad debt? Is that like closer to 75 basis points?

Yes. The 75 basis points is typically our starting benchmark, and we will adjust that as necessary. In our portfolio, we aren't benefiting significantly from out-of-period adjustments to offset this. However, our bad debt reserve remains conservative, similar to many of our peers. We generally use 75 basis points as our reference point as we enter the year and will make adjustments as needed.

Okay. And then regarding your noncore assets, can you give us an update on where you see the aggregate value there? And if your definition of noncore has widened as your acquisition pipeline has grown?

Yes, that's a great question. We've always mentioned that our focus is primarily in the Sun Belt region. However, we do own two properties located in the mid-Atlantic corridor, specifically in Maryland. These properties are excellent, with one anchored by Safeway and the other by Trader Joe's. They might be considered noncore for InvenTrust due to their location, but they are certainly valuable assets for anyone else. We are not looking to sell them either. Over the next few years, we plan to carefully recycle capital when the timing is right and when we have a purpose for that capital. If opportunities arise in markets that better align with InvenTrust, we will speed up the recycling of our noncore assets. Regarding California, we believe it remains a strong market that's always been valued highly. We will continue to evaluate our position there. We have a robust portfolio in California, and our decision will depend on how we can reinvest that capital effectively.

Okay, thank you.

We now turn to Daniel Purpura with Green Street. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. The retail environment has been strong recently. Have you seen any changes to this environment? Or do you expect continuation of these same trends?

As far as what do you mean by the retail market? Are you talking about the transaction market or the underlying fundamentals?

The underlying fundamentals, demand for space, things like that.

The demand for space remains very strong. We are at an all-time high in leased occupancy at 97%. In addition to that 97%, there are over 100 basis points of deals currently in progress. While not all of these will contribute to occupancy, and some may fall through, there is substantial demand even beyond the current occupancy levels, which is a new situation for us. Due to our occupancy rate, we are also managing to fill spaces that have been vacant for a long time. This demand is widespread across various categories. To reiterate my earlier comments, food service is still a very strong category for us, despite some slowdown in sales, possibly linked to changes in inflation. Healthcare and services remain strong as well. We are observing a broad-based demand in both our small shop and anchor space, which is essentially fully occupied at this time.

Got you. And then if I could ask one more. With the company going public at the beginning of this month, do you have any interest in looking at convenience centers or any non-anchored centers?

Yes, we do own a few non-anchored centers. At the end of the day, we are somewhat property agnostic. We are mainly focused on finding the right retail spaces that have a necessity-based component, particularly in markets where we know we can increase rents. Most of those markets are ones we are already in, but we are trying to establish a presence in a few new areas as well. If you look at our portfolio, it includes small unanchored community centers and larger power centers, depending on the market and retail node. We've been successful in increasing rents across all formats.

Got it. Thank you.

We have no further questions, so I'll now hand back to DJ Busch for any final remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us. We look forward to seeing, hopefully, many of you next month in Las Vegas. Until then, have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, today's call has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.