Earnings Call Transcript - RPT Q4 2021

Operator, Operator

Greetings and welcome to the RPT Realty Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Vin Chao, Managing Director of Finance and Investment. Please proceed.

Vin Chao, Managing Director of Finance and Investment

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for RPT's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Additionally, statements made during the call are made as of the date of this call. Listeners to any replay should understand that the passage of time by itself will diminish the quality of the statements made. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, factors and risks could cause actual results to differ from expectations. Certain of these factors are described as risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, that will be filed later today and in our earnings release for the fourth quarter 2021. Certain of these statements made on today's call also involve non-GAAP financial measures. Listeners are directed to our fourth quarter 2021 and third quarter 2021 press releases, which include definitions of those non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures and which are available on our website in the Investors section. I would now like to turn the call over to President and CEO, Brian Harper, and CFO, Mike Fitzmaurice, for their opening remarks, after which, we will open the call for questions.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Thank you, Vin. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. 2021 was a transformational year for RPT across all areas of our business. And we are in a better position today than we have ever been in RPT's history to grow earnings and create value for our shareholders. Compared to 2020, we expect to grow 2022 operating FFO by a robust 32%, primarily driven by strong operating performance, accretive acquisitions, and fee income. We created another growth lever in our fund business for the formation of our net lease platform to take advantage of dislocations between multi-tenant and single-tenant valuations and to enhance our management fee income stream. Through our data-driven approach, we were the buyers of open-air shopping centers in 2021 with Boston becoming our third-largest market in less than a year, vastly improving our geographic footprint and portfolio quality. We leased more space than we have in any year since 2016, and we reported our fourth consecutive year of new lease spreads of 20% or more. We significantly upgraded our tenancy by replacing weaker credits with top investment-grade rated tenants in many cases while our signed not commenced backlog continues to accelerate. We assess all types of capital including equity, debt, and joint venture capital totaling $1.1 billion while addressing a significant amount of our debt maturities through 2024. As was the case since our current senior management team joined RPT over three years ago, our actions in 2021 were viewed through the lens of setting up RPT for bottom-line earnings growth and NAV growth over the next few years that we believe will lead the sector. Starting with investments. Through our strategic investment platforms, we got an early start on the acquisition front and were able to successfully close on almost $550 million of gross multi-tenant acquisitions in 2021. The timing of our acquisitions could not have been better as we used a COVID-induced downturn to curate a portfolio of 10 high-quality assets in strong markets at attractive cap rates. Based on today's market comps and our performance against underwriting, we think these assets would trade about 70 basis points tighter than where we bought them highlighting the opportunistic timing of buying into the short window before cap rates compress considerably. In addition, we believe we have a competitive advantage that our data science approach provides us when evaluating acquisitions. Over the past several months, we have invested in talent and technology to assess risks, analyze evolving trends, and to better project the future success of our property. In the long run this data-driven approach will optimize our capital allocation decision-making, clearly it happened in 2021. Let me put the benefits of our 2021 acquisitions into perspective. In just one year we increased our exposure to the vibrant and growing markets of Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, and Nashville by 12%, while reducing our exposure to Chicago, Detroit, and Cincinnati by 8%. And keep in mind, this was done on an earnings accretive basis with our net acquisition activities, including joint-venture fees and preferred income contributing about $0.08 of operating FFO growth in 2021. Our 2021 acquisitions were also high quality featuring strong grocer anchor tenants such as Wegmans and Whole Foods with sales performance of $775 per square foot. We expect these acquisitions to generate well above trend annual NOI growth of approximately 6% over the next three years, primarily driven by leases signed or in advanced negotiation that have yet to commence totaling $1.6 million in ABR and estimated recovery income. During the fourth quarter, we closed on the acquisition of Highland Lakes in Tampa for $15 million. The current occupancy is just 51%. But during underwriting, we were able to secure a new lease with the premier AA-rated grocer to replace the former Stein Mart box, which will increase occupancy to over 95% upon commencement of the new lease. This is a great example of the kind of value creation opportunities that we are looking for when we can buy vacancy and utilize our strong leasing platform to generate a 150 basis point spread between the stabilized yield of the center and current market cap rates. We also closed the Dedham Shopping Center in Boston through our grocery-focused joint venture platform. This is a great property that sits inside the Boston 128 loop and is anchored by a high volume Stop & Shop that ranked amongst the top 2% of U.S. shopping centers for traffic in 2020. TJX and Dick's also do extremely well here. The center features strong demographics with three-mile household income of $136,000 and a population density of 109,000. It is a great addition to our Boston portfolio. We already have a signed lease with the 25,000 square foot marquee retailer that we look forward to announcing soon. Looking forward, we expect to remain active on the investment front. Our industry-leading acquisition volume in 2021 has led to increased deal flow. Now though cap rates have compressed, our three investment platforms provide us with a competitive advantage through enhanced yields. We have a deep acquisition pipeline with a variety of opportunities ranging from portfolio deals where we can allocate properties across our platforms to larger centers where we can enhance returns by selling parcels to our net lease joint venture. We're also looking at smaller grocery-anchored centers and more granular opportunities in high-income infill suburbs where existing metros where we already have scale. For instance, we are looking at some smaller opportunities outside Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we could curate a portfolio over time with well above portfolio average incomes and densities. These properties are currently owned by Mom & Pops where we could realize significant NOI growth. We're also looking at a hybrid entry center, north of Boston that has two high-performing grocers with tenant sales that would be in the top 5% of our portfolio and where we could enhance our yield by selling out parcels to the net lease joint venture. In our net lease platform, we closed on $191 million of single tenant net lease properties in 2021. We now see opportunities to acquire multi-tenant centers outside of RPT's target markets like we did with our mountain valley acquisition. Inclusion of multi-tenant properties increases the platform's pipeline while preserving the ability to realize multi to single tenant arbitrage opportunities. We expect Tyler and his team to be very busy this year. As we discussed last quarter, the froth we are seeing is also allowing us to revisit potential asset recycling opportunities where we can redeploy proceeds from slower growth markets into higher and better uses like we did with our Market Plaza and Webster Place sales in Chicago, which is a weaker market in our scoring model. Regarding Webster, after evaluating a multitude of densification and leasing scenarios, we concluded that we could realize the vast majority of the expected value without any development or leasing risk by selling it and deploying the proceeds into higher risk suggested return opportunities. On Market Plaza, we simply felt that we had harvested the NOI upside in the asset and selling at a 5.6 cap rate was in the best interest of our shareholders. In both cases, the data and our expected IRRs governed our decisions and we are pleased with the execution. Given the disconnect between public and private market values, dispositions are an attractive source of capital that also allows us to further reshape and improve our portfolio quality. As Mike will detail later, we have embedded about $100 million of dispositions in non-core markets in our 2022 outlook, which we match funded with about $125 million of projected acquisitions. Turning to leasing. While no one wishes COVID happened, the pandemic has reinforced the importance of brick-and-mortar to the overall retail distribution channel and has fueled a renaissance of tenant demand. We are currently in the midst of the strongest leasing environment that I have ever seen in my career. Demand is broad-based across all property types, geographies, and tenant categories. During the quarter we signed 385,000 square feet at nearly $20 per square foot, representing a 25% increase over our portfolio average. For the year, we signed 1.7 million square feet of leases, which is the highest annual level since 2016 and validates our high quality in-demand portfolio. We continue to unlock the embedded growth potential in the portfolio as evidenced by the robust 33% new lease and 9% blended spread we achieved. Our strong leasing performance during the year and in the fourth quarter drove our signed but not open backlog to 6.9 million. In addition to our growing SNO pool, we are also in advanced negotiations with grocers, exciting fast casual concepts, boutique fitness, wholesale clubs and more on leases totaling $3.3 million in incremental ABR and estimated recovery income. Equally important to locking in attractive economics are the quality improvements we were able to achieve by replacing weaker credit tenants for stronger ones. We were also able to increase our ABR from centers to the grocer to 71% from 65% in 2019. Overall, our tenancy continues to get stronger. We are turning Airtime Trampoline and Game Park, Shoppers Food Warehouse, Lane Bryant, and Stein Mart into AA-rated grocers, Giant, Ahold, REI, Sephora, Burlington, and Ferguson. As you can see on page 17 of our investor deck on our website, the rent for these new tenants is about double what they are replacing, and cap rate compression for these assets is about 50 to 75 basis points, both metrics representing significant value creation. As leases come online, you will see that our top tenancy will begin to change more materially as signed leases commence. Including signed leases and those in advance negotiation, the previously mentioned premier investment-grade grocer is expected to become a top five tenant upon rent commencement. We also continue to think creatively about the highest and best use of our properties to maximize value. We recently executed an agreement with DeBartolo Development. Upon completion of certain closing conditions including obtaining entitlements, we will enter into a joint venture with them to build a roughly 300-unit multi-family property on undeveloped land next to our Parkway Shops in Jacksonville, Florida. We will contribute the land and $500,000 for a 50% equity stake in the venture. Sticking with development, we're working on an exciting redevelopment plan at Marketplace at Delray, which sits in the highly desirable Delray Beach sub-market of Miami. We are seeing robust tenant demand here, given the quality of the real estate and the strength of the market. We are also set to break ground in a few weeks at our Crossroads property in the Miami market. Here we are demolishing the existing public store and building them a new larger prototype to better serve their customers. Total cost is $4.4 million with expected return on costs of 6% to 8%. Please see page 21 of our supplemental for further detail. Finally, we have also identified an opportunity with our 100 square asset in Oakland County, Michigan, where we expect to redevelop the north side of the center. We have strong interest from a major investment-grade rated grocer to anchor the project for us. We expect to share more details on the scope, costs, yields, and timing over the next quarter or two. As we look forward in 2022, we will be very active on all capital allocation fronts: acquisitions across all three of our investment platforms, opportunistic dispositions, and continued investment in leasing and development, all of which will drive future earnings and NAV growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to review our quarterly results and provide color on our 2022 outlook.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Thanks, Brian, and good morning everyone. Today I will discuss our fourth quarter 2021 operating and financial results in more detail, recap our financing activities for the year, and end with commentary to help everyone understand the growth drivers for our 2022 earnings outlook. Fourth quarter operating FFO per share of $0.25 was down $0.02 from last quarter primarily due to higher than expected G&A due to our above target performance against our short-term incentive plan, partially offset by NOI from acquisitions. For the year, we reported operating FFO per share of $0.95, a 22% increase over 2020's results, and about a penny above the high end of our guidance range, primarily driven by higher same property NOI. Collections continue to improve with 99% of fourth quarter rent collected, up from 98% of third quarter rent collected as reported on our third quarter call. And collection of deferrals continues to exceed our expectations. Today, all material tenants are in compliance with their rent relief agreements and we only have about $2.5 million of deferred rent, net of reserves yet to be collected. As Brian mentioned, we had a strong finish to the year as operating fundamentals for our portfolio continue to strengthen. We signed 44 comparable leases totaling 230,000 square feet at a blended releasing spread of 13%, including a 73% new lease spread and a 7% renewal spread. Our new lease spread is at its highest quarterly level since the second quarter of 2018, while renewal spreads have steadily increased for the seventh consecutive quarter. As we look ahead in 2022, we expect our new leasing spreads to continue to be in the double digits demonstrating the continued mark-to-market opportunity in our portfolio. Our lease rate ended the quarter at 93.1%, up about 60 basis points from last quarter. Our small shop lease percentage is up to 85%, a 100 basis point sequential increase in the quarter demonstrating progress to our long-term goal of 91% and 92%. Key categories of demand include boutique fitness, fast casual, and service. We ended the year with a signed but not open backlog including leases and advanced lease negotiations of $10.2 million or $0.11 per share of operating FFO. In terms of cadence, the annual incremental benefit is $0.04 per share in 2022, $0.05 in 2023, and $0.02 in 2024. Clearly, this is providing a visible tailwind to earnings, setting us up for strong growth over the next few years. And this of course is absent any incremental growth from our external investment platforms. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, it was a very busy quarter on the capital markets front, as one of our core tenants to our balance sheet strategy. We continue to proactively and opportunistically address near-term debt maturities. During the quarter and prior to the jump in interest rates, we raised $130 million in nine and 10-year private placement bonds at a blended rate of 3.75% to replay 2023 and 2024 debt maturities, adding about a year of duration to our balance sheet and leaving only about 20% of maturing debt through 2024 with no maturities in 2022. In addition, we closed on $80 million of mortgage debt with our grocery-anchored joint venture with GIC. We are very pleased with the weighted average tender of nine years and an interest rate of under 3%. On the disposition front, we sold two non-core assets in the Chicago market for just under $60 million at a weighted average cap rate of under 4%. As a result, we ended the year with 14 million in cash and nearly full availability on our revolver, leaving us with total liquidity of approximately $329 million. We continue to manage leverage very carefully. We entered the fourth quarter with net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA of 6.8 times, flat from last quarter. However, including our signed but not commenced backlog of $10.2 million that I referenced earlier, our leverage would be 6.3 times. We continue to expect our leverage to fall towards our target range of 5.5 to 6.5 times as we drive occupancy towards a stabilized 95% occupancy level and continue to capture our embedded mark-to-market opportunity. And we will also look for opportunities to accelerate the trajectory through various capital allocation options. Moving on to our initial 2022 outlook. We are establishing our guidance range of $1 to $1.5 per share representing 8% growth at the midpoint and 11% growth at the high end. Let's begin with the external drivers. Same property NOI growth is expected to be 3% to 5%, which excludes the net impact of bad debt reversals in 2021 related to prior periods. This growth is primarily driven by occupancy, which we expect to increase to approximately 91.5% to 92% by the end of the year. Our same property NOI outlook in 2022 embeds about 100 basis points of bad debt as a percentage of the same property NOI. Regarding G&A expense and as I mentioned last quarter, we expect it to be plus or minus $34 million or $8.5 million per quarter. It's important to note that we do not forecast spec termination revenue or future reversals of prior period reserves, which in total contributed $0.03 per share in 2021. Let's now move to the external drivers. External assumptions underpinning our 2022 operating FFO guidance range are comprised of acquisitions, fee income, and dispositions. We are assuming plus or minus $125 million of acquisitions that we expect to close during the second and third quarters of this year. In terms of dispositions, we have embedded about plus or minus $100 million, which is expected to close readily over the course of 2022. Fee and preferred income related to our joint venture platforms is expected to be up approximately $0.02 over 2021 due to the annualization of acquisitions in our grocery-anchored and net lease investment platforms. As we look out over the coming years, we expect to generate an additional $0.05 of FFO annually upon full deployment of committed capital between our joint venture platforms. As for the shape of operating FFO, we expect it to decelerate in the first half of the year and re-accelerate in the second half of the year. The deceleration is the result of the planned re-merchandising of a handful of anchor spaces that already have signed backfills in addition to disposition timing. The re-acceleration in the second half is a result of the signed documents coming online in addition to acquisition timing. And with that, I will turn the call back to the operator to open a line for questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Derek Johnston with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Derek Johnston, Analyst

Hi, everyone. Thank you. Good morning. Brian, can you discuss the net acquisition and disposal guidance? Last year it was very active with over $500 million between on-balance sheet, R2G, RGMZ, and then RGMZ also had some meaningful contributions. But I was hoping you could expand on the net acquisition guidance for 2022 both on balance sheet and with partners, especially since the initial guidance is lower than last year's pace.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Sure. And good morning, Derek. I wouldn't read anything into our acquisitions guidance. This is something we typically don't guide to. We did last year, and you saw those results. The $125 million represents just really what we have visibility on or basically what's in contract or awarded to us at this time. What can I tell you is the following. We are extremely focused on investments. We are as much an investment company as we are a leasing operations company. We have two investment deal pipeline meetings a week. We have three platforms to deploy: balance sheet, grocer JV, which we recently got a $500 million upsizing in our fund business, which we have $1.1 billion to deploy. As I said earlier, we are looking at all product types now from grocer to last-mile/power, credit centers, shadow anchor, and even infill street retail into our core markets. It's definitely competitive out there. But as we've shown with our decentralized approach, we are uncovering a lot of unique off-market opportunities where we can immediately add value, similar to the Highland Lakes deal where we signed the AA investment-grade grocer simultaneously to close. I could say too, obviously, cap rates are compressing in all product types. But with our three platforms that we set up and spent a lot of time establishing, we are seeing ways to create outsized yields with the moat we've created with those platforms. We're also seeing higher unlevered IRRs into the high single digits because of our ability to apply instant value creation with our deep rolodex of tenants. Investments, Derek, are something where I'm personally focused on and energized on all fronts, especially coming off a large year of capital deployment.

Derek Johnston, Analyst

No, Brian. Thank you. That's very helpful and insightful. Alright. I guess the second question: was hoping you could expand on the contribution and development agreement for the 300-unit multi-family at Parkway. I mean, first off, it seems like a good basis for a 50% equity in the JV. And is this a new growth avenue RPT is now tapping or more of a one-off deal? How do you view this opportunity set given your portfolio?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Yes. No, I mean, especially in the southeast and northeast markets and even some in the Midwest, it is potentially a growth avenue with selective partners. As I said, we are a retail company. We're not going to be a residential company. We have a tremendous relationship with DeBartolo. They're based in Tampa and have done a number of deals throughout the country. And really this was land that was raw and going through the entitlement process as we are doing now. We saw this as a very unique opportunity to drive the highest IRR possible. To give you a framework on that, we're expecting high 20s, maybe even a 30 levered IRR upon exit on this, and that's even conservatively, especially in the cap rate compressing markets of multi-family. So, we're excited. We're flattered with the partnership and expect to grow with them and others, maybe even the Publix REITs on some unused land next to our centers.

Derek Johnston, Analyst

Excellent. Thank you, guys.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Hi. Thanks. Good morning. First question. I just wanted to follow up, I guess on the investment outlook. Sounds like there's a lot of opportunity out there across the spectrum of products that you're seeing. You have the additional $500 million commitment from GIC, but can you talk about the importance of RPT's equity cost of capital to the investment formula here? You issued stock, a little equity at about $14 a share, a little under $14 a share. How sensitive are you to the stock price, which today is a little under $13? What does that mean for deal flow, particularly as cap rates in the private market have compressed?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

No. Sure, Todd. I appreciate the question. First, I think from our own portfolio, we have high quality assets that sit in our non-core markets that we can monetize. We were active late last year on that front with two assets in our Chicago market where we sold together at a sub 4% cap rate, where we can absolutely redeploy creatively into acquisitions. And we're taking the same page in that playbook this year with a few assets in non-core markets where we can get a very attractive yield and be able to redeploy into these better markets that Brian has described time and time again. From an equity standpoint, look, we're going to be opportunistic. You saw us access the equity markets last year through our ATM program at pretty healthy prices. And it really comes down to use for us. I mean, Brian's talked about it repeatedly. I have talked about it frequently where the power of the platforms is really to enhance our yields through the arbitrage opportunities that we have with re-partialization between the platforms and management fee, now that's upward to almost 250 basis points of enhanced yield. So giving us the opportunity to raise equity at prices that make sense for us. So we'll continue to be opportunistic on that front.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Okay. Is there any capital raising activity embedded in the guidance?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

No.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Okay. And then, Mike, you talked about a deceleration in FFO in the first half of the year related to some of the move outs that it sounds like there's executed leases in place for. I think you previously talked about it a bit, I think 600,000 or 700,000 of quarterly NOI that's coming offline. Where are we in that process? Is any of that NOI offline yet or will that impact begin in 2022?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes. The impact will really start to be noticeable in 2022. The best way to describe this is by looking at our occupancy trends. In the first quarter, we expect a slowdown, reaching around 90%, before picking up again to finish the year between 91.5% and 92%. We're making a significant change in the first quarter at a Baltimore property where we are replacing a Shopper's World, which was occupied at the end of last year, with a Giant Grocer, a much stronger option. As we move through the year, occupancy will gradually increase as new leases are activated. As I mentioned in my earlier comments, we anticipate about a $0.04 benefit from signed but not commenced leases in 2022, but the larger benefit will come in 2023 with an expected $0.05 gain. This sets us up nicely for 2024 and 2025.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Okay. And just the last question maybe for Brian. On the leasing schedule, the new leasing was obviously very strong. The weighted average lease term stood out a little bit. And it looks like lease terms have been increasing a little bit. Are you having discussions with tenants that are interested in longer leases and locking in leases at this point? Is that something that you're starting to see a little bit more and more in discussions?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Absolutely. I mean, we do look at walls, both obviously on the triple net side, but on the multi-tenant as well. And I think too what you're seeing with the longer walls are the grocery deals, the abundance of grocery deals that we're doing. The Publix deals at Crossroads that really drove the elevated leasing cost; without that deal, roughly TA would have been $40, but that deal got Publix. We're demolishing the box and building them a new flagship prototype with a 20-year lease. And a very, very healthy yield between 6% to 8%. And obviously, some big favorable cap rate compressions of 80 basis points conservatively. We saw where the Jamestown deal traded, and I would say this stacks right up there. So we're excited about that as well. But I would say the walls of what you're seeing are really our grocery deals, which have been averaging around 20 years.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Okay. Alright, great. Thank you.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Thanks, Todd.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Craig Schmidt with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Craig Schmidt, Analyst

Yes. Thanks. I wonder what your expectations for leasing volumes are in 2022, given your $1.7 million in 2021. And Brian your observation that this is one of the strongest leasing markets you've ever seen?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

I expect the leasing volumes to be strong. Based on the pipeline and the deals we can track, I anticipate that it will be close to or potentially exceed last year's numbers. Looking back at last year, we signed a significant number of tenants, particularly notable replacements. For instance, we replaced an Airtime Trampoline Park at Troy Marketplace in Troy, Michigan, with a AA-rated grocer. At Crofton Center, we transitioned from Shoppers World to Giant Ahold, and at Town & Country, replaced Stein Mart with REI. We're also finalizing a lease with Sephora. At Winchester Center, we switched from Stein Mart to Burlington, and at Highland Lakes in Tampa, from Stein Mart to another AA-rated grocer. Additionally, in other locations like Front Range Village and Woodbury, we replaced Charming Charlie with brands like Nike and Lululemon. The key aspect is that the new tenants bring in double the rent of the previous ones and are of much higher investment-grade credit. We have several more significant deals that will be finalized even after this call.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes. Just to echo Brian's thoughts around the enhanced increased volumes that we do expect in 2022. Just as a reminder, we did execute about 1.6 million square feet in 2021. We do expect that to increase. Brian's point about 2 million square feet. So it's going to be up considerably. Just a level set on the percentage of the plan that's done so far for 2022. Craig, if you look at our new leasing plan and our renewal leasing plans, it's about $80. So we're feeling pretty convicted in those volumes.

Craig Schmidt, Analyst

Great. Thank you. And then concerning the compression of cap rates, how would you compare the large community center and power center compression to the grocery-anchored compressions?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

It's dropping considerably. I mean, we've been seeing trades in the larger formats in the fives now. I just saw one at a six handle in the Midwest. I think people are finally realizing great real estate is great real estate and the cash flows on top of it are important. But especially with these larger formats, the investment-grade credit you get on these is finally kind of flowing through to certainly private buyers, but institutional now as well. So we're seeing considerable cap rate compression in all format types.

Craig Schmidt, Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yep.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Floris Van Dijkum with Compass Point. Please proceed with your question.

Floris Van Dijkum, Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning. Just wanted to get a sense. The midpoint of your guidance has about 3% same-store growth. What is your bad debt reserve assumption in that?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Hey, good morning, Floris. The bad debt assumption is about 100 basis points of the same property NOI, which equates to about $1.3 million, $1.4 million. To put that in context, the pre-COVID levels for a different portfolio that we owned back in 2019 was about $800,000 per year. So we're being a bit conservative on that front just given where we're at in the year. So we feel it's a pretty good assumption at this point.

Floris Van Dijkum, Analyst

Thanks, Mike. Clearly, you have indicated to the market that you are expanding in certain areas while reducing your presence in some of your traditional markets. Regarding the assets you currently own in Detroit and Cincinnati, do you think they could be suitable for your joint venture platforms, or are you considering sourcing new acquisitions for those platforms?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

They could be both, Floris. We're considering both options and have the ability to pursue either. We're currently experiencing strong investment interest in Detroit, which seems to be growing while the situation in Illinois has been cooling. We're also seeing positive developments in Minneapolis and Cincinnati. Our goal is to identify the best cap rate for our shareholders, so we will evaluate both approaches simultaneously. It's definitely something we are actively exploring on both fronts.

Floris Van Dijkum, Analyst

Great. Thanks Brian.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Yep.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho. Please proceed with your question.

Haendel St. Juste, Analyst

Good morning, everyone. My first question is regarding the $125 million you have under contract. Did you discuss the cap rate or could you share information about the cap rate and the types of assets included in that $125 million?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes. I'm not going to get into the cap rate until we close. But I'll give you one: it’s north of Boston. I said in my prepared remarks where it's a dual-anchor, very high volume, grocery center, extremely high volumes would be in the top 5% of our current tenant sales across the country. Some others that we're looking at are more infill kind of Boston street, Mom & Pop owners where we can just drive tremendous unlevered IRRs. But we're looking at like high single-digit IRRs unlevered. So it's pretty compelling and off market I should say too. So, we're excited on that, and that $120 million is just really what we have visibility on and what has been awarded, but we expect more.

Haendel St. Juste, Analyst

Got it. Fair enough. A question on the signed but not yet open rents. I think you mentioned the $6.9 million at signed, $3.3 million at discussion. I guess I'm first curious if you're seeing any impact or concerns on timelines for opening given supply chain, labor constraints. And then I guess I'm curious why some of this is taking so long? I think you mentioned a couple pennies into 2024. So some color on what you're kind of seeing in the timing of the pace? Thank you.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Yes, thankfully the pace is good. Let me address any concerns regarding the tenants. I'm always concerned about their business, but so far there haven't been any delays with openings or the start of rent. The only delays we're experiencing are due to our efforts to reposition much of the portfolio with top-rated, investment-grade tenants, many of whom are grocers. We've increased our grocery percentage from 65% of ABR in 2019 to 71%, which is impressive. However, some of this transition takes time, and some tenants will be opening late in 2023, impacting 2024. Essentially, it's about rearranging tenants and spaces and making sure they open on schedule. Most of the impact will be felt in 2023 and late in 2022, with a slight carryover into 2024.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes. I mean, there's only one lease tied to the 2024 upside, Haendel, that's the lease that we just signed in the fourth quarter at the new acquisition that we acquired down in Tampa, Highland Lakes, where we're bringing in an AA investment-grade grocer to replace the Stein Mart there. So that's the one that's taking a bit of time to come online, and there's only one deal.

Haendel St. Juste, Analyst

Got it. Appreciate the color. And if I just, Brian, one more. I guess, as you kind of think about the stock price and the multiple here. I guess I'm curious what's at the top of your priorities this year to help close that gap, which remains fairly wide despite the pickup in acquisitions last year, the JVs, and the favorable wind that you're back from leasing demand and cap rates?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes. Look, I can take some of this part of the question here. But really the key drivers getting our cost of capital down is really continuing to put wins on the board, right? I think operationally last year, we had a really, really good year. I think this year is going to be even better. I think the signed but not commenced is very indicative of the leasing volumes that we expect over the next few years. I think we're experiencing one of the better same property NOI growth rates for this year. We think that'll have some nice tail wind into 2024 and 2025, and we'll continue to be very busy on the acquisition front. Brian, do you have any?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Yes, Haendel, our focus is on returning to 2019 levels. We are leading in the sector and it’s refreshing to finally compare our NOI, occupancy, and FFO growth without the complications of deferrals. We now have a consistent foundation and are optimistic about the future. When I mentioned that the AA investment-grade grocer is becoming a top five tenant, it’s a notable advantage over our competitors. We observe grocery initiatives expanding into power centers, and we are experiencing a 250 basis points cap rate compression. There is substantial value creation taking place everywhere, even in new regions. We have restructured the portfolio; Boston is now ranked third, and both Tampa and Atlanta have improved their standings. The CAGRs in our recently shared investment deck reflect this growth. I'm as excited as ever in my career. The team is motivated and performing exceptionally well.

Haendel St. Juste, Analyst

Great guys. Appreciate the time and color.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Tayo Okusanya with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.

Tayo Okusanya, Analyst

Yes. Good morning everyone. The $125 million of acquisitions in guidance so far. Could you just discuss, is that all happening at the funds business? Is any of that on balance sheet?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

No, that's balance sheet; that's balance sheet, so that's not without the fund at all. It can be measured off. I would say, of that a little bit of spin-off on the arbitrage of the deal in north Boston. But for the most part that's balance sheet, and we're excited about the grocer JV. We have a $500 million recent upsizing and a billion one on the fund platform for the triple nets. But that $125 million is mostly balance sheet.

Tayo Okusanya, Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Linda Tsai with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Linda Tsai, Analyst

Hi. In terms of the $0.03 of prior period reserves. And I know, it's a category that's not included in your FY 2022 guidance. What's the potential pool to draw from the extent that there are more reversals in 2022?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

At this point, Linda, we really don't expect any surprises, either positive or negative, as we look ahead to 2022. Our receivable currently stands at around $14 million, with $12 million reserved. We still have about $2.5 million to collect. Therefore, most of that reserve is linked to riskier cash flows from tenants, and I don't anticipate any significant changes there at this time.

Linda Tsai, Analyst

Got it. And then just on the strength of the new leasing, I saw there were six leases. TIs were a little high, but the leasing spread was also 73%. Could you talk about that?

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Yes. I mean really the outlier was the Publix deal 20-year lease in Palm Beach. Without that deal, Linda, it would have been $40. So, and that was a $6 deal going to low 20s. So again, that is another favorable item for the company where we just have very, very good mark-to-market opportunities. I mean, really since the second quarter of 2018, our new lease comparable releasing spreads have averaged 30%, right? So, I think everybody just needs to understand that this mark-to-market is going to happen and will continue to happen and we'll extract a lot of value from that as well.

Linda Tsai, Analyst

Just one final question just on the transaction environment given increased competition and cap rate compression, are private owners less inclined to sell because of compression or are you seeing them put more assets on the market?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

I think it depends on who you're asking. It's very competitive out there. We have people actively reaching out, engaging with all the major institutional owners. However, the competition is intense. Some private owners are looking to sell off some of their retail assets, while others are passionate about the business and prefer to hold onto it. So, the situation is quite varied.

Linda Tsai, Analyst

Thank you.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yep.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Mueller with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Mueller, Analyst

Yes. Hi, Mike. Just to clarify. When you talked about $0.04 of signed but not opened coming on in 2022 and $0.05 in 2023. Should we think of those as calendar year impacts or run rates coming on at some point during those years?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Yes, those are calendar year impacts, Mike.

Mike Mueller, Analyst

Got it. Okay. And then, as it relates to the residential development sites, how many do you see in the portfolio today that you think could be actionable over the next few years?

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

I mean, we have quite a bit. I mean, I don't want to put a number, but it's several. And we're looking at even some in Columbus, Ohio at our shops at Lane project where there's just huge demand. That's a Whole Foods anchored center in Upper Arlington with tremendous demographics right next to Ohio State. So I don't want to put a number out there. But it's a business that we've been really focused on since I've been here. COVID put kind of more of a halt on that side. But we've kick-started it back up with this Jacksonville deal and see a larger runway for that.

Mike Mueller, Analyst

Got it. Okay. That was it. Thank you.

Mike Fitzmaurice, CFO

Thanks, Mike.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I would like to turn the call back over to Brian Harper for closing remarks.

Brian Harper, President and CEO

Thank you everybody. I really appreciate everybody's time. 2021 was a year of tremendous accomplishment for RPT. Our portfolio is stronger, our cash flows are more sustainable, our acquisition pipeline is full, and our balance sheet gives us the flexibility to adjust to changing market conditions. Our success in 2021 would not have been possible without the strong foundation that was laid in 2018, and I could not be happier with the progress we have made as a company over the past four years. We expect 2022 to be another year of growth, execution, and innovative thinking that will no doubt set us up for continued success in the years to come. Have a wonderful day.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.