Alpine Income Property Trust, Inc. (PINE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Alpine First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jenna McKinney, Director of Finance. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to remind everyone that many of our comments today are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. The company's actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward-looking statements, and we undertake no duty to update these statements. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. You can find our SEC reports, earnings release and most recent investor presentation, which contain reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures we use on our website at www.alpinereit.com. With that, I will turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Jenna. The first quarter was an excellent start to the year for Pine across all areas of our business. Starting with earnings, we achieved AFFO of $0.44 per diluted share for the quarter, representing growth of approximately 5% compared to the first quarter of last year. As previously announced, this growth in earnings and free cash flow provided support for us to raise our common dividend to a new quarterly rate of $0.285 paid in the first quarter, continuing Pine's practice of increasing its annual dividend every year since its IPO. Further, Pine's dividend yield continues to be one of the highest in the sector. Driving our earnings growth was another successful quarter of investment activity. During the quarter, we acquired 3 properties for $39.7 million at a weighted average initial cap rate of 8.6%. We also originated 2 mortgages plus upsized 2 existing ones for a combined total of $39.5 million with a weighted average initial yield of 9.5%. The company's total investment activity for the quarter, including both property acquisitions and structured finance investments totaled $79.2 million at a weighted average initial yield of 9%. Our property acquisitions include Alamo Drafthouse Theatre, cosigned by its owner, Sony Pictures with an investment-grade credit, and Academy Sports and the headquarters and manufacturing facility for Germfree Labs. Our structured financings in the quarter included $6.2 million of seller financing for a property leased to At Home that was sold in the quarter, a new $15.5 million construction loan and upsizing 2 existing construction loans, one for Wawa and the other for a Publix-anchored center. During the quarter, we sold 3 properties for $11.7 million, including an O'Reilly's, a multi-tenanted property, including an At Home and a former Valero convenience store at a blended cap rate of 9.1%. Our transaction activity in the first quarter reflects our strategic approach to investing focused on buying a mix of high credit tenants that provide consistent, stable cash flows and lesser credits that offer growth and diversification, continuing to augment and complement our property investments by selectively originating structured investments. Opportunistically selling properties that reduce portfolio risk and improve our industry and tenant concentrations and extending our WALT. Notably, this quarter's acquisitions had an average WALT of 14.3 years, while the properties that we sold had of WALT of 4.7 years. With this activity, our portfolio WALT is now 9 years compared to 6.9 years just 12 months ago. Additionally, as Pine's common shares have been trading at attractive relative valuation, we have been opportunistically repurchasing shares, as Phil will discuss. And finally, I want to provide some context relating to the recent tariff volatility and uncertainty. While there is little visibility into what the ultimate outcome of this extraordinary activity will be, I believe Pine is well positioned given its tenant mix and sector diversification. We will continue to monitor the situation as it evolves. But as for now, we see an attractive pipeline of opportunities across the tenant landscape and remain focused on executing our strategy to deliver growth and stability for Pine's investors. With that, I'll turn the call over to Phil.

Thanks, John. Beginning with financial results. Total revenue was $14.2 million for the quarter, including lease income of $11.8 million and interest income from commercial loans of $2.3 million. FFO and AFFO for the quarter were both $0.44 per diluted share, representing growth of 7.3% and 4.8%, respectively, compared to the comparable quarter of the prior year. Driving earnings growth for the quarter was investment activity, along with prudent and disciplined capital management. During the first quarter, we opportunistically repurchased approximately 274,000 common shares for $4.5 million at an average price of $16.33 per share. Further, since quarter end, we have continued to repurchase shares, as noted in our press release and Form 10-Q filed last evening. Additionally, in April, when interest rates temporarily dropped in connection with initial tariff announcements, we opportunistically executed a SOFR swap, fixing SOFR for $50 million of principal at 3.43% through January 1, 2027. This swap is being applied to $50 million of borrowings currently outstanding on our revolving credit facility, reducing the interest rate thereon from approximately 6% at quarter end to approximately 5% based on our current leverage and applicable pricing tier. We ended the quarter with net debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA of 7.9x. However, it is notable that we have no debt maturing until 2026, and thereafter, our debt maturities are well staggered. Additionally, at quarter end, we had $65 million of liquidity, consisting of approximately $8 million of cash available for use and $57 million available under our revolving credit facility. Further, with current in-place bank commitments, the availability under our revolving credit facility can expand by an additional $36 million as we acquire properties, providing total potential liquidity of approximately $100 million. John noted that during the first quarter, we increased our common dividend and paid a quarterly cash dividend of $0.285. Even with this increase, our dividend remains well covered and supported by free cash flow with an approximate AFFO payout ratio of 65%. Finally, turning to guidance. We are increasing both our FFO and AFFO guidance for the full year of 2025 to a range of $1.74 to $1.77 per diluted share compared to our prior range of $1.70 to $1.73 per diluted share. Once again, our increase was driven by our successful investment activity to start the year and now assumes investment volume of $70 million to $100 million and dispositions of $50 million to $70 million. Specifically with regards to dispositions, in April, we sold 1 Walgreens and expect to close the sale of another in May. This would reduce our Walgreens to 8 properties and continue decreasing our ABR derived from Walgreen leases. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Michael Goldsmith with UBS.

First question is just on the AFFO guidance raise. Can you walk through kind of -- you've been quite active during the period. So can you kind of walk through the factors that drove your ability to raise your earnings guidance this quarter?

Yes, Michael, this is Phil. It was really 3 things that drove the increase, almost equally. One is the stock buyback. If you look at disclosed in the Q, including purchases after the end of the quarter, we purchased $7.6 million worth of stock at an average price now of about $16.15. So just lowering the denominator through buybacks and being opportunistic is one of the factors. Additionally, the swap that I spoke about in my prepared remarks for $50 million, which took effect early April, that was floating on the line at about 6%. It immediately drops to about 5%. So 100 bps pickup. And then finally, on the investments, it's a little bit of volume, a little bit of timing, a little bit of cap rates, so kind of all 3 factors. So it's almost equally those 3 things that are each $0.01, $0.015 or so, and that's what drove the increase in the guidance.

That's helpful. And maybe just a clarification. You took the investment guidance up to $70 million to $100 million, so up $20 million, but it looks like you did $80 million in the quarter. Am I missing something there? Or it is [indiscernible] reconcile those numbers?

I think it's probably just on the loans and funding. So for the quarter, we did almost $40 million in property acquisitions, and we funded close to $20 million in loans. We originated a higher amount, but we funded about $20 million. So combined for the quarter, we were at about $60 million funded and out the door.

Got it. And then just a question on the share repurchases, right? Like how are you thinking about this going forward? Is this -- and then just within the grand scheme of capital allocation, you've been doing more loans, you've been acquiring and now you're buying back stock. So can you just kind of walk through like your priorities in terms of capital allocation? How you think -- you were active in kind of all 3 in the first quarter. How do you -- how active do you think you'll be across the board kind of through the balance of the year?

Michael, it's John. Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, look, when the shares are trading at such a big discount to NAV and such a high dividend yield, certainly, we've had a history, both at CTO and Pine to take advantage of that dislocation. We're much better off selling the assets and buying and accreting to NAV and accreting earnings by buying at such low prices. But we are coming at the -- closer to the end of our $10 million buyback. So we'll see kind of after the program kind of gets filled up kind of where we sit. But given our free cash flow stance and we can always sell assets and do that, but that obviously is shrinking the company and not exactly the plan. But as we see loan opportunities and some of these loans are going to be maturing here this year, and that will come in and pay down debt and kind of get us in a good spot for acquisitions. And as Phil mentioned in his prepared remarks, we've got plenty of liquidity. So we're taking -- trying to take advantage of some good opportunities out there and the pipeline looks good. So it's really a mixture of kind of balancing between buybacks and acquisitions and investments.

Our next question comes from Matthew Erdner with JonesTrading.

John, I kind of want to touch on the tariffs that you had talked a little bit earlier. But when it comes to kind of just getting the deals done, obviously, convenience stores, I think, are kind of sheltered from that. But could you kind of talk about the process as you're selling the At Home or as you kind of look to move on from some of these retail guys that might be affected, just kind of the timing of the deals that it's taking now compared to what it was, say, a year ago?

Yes. I mean we're not seeing any sort of big dislocation with the tariff issues surprisingly, I guess. Given our platform at CTO that's more obviously leasing involved, we're not seeing some sort of disruption in tenant activity as far as opening new stores, committing to new stores and so forth. So we're certainly not seeing any disruption at the Pine platform as far as tenant issues. Restaurants are doing strong. We picked up an Alamo theater in -- outside of Denver that has Sony on the lease, and that's been super strong. And so those things are obviously insulated from tariff issues. So we're definitely monitoring it, but so far, so good and clear sailing, but we certainly have an eye out for any issues that may happen.

Got it. That's helpful. I appreciate the color there. And then kind of as a follow-up, turning back to guidance. What's going to drive you to that kind of higher range of investment guidance? Will that be kind of getting towards that $75-ish million of dispositions and just capital recycling?

Yes. I mean just kind of a step back, given that we do have the advantage of a small company, we can -- we have 2 assets, as you know, that currently right now are not contributing any income. That's a Party City in Long Island, New York, and a theater in Reno. And the theater in Reno, we have under contract to sell. And the Party City, we're actively marketing that and have indicative interest now, but we're trying to get better pricing. And so once we sell those assets, which we expect to do this year, having that go to pay down leverage or reinvest is certainly going to be catalyst for the upside of our earnings guidance. But even at the low side of our earnings guidance, you look at our multiple is like ridiculously low and a high dividend and lots of free cash flow. So if you take the dividend yield of roughly 7% and our free cash flow that you add on those percentages, you're getting a nice total return just sitting here, but that's not what we're here to do. We're here to outperform. And I think we have an easy kind of road map to do that. So we'll try to keep on performing for you.

Our next question comes from Rob Stevenson with Janney Montgomery Scott.

John, so you sold $12 million at a little over 9% cap rate and the guidance is now $50 million to $80 million of full year dispositions. Given the mix of assets that you're looking to sell over the remainder of the year, what type of cap rate should we be expecting is reasonable to assume on the remaining, call it, $40 million to $70 million of dispositions? Is it something in that sort of high 8s, low 9s? Is it something substantially lower than that given the mix that you're looking to sell? How should we be thinking about that?

Yes. I think given the mix of possibly having some properties with no income, that could be lower for the mix going forward. However, we are taking the pain with some of the sales that we've just done at higher yields as we talked about pruning the portfolio, making it more fortified by selling some of the Walgreens and so forth, which we've made some good progress. So it's going to be a mixture, but I would say, going forward, it will tend to be lower than what it has been.

Okay. And to that point on the Walgreens, so I think Phil said that you sold one here in April and have another under contract for May sale. What is the market today for Walgreens locations given that sort of weird lease that they have typically? And then the Sycamore deal, does Sycamore provide, given where that stock was trading down? Is Sycamore a benefit or is the private equity similar to what you saw with At Home where people are running away from private equity-backed sponsors with some of these?

I think it adds a little bit more stability as far as knowing that, before Sycamore, there was just an unknown what happens to the company? Are there no buyers? Is the company really going all the way down, that sort of thing. So I think it adds stability in the platform. And I think we're actually in talking with some of the merchant developers, some of them are starting to have programs to go after purchasing Walgreens to reformat into other uses, given the sites are generally very strong at corner locations and drive-throughs and so forth. So I think you're starting to see in the private market, people becoming more aggressive in acquiring these with a tail of lease with Walgreens and with the expectation, they'll be able to get the site back and repurpose it for another use. So we're actually, I would say, net-net, within last 60 days is a more positive view than before.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then can you remind us how many of the Family Dollar, Dollar Tree locations you have currently in the portfolio and whether or not they are predominantly Family Dollars or Dollar Trees?

Yes. I'm going to introduce you to Steven Greathouse, our Chief Investment Officer. I'm out of the office at different locations. So Steven, do you want to give Rob a little bit of color on that?

Sure. Rob, we're -- I think we have about 31 total between Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. And on the spin, when they go out -- sorry, 25 -- 31 is Dollar General, I guess. But 25 Dollar Trees. And then when they spin, we're all kind of waiting to happen what's going to happen with the dual branded ones, but about half of those have Dollar Tree credit that will stay on with the spin. So I think we're well positioned on those. And they were all relatively new. So they've got 8-plus years of term left on them.

Okay. So 31 total, 25 of those are Dollar Tree, so 6 are Family Dollars and 3 of those Family Dollars keep the Dollar Tree credit and the other 3 will have the Brigade, Macellum or whatever it is credit on it. Is that -- have I got that correct?

No, it was 25 Family Dollars and about half of those have the Dollar Tree credit on them.

Okay. So it was 6 Dollar Trees, 25 Family Dollars and half of those 25 or so have the Dollar Tree credit and the other half have the private equity credit?

There you go. That's right.

Our next question comes from Wesley Golladay with Baird.

For the seller financing for the At Home, was that through a developer?

It was kind of an investor developer.

Okay. And then when you're looking to sell the theater, does that actually have a negative NOI right now? And then will you provide seller financing if the deal goes through?

It does have a negative NOI. And yes, we would offer up seller financing on that. And the deal that we're negotiating with now, they don't want our financing, they're all cash.

Okay. And then maybe can you talk about the Germfree, Will you see more deals like that? Is that like a one-off type deal for you?

We hope so. But right now, it's kind of a one-off. We don't see anything in the future, but it's super unique. It's really one where we had a competitive advantage given that we were local to this investment opportunity. Germfree has been around over 50 years. Private equity group bought them. They have no leverage. They're using part of the proceeds to invest in the facility. It's a headquarter and manufacturing facility for unique lab -- mobile lab development for hospitals, and they have a worldwide footprint. So if you have a nasty virus like COVID, you're going to buy one of their mobile labs if you're a hospital because you don't want to be dealing with a virus within a hospital where it could escape and be bad news. So you want to have it out in the parking lot or in the back in a mobile lab.

Okay. One last one for me. You had 2 loans that were upsized on the construction side. What is driving that?

Basically, a little bit of construction costs, or you could have a situation where the developer has another pad site user that has come on and that they might need site development work for that. But mainly, it's probably an escalation of development costs.

Our next question comes from Gaurav Mehta with Alliance Global Partners.

I wanted to ask you on a provision for impairment charge that you had in first quarter. Can you provide some details on that?

Yes. This is Phil. On the impairment charge for the first quarter, there wasn't anything that we sold in the quarter. It's more related to properties that we anticipate selling in the short term, such as like the Walgreens that I mentioned that we have one under contract and one sold. So it's more related to upcoming dispositions and we were just -- given we know where they're going to trade, just it was cleaning up and getting our basis in line with that.

Okay. And then second, on the loan side, can you provide some color on timing of funding the unfunded commitments within your portfolio?

What was the question?

The timing of funding the unfunded commitments within the loan portfolio?

Just the timing of funding on the loan portfolio?

Yes.

Yes. So currently, where it currently stands, it should be relatively consistent like that for the first half of the year. We do have, call it, in the third quarter, one of the larger loans maturing, but there'll be new fundings that will fill in. So it may -- assuming we don't do any additional ones, it will be pretty even, maybe a little less towards the end of the year. But we're hopeful that maybe we'll do some additional loans and the funding amount will stay very similar over the year.

Our next question comes from R.J. Milligan with Raymond James.

Just a couple of follow-ups. I guess we'll start with the capital allocation questioning that started the call. But just curious how you think leverage is going to trend? It ticked up here in the first quarter. I know you guys have some loan payoffs and some dispositions coming. And I'm just curious where you think you might end up the year on the leverage side?

Yes. I'll take kind of the general on that, and then Phil can dive deeper. Thanks, R.J., for the question. Given that we have this active share buyback program and given that we had a very active investment quarter, certainly, the leverage ticked up. But as Phil mentioned in the prepared remarks, we still have a lot of liquidity. But given that we have -- some of our loans will be paying down and paying off this year and we, as I mentioned, expect to sell our vacant properties this year, I don't anticipate, at the end of the year, having more leverage than we are now and maybe less.

Okay. And then my second question is, obviously, we can look at the top tenant list and get an understanding of who's on the credit watch list. But I'm just curious, looking at the structured investment portfolio, is there anybody there that you would classify as sort of on the tenant watch list because it's obviously a lot more difficult to underwrite from our perspective?

Yes. No, the structured investment program has basically been geared towards loans on very high-quality credits that we wouldn't be able to purchase on our own because of where they trade on a very low cap rate. It's talk about Publix grocer or Wawas. So there's no tenant issues from our perspective on the structured investment program. So super strong assets, and we'd love to own them if we could.

Great. And then my last question is for Phil. Just thinking about run rate of NOI from the first quarter going forward, is there anything in there that we should be thinking about for the next 3 quarters?

Just probably the only item I'd note, R.J., is Party City. So if you remember, when we gave our initial guidance, we said there was about an $0.08 hit related to the theater, which [indiscernible] paying rent towards the end of '24 and then also Party City. And that was -- that $0.8 was spread almost equally between the 2, $0.04 and $0.04. The theater did exit right at the end of last year so the current quarter had nothing in it from them. But Party City did pay as we anticipated for the entire first quarter, and now they will no longer pay the rest of the year. So the Party City will go away, call it, a couple of hundred grand a quarter going forward, starting in the second quarter. But other than that, it would just be acquisition and disposition volume.

Our next question comes from John Massocca with B. Riley Securities.

So just to clarify around that on the guidance front, does guidance include any resolution around the Reno theater and Party City assets either at the high end or midpoint? Or is that just kind of totally 0 for the rest of the year in terms of guidance?

Yes. In terms of rent, they are 0 for the rest of the year. If we sell them, they would -- obviously we'd get some cash, pay down debt and there'll be some interest savings. They're going to be incrementally favorable, but they're not going to be huge movers to our earnings for this year.

Okay. But I mean, but they could -- are they in guidance is like the high end or maybe dispositions or this is like vacant sales?

Our disposition volume, yes, if you want to include them, they're in the high end.

Okay. And then At Home, I know you've talked about it a little bit already, but what was kind of the amount of financing relative to your kind of basis in the property? And I guess, does the current percentage exposure in the deck to At Home reflects the interest income from the seller financing? Or is that just the remaining At Homes you have in your portfolio?

That's just the remaining that we have in our portfolio. And it was -- the seller financing was around 65% LTV.

Okay. And then maybe just kind of big picture on the Germfree Labs property. I guess kind of what -- I mean you talked a little bit about the tenant and why they're attractive, but maybe the asset itself, I mean, how kind of fungible is that property if something were to ever happen in the future? And just kind of maybe some more details on what the asset actually is and could be repurposed for, et cetera?

Yes. Good question. It's very fungible in your terms. It's a manufacturing facility with very high ceilings, and they've just basically made this into kind of their headquarters, both a small amount of office and manufacturing, but this would be in high demand as far as industrial use if they weren't there, and it's a very low per square foot basis. We bought it at $125 a square foot. So big land footprint, lots of parking and very, very usable in this industrial market.

And geographically in the Central Florida area? Or is that just where the company is based?

Yes. Central Florida and closer to our Daytona office. And again, those companies have been around over 50 years. So it's well suited for them, and they're basically expanding their manufacturing operations. They're using part of the proceeds to go into the property.

There are no further questions at this time. This does conclude the question-and-answer session. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.