BTB Real Estate Investment Trust ($BTBUN)

Good morning. My name is Julie, and I will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the BTB Real Estate Investment Trust 2026 First Quarter Conference Call for which management will discuss the quarter ended March 31, 2026. [Operator Instructions] Should you wish to follow presentation in great detail, management has made a presentation available on BTB's website at www.btbreit.com/investors/presentations/quarterly meeting presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that some of the statements that may be made during this call may be forward-looking in nature. Such statements involve numerous factors and assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties both general and specific, which gives rise to the possibility that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. Several important factors could cause BTB Real Estate Investment Trust's actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results are described in BTB Real Estate Investment Trust management discussion and analysis and in its annual information form, which were filed on SEDAR and on BTB's website at www.btbreit.com/investors/reports. I would now like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michel Leonard, President and Chief Executive Officer; accompanied today by Mr. Marc-Andre Lefebvre, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Charles Dorais Bedard, Vice President of Finance; and Ms. Stephanie Leonard, Principal Director of Leasing. Mr. Leonard, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Julie. Good morning, everybody. We're pleased to present our Q1 results for the year 2026. Our portfolio stands at 6 million square feet with 74 properties with a total asset value of $1.3 billion. We're continuing on our investment activity, selling certain properties, mostly office properties in order to redeploy the capital into industrial properties. So during the first quarter, we did acquire 3 industrial properties located in Leduc, a suburb of Edmonton in Alberta, basically 143,000 square feet. And these 3 properties are going to generate -- we forecast that they will generate $2.5 million of NOI on an annualized basis. We do continue our densification activities on different properties. We did dispose, as I mentioned, of a property located in Quebec City for $11.7 million. The purchaser was one of the tenants of the property. And on an annualized basis, this property was to generate $928,000 of NOI. Subsequent event regarding our activity, we did purchase a 50% interest that we did not own. So now we own 100% interest in the property located at 7 & 9, Montclair Boulevard, 7. Obviously, we purchased the 50% from our partner for $7 million. And this property is scheduled to generate an additional $500,000 of annualized net operating income. So the positive effect of the dispositions and acquisitions that we did conclude is $2.1 million on an annualized basis, so roughly $1.6 million for the year. So we saw our real estate portfolio regarding the suburban office segment reduced since 2021 from 51% to now 41%. We saw our industrial weight increase from 22% to 38% and necessity base going down from 27% to 21%. Regarding our geographic diversification, a little bit of increase on the weight in Edmonton as a result of the recent acquisitions. So as I mentioned, the fair value of our investment in properties is $1.2 million (sic) [ $1.2 billion ] and the difference between $1.2 million (sic) [ $1.2 billion ] and $1.3 million (sic) [ $1.3 billion ] are other assets of the REIT. Our occupancy rate stands at almost 92% and we did conclude renewals and new leases for 206,000 square feet in Q1. And regarding our leasing activity, I'll ask Stephanie to brief you on the activity.

Good morning, everyone. Just as a reminder, for those of you following online, we're currently on Page 8 of our presentation. So our total leasing activity, which is the combination of new leases and lease renewals totaled, as Michel mentioned, 206,000 square feet for the quarter, of which 40,000 square feet are attributed to new leases and 166,000 square feet to lease renewals. Our most noteworthy transaction for the quarter was concluded with the Hub Sports Center in Edmonton, Alberta, in our industrial segment, representing -- roughly 33,000 square feet. During our last conference call, I noted that 3 vacancies were the principal reasons for our decrease in occupancy rate. With this transaction, we have successfully filled one of the targeted vacancies in our portfolio. And to remind you, this was a space which we had elected to terminate the lease of the tenant that was previously occupying due to the recurring default under their lease. In terms of our lease renewals, our total activity for the quarter amounted to 165,000 (sic) [ 166,000 ] square feet, representing a 93.5% lease renewal rate for the quarter. Out of our noteworthy transactions, we renewed important leases with Groupe Touchette in our industrial segment located in Saskatoon for about 101,000 square feet. With Desjardins in our suburban office segment located in Quebec City for roughly 22,000 square feet. And I'd just like to note that Desjardins renewed their entire space with us and did not downsize their Quebec City footprint with us. And finally, with the LCBO for roughly 7,000 square feet in our suburban office segment located in Ottawa. In terms of our rental spreads, so for the quarter, we achieved a 7.2% average increase in our lease renewal rate across all segments and most specifically, a 7.6% increase in our Industrial segment, 5.3% in our suburban office segment and 10.9% in our retail-based segment. Our committed occupancy rate at the end of the quarter stood at 91.8%, which was a 70 basis point decrease since Q1 2025, so the comparable quarter. But I would like to note that it is a 50 basis point increase since the end of the fourth quarter last year. This was a rather quick quarter, short and sweet. But on this note, I'll turn it over to Marc-Andre for a financial review.

Thank you, Stephanie. Good morning, everyone. So for the first quarter, rental revenue stood at $32 million. That's a decrease of 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. The decrease is partially caused by a partial lease cancellation payment from a tenant, which positively affected the NOI by $1 million in the first quarter of last year in 2025. Excluding that payment, the decrease would have been 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. In terms of NOI and cash NOI, they both decreased by 10.3% and 10.2%, respectively, again, compared to the same quarter last year. The decrease was mainly driven by a $1.3 million impact from planned tenant departures that have not yet been replaced, free rent granted to new tenants and the rent reduction provided to Lion Electric. Dispositions completed throughout 2025 also had a net negative impact of $200,000. This was partially offset by acquisitions completed at the end of the quarter, which will contribute more meaningfully to future quarters. Excluding the said lease cancellation payment previously described, the decrease would have been 5.5% for both NOI and cash NOI compared to the same quarter last year. Looking now at organic growth. Cash same-property NOI decreased by 9.2% for the quarter compared to the same period last year. The quarterly decrease is driven by both industrial and office segments. First, the Industrial segment was impacted by a planned departure at the end of Q3 2025 of a tenant occupying over 24,000 square feet in Edmonton, and that tenant has not been yet replaced and the impact of the new lease negotiated with a group of investors who purchased Lion Electric. Second, the decrease in the office segment is due to the previously mentioned lease cancellation payment and the planned departures of tenants in Ottawa at the end of the third quarter of 2025, not yet fully replaced. Excluding the lease cancellation payment, cash SPNOI would have decreased by 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. FFO adjusted per unit was $0.099 for the quarter, a decrease of $0.012 compared to the same quarter last year. This reduction was mainly driven by the previously explained decrease in NOI. Now looking at AFFO. AFFO adjusted per unit was $0.086 for the quarter, a decrease of $0.017 compared to the same quarter last year. The decrease is explained by the previously outlined decrease in cash NOI of $2.1 million and is partially offset by a decrease in administration expenses of $300,000. Excluding the lease cancellation payment previously described, FFO and AFFO adjusted per unit would have decreased by $0.001 or 1% and $0.006 or 6.5%, respectively, again, compared to the same quarter last year. We maintain our distribution to unitholders at $0.075 per unit for the quarter, which represents -- $0.075 per unit for the quarter, which represents an annualized distribution of $0.30 per unit. The AFFO adjusted payout ratio was 87.2% for the quarter, an increase of 14.5% from the same quarter last year. That was driven by the decrease in AFFO. The value of our investment properties and the weighted average cap rate for the entire portfolio remained stable at $1.2 billion and 6.7%, respectively. That's compared to year-end 2025. As previously mentioned by Michel, overall, the 2 acquisitions and the disposition that we completed will have a net contribution of $2.1 million to NOI on an annualized basis. We concluded the quarter with a total debt ratio of 58%. The weighted average term and average interest rate on our mortgage portfolio were 2.2 years and 4.41%, respectively. Finally, at the end of the quarter, we held $1.4 million in cash and $22.3 million was available under our credit facilities for total liquidity of $23.7 million. So this completes our presentation, and we will now open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Matt Kornack from National Bank Capital.

Just quickly on the retention rate. It was significantly better and pretty high this quarter. Is that a reflection of a change in the nature of the demand? Is it just the nature of the tenancies that were maturing? Or is it a nature of your approach to kind of renewals at this point?

I think it's -- Matt, it's a combination of all factors that you mentioned. I think sometimes the renewal rate isn't always indicative of not necessarily what's going on in our portfolio. Sometimes we do terminate leases to then upswing tenancies within the portfolio. So we have to keep that in mind. Of course, as well, within this quarter, we have booked for 101,000 square feet that accounted for a big portion. But we always do, I think -- we always try to retain our clients when we can. But in previous quarters, what we have done is we have terminated leases to make sure we could get better NOI within our properties as well.

Okay. Makes sense. And then on the free rent front, can you give me a sense as to kind of how big that is and how it rolls off over the course of 2026? And are you giving free rent on new leases at this point? I'm just trying to figure out how our NOI will swing accordingly as those arrangements fall off or come on?

Matt, I'll give you the number for the -- for Q1, and I'll let Stephanie comment for the rest of the year. But for Q1, free rent was $800,000. So that was granted to tenants.

I think to answer the other part of your question, I think it really does depend on the type of tenancy. We are seeing some free rent in terms of pre-occupancy periods, which we usually recuperate on the term. That's what we usually try to do. So if we're going to give free rent, we're trying to extend the term a further 3 months to be able to recoup that on the back end. So it really does depend. I can't say that there will be no free rent that will be given because it's just -- it's a market incentive. However, we aren't -- as of today, we aren't seeing any free rent incentives in terms of what we were doing maybe 2 to 3 years ago that we're giving 18 months of free rent -- that ship has sailed so far. So I would stick it basically with just regular preoccupancy and recouping that at the end of the term.

Okay. So if I think about just how that cadence occurs, does that $800,000 get smaller over the next few quarters? Or should we expect that it kind of remains stable...

I would expect that it will remain stable just to keep it at those levels since we are -- we don't -- I can't necessarily forecast that it would go down or go up. I would keep it stable right now.

Okay. And then it was a lovely January and February in Central and Eastern Canada. Was there any impact on margins or recoveries just given the amount of snow that we had in that period that would maybe have hit this quarter from an NOI standpoint on the -- I know some of your -- most of your leases are recoverable now, but there's maybe some gross leases left as well.

No. It's -- I call it business as usual. We still heated the properties and so on, and the demand was still there. I understand what you mean. And yes, we do recuperate almost all of those expenses.

Okay. And then G&A looked quite low. Again, I don't know if that's -- should we use this as a proxy for a new run rate? Or was there anything onetime in the quarter in terms of timing on expenses there?

So yes, there is a difference of $300,000 with last year. However, I would use a run rate of maybe per quarter, a saving of $100,000 for the year. So all in all, total $400,000 of savings versus last year in terms of G&A.

And then last one for me. Just on the occupancy trend going forward in some of those spaces that you're looking to lease. Can you give us a sense how you see this year unfolding in terms of interest on vacant space and any potential nonrenewals in the portfolio that you'd foresee?

I think right now, the market is at a really good spot in terms of the positioning of our properties. We're seeing interest within our vacancies. I'm going to say the biggest issue right now, I think, is just lead time in terms of negotiation. I know I've said this in the past, but some negotiations are extremely tedious like we have a vacancy under negotiation. I think it's been couple -- I mean, almost a year now that we've been negotiating. So it really depends, again, the bigger the clients we negotiate with, the more complex it is and the more lead time it takes. I know during the last quarter, yes, during Q4, we did mention we had a vacancy coming up in Ottawa at our Walkley property. I think everyone has heard the news that the federal government is mobilizing not necessarily quickly, but they're mobilizing. They need more space. They've let go a lot of their spaces and now with their work from back to work mandate, they don't have enough seats for all of their employees. So what we're trying to do for that specific property is capitalize on the federal government demand, and we are trying to put forward a proposal towards to them so we could stimulate interest before they start looking at the market more.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Tal Woolley from CIBC.

The asset classes continue to evolve, and it's great to see you're continuing to increase your penetration in the portfolio of industrial properties with the acquisitions in Alberta. I'm just wondering though when you sort of like sit back and look at the business, we're seeing other asset classes like retail get a little -- maybe get a little bit more respect than they've gotten in the past. Have you thought at all about shifting from that 60% target for industrial? Or yes, I'm just wondering if the last couple of years have made you sort of rethink what your long-term allocation should be to each asset class.

That's a very, very good question. I think that overall, what we've always stated is the fact that we're still opportunistic in looking at the market. And if we were able to acquire a retail property accretively, we would still acquire that retail property as long as it is accretive. We've seen a lot of interest in groups soliciting us to sell our retail. So we know that there's a lot of interest, and we know that overall, it is a category that is really -- where we have a lot of interested parties within that category. So -- but I think that the key word is opportunistic. And we're holding very decent properties as far as retail and very desirable properties. And just think about the development that we did last year, where we delivered a property to Winners/HomeSense, and we're continuing our activity in that center in order to cancel certain leases at expiration or not renew certain leases from, let's call it, mom-and-pop operators in order to replace these tenancies by national tenants within this center. So that's part of our strategy in order to obviously enhance value and also increase rents. And so as a result, we're looking very positively in the retail segment. But that's not to deter from our goal of being -- holding 60% of our portfolio in the industrial segment. So that means intrinsically is the fact that we are reducing office to favor industrial and then remaining very opportunistic on the retail front.

In terms of what's on the market for industrial right now, do you think that growth is still sort of going to be on small portfolios going forward or individual properties? Or are you seeing any sort of industrial portfolios that they're being marketed that would be within your financial capabilities?

When you say financial capability, you talk about accretion, I presume. And...

Just more size, I guess, is maybe what I'm thinking about.

Okay. Well, on a pure size basis, there's a property on the market in Montreal right now. It's 1.6 million square feet. I think it may be a little bit too big for us. But over -- whether it's 300,000 square feet, we would jump on it as long as it's accretive. So it's -- the acquisition of properties that would be 40,000, 50,000, 100,000 square feet, it's not something that is out of the realm for us. And it is definitely part of our process. And -- when we were -- a few years ago, we were smaller, we were buying smaller properties. Now we're larger, so we're buying larger properties. And obviously, when you're looking at larger properties, the tenancy becomes more and more important within the evaluation of the acquisition.

Okay. And I guess my third question sort of relates to the last one. It's just you in the press release noted that you're interested in starting an at-the-market equity program. Do you have any immediate needs for using that? Or is this more of a precautionary -- not precautionary is not the right word, but like you're trying to be prepared for potentially something in the near future that would require equity funding?

Yes, it's more the latter. So we'll use the ATM on an opportunistic basis when we feel the -- yes, that the issue price is at the right level.

But to confirm, we're putting it in place, but we don't need it in order to generate capital for BTB. It is a tool that would be part of our tool chest in order or toolbox in order to -- if we have a small acquisition that would be -- that would require us to raise capital rapidly, we would use it. But this is not to replace bought deals that we've been constantly using over the last few years. So it is just part of the tools that we can use, and it's not to raise capital because we would be in a position where we need capital in order to sustain our daily needs.

At this time, there are no further questions. Please go ahead, Mr. Leonard.

Well, thank you very much for joining us today. The first quarter, as you saw, a little bit boring, except for an acquisition, a disposition and after the quarter, the acquisition of a 50% interest that will positively generate additional NOI for BTB. So last year, we did dispose, did not acquire. So we have properties on the market right now that we're trying to dispose in order to generate the capital to redeploy in industrial. And as I mentioned, perhaps opportunistically into the retail segment. But overall, we like to transact. We'd like to reposition the portfolio in order to get to our goal of being a 60% so far 60% weight into the industrial segment. So with this, thank you very much for your presence today and looking forward to seeing you or listening to you again for our Q2 results. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you.