Regency Centers Corporation (REG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Regency Round Table. From management. To my left, we've got Mike Mas, who's the CFO; Christy McElroy, the Senior VP of Capital Markets. Mike, I'll turn it over to you for some opening remarks.

I appreciate it, Samir. And again, thanks for having us. The event is really well attended, and we've had a really good day today. Just let me get some setting up remarks here, and then we're happy to take your questions and any from the room. Good to see some friendly faces, by the way. As we discussed on the recent earnings call, we're having an outstanding year. I don't think there's any better way to describe it, driven by continued positive fundamentals, robust leasing activity into our high-quality portfolio and more recently, some accretive capital allocation. We're generating record-high same-property growth, including a growth rate exceeding 7% last quarter, driven by strong leasing activity and robust contractual rent growth. We continue to commence tenants and replenish leases within our SNO pipeline, and we're driving commenced occupancy rates higher. Following that impressive first half performance, along with our strong outlook for the year, we raised current year earnings guidance. We -- that includes same-property NOI, NAREIT FFO and core operating earnings ranges. We also continue to maintain a strong pace of investment activity. We have over $600 million of accretive capital deployment so far this year. This includes the 5 asset RMV portfolio that I alluded to earlier, which we purchased earlier this quarter for north of $350 million. That 600,000 square feet of high-quality retail in one of Southern California's most sought-after submarkets and the transaction is accretive to our growth rate, accretive to earnings and accretive, we believe, to our overall portfolio quality. And oh, by the way, we financed it leverage neutral to the balance sheet. So really happy with that transaction. Not only did we assume below-market debt with the transaction, but we used OP units to finance it permanently, creating both flexibility for seller and Regency. We have more than $500 million of development and redevelopment projects in process at blended yields of 9%, and we anticipate starting more than $250 million of projects for the third consecutive year this year in 2025. That includes several ground-up development projects that we expect to announce and start later this month. Our national platform, our expertise, our relationships, our low cost of capital, our balance sheet strength, all of these ingredients enable us to be one of the only national developers who can successfully execute on ground-up projects of high-quality grocery-anchored shopping centers. Lastly, on the balance sheet, and we do take great pride in our sector-leading position. We're currently the only shopping center REIT with an A credit rating from both Moody's and S&P. We remain within our targeted 5 to 5.5x area on net debt to preferred -- net debt and preferred to EBITDA, and we have ample liquidity on our credit facility. So we're set up for a great 2025, and I think we have the ingredients in position to continue that momentum into 2026.

Thank you for that. So it sounds like leasing is still pretty strong. I know it feels like every quarter is a record and that continues to take place. I guess the one news that did come out was sort of the Amazon rollout, right, of same-day delivery for fresh items. Like how are you -- what's your reaction to that? And what does that change, if any?

It's a great question. That news is pretty current. Our reaction is kind of business as usual. And I think it's important to appreciate what actions we're seeing on the ground rather than what headlines we're reading in the newspapers. And what we're seeing on the ground is a continued expansion of high-quality grocery operators of their respective footprints. And we're seeing that across through all operators really, whether it's Publix in the Southeast, Wegmans continuing to grow their footprint. Kroger and Albertsons now in a post-merger, Top World continue to grow as well. Whole Foods, an Amazon brand, also very active in growing its bricks-and-mortar footprint. So I think H-E-B in Texas, I think this is just kind of more of the same. And I do think the grocers -- we believe the grocers will continue to deliver to their customers a great experience, great product at great prices, some of which will be delivered, some of which will come through e-commerce, but still the largest percentage of their business is coming through their cash registers and in their stores. Some other continued behaviors that we're seeing that confirm our view is we're seeing tenants become larger, not smaller, grocery anchors. And they're doing that, I think, to accommodate much of this demand and also to bifurcate that experience for their consumer to give their customer the best in-store experience they can give and then also to try to -- to the best of their ability, control and manage costs on the e-commerce side of the equation. So I mean, the news is out there. I think it's not to be dismissed, but I also think it's largely confirming the behaviors that we're seeing, which is continued expansion.

In your opening remarks, you talked about this year being a good -- very strong year for growth. You talked about the ingredients for growth into '26. You look at the space today, everybody is sort of 95-ish sort of occupancy levels, right? And help us frame out that growth over the next several years, sort of an occupancy-neutral basis. How do you generate strong NOI growth, earnings growth in this sector?

And just to be clear for us, it's 96-ish.

96.

We're north of 96% and an all-time highs from a percent lease perspective. Percent commence though, importantly, has not hit that all-time high watermark yet. So we still have room to run, and we've benefited from that in a meaningful way in 2025. In fact, we've moved our average commenced occupancy by north of 100 basis points this year, big primary driver of our growth rate. And that's a lot of leasing, that's a lot of commencement. Fundamentally, we do and we have a great page in our book that I encourage you to take a look at. But our kind of same-property wheel of growth fundamentally it's going to come from good old-fashioned rent growth, right, rent spreads and contractual embedded increases. On average, to your point on building blocks, we should be delivering 2% to 2.5% year in and year out on rent growth. Where we can expand that growth rate is coming from 2 different areas. One, occupancy gains. And again, to reiterate, we still have room to run on commenced occupancy to get to our historical highs. And then lastly would be redevelopment and our wherewithal and ability to continue to invest into our shopping centers, adding GLA, densifying some of our sites, changing the physical plan itself to drive rents. We estimate on an average annual basis, we can deliver $50 million to $100 million worth of projects, which should add around 75 basis points or so, plus or minus to same-property NOI growth. Our strategic objectives are to deliver 3% or better in an occupancy-neutral environment. Clearly, we're doing much better than that in 2025. But we think that the portfolio is primed to deliver that over time.

And then how much line of sight do you have into sustaining that sort of $250 million of starts .

On the development front? Yes. So it's a good question. So firstly, that is a combination of ground-up development and redevelopment. This year, and I said in my remarks, I think we'll deliver -- we'll start $250 million of projects. That should be about a 70% allocation to ground-up development versus redev. So we are seeing the business start to shift over to ground-up development versus redevelopment. I'd say that ratio was inverted 3, 4 years ago. So the line of sight and visibility to the pipeline -- that's a tougher one. It's not an SNO pipeline where you know that you have contractual rights to that rent commencing. This is confidence in our team's ability. This is confidence in the -- I'd like to say we have a lot of lines in the water, and we have good prospects on those sites. We have great demand from the tenants. The work and the magic occurs in your ability to get the zoning to get the entitlements and to get that land cost and rent to the equation that works for our cost of capital. I would speak to our track record. I think we're -- I know we're the best in the business on national scale in developing and open-air shopping centers, a lot of confidence in the team. They know exactly what we're trying to do and the incentives are in the right place. So we're as confident as we can be that, that momentum will continue at that level going forward.

And that ramp-up in ground-up development is important, and we've talked about this a lot in terms of what's happening outside of our same property pool, right, in terms of what's driving because ground-up development and redevelopment overall, but ground-up development is a huge driver of our external growth, right? We do acquisitions, but we're prioritizing our capital on the ground-up development. And that's where we're seeing incremental impact this year in 2025, but even more impact in 2026. And so that's -- as we think about building blocks to our overall earnings growth rate, that's a really important driver as we think about going into next year and beyond.

I mean you're 1 of the very few that's doing ground up, right? I feel like what are you seeing that maybe others aren't at this point when you think about.

I think it's -- I'd like to say development is in the soul of Regency's business. We've been doing it for 60 years of this company's existence, not all of which has been as a public company. I think it's the -- I think it's the commitment to the business. If you're in and out of the development business, we like to say, then you're out. I mean it's -- this is a long-cycle business that you have to deep -- these are deep tenant relationships, deep land relationships with landowners. And then our track record starts to speak for itself and become this self-fulfilling kind of flywheel effect where we show -- we talk a lot about master planned communities. A well-thought-out master planned community with housing that's being delivered needs retail amenities, and we show really well to those landowners and those developers in that we're going to construct a best-in-class product. We're going to bring best-in-class tenants merchants. And we're going to be committed to owning that shopping center for the next several decades. And that formula is what they like to see in a partner as they execute on those projects. So I just -- to your point, one of the few, I think we might be the only in the public space that's doing ground-up development. And I think a large part of that is success begets success. We're pretty good at it, and we're proud of that.

But in terms of even the relationships, I mean, talk about the economics, right? It feels like others are not doing it because the costs are up, maybe you're not getting the rents to justify ground.

You've got to find those pieces of land where you can make that formula work. And I keep coming back to the master planned community example. When you need to have that retail amenity for your master plan development, which includes single-family homes, multifamily projects, you might be willing to take a land price that helps you make that equation work for our cost of capital, right? So we're going to come into these with entitled zone projects. We're going to have an understanding with the tenant on what the rent side of the equation is. It's that land cost that's going to help you kind of finish out that math to exceed the threshold that we have for our cost of capital, which today, we're targeting 7% to 7.5% area for ground-up projects. Again, a rule of thumb for Regency is we'd like to deliver in the 150 basis points or better versus cap rates. So ROI of the development versus in-place cap rates. We think that is more than compensating us for the risk we're taking and helping us create real value.

And in terms of leasing, are these pre-leased or like what stage are we?

No spec development. We actually very rarely land bank. So these are -- you're going to have the anchor lease in your pocket and you're probably going to have more than that committed from an LOI and potentially even leased perspective. And then the balance of that project is going to be filled in with shop space, which we'll have a high degree of conviction over the over our ability to lease that. So I don't want to say it's risk-free, but we do a wonderful job of derisking these projects before we put a shovel in the ground.

Is it the majority of your gold that [indiscernible] master plan.

The majority of the ground-up projects are in master plan.

[indiscernible].

I don't want to say I want to be that definitive. It's hard. Generally speaking. And I'll say at the same time, supply growth coming into the market just generally will continue to be muted. We believe that. We won't. And that's going in to the benefit of our existing portfolio as well. So I think it's a little bit of the best of both worlds. We'll have a supply-constrained environment, new supply-constrained environment. But within that supply growth, Regency will win more than its fair share of projects and leveraging that expertise we have.

I guess just amid the macro headwinds and volatility and everything this year, are you seeing any pressures on development costs or processes or any projects where you've had to revisit underwriting?

It's a continuous process in revisiting underwriting. You have to be -- you're on top of that side of the equation continuously. You're being very transparent with your landowner, you're being very transparent with your tenants as you're negotiating rent. But before you put that shovel in the ground, you have your construction costs understood and locked in. Zooming out over a 3- to 5-year period, they're higher. Again, you have to find those needles in the haystack where that formula, that formula of land cost, construction cost, rent can make sense in a world where construction costs are higher. Within the line items, just specifically, we are seeing some pressure on some of the line items, but we're also seeing some relief. We have seen some relief on the labor side of the equation. We've seen some relief from an energy perspective and fuel, which is a pervasive line item throughout the underwriting. So on balance, we've been doing a really wonderful job kind of keeping our arms around that growth rate and being communicative with the landowner and the tenant as well.

Sorry, each debt more [indiscernible] Are you talking about international builders [indiscernible] smaller regional players.

All the between national builders and smaller regional players, delivering community -- new communities within the markets that we operate in. .

Is there a rough breakdown between those two?

National and regional. I don't have that. I have to follow up with you on that bias to the regional developers. Good example is a project we just recently announced locally in our -- where we're headquartered in Jacksonville. Great project in a new community that's being developed near the Town Center area, which is kind of the center point of the market, immediately across street from our local university, University of North Florida. New community, new homebuilders being delivered. There's no grocery store on the site. We will be that retail amenity. And that project was just announced this quarter as well. So it's a perfect example of this playbook that we're operating throughout the country in pockets. We have a similar project going up in the Bay Area of California. We have a similar project going up in Connecticut. And it's having that development expertise embedded in our offices throughout our organization where we're finding those opportunities.

Maybe sticking to external growth. You've been very busy on the investment side. You did the Orange County deal. you acquired recently. I mean, talk to us on kind of what does that opportunity set look like in terms of acquisitions out there? Talk about the transaction market, maybe pricing, what you're seeing?

Sure. We'll start with activity. This is commonly an active part of the year. You come out of Labor Day and you see a lot of packaging. It just feels like we're always pretty busy underwriting opportunities. So I can't tell you that we felt a spike in opportunities, but we're busy. We're looking. Cap rates, I'd say, are ranging from the low 5s to the low 6s. And my answer -- that answer has been the same for several years now. I think there's been really good quality competition and demand for high-quality grocery-anchored real estate. Regency as we execute on that front of our business. And again, the priority for us is development. That's where I think we have a competitive advantage. But we'll be acquisitive, but we're going to have to be creative and find those opportunities that kind of fall out of the mainstream. The RMB portfolio is a wonderful example. That's a relationship we've been building for 18, 24 months and largely been building that relationship from a development perspective. And they admired what we've built from a portfolio standpoint. They appreciate the type of real estate that we operate, and they saw their own assets playing a role in that portfolio, and they like the currency. They were attracted to our currency on the other side of the equation. So that true one-off off-market transaction, it's hard to say that we can replicate that going forward. Those are very difficult deals to pull together. I'm very proud of it. But we're going to have to be creative otherwise. if it's a core grocery-anchored center with standard growth rate, I don't know that Regency is going to be the best buyer for that. You're buying at NAV, I don't know how much value you're creating. If we can find a project that has some mix -- some redevelopment potential, we can bring our core competence to that, and we really like those opportunities. We're a great buyer. If we can maybe look at some trade areas that are otherwise less popular today, there is somewhat of a Sunbelt slant in the marketplace. If we can find opportunities as we have in our recent past in Chicago, in Rhode Island, we will look for those opportunities where we believe in the ingredients of the trade area. We're trade area focused investors, not necessarily market focused. And if we can find those trade areas that we think maybe are a little bit underhunted, so to speak, we can find an opportunity to buy Lastly, I should say we have another pocket of capital in the state of Oregon, almost a 25-year relationship with this capital provider. And they are looking to expand their portfolio as well, and we will partner with them. And we've bought properties with Oregon in most recently in the Austin market. So a lot of arrows in our capital quiver, a lot of opportunities for us to continue to be acquisitive. And I'll just end with the priority being development and then our track record would tell you, we'll get creative and find some acquisitions.

Just in terms of the acquisition you did, that portfolio in Southern California, it felt like it was pretty well leased. It is, right? So I mean talk about the upside. Maybe there was one asset where it was like low 80%.

There are -- the near-term upside would be in the form of there are 2 pharmacy vacancies that are available to us right now. One will likely be a redevelopment to a new multi-use building out in the outparcel. The other one will likely be more of an opportunity to re-lease in place at an accretive return. But they are well -- I mean, again, we're looking for high-quality grocery-anchored retail. Most of that stuff is pretty well occupied. They are very well occupied and there'll be a leasing exercise beyond that, raising rents as tenants have success.

When you talked a little bit about -- it feels like people want to -- want to go into the Sunbelt. I mean is that an area that you feel like where there are opportunities right now? I mean I know years ago, it was the Northeast with Equity One and all that. So...

I think there's opportunities throughout our footprint. I mean we're in 2 dozen markets from an office perspective, we have great relationships in each of those. we'll find the deals where we find the deal. We're looking in all of the markets within which we operate. And again, I go back to our focus. We are hyper focused on the trade areas. And if we find those the right ingredients of supply and demand within those trade areas, we'll execute on those transactions.

And Brentwood is a great example of that. This is an asset that we bought in the second quarter for $120 million, mid-5s cap rate, but very high growth rate and below market debt that we assumed long-term below-market debt. So we are finding some of these opportunities and Nashville was a market that we had identified that we'd want to grow in.

And anything on -- maybe on the internal growth a little bit, like is there anything on watch list in the next year that we need to sort of think through...

Our watch list is very much in line with historical averages, about 2% of ABR. You saw as we worked through some of the bankruptcies this year, we had on the low end of the peer group in terms of exposure. In terms of our watch list today, it's very manageable and very much in line with historical. You saw our credit loss guidance this year. We lowered it a little bit. Our historical average is 75 to 100. We lowered it to 75 to 85. So on the low end of that range. But today, we -- bankruptcies are a normal part of our business. So there's nothing outsized today in terms of concern.

Just a quick follow-up on that. What would be stabilized -- you said high growth, when you stabilize sort of b[indiscernible] on that. Is it the growth because this is something you were doing or because [indiscernible] comparative properties? What's driving that higher review?

Well, in terms of a stabilized yield, I bring back to the IRR, right? We look at things from a 10-year IRR basis. So we underwrote that in the high single-digit IRRs. From a growth rate perspective, it's leasing of the asset, just normal course growth. I think there's an anchor opportunity.

There are 2 vacancies at the time of acquisition that we had high prospects to fill, and we will fill those nearly immediately. And then it is currently not a grocery-anchored shopping center with Kroger subletting its space. And we see a longer-term opportunity for us to -- when that lease burns off for us to then take that rent to market. So that sublet rent, which is currently going to the -- to Kroger will then come to us as operator. So that's what's driving the higher growth rate. Not so much densification on this site. And again, from a strategic perspective, Regency's strategy is largely more just simple grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers where densification with mixed use is typically not part of the playbook.

Like anything on that shop space, the shop tenancy given the macro and some of the tariff news. Like is there anything -- what's the health of the shop?

All I can point to is record low open accounts receivable, record high percent leased and soon to be percent occupied as we deliver that space. Low rates of bad debt as a result, as Christy alluded to, Foot traffic levels continue to be very high and growing. sales as reported, although not pervasively reported within the shop space community, but sales growth has been pretty healthy. And then the most -- one of the most important pieces of information that we get given our footprint is anecdotal information from our property management team, and they continue to report just very healthy operations. The pipeline -- and the leasing forward leasing pipeline continues to be dominated with shop demand. So we feel really good about that exposure. We feel really good about the offering we had. Again, we're benefiting from that lack of new supply in these high barrier markets. We'll see -- and retention rates continue to be north of our historical averages.

There's been some negativity around QSRs and fast casual as of late. Any changes to the leasing there? Anything you're hearing from those guys?

Not really. We've talked about that at this conference, in fact, about that negativity, maybe some of the trade-down effect. And I think as you think about our approach to trade area, our strategy, what trade areas do we identify and want to invest in, it's high degrees of disposable income. It's matched with lower price point offerings, which is the QSR. It's a high-quality offering at a lower price point. And I think you kind of hover within that trade-down effect. So as many people may be trading out of a QSR offering and maybe preparing their food at home, which, by the way, we have the grocery store to do that. Others are trading into that QSR from the top end, maybe they're dining out at a white table clock offering fewer times. So I just feel like the strategy that we employ high disposable incomes, combined with a necessity value type of tenancy is what gives you that shock absorber, so to speak, and kind of float within that trade down.

So it feels like you can still push occupancy in shops, right? I mean...

On our call, we alluded to the fact that there is headroom technically because we're not 100% leased on shops, but we are at historical highs. We feel bullish about our ability to continue to command a good healthy demand for that space. But at some point, you're going to have frictional vacancy where you're actively remerchandising your shopping centers, you're keeping it fresh with good operators. You're actively redeveloping your shopping centers, which is going to command some vacancy as well. So Yes. I mean I think we feel bullish about our shop exposure and our ability to continue to grow and maybe set some new records that we haven't seen before, but we'll see how that plays out.

Anything on expense recoveries because that was up in the quarter, right? It felt like it was a bit more outsized. Is that sustainable as we think through.

The second quarter was outsized due to our annual reconciliation process. It resulted in higher prior year collection -- collections of prior year rents or recoveries. As we think about a run rate on a go-forward basis, it will be higher than the more normal quarters, the first quarter, fourth quarter last year. It will be higher because our occupancy levels are higher, but second quarter was outsized on a onetime basis.

Is there anything else to think through kind of in the second half of the year?

Obviously, the implied guidance from same property does imply a slowdown or deceleration in growth rate, but that's more a function of a very tough comp from a bad debt expense perspective last year versus an expectation that we will have a normal rate of bad debt expense in 2025. Rite Aid was in occupancy at the end of the second quarter. They will have vacated and completed that process in the third. So that's -- that would be a consideration. Outside of that, Samir, I don't think there's anything else to add.

There was some lumpiness in other property income in the second quarter that won't recur in the second half. Other than that, that's [indiscernible].

What about the balance sheet side? I know you have some maturities, right, I think in...

I'll let Christy take that 1 as well.

So we had -- we did a bond transaction in May, a 7-year transaction that basically prefunded our November maturity. So we're taking care of for 2025. As we look into 2026, we've got $200 million of unsecured maturities that we'll start to look at windows going into 2026 for refinancing. But other than that, we're in really, really good shape on the balance sheet from a maturity perspective. We're sitting right in the middle of our target range of 5 to 5.5x. One of the strongest balance sheets in the sector. We are the only shopping center REIT that is A rated by S&P and Moody's, and we are -- we benefit from a very good strong cost of capital.

Maybe to get to where you think debt would price today.

So 10-year debt, our indicators are telling us about 85 to 90 basis points over the 10-year in the unsecured bond market.

$100 million -- I think there's some forward, right?

Yes. We issued $100 million on the ATM late last year. A real quick update. We have taken down half of that. We have settled half of that this month or actually we're in September last month. And we anticipate settling the balance before it's -- the contract maturities, which would be before early December.

And the use of that would be towards what?

Capacity on the balance sheet. You can continued funding of everything we're doing, whether it's pursuit of acquisitions or development, et cetera. So it's just continued capacity, keeping that leverage ratio in the targeted range.

As we think about next year, right, and we -- I've asked this question before, but what are major swing factors we need to consider as we think about growth into next year. Is there anything -- we talked about expense recoveries where -- again, that's probably not sustain in the second half. As we think about next year, is there any -- what are big swing factors that we think about growth, same-store earnings?

It's going to be the basic building blocks. You're going to start with same-property NOI and pretty robust growth in 2025 at 4.5% to 5%. The headroom on commenced occupancy, as we've talked about today, is decreasing, right, because we're reaching peak levels. We moved -- I think I'm repeating myself, we moved average commenced occupancy this year by over 100 basis points, which is, historically speaking, a significant amount of growth. From an FFO perspective, this year, we're comping off still some merger-related items from last year. So that comp issue will go away. the debt we just talked about, the debt refinance, the mark-to-market of the '25 maturities, we will feel the impact of that into '26. So we want to make sure that we're modeling that, although there are very little, as Christy articulated, very few debt maturities next year from a headwind perspective. The biggest contributing factor and one that we've been most vocal about is using our disclosure and encouraging everyone to take a look at that at the development page and really thinking about the contribution of that -- of those developments. So now we're in year 3 of starting $250 million. Well, that means year 1 is commencing and they're starting to commence this year. It's going to commence even more meaningfully into next. We've shared on previous calls a number of about $10 million of incremental rent and NOI coming from the commencement of new ground-up development projects. That will be a 2026 growth factor for you to consider. But the ingredients are kind of there. The other swing factors would be retention rates and move-outs, and there's a lot to be better understood as we put our plan together for next year. But the ingredients are kind of set up there for continued momentum and what I have continued to articulate as above-trend opportunities for growth above historical trend opportunities.

I know we've got a couple of minutes left. Any questions?

Yes. Property where this program sublines [indiscernible]. anchor. It's subletting. Was that [indiscernible] their ability to new extensions better?

It depends on the lease. In this particular case, it does not. But every lease, as I like to say, there's 10,000 leases. We have 10,000 snowflakes, each of them with its own agreement. So not in this case.

A couple of rapid fire questions here like we normally do. So number one, when the Fed starts to cut rates at the short end, do you expect the long-term -- the 10-year yield to decline, stay flat or potentially rise?

Gosh, I think as we all understand, those 2 functions are disconnected, and I think they move in different directions for different reasons, the long end and the short. My personal opinion is I think that the 10-year is probably hovering around the same area as it is right now.

Okay. Second question, last year, the majority of companies stated they are ramping up spending on AI initiatives. How would you characterize your plans over the next year, higher, flat or lower?

Flat, and that's not to mean we're not investing. We are investing incrementally and on a small basis and really encouraging our -- it's really a back-office type of opportunity, we believe flat.

Okay. Third one, this is for the sector, shopping center. Do you believe same-store NOI growth for your sector will be higher, lower or same next year?

For the sector. I will say the same.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.