11/3/2022

speaker
Conference Call Operator
Operator

for a star zero from your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Curtis Parker, Senior Vice President. Please go ahead.

speaker
Curtis Parker
Senior Vice President

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for GNL's third quarter 2022 earnings call. This call is being webcast in the investor relations section of GNL's website at www.globalnetlease.com. Joining me today on the call to discuss this quarter's results are Jim Nelson, GNL's Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Masterson, GNL's Chief Financial Officer. The following information contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We refer all of you to our SEC filings, including the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, filed on February 24, 2022, and all other filings with the SEC after that date for a more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause these differences. Any forward-looking statements provided during this conference call are only made as of the date of this call. As stated in our SEC filings, GNL disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Also during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's financial performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our earnings release and supplement, which are posted to our website. Please also refer to our earnings release for more information about what we consider to be implied investment-grade tenants, a term we will use throughout today's call. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Jim Nelson. Jim?

speaker
Jim Nelson
Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Curtis, and thank you to everyone for joining us on today's call. Our high-quality, mission-critical net lease office and industrial portfolio continues to perform well. We are advancing our differentiated international and domestic strategy by increasing portfolio concentration in industrial and distribution assets, successfully extending and expanding leases, maintaining 99% occupancy, and building a pipeline of attractive acquisitions. Since the beginning of 2020, over 82% of G&L's acquisitions have been industrial and distribution assets. increasing GNL's ownership of this asset class to 56% of the portfolio. We believe our best-in-class portfolio is well-positioned for meaningful capital appreciation and that our dividend provides shareholders a very compelling current yield. In the third quarter, core FFO grew by 9.6% year-over-year to $48.3 million, or $0.47 per share, and AFFO was $41.3 million, or $0.40 per share. On a constant currency basis, when we applied the average monthly currency rates from the second quarter 2022, revenues would have been up by $1.2 million to $93.8 million. Using the same constant currency concept year over year, revenues would have been up by $4.9 million to $97.5 million. Our ASFO was impacted by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to the euro and pound. However, our comprehensive hedging program helped reduce the impact of this strengthening, and we realized 2.4 million of gains this quarter. We think our unique global capabilities, strong balance sheet, and best-in-class real estate assets continue to support GNL's positive performance. One of our areas of focus for 2022 is asset management. and we continue to build leasing momentum. In the third quarter, we completed two lease renewals and one tenant expansion project totaling nearly 850,000 square feet, bringing our year-to-date activity to 3.6 million square feet. We also signed one small new lease for a convenience store in the UK. The year-to-date renewal and expansion leasing adds $117 million of net new straight-line rent over the new weighted average remaining lease terms. of 9.3 years up from 3.5 years. The leases signed in the first nine months of 2022 are for properties the company owns in the U.S., U.K., France, and the Netherlands and include investment-grade tenants such as the U.S. government, the state of Indiana, FedEx, and Whirlpool. Thanks to our leasing efforts, our portfolio has only 1% of leasing expiring during the balance of this year with almost 74% of our leases not expiring until 2027 or later. Building on the strong relationships we have established with our tenants over time, our asset management team has been very successful signing leases this year in North America and Europe. At the quarter end, our 4.4 billion, 310 property portfolio had a weighted average remaining lease term of 8.1 years. Geographically, 236 of our properties are located in the U.S. and Canada, and 74 are in the U.K. and Western Europe, representing 66% and 34% of annualized straight line rent revenue respectively. Our portfolio is well diversified with approximately 141 tenants in 51 industries with no single industry representing more than 12% of the whole portfolio and no tenant exceeding 5% of the portfolio based on annual straight line rent. Over 94% of our leases feature annual rental increases which increase the cash rent that is due over time from these leases. Based on straight-line rent, approximately 64% of our leases feature fixed-rate escalations. 25.6% have escalations that are based on the consumer price index, and 4.7% have escalations based on other measures. As we mentioned, we continue to expand the concentration of industrial properties in our portfolios. At the end of the third quarter, our assets were composed of 56% industrial distribution, 41% office and 3% retail, compared to 52% industrial distribution, 43% office and 5% retail at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Contributing to our success is our focus on tenant credit, industrial acquisitions and non-core retail dispositions over the last several years. Across the portfolio, over 61% of annual straight-line rent comes from investment-grade or implied investment-grade tenants. Year-to-date, we have completed $33.3 million in acquisitions. After a very active year of having properties in 2021, and in anticipation of increased market uncertainty as inflation rates continue to rise, we became increasingly selective in 2022. The disconnect in spreads sellers were asking for relative to our disciplined acquisition criteria also made many opportunities less attractive. Our selectivity has proven to be prudent as our acquisitions pipeline as October 31 is comprised of a 32 million office property at a much more attractive cap rate than were available at the beginning of the year. If consistent with our disciplined acquisition criteria, we decide to close on the properties in the pipeline, When combined with the properties we have already acquired, our acquisitions for 2022 would be $66 million at a weighted average cap rate of 7.6% with 11.7 years of lease term remaining. We also sold one property in the U.S. during the third quarter and have agreed to terms to sell two additional properties that would bring total dispositions closed or under agreement to over $110 million. Our differentiated investment strategy continues to deliver value and we remain focused on growing our portfolio by acquiring highly dependable single-tenant industrial and distribution properties in North America and Europe. Our successful lease renewals and expansions speak to the mission-critical nature of the properties that we own, where over 61% of rent is derived from investment-grade tenants and where the weighted average remaining lease term exceeds eight years. We are well-positioned for the future, and I look forward to building on our progress for the rest of the year. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris to walk through the financial results in more detail before I follow up with some closing remarks. Chris?

Disclaimer

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