Kimco Realty Corporation (HC)

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Kimco Realty's fourth quarter earnings call. My name is Claire, and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to David Buschnecki, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategy for Kimco Realty. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Kimco's quarterly earnings call. The Kimco management team participating on the call today include Connor Flynn, Kimco CEO, Ross Cooper, President and Chief Investment Officer, Glenn Cohen, our CFO, Dave Jamison, Kimco's Chief Operating Officer, as well as other members of our executive team that are also available to answer questions during the call. As a reminder, statements made during the course of this call may be deemed forward-looking, and it is important to note that the company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Please refer to the company's SEC filings that address such factors. During this presentation, management may make reference to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe help investors better understand Kimco's operating results. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures can be found in our quarterly supplemental financial information on the Kimco Investor Relations website. Also, in the event our call was to incur technical difficulties, we'll try to resolve as quickly as possible, and if the need arises, we'll post additional information to our IR website.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Kimco Realty. Today, I'll highlight what we delivered in 2025 and how we're positioned to drive value in 2026. Dave Jamison will provide additional color on our leasing activity. We'll also then discuss the transaction market, and Glenn will wrap up with a review of our key financial metrics and guidance. 2025 was another banner year for Kimco. We delivered NAREIT FFO per share growth of 6.7%, making us one of the only shopping center REITs to achieve over 5% FFO growth in 2024 and over 6% in 2025. We also earned a credit rating upgrade to A- for Moody's during the fourth quarter. reflecting our disciplined approach to the balance sheet. Kimco is now one of only 13 REITs in the entire REIT industry, with multiple A minus A3 ratings from the three rating agencies, a notable milestone in our transformation into one of the lower levered REITs while still accelerating earnings growth. This is a rare accomplishment in the REIT world, and it speaks to the strength of our team, our portfolio, and our execution. Operationally, our performance was equally strong, achieving a number of record milestones, including overall portfolio occupancy of 96.4%, matching our all-time high, our highest quarterly new leasing volume in more than a decade, with 1.2 million square feet leased, a 90 basis point sequential increase in anchor occupancy, our strongest quarterly gain on record, a new all-time high in small shop occupancy of 92.7%, A signed but not open pipeline reaching a record 390 basis points, representing 73 million of future annual base rent. Enhancing our portfolio quality by expanding our annual base rent from grocery anchored centers by converting nine non-grocery sites to new grocery anchored locations in 2025. In terms of same-site NOI growth, we delivered 3% for the full year. These achievements highlight one of Kimco's key advantages, our ability to create value through our platforms. not only through capital allocation, but through consistent, hands-on execution at the asset level. A great case study is the portfolio we acquired from RPC. At acquisition, the occupancy gap between RPC and Kimco Legacy portfolio was 120 basis points. Since then, we've increased RPC occupancy to 96.2% at the end of 2025, narrowing the gap to a mere 20 basis points, or approximately 30,000 additional square feet to match Kimco's occupancy levels. The key driver has been small shop leasing. Our RPT small shop occupancy improved 370 basis points since the merger to 92.1%. Further, our operating momentum translated into real cash generation. We produced over $165 million of free cash flow after the payment of all dividends and leasing costs in 2025, strengthening our ability to self-fund growth while supporting a well-covered and growing dividend. We also paired that performance with a disciplined capital allocation. repurchasing shares when our valuation reached a meaningful discount to net asset value. Our portfolio and balance sheet are cycle tested and we're positioned to keep executing through any environment. As we enter 2026, we're encouraged by the continued fundamental strength of the shopping center sector. Importantly, there is almost no supply coming online, which combined with a resilient consumer and a robust pipeline of deals driven by healthy tenant demand, it gives us confidence we could push occupancy and same-set NOI higher. This is why we believe Kimco offers investors a compelling opportunity, solid, robust operating fundamentals, a well-covered dividend, durable earnings growth, and one of the strongest balance sheets in the REIT sector with a very attractive valuation based on our current multiple. As Ross will touch on, our high-quality open-air retail continues to attract capital. While public REIT sentiment has been uneven, private market pricing remains constructive, and that disconnect is creating opportunities. In 2026, we are focused on closing the value gap between Kimco's public market valuation and private market prices. Our strategy for 2026 is built around the following priorities. First, we intend to be proactive and aggressive in recycling capital that is both accretive and enhances the overall long-term growth profile. We plan to take individual assets and portfolios to market and sell at attractive private market cap rates. redeploying the proceeds into our highest return opportunities, including further potential share repurchases that currently offer roughly a 9% FFO yield. Recent transactions show shopping center REITs go private at cap rates in the mid-5s to low-6s range, and demand for high-quality assets like ours remains strong. Based on what we're seeing, we believe we can sell assets across our portfolio at a blended cap rate in the 5% to 6% range, which compares favorably to our implied cap rate in the low to mid 7% range, representing a clear value creation opportunity. Where appropriate, we will continue to utilize 1031 exchanges to mitigate the tax impact from these sales. To the extent gains cannot be fully deferred, it's quite possible that we may have to distribute a special dividend at year end. Second, we are flattening our organization and modernizing our operating platform to move faster and operate more efficiently. driving higher cash flow, improving margins, and unlocking the full advantage of our scale through better coordination, clearer ownership, and faster execution. At the midpoint, our plan removes $3 million of G&A expense this year, while still investing in our people and platform to keep raising the level of execution. Our priorities position us well for 2026. We are entering the year with strong operating momentum, the largest signed but not opened pipeline in Kimco's history, providing clear visibility into future rent commencements and embedded NOI growth, and a balance sheet designed for flexibility. Our focus is on disciplined execution, and we are energized by the opportunity ahead. With the strength of our team, the quality of our portfolio, and the financial capacity to act decisively, we are confident in our ability to outperform and unlock even greater long-term value. Dave?

Thank you, Connor. I'll start by touching on our fourth quarter leasing highlights. followed by sharing some additional perspective on 2026. In the fourth quarter, as Connor shared, we achieved a number of record leasing milestones punctuated by 1.2 million square feet of new leasing volume. Other notable accomplishments included the signing of 30 anchor leases, which are the most we've ever completed. We also saw the lowest volume of vacates in over six years, which included only three anchor leases vacating. This performance reflects the robust and deep demand that exists, with activity spanning grocery, off-price retailers, fitness, furniture, and general merchandise sectors, and also showcasing that retailers, when given the chance to relocate, are choosing to remain at well-located, high-traffic, open-air centers at market rents to further support their business strategies. The impressive deal volume has helped grow the snow pipeline to a record 390 basis points, representing $73 million of annual base rent. This is an increase of $17 million, or 30% higher than the prior year's level. Our construction and tenant coordination teams prioritize cash flow growth and are committed to accelerating rent commencements by working closely with retail partners and municipalities to streamline workflows and address challenges early, ensuring timely opening. This effort enabled us to recognize $31 million in rent commencements during 2025, a figure that exceeded our initial budget by 15%. Our success in 2025 was also driven by new approaches to our targeted leasing strategy, which is best exemplified by the package deals. During the year, we completed 10 package deals totaling nearly 60 leases and representing over 20% of the total GLA for all new leases signed in 2025. The most recent example of this is in the fourth quarter package deal with Ross Dress for Less, in which we signed six leases that were completed within 30 days from approval to execution. Both sides, motivated by a shared goal to efficiently expand the partnership, worked collaboratively with residual benefit that would expedite the store opening strategy for Ross while allowing us to increase our economic occupancy over time. A key initiative in 2026 is to further expand these efforts and fully optimize our advantages of scale. This includes shifting away from the regional organizational framework to a functionally aligned operating model, enabling us to drive further operating efficiencies. Most importantly, this change will not result in any incremental costs and is expected to drive additional savings over time. Nearly six weeks into 2026, we continue to see last year's momentum carry forward, supported by steady demand and limited new supply. Our tenant credit profile is as strong as it's been in several years, and while we budget for the usual first quarter seasonal softness, we do not anticipate it will materially impact performance in 2026. In terms of our expiring annual base rent, we have resolved or have a deal on the work for 87% of expiring ABR in the first half of 2026, which gives us confidence that a retention rate should remain around that 90% level. In addition, of the 47 naked anchor leases, which are those that are expiring without any renewal options in 2026, 98% of our budgeted assumptions are resolved with mark-to-market spreads around 30%. Importantly, most of our budgeted minimum rent for 2026 is in place with 90% already cash flowing and another 8% driven by rent commencements from the snow pipeline and budgeted renewals and options. All told, This leaves only 2% of the budget as speculative, which is inclusive of new leases, additional renewals, and options. Provided there's no major bankruptcy activity in early 26 and no significant macro disruptions, we're confident in our budget and see the potential to outperform based on our historical success with the snow deliveries and retention levels. And while we do not provide a guidance for occupancy, we're optimistic that we can drive it higher than the 2025 year-end level. The same holds true for our snow pipeline. Given the elevated pace of leasing, we project it to grow further before beginning to compress through the end of the year and into 2027. This bodes well for the cash flow growth over the coming years. Now I'll turn it over to Ross.

Thank you, Dave. I'll begin with a brief recap of fourth quarter capital allocation, then turn to our 2026 expectations. The fourth quarter was active as we continued to execute on our strategy and capital plan. This was highlighted by the conversion of another structured investment with the acquisition of the common member's interest in shops at 82nd Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. Shops at 82nd is located in an exceptionally dense infill market and is a grocery anchored center with a strong tenant roster, including Target, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Starbucks, and Northwell Medical. Having initially invested preferred equity in this asset in 2021, we exercised our right of first offer slash refusal, which culminated in buying our partner's interest and retaining the property in Kimco's long-term portfolio. We utilized this property to complete a 1031 exchange, deferring tax gains from the continued sale of long-term, flat ground leases from the portfolio. This dovetailed well with our capital recycling strategy that we laid out last year, selling lower growth assets at compelling private market cap rates and reinvesting into higher growth, better yielding investments. We made meaningful progress on that initiative during 2025. As we enter 2026, competition for open air retail has become increasingly intense, making our ability to source acquisition opportunities from our existing JV platform and structured investment program, a meaningful differentiator for Kimco. This is critically important as we continue to see new entrants into this asset class with investors and operators trying to find ways to position themselves to win marketed deals. This is leading to tighter return hurdles and forcing us to be more selective to achieve acceptable yields. Our strategy and having our foot in the door on deal flow allows us to avoid a crowded bidding tent and find unique opportunities where we can invest at a more favorable spread. We are excited by our ability to continue recycling capital accretively and build on the momentum that started to ramp in 2025. To that point, we have identified a disposition pipeline of $300 million to $500 million, primarily consisting of flat ground leases, lower growth multi-tenant centers, and non-income producing land and entitlements. We're also further evaluating components of our multifamily program as potential opportunities to further monetize assets at low cap rates and crystallized value. We expect the blended cap rates from sales to be between 5% to 6%. Utilizing this low-cost source of capital, we anticipate acquiring a similar amount of shopping centers at cap rates roughly at 100 basis points higher at the midpoint. Importantly, these acquisitions not only provide higher going in yields, but we also expect on average approximately 200 basis points of incremental compounded annual growth, creating a higher growing portfolio that should enhance same site NOI and FFO growth as we recycle capital over time. As we did last year, we plan to utilize 1031 exchanges and other tax strategies to help defer gains from asset sales. The other component of our investment strategy is a modest expansion of the structured investment book with net growth of approximately $100 million at the midpoint with a blended average yield around 9%. This is a capital allocation strategy that we are confident we can achieve in 2026 and importantly build out as a recurring strategy to enhance the composition of the portfolio while reinvesting in higher growth and quality. We are off to a great start to the year with several dispositions already closed as well as a few structured investment deals funded in January. The pipeline is active and building, and the team is excited and motivated. Now I'll pass it off to Glenn for the full year results and our 2026 financial outlook and expectations.

Thanks, Ross, and good morning. As the team has shared, Kimco delivered a strong finish to 2025, driven by continued cash flow growth, disciplined capital allocation, and the strength of our open-air grocery-anchored portfolio in a supply-constrained environment. Starting with the fourth quarter, funds from operations, or FFO, was $294.3 million, or 44 cents per diluted share, representing a 4.8% increase versus the prior year period. This performance was driven by higher pro rata NOI, primarily reflecting greater minimum rents. For the full year, FFO was approximately $1.2 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, representing a 6.7% per share increase compared to 2024, driven by the embedded growth characteristics of our portfolio, highlighted by an increase of 4.9% from ProRata NOI. We also delivered same property NOI growth of 3% for both the quarter and the full year, supported by sustained demand for our space and consistent rent growth. Credit loss was 74 basis points for the full year, at the low end of our range, underscoring the solid tenant credit profile across the portfolio. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the year with strong liquidity and significant financial flexibility. This is demonstrated by over 2.2 billion of immediate liquidity, including 213 million of cash and full availability on our $2 billion unsecured revolving credit facility. We also maintained our solid balance sheet with consolidated net debt to EBITDA of 5.4 times, and on a look-through basis, including pro rata, JV debt, and preferred stock outstanding at 5.7 times. During the quarter, as Connor mentioned, we received an A3 unsecured debt rating from Moody's, which places Kimco in a select group of REITs with A-level ratings across the three major rating agencies. This milestone reflects the strength of our portfolio, a conservative leverage profile, consistent execution, and a significant financial capacity and flexibility. We also added another option to our funding toolkit by establishing a commercial paper program, which we expect to use opportunistically as part of our overall financing strategy. In terms of capital allocation, we repurchased 3.1 million common shares during the fourth quarter at a weighted average price of $19.96 per share. For the full year 2025, we repurchased 6.1 million common shares at an average price of $19.79. We view buybacks as an important lever when our valuation reflects a meaningful discount for the value of our real estate and our internal growth profile. Looking ahead, Kimco enters 2026 with considerable momentum and a foundation for continued strong performance. Our 2026 outlook reflects another year of healthy earnings progression. Our initial 2026 FFO per share range is $1.80 to $1.84, representing a 2.3% to 4.5% growth over 2025. This outlook reflects our expectation for continued demand across the portfolio, supported by same property NOI growth of 2.5% to 3.5%. With respect to same property and ally growth, we expect the first quarter to mark the low point for 2026 as we lap prior year rental income from tenants such as Joann's, Party City, Rite Aid, and Big Lots. Importantly, we see a clear and accelerating growth profile emerging thereafter, with each successive quarter benefiting from a rising pace of rent commencements from our snow pipeline, providing strong visibility through the balance of the year. As Dave Jamison noted, our tenant credit profile is as strong as it's been in many years, and we don't expect that to change materially in 2026. That said, we believe it's prudent to begin the year with a credit loss assumption of 75 to 100 basis points, which is consistent with historic norms and aligned with our approach over the last several years. Other financial assumptions in the outlook include lease termination income between $7 million to $15 million, non-cash gap revenue inclusive of straight line rent and above and below market rent amortization of 45 million to 50 million, and net mortgage and financing income, which continues to be an important contributor to our earnings profile, of 45 million to 55 million. On the expense side, we are projecting consolidated G&A between 128 million to 132 million, reflecting ongoing cost discipline and consolidated interest expense plus preferred dividends of $370 million to $377 million. With respect to capital deployment, we will continue to prioritize high return opportunities that enhance long-term growth. For 2026, we anticipate total development and redevelopment investment between $100 million to $150 million, capitalize lease-related and maintenance spending of $275 million to $300 million, support strong occupancy growth and tenancy momentum net new structure investment activity between 75 million to 125 million with going in yields in the 8 to 10 range a net neutral acquisition and disposition activity with a positive spread on reinvestment of proceeds In terms of the balance sheet, we have over 800 million of consolidated maturities at an average effective rate of approximately 2.65% in 2026. While these low coupon maturities represent a known headwind, we view them as manageable, and we are confident in our ability to address them proactively and opportunistically, supported by our A-level ratings and balance sheet strength. In summary, Kimco enters 2026 with confidence and a positive outlook. Our portfolio continues to generate growing cash flow supported by embedded rent commencements, ongoing occupancy upside, and robust leasing activity. Coupled with a fortified balance sheet, prudent capital allocation, and multiple levers for value creation, we believe we are well positioned to deliver another year of sustainable growth and profitability while continuing to provide an attractive dividend yield. Before we move on to Q&A, I want to recognize Paul Westbrook, Kimco's Chief Accounting Officer, who plans to retire at the end of March. For the past 23 years, Paul has been a tremendous partner and leader, and we're deeply grateful for his many years of service and contributions to the organization. At the same time, Kathleen Thayer will step into the role of Executive Vice President, Treasurer, and Chief Accounting Officer on April 1st. With nearly two decades at Kimco and deep institutional and technical expertise, Kathleen's appointment reflects the depth of our team and makes for a seamless transition. And with that, we'll open the call for questions.

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. We request that you ask one question, and if you have any follow-up questions, you can rejoin the questions queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Greg McGinnis from Scotia. Apologies, from Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I guess I'd say I'm here with Greg McGinnis. So, question for you. You spoke about the potential for a special dividend depending on the level of dispositions and recycling potential. But also, Connor, you've been pretty clear that you want the company to be a top quartile earnings grower. And certainly, I would think special dividend would imply that you're losing earnings relative to investing. So can you just walk more through that and how you're balancing the desire to have Kimco be a top earners grower versus the clear disconnect between where the stock is and the underlying asset value?

We're happy to. It's a good question, Alex. I think when you look at where our taxable income is and where our dividend level is, know we need to be mindful of the fact that as we really work to close the gap between where our public valuation is currently versus where the private valuation is we think there's multi-steps we can do to do that and one of the biggest ones is to really take assets to market as i mentioned earlier and really showcase the disconnect between our implied cap rate and where those assets are trading in the market today as you probably are aware We do not really have assets that have embedded losses. And when we look across the portfolio, most of our basis is quite low on our assets. So that will trigger a quite sizable taxable gain on any assets we sell. So we are very focused on 1031 exchanges to shield that taxable gain. We have been successful in doing that thus far. That being said, with the sizable disposition program that Ross outlined, we do thought it was important to showcase that if we are not able to shield those gains, it will trigger a special dividend. But our mission and our focus is obviously is to do 1031 exchanges to shield those taxable gains.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. My question is on capital allocation. You clearly have no shortage of options on how you should allocate capital. You repurchase shares. You're acquiring assets. You have the preferred lending book. You've redevelopment. At the same time, you've identified A pipeline of funding sources such as ground leases and multifamily so is how should we think about what are the most accretive opportunities. We know where where's the greatest upside or accretion and then I guess why not accelerate some of these actions and take advantage of taking advantage of this thanks.

Sure, it's a good question, Michael. So the final point of why not accelerate it, we are accelerating it year over year. I think Ross made that point that we're actually taking more to market this year than we did last year. A number of items restrict in terms of how big of a program we can take to market at any given time. Some of the ground leases need to be separately parceled and make sure that they're on a separate tax parcel so that we can sell them into the triple net or 1031 exchange market to get the best pricing. The other piece of it is, I think when you look at where our capital allocation priorities are, we still start with leasing as number one. That's really obviously where you see the best returns. We're continuing to showcase that there's accelerating demand for our product. We're taking market share as we're reaching out and using our platform as well as our relationships. to really take, I would say, the majority of deals that are being done in the open market and making sure that the retailer thinks of Kimco first as really the partner of choice when they look to roll out new store opening plans. Second to that, you know, we look at the redevelopment opportunity set that we have. You know, we did grow it year over year, so again, we're scaling it. We continue to see that those return on costs blend to double digits. And we continue to think that's great use of capital because typically not only are you getting a double-digit return on that redevelopment, but you're getting also a halo effect on the rest of the shopping center because, in essence, you're bringing something new and vibrant to an asset that has a halo effect on the residual shops that may be vacant or may have opportunity for mark-to-markets. Ross has outlined, obviously, the potential growth of the structured investment book. Again, we really like that opportunity set. We think it's a nice tool in the toolbox. to get our foot in the door with ROFO and ROFRs on assets we want to acquire. As we showcased in 2025, that's really the mission of that book is getting paid to wait. And those are averaging double digits. And then you look, obviously, on the core acquisition piece. You know, that's where we're match funding accretively, our flat ground leases that we can sell in the mid to low fives. We're looking at the multifamily opportunity set that we have as well, which would trade in the mid to low fives. And grocery anchored shopping centers with good growth, we think we can find, you know, our fair share of those. with, as Ross outlined, you know, potentially with a six cap handle with some really strong compound annual growth. So that's really the capital allocation menu that we have and where we're prioritizing. We're coming into the 2026 in really good shape. I think we've got a lot of momentum and we're very, very focused on showcasing what a compelling investment Kimco is today.

Yeah, I think that was a great overview. I would just quickly add, I mean, there is a bit of a push and pull. to every component of the capital allocation strategy. So we really do look at our investment strategies somewhat holistically as a blend. And we feel really good about the guide and the baseline that we put out to start the year in terms of blending together the amount of acquisitions, dispositions, redevelopment, structured And so at its core, at the end of the day, when we blend it together, we feel good about the accretion that we can obtain. And again, we're thinking about multiple different objectives through every one of these strategies, enhancing growth, both same-site and FFO, enhancing our grocery component of exposure, looking at the impact on watch list tenancy. So we're taking into consideration all of these factors. in addition to, of course, the tax considerations which Connor allocated or identified earlier.

And the final piece is obviously the share buyback opportunity. I think we've showcased in 2025 that we can make it a meaningful piece of our capital allocation strategy and use it opportunistically. And when Kimco is selling at values that we think are extraordinarily compelling, we have the balance sheet, the free cash flow, the opportunity set to take advantage of that. And we continue to focus and think 2026 is going to be a year where we'll continue to focus on that opportunity.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Cooper Clark from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking the question. On the acquisitions guidance, I know you mentioned earlier about opportunities coming from your JVs and structured investments, but historically you've also had success buying larger portfolios and integrating them into your platform. Just curious how the opportunity set looks like today in terms of larger portfolio deals rather than one-off transactions and any considerations we should be thinking about with respect to pricing between portfolio sales and one-off deals?

Sure, and that's always going to be part of our acquisition strategy. As we indicated earlier, you know, it is a bit challenging given where our cost of capital is compared to the private markets. And with financing readily available at pretty attractive rates, it has brought in a whole host of private investors and competition. That being said, you know, we do believe that we've thrived on some larger M&A and portfolio acquisitions in the past, and that will always be part of the playbook and the consideration. For the moment, you know, we feel really good about, as I mentioned, some of the foot in the door that we have within the structured program and within our joint venture program. Actually, when you look at 2025, all of our acquisitions for the year were made within investments where we already had a piece and or a right of first offer or a right of first refusal. So we'll continue to lean into that while we keep the door open for other larger transactions should the opportunity arise.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ronald Camden from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Caroline on for Ron. Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit on what you're seeing in terms of tenant health so far and just how it's trending and are there any names that we need to look out for or categories that are doing better or worse than last year?

Yeah, thanks for the question. So as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, sorry, the credit quality, I think, of our portfolio today is better than it's been in a number of years, especially coming out of COVID. A few notable retailers that were on the watch list previously, one of which is now off, is Michaels, where they've really been opportunistic in trying to restructure their capital stack. They had a... a great year last year in terms of repositioning their value proposition to their customer base, leveraging their brick and mortar fleet to really drive sales. So we continue to see that as an encouraging move forward. 24 Hour Fitness obviously has their CEO from the past that's now come in, wanting to retake the reins and reposition that portfolio. Although our exposure is low to them, It's another good indication that retailers are really taking bold and important steps to reposition their value proposition to ensure that they're offering the customer what's in demand today. When you look at the tenant strength of our existing fleet, I sort of look at 2026 and how much we've already resolved that I mentioned in my prepared remarks. And again, another indication when you have you know, 47 anchor leases that are coming due with no options and we've resolved 98% of them. Again, it's an indication either through renewals, new lease opportunities that the demand is high and people are continuing to see opportunities within our sector and more specifically within our portfolio, which again is also reflective of the retention levels that we're already seeing in the first half of 2026. So we haven't seen anything concerning We continue to see, you know, consumer growth being strong on the discretionary side within our sector. Within our shopping centers, retailers are really looking at, you know, 2027 now, even into 2028 to ensure that they're continuing their momentum to hit their open to buy mandates and make sure that they continue to grab the market share when it becomes available.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg McGinnis from Scotiabank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Glenn, could you just help us better understand the underlying components of the same-store NOI guidance of around 3%, you know, especially considering the, you know, significant sign-not-optimized pipeline and comping versus, you know, last year's bankruptcies?

Sure. You know, again, we put out 2.5 to 3.5 as the range. We know, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, that the beginning, the first quarter, is going to be the most challenging in terms of where we are based on the comp and us lapping the bankrupt tenants. But overall, we see the snow pipeline coming online the way Dave Jamison talked about, and we feel comfortable that the range is the right level, and it's tied into the entire guidance to get us to the $1.80, $1.84 as a major component of it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. I'm hoping you could talk a little bit about the realignment to a national leadership on terms of the asset management and kind of what drove that, what changes day to day in terms of leasing decisions and streamlining of those procedures and kind of the savings as well. Seems like the GNA is coming down a bit.

Sure, Juan. Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, it was a, as you may know, Kimco for decades has operated, had operated as a regional structure where we had multiple regions overseen by regional presidents. And it served the company very well for decades. And when we look forward in terms of what we're looking to achieve and in terms of our efficiency of scale, wanting to move quickly, wanting to adapt and evolve as a market, and the environment continues to change very quickly as well, we came to appreciate that if we streamlined our operating model, so replaced the regional structure with two functional teams, one for national leasing and one for asset management, That will ensure alignment and consistency across our platform, end-to-end, coast-to-coast, and that will enable us to accelerate all the workflows that we have in process to ensure that we are fully taking advantage of our scale and be able to grow with that as the market environment comes, as well as be able to better utilize all the technology and the investing that we're doing on that side, both from a new investment as well as just streamlining our business workflows. And so we felt it was prudent that we took that step now. We started to test it. And when you really look back in the last year, as I was mentioning these package deals, that was a good example of how we started to consolidate our efforts, streamline it, and have one accountable party go and execute, we could do this much, much quicker. The fact that we got Roth's deals done in 30 days from approved REC to lease execution was phenomenal, and that was really a direct reflection of streamlining that process. On the asset management side, it's ensuring consistency and continuity across the portfolio. Tom Simmons, previously running the southern region as president, has a depth of experience in mixed use activity, repositionings, redevelopments as a great strategist. And so we'll be able to expand that expertise across the entire country with consistency. So we felt it was prudent at this time to take that step forward. And then as it relates to savings, we're early days on the restructuring strategy. We've obviously made the announcement and we intent similar to what we've done with the wine garden integration and the RPT integration. We view this very much as a similar effort and that will be very thoughtful in terms of using the first several months to go through the restructuring, rebuild the team, identify and introduce new operating rules with a full rollout towards the back half of Q3. And within that exercise, we'll start to identify more of the savings that will come through the organization.

And just to add to that, this is Will Teichman, just to add a bit more about how we're approaching this project as a whole. Connor mentioned on our last earnings call that we have formed an Office of Innovation and Transformation to guide a lot of these operational improvement efforts for the company. And in conjunction with this operational restructuring, our Office of Innovation and Transformation is helping Dave and his team to quarterback and coordinate this overall planning process. In addition to that, in the past quarter since launching the new office, we've really been focusing in on a number of digital transformation efforts that we believe will help us to unlock additional efficiencies within the business. I want to just quickly touch on three of those. The first is around automation, where we're bringing together many of our early pilots around robotic process automation and agentic AI. under a single governance structure that will allow us to more rapidly build, deploy, and drive adoption of these tools. The second is a proprietary data visualization tool that we've constructed and launched last quarter, which is allowing us to gain better visibility into market and property-specific insights through some interactive maps and site plans and other tools that we've created. And then finally, we completed work on an internal natural language chatbot, which pairs our property and lease data with the power of OpenAI's latest GPT models and puts that into the hands of our associates. I think we're really excited overall about how things are coming together and about the opportunity to leverage a lot of these digital transformation efforts together with organizational changes to drive further efficiencies in the business.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Craig Melman from Citi. Your line is now open, Craig. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Maybe just circle back on capital recycling here a bit. I know you guys had mentioned the 100 basis points of redeployment accretion here, but I'm just kind of curious. That seems to be on a nominal basis. As you guys look on sort of an economic cap rate basis, which more directly impacts AFFO, like selling ground leases with zero capex to redeploy into high-quality capital

shopping centers like what what ends up being the affo contribution relative to 100 basis points as kind of the capex differential plays into it yeah it's a good question um you know the way that we think about it is is on a number of levels you know as mentioned first of all it's it's the going in spread on the cap rate that is sort of your day one But more importantly, when we're looking at the CAGR of that plus or minus 200 basis point spread, that does factor in sort of the net effective rent impact of the new deals that we're signing at elevated rents, as well as the capital that's being incurred both on the CapEx and on the leasing side. So we're looking at it both from an FFO and an AFFO standpoint, understanding that, you know, some of the investments that we make on multi-tenant shopping centers compared to flat ground leases are going to have additional capital needs, but the rent increases and what we're able to achieve from a growth standpoint and a leasing spread standpoint far outweighs that. So the AFFO should, you know, continue to be positive and growing in addition to the FFO level on its surface.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Samir Canal from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hey, Glenn, just sticking to guidance maybe a little bit here, the term fees at the midpoint, maybe expand on that. I know you're kind of assuming 11 million for the year. I've just gotten some questions this morning, and kind of how much of this is sort of speculative versus known at this point? Anything you can talk about, that would be great. Thanks.

Sure. You know, lease terminations are just a part of the business generally. If you look at what we did last year, we had about 10 million in total. Again, they're episodic. It depends on which leases you get back and what you're working on. I would say today we have visibility into about 5 to 7 million of it. But again, it's early in the year and, you know, it's fluid. So we baked into the full guidance range. Again, the $7 to $16 million range. To your point, at the midpoint, you're around $11 million. It's around the same level as we had last year. So it's not a driver of growth, but it's another component of just operating the business day to day.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Hondo St. Hust from Muziho. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Ravi Vaidya on the line for Hyundai. I hope you guys are doing well. I wanted to ask about the ground lease portfolio. How large is this segment within the overall portfolio, and what is the appetite, cadence, and forecast for dispositions within this category going forward? Thank you.

Yeah, so we're still right around 9% of our ABR that comes from these long-term flat ground leases. So last year we were able to dispose just over 100 million, which was in line with our expectations for last year. We do intend to accelerate that pace for this year. So part of that 300 to 500 million that we've outlined is a big component of that is going to be the ground leases. We'll continue to be very opportunistic about where and when we sell those assets. We've gotten off to a good start so far this year. We've seen a really increased demand from private investors for this, in addition to the retailers themselves that I think have gotten more active and aggressive in buying back some of their own real estate. So we have a high level of conviction in our ability to hit the targets from a cap rate perspective. And that will be somewhat ratable over the course of the year. But we very much believe that we will see a number of dispositions that is substantially higher than what we achieved in 25.

I think the nice part about the program is that it's recurring and we're able to backfill that pipeline going forward. Because when you think about the 9% that Ross outlined, we're actually still doing deals with Walmart, with Home Depot, with Lowe's, with Target across the portfolio in similar structures where we set it up as a long-term ground lease and are separately parceling that off. So in essence, the shopping center, has many different components to it. Some are growthier pieces than others. And this is a component that we see in the market today as being one that's priced very aggressively, but doesn't really drive any enhancement to our same-site NOI. And if we recycle it correctly, we think it can enhance FFO as well as same-site NOI. So it's a nice recurring program. We've got our development team working on separately parceling all of them out. We have the whole pipeline of opportunities. And as I mentioned earlier, the cadence is really of when they're ripe for disposition, meaning like we have the right tenor in terms of length of lease term, as well as separately parceled so that it hits the sweet spot of where the investors are looking for that credit investment.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Floris Van Dixcom from Leidenberg. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks. Appreciate the color on your capital recycling from your ground rent. Let me ask you a question sort of following up on that. I think you have 3,700 apartment units that are entitled or, you know, essentially, you know, shovel-ready almost. What is your appetite in pursuing those yourself versus monetizing them, selling them completely versus JVing? How should we think about how those units will get built and whose capital will be used for that?

Yeah, it's a great question, Floris, and it's another important component of the overall opportunity set. As you pointed out, we have a number of open operating and stabilized multifamily projects. We continue to have a tremendous amount of entitlement opportunity and additional land for development in the future. So with the continued sort of disparity between our public market pricing and where the private market is still valuing these really strong multifamily projects, it is another opportunity for us to consider TAB, Mark McIntyre:" crystallizing value monetizing and recycling so within those different components we're evaluating our existing fleet of multifamily as well as some of the future. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" We look at each and every opportunity on sort of a one off basis and identify what is the best way to monetize and or activate that project. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" So, even as we're considering monetization of some of the existing and future projects via the entitlements. We're also continuing to activate new projects that will be the future opportunity to continue to recycle and so on and so forth. So we're getting closer later this year to stabilizing our Coulter Avenue, which is our suburban square asset. We'll consider at that point in time what the best strategy is for modernization and recycling of that capital. At the same time, we've recently broken ground up in Daly City in Westlake in California, which is sort of bringing one project online, stabilizing it, and then looking at the next. We've been, I think, very selective in how we activate these projects, some of which will continue to be long-term ground leases that are the most capex-light way for us to activate. as well as the joint venture structure where we have contributed our land into a joint venture with a multifamily developer where our land contribution sits in sort of a preferred equity component of the capital stack. So we're extremely focused on recycling capital, crystallizing value, and then when we're activating new projects, how do we do it in the most efficient way, whether it be the CapEx light ground leases or in our contribution into a joint venture where we're able to generate FFO During the development stage, and then figured and determine the exit strategy upon completion.

Yeah, Flores, the only thing I would add is this is a big differentiator between Kimco and our peers. We are focused on our strategy of 1st string suburbs. We believe is sort of the unique retail plus opportunity set that Kimco brings that others don't. We entitled over 650 units just this past quarter. We've activated, as you've said, a number of projects. But the retail plus the apartments, we think, is really the opportunity set that differentiates Kimco. Because in a way, we have a number of different ways to unlock that embedded value. And again, that first-string suburb strategy is where we think That opportunity set is robust to unlock future value from the asset because, in essence, like the retail is underutilizing the FAR of the asset. And the parking lots that we have today, you know, driverless cars are being utilized across the country. Parking ratio requirements are coming down across the country. We believe that this strategy of unlocking value for our shareholders is really in the early innings. because of the opportunity set that we see across the entire portfolio that, again, sits in these first-ring suburbs where density continues to go up around us. And the Kimco asset in a lot of ways is the hole in the donut where everything has gone vertical around us and gives us the opportunity set to really add density in the future.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Griffin from Evercore ISI. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Um, Dave, I want to go back to your comments just on, on leasing and particularly, you know, as it relates to least occupancy, I think you might've mentioned that, you know, you're optimistic to get that number, um, up year over year at the end of 26 relative to 25, but maybe can you give us a sense, are we almost reaching sort of, you know, structural vacancy within the portfolio at the mid 96% range? Like, could this really get into 97, 97 and a half percent and, I imagine that would be driven more by the small shop leasing. Do you think we could be in a world where small shop occupancy gets to 94%, 95%? And then as you kind of think about that snow delta over the longer term, what's a good spread for that that we should think about?

Yeah, thanks for the question. So I'll never say never. Obviously, the goal would love to get to 94%, 95% on the small shop side. But I tend to look at the history to try to forecast the future a little bit. So when I look at the overall occupancy at 96.4, obviously comprised of anchors and small shops, as you know, small shops were at a record high at 92.7. And on anchors, though, we're just about 110 basis points off our all-time high, which actually happened in, I believe, Q4 2019 pre-COVID. And so when you think about that extra 110 basis points that's still left to be occupied, there's still room to run more. in terms of total occupancy, which is a great contributor. And tying that to snow, that in itself could represent another $12 to $15 million of value that could be contributed to snow over time. When I think of the small shops, we continue to see momentum, not only through just straight organic leasing activity, but as you've seen, we've expanded our repositioning, redevelopment activity significantly over the last couple of years. And as Connor mentioned, the halo effect, you'll start to see that benefit, as we've already seen, in terms of occupying the residual small shop space and driving rent increases for those locations. And so that is a big contributor. And as these anchor spaces and these repositionings start to come online, we'll continue to see that forward momentum, which I think could help propel small shop occupancy. In addition to that, you know, we look at the retailer – strategies and they do vary in terms of expanding or contracting square footage. And there's a number of opportunities where we can actually expand into a small shop space and give that retailer the optimized footprint. So building them a better mousetrap within the market and just staying within our center. So that could be an opportunity as well. And then when you look at the repositioning of what we view as sort of our chronic vacancies, so we put an initiative in place just over a year ago of spaces that had not been leased in over three years. And just that renewed focus of really targeting those areas, looking at... opportunities to start repositioning those individual units have yielded great outcomes and that's helped drive small shop activity so i think when you roll it all together there's definitely room to run there and that will continue to be a a contributor to the snow in the near term and then occupancy growth over time when we look at our normalized snow levels way back when it's around 180 basis points of spread in the snow so as we mentioned in our prepared remarks You could see a further expansion, primarily because you're growing the physical occupancy as economic occupancy continues to come online through the balance of the year. If we continue to grow physical occupancy at the top side, you'll see some snow expansion, continued contribution of cash flow potential for the future. But as those spaces start to come online, you'll start to see that compression through 27. But that bodes well for our cash flow growth, 27 and 28.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rich Hightower from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Obviously, covered a lot of ground so far, but I want to go back to maybe some action you're seeing in the private market. And I guess on some other calls, even not necessarily in retail, we're hearing that new buyers are sort of coming to the market in various property types, maybe in reaction to the new tax laws and accelerated depreciation and and some some elements like that so maybe dig into if you don't mind dig into some of the motivations you're seeing behind some of that activity um especially as as cap rates you know potentially continue to compress from here and just give us a sense of what that looks like yeah no it's absolutely a very compelling time to be an investor in open air retail i think you've heard from us and from other peers in the group the fundamentals that are

all-time highs and in multiple different metrics investors generalist investors real estate investors are taking notice and even with cap rates continuing to compress the financing has gotten much improved in terms of available liquidity and spreads and so you can still see in many instances situations where there's positive leverage which is a bit of a differentiator for retail versus some other asset classes. So we really have gone supercharged from what we were talking about 12 months ago in the retail curious to investors that are retail active. And while that makes it more competitive in the open market when we're trying to acquire assets and bidding tents are getting more and more full, it is a very healthy indication of the interest level and the fundamentals that we see in our business. And with the supply-demand dynamics not realistically going to change any time in the near to medium term, we think that this is going to continue to be a compelling opportunity for investors to put capital to work while the fundamentals are going to continue to be extremely strong for the foreseeable future.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Maybe a quick question on the structured investments. I see the guidance is a net number. Can you give some more details on what visibility you have to existing investments being repaid in 26 and then your confidence in being able to backfill those?

Sure. As you saw in 2025, we did a number of new deals, but we did have several very large repayments. In particular, we had our largest individual relationship and our largest individual asset that sort of achieved its business plan. Everything was successfully repaid, so it was a positive outcome for everybody involved. As we look into 2026, we do not anticipate any significant or meaningful sort of single repayments. There will always be some churn within this program, but what we've seen thus far with closing a couple of deals that we funded here in the early stages of January and a pipeline that has some additional assets and investments that are already lined up, we're very confident in our ability to go back to growth for this book. in 2026 and beyond. So there'll be a little bit of repayment activity throughout 2026, but on the net, as we put in our guide, we're highly confident that we'll see some growth here.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Wes Gulliday from Bard. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I just want to go back to the 47 anchors that have the large mark to market. Those are some nice spreads, but are you looking to replace any of those tenants, bring in a better tenant that drives more traffic, and do any of these unlock any redevelopments?

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I do say in terms of resolve, that is either continuing to renew the tenant in place or reposition the box itself for either redevelopment or a higher quality credit tenant. So in one example, we're actually replacing one of the boxes with Sprout's. In South Miami, a repositioning the entirety of the asset, so that is a redevelopment that's underway that's going to create significant upside for the remainder of the small shop activity and completely transform the site, which we're extremely excited about. And then in terms of a repositioning, we took what was a watch list tenant at natural exploration and backfilled that with total wine. which is another great example, which there's huge market-to-market opportunity there, and repositioning more complementary to what the remainder of that asset was really showcasing in terms of its direction. So we look at all of the available options and then make sure that we're making the best, obviously, economic deal, one, but two, choosing the best quality credit that will have the greatest impact long-term for the asset. In several of these cases, it's really transitioning, transforming the asset from what it was to what it could be going forward.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Mueller from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Just a quick one. You're guiding the higher acquisition and disposition volumes, and while I get it that they're net neutral, each of the components is higher than what you've guided to recently. Is this more of a function of the specific near-term pipelines you're seeing today, or is it just kind of a broader confidence that the transaction markets have opened up more?

It's really an intentional strategy of a creative capital recycling that we're undertaking, acknowledging that we have some components within the portfolio that are very valuable and attractive to the private markets that we're not necessarily getting credit for in our public market valuation. On top of that, pun intended, what we're selling are truly anchors to the growth profile of the organization and of our portfolio. So when you think about the impact of selling off some of these long-term ground leases in the 5% cap rate range that have a CAGR of sub 1% and being able to recycle that into acquisitions that are higher year one, but also compounding at a significantly higher growth rate of on average 200 basis points. This is an active strategy that we're employing to generate additional growth and to improve the portfolio and the long-term perspective of the growth opportunity within the organization. So the market is clearly open and conducive to it. We're fortunate that we have a lot of opportunity to recycle that capital from even within the portfolio, as we mentioned, from within our joint venture program. where there's going to be some recycling opportunities as well as our structured program where we've proven the ability to exercise on these rights that we have to acquire. We closed on two of those opportunities in 2025 and are hopeful that there'll be more in 2026. So we just think that the landscape really shapes up really well for the strategy that we've outlined, and that's just our baseline. And hopefully we can even outperform that in anything that we do. We'll just be incremental to that.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Linda Sy from Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. In terms of driving further efficiencies in the business with digital transformation, where do you expect the immediate beneficial impact to flow through soonest? Would it be in boosting the top line, reducing operating expenses, or G&A?

Thanks for the question. really on the expense side is where we're seeing impacts initially. And I think that's consistent as you look outside the real estate industry as well with what you're seeing in other large corporates. There was a study that was published by MIT last year about the relative lack of success that many large companies are having in deploying AI. And one of the big takeaways from that was the degree to which companies are overly prioritizing top line opportunities over back office and expense reduction opportunities. So it's not to say that there are not opportunities in both areas, but as we look at our strategy and where we've already been able to take costs out of the business, I would say it has largely been around GNA to start with. To drill down on that just a little bit further, I think, you know, obviously there's a lot of conversation around the cost of human capital. But I think it cannot be underestimated that there are other G&A efficiencies to be taken out of the operation. So as you think about our announcement to form, for example, our Office of Innovation and Transformation, one of the areas that that team is already having a significant impact out of the gate is in reducing our need for professional services vendors to bring those vendors in to perform software and other kind of organizational transformation work. We're also having quite a bit of success around vendor consolidation, which is part of the playbook that we've developed through our successful M&A transactions over the past couple of years. So those are just a couple examples of what we're seeing. We are optimistic about some of the early efforts that we're seeing around automation and agentic AI. And I think one of the things that I would just say about Kimco's approach and how it differentiates us from other companies is that many other companies seem today to be stuck in the pilot phase, buying off-the-shelf products and testing one-off use cases within individual functional areas. Our approach is different in that we're really building an engine to integrate technology and talent across the enterprise.

Thank you. We currently have no further questions, and I would like to hand back to David Busznecki for any closing remarks.

Thanks so much. We're really excited about our opportunity set for 2026 to continue building the momentum from 2025. Thanks everybody who joined the call today. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact us. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.