2/11/2026

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Greetings and welcome to the NetStreetCorp fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Should anyone require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt Miller, Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

speaker
Matt Miller
Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for NetStreet's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. On today's call, management's remarks and responses to your questions may contain statements considered forward-looking under federal securities law. These statements address matters subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. For more information on these factors, we encourage you to review our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2025, and other SEC filings. All forward-looking statements are made as of today, February 11, 2025, and NetStreet assumes no obligation to update them in the future. In addition, certain financial information presented on this call includes non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release and supplemental package for definitions, reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, and an explanation of their usefulness to investors, which can be found in the investor relations section of the company's website at NetStreet.com. Today's call is hosted by NetStreet CEO Mark Manheimer and CFO Dan Donovan. It will make some preparative marks followed by a Q&A session. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Thank you, Matt, and thank you all for joining us this morning on our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. I first want to congratulate the team on an outstanding 2025. We are efficiently running on all cylinders as we have the right people in place in each role across the entire organization to expand upon our success. We are well equipped from a balance sheet and cultural perspective at NetStreet to source the best opportunities, thoroughly underwrite them, and close them efficiently, while also maintaining rigorous monitoring and asset management to get ahead of future risks. We had a strong quarter of accelerated transaction activity as we completed $245.4 million of gross investments, our highest quarter on record, at a blended cash yield of 7.5%, with 15 years of weighted average lease term. For the full year, we completed a record $657.1 million of gross investments at a 7.5% blended cash yield with 13.9 years of weighted average lease term. When considering how modest our investment goals were to start the year, this record-level investment activity is even more impressive as it demonstrates our team's ability to rapidly adapt to fluctuations in both our cost of capital and the overall net lease marketplace. In addition, we accomplished this record activity while maintaining our focus on diversification as evidenced by our record level of dispositions, which were completed 60 basis points inside our blended cash yield on investments. Additionally, our diversification efforts led to 15 new tenants joining our roster in the fourth quarter alone, and with 31 new tenants being added for the full year. From an earnings perspective, our attractive investment activity helped us reach the high end of our upwardly revised AFFO per share guidance range. And looking ahead to this year, the team continues to find well-priced, high-quality investment opportunities with heightened levels of activity within the grocery, fitness, convenience store, and quick service restaurant industries. As previously announced, we achieved an investment grade rating of BBB- from Fitch Ratings. which has greatly improved our access to debt and allows for tighter spreads. Coupled with our growing pipeline of opportunities, improving cost of capital, and our low dividend payout ratio, all of which have accelerated our growth prospects, we are increasing our quarterly dividend by 2.3% to 22 cents per share. Our balance sheet remains in excellent condition with pro forma leverage of 3.8 times, $100 million of undrawn term loan capital as of today. $373.1 million of unsettled forward equity at year end, and no major debt maturities until 2028. Turning to the portfolio, we ended the quarter with investments in 758 properties that were leased to 129 tenants operating in 28 industries across 45 states. From a credit perspective, 58.3% of our total ABR is leased to investment grade or investment grade profile tenants. Our weighted average lease term remaining for the portfolio was 10.1 years, with just 2.4% of ABR expiring through 2027. The portfolio-weighted average unit level coverage is a very healthy 3.8 times. Moving on to dispositions, we sold 76 properties in 2025, totaling $178.6 million at a 6.9% cash yield, which allowed us to accomplish all of our diversification goals for the year, including bringing all tenants below 5% of ABR. With our diversification efforts now met, we do anticipate selling fewer assets in 2026, with our focus turning more towards opportunistic sales and risk mitigation in order to get ahead of potential risks well before they can impact our AFFO per share. That said, we do expect to improve portfolio diversity through the year, with Walgreens representing less than 2% of ABR by 2020-26 year-end. We are confident in the strength of the portfolio we have constructed and the durability of our in-place rent stream. More specifically, when analyzing the ABR that expires over the next four years, we continue to see a high probability of renewal given the cohort's blended rent coverage ratio of 5.1 times and our ongoing dialogue with these tenants. Coupled with our high corporate credit portfolio, properties with in-place rents near market with strong real estate fundamentals, an active asset management process, we remain confident that our portfolio can continue to produce the most consistent cash flow generation in the net lease space. In summary, 2025 was a year of record achievements for NetStreet, driven by our focus on high-quality, necessity-based retail properties and commitment to a well-capitalized balance sheet. We are excited about the momentum we have established in 2026 and our ability to deliver value to shareholders as one of the fastest AFFO per share growers in the space. With that, I'll hand the call to Dan to go over fourth quarter financials and then open up the call for your questions.

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Thank you, Mark. Looking at our fourth quarter earnings, we reported net income of $1.3 million, or $0.02 per diluted share. Core FFO for the quarter was $26.6 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, and AFFO was $28.2 million, or $0.33 per diluted share, which is a 3.1% increase over last year. For the full year 2025, we reported net income of $0.08 per diluted share, core FFO of $1.23 per diluted share, and AFFO of $1.31 per diluted share, which represented 4% growth over 2024. Turning to the expense front, with the company making seven net new hires during the year, our total recurring G&A represented 11% of total revenues in 2025, which was unchanged versus 2024. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect this metric to average below 10% as our G&A continues to rationalize relative to our revenue base. Turning to capital markets activity, we sold 5.8 million shares for 104 million of net proceeds in the quarter VRATM program. Subsequent to quarter end, we sold an additional 2.6 million shares for 46 million of net proceeds. Looking at the balance sheet, our adjusted net debt, which includes the impact of all forward equity, was 720 million. Our weighted average debt maturity was 3.9 years, and our weighted average interest rate was 4.24%. Including the extension options, which can be exercised at our discretion, we have no material debt maturing until February 2028. In addition, our total liquidity of $1 billion at year-end consisted of $14 million of cash on hand, half a billion dollars available on our revolving credit facility, $373 million of unsettled forward equity, and $150 million of undrawn term loan capacity. From a leverage perspective, our adjusted net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA RRE was four times at quarter-end, which remains comfortably below our targeted leverage range of 4.5 to 5.5 times. including ATM raise subsequent to quarter end, our adjusted net debt to annualized adjusted EBITRE was 3.8 times. Moving on to guidance, we are reaffirming our 2026 AFO per share guidance range of $1.35 to $1.39, which assumes year-over-year growth of 5% at the midpoint. Additionally, we continue to expect our net investment activity to range between $350 to $450 million and our cash G&A to range between $16 to $17 million. In addition, the company's AFO per share guidance range includes a penny and a half to three cents per share of estimated dilution due to the impact of the company's outstanding forward equity calculated in accordance with the Treasury stock method. Lastly, on February 5th, the Board declared a quarterly cash dividend of 22 cents per share, which represented a 2.3% increase from the prior quarter dividend of 21.5 cents per share. The dividend will be payable on March 31st to shareholders of record on March 16th. With that, operator, we will now open the line for questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question is from Handel St. Just from Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ravi Veda
Analyst, Mizuho Securities

Hi there. Good morning. This is Ravi Veda on the line for Handel. I hope you guys are doing well. I wanted to ask, how are you thinking about balancing tenant credit and yield as part of your capital deployment? I saw that 7-Eleven and Festival are no longer on your top tenant list, but Academy, a lower corporate credit, has entered the list. Is there more of a focus on four-wall coverage or lease term as you move forward with your capital deployment?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Thanks. Hey, Robbie. Good to hear from you. So, yeah, I mean, I guess specifically as it relates to Academy, I mean, they're double B+, so that's one notch away from being investment grade. And I think if you just look at their current ratios, I mean, very low debt levels, 3.3 times fixed charge coverage ratio, more than a $6 billion revenue company. I think if you just took the name off of it, you might think that they'd be investment grade. I think the fact that they went public, I don't know, five plus years ago after being a private equity backed company, they've really kind of returned to their roots as being what they were as a family run business when most people really thought of them as an investment grade company. So I do think that they are a high quality retailer and we have been very selective in in terms of the assets that we've acquired. You know, we've got a very good relationship directly with the folks down in Katy, Texas. And so, you know, we make sure that we're buying locations that generate very strong cash flows. But, you know, I do think that is a potential upgrade at some point in time. So that could, you know, at some point in time, you know, move up into the investment grade bucket. And then just more broadly, as it relates to investment grade, investment grade profile, versus kind of the sub-investment grade. Overall, I'd say we are seeing probably the better risk-adjusted returns in the non-rated bucket, where we're doing our own underrating of the corporate credit, many of whom don't have any debt, so there's no reason for them to have a rating, and I think could be really safer than some of the investment grade names out there. And then we're getting stronger leases, where we're getting master leases, we're getting you know, better rent escalations and pure absolute triple net leases. So, you know, we feel like the risk-adjusted returns are a little bit stronger there. But as you note in the past, you know, we've gone a little bit heavier on the investment grade side where the pricing was condensed. There wasn't much of a difference. And so I think it shows the strength of the acquisitions team and the underwriting team to be able to go out and source a lot of different types of opportunities and really sort through figuring out where we're getting the best risk-adjusted returns.

speaker
Ravi Veda
Analyst, Mizuho Securities

Got it, that's really helpful, Culler. And maybe you could just talk about the guide. What is your level of confidence towards reaching the upper end of the acquisition rate and the upper end of the AFO guide? And maybe some thoughts of how OneQ has progressed so far from a capital deployment standpoint, thanks.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I'll just jump in on the acquisition side. Yeah, I mean, I think you saw the number of acquisitions that we did last year. Certainly feel very comfortable that we can hit the high end of the acquisitions guide, especially in light of the fact that we're going to be selling significantly fewer properties this year.

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Yeah, you know, Robbie, anytime we put together guidance, you know, I think we obviously have a bias towards the upper end of the range. You know, as you think about it, there's really four drivers. It's net investment activity and the timing thereof. It's cash G&A. It's dilution from, you know, the Treasury stock method, as well as potential lost rent from credit events. I would say it's not linear. So, you know, if we come in at the low end of some of those ranges, that doesn't mean we can't be at the high end. It's kind of a, you know, a mixed bag in terms of where we can end up. But we certainly feel confident, as we did last year, you know, that we can reach the upper end of our range.

speaker
Michael

Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate the color.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Greg McInnis from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Greg McInnis
Analyst, Scotiabank

Hey, good morning. Mark, with these non-IG investments, you mentioned master leases and stronger rent escalation. Are you also getting property level P&Ls to compensate for the lower or lack of credit?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in most cases we are. Each transaction is a little bit different. And, you know, and again, you know, just because, you know, S&P or Moody's or Fitch doesn't say that somebody's investment grade, they can still have an investment grade balance sheet and an strong operations generating a lot of cash flow but yeah I mean I think in general you have a little bit more leverage a lot of these are Sally specs where we're dealing directly with a tenant not buying the assets from other landlords so it makes it a lot easier to have that negotiation it is very important for us to you know to really understand not just so much at the at the corporate level but also at the unit level that we're getting you know productive stores that you know the tenants committed to long term okay thanks

speaker
Greg McInnis
Analyst, Scotiabank

Dan, on the guidance, are you able to kind of give us maybe some guidelines or your thoughts around the equity issuance that you're kind of building in there and on the Treasury solution as well?

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Yeah. You know, look, I think where we sit today at 3.8 times pro forma leverage, and you think about, you know, we have $100 million of undrawn term loan capital today. We have over $400 million of... you know, unsettled forward equity that we can draw upon, you know, over $40 million of free cash flow. You know, we certainly don't need to raise any equity at the moment. We can afford to be patient. I think what I tell you is we sort of have a de minimis amount of equity baked into the model at this point in time. So, you know, nothing that we can't handle, as we sit here today.

speaker
Greg McInnis
Analyst, Scotiabank

So can we assume that with a slightly higher, I don't know how much higher you guys feel it needs to be stock price, then you kind of open up a lot of opportunity on the acquisition side and growth?

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Yeah, I think what I would say is just from a leverage perspective, our targeted range is four and a half to five and a half times. I think we can easily operate within that range, raise no additional equity. I think our preference is to obviously be over-equitized. And to the degree that our stock price stays where it is or moves higher, I think we're comfortable raising equity. As we sit here today, our spreads are 160 to 170 basis points over. I think that's certainly above the industry average of the last 20 years. But at the same time, it's early in the year, and we're not necessarily in – we can be patient. And so – I think to the degree that the pipeline continues to increase and we feel good about our cost of equity, we could certainly raise it, but it's still early on in the year.

speaker
Greg McInnis
Analyst, Scotiabank

Great. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from John Kilichowski from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

speaker
John Kilichowski
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Hi. Good morning, team. First one, just kind of going back to that last question, I'm curious if there's no real, you know, extra need for equity here. I guess as far as the acquisition guide is concerned, you know, how much of that is dictated by capital needs versus just what the opportunity set is out there on the market? Because it's good to hear there's nothing that you need, but I'm curious, like, you know, how far above and beyond you can go given where leverage is and given the equity capacity you've built up.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, and I think with the guide, I mean, we want to have some optionality in there. You know, I think the team is able to to source significantly more than what we've done in the past. I think it's really cost of capital constraints. If our cost of capital gets meaningfully more attractive, we can certainly ramp up acquisitions quite a bit.

speaker
John Kilichowski
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

And then maybe just one for me on the IG side. You know, you've seen a little bit of drift downwards in that IG-IG profile exposure over the past couple quarters. Is there anything to note there strategically? I understand there's just better risk-adjusted returns in that space that you're seeing right now, but I'm curious what's been that move. Are you just – is there target subsectors that sit outside of that box that you like more? You like the unit-level coverage? Just curious what's making that move.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I mean, it's really just the pricing of the opportunities. You know, we're seeing a lot of great opportunities really on both sides. It's just, you know, we feel like the pricing has been more attractive and really kind of our efficient frontier of, you know, what our portfolio allocation looks like right now. It's kind of really more, it's not really, it's a byproduct of what we're doing, which is, you know, 30 to 40% investment grade, investment grade profile. tenants, you know, right now, but that can certainly change if we see the market dynamics change. And then, you know, I think things that don't jump off the page are really, you know, the quality of the leases. You know, we don't really want to go out and buy what are effectively shopping center leases where you have, you know, co-tenancy use restrictions, you know, and a lot of things, you know, landlord responsibilities that we don't really want to be taking on and taking on the cost of. And so, you know, we're not as dogmatic about whether something is just, investment grade or not investment grade. We're really just kind of focused on the right risk-adjusted returns.

speaker
spk03

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Michael Goldsmith
Analyst, UBS

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. As portfolio diversification is presumably more complete, you know, how would you characterize this shift in strategy from here? I think you talked a little bit about being more opportunistic. Is there a way to think about like shifting from defense to offense, just trying to get a sense of how your actions this year and in the future may change from kind of what you, what kind of transpired in the last year or so?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think, you know, coming out of the gates, you know, back in 2020, you know, with a smaller portfolio, anytime that we saw a really great opportunity that had some size to it, it really kind of moved the, The concentrations are around quite a bit with a smaller portfolio. And so really just with the market reaction of some of the tenants, even though we felt like they were good assets and continue to think that they were good assets, they're going to continue to pay rent and continue to renew their leases, it had an impact on our multiples. So we became a little bit more aggressive on addressing some of the concentrations to bring them down, which was kind of a longer-term plan, but we expedited that into a shorter or medium-term plan. I think as we look forward today, I would just expect us to not have to sell down as much. It would take a lot more for us to buy to really start to run into any type of concentration concerns. On a go-forward basis, I think under 5% is where all tenants are today. I'd be surprised to see anybody move up above that threshold. In fact, I think you're going to see the diversity of the portfolio just continue to improve over time.

speaker
Michael Goldsmith
Analyst, UBS

Thanks for that, and as a follow-up, the sub-one times coverage trosh picked up sequentially by 50 basis points. What's driving that? Is that something that you're monitoring? Just trying to get a little more color there.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I mean, it is something that we monitor. I mean, we're monitoring everything on that histogram. I think that's going to move around a little bit quarter to quarter, so we try not to overreact to any moves there. But that relates to some assets that, you know, we feel like, you know, are fine, you know, that are, you know, the rent per square foot is below market for each of those assets. And we've got some lease terms. So we'll continue to monitor that. If we don't see improvement over the next, you know, several quarters, then we may look to monetize the assets or do something there. But, you know, it's certainly nothing of concern here in the short or medium term.

speaker
Michael Goldsmith
Analyst, UBS

Thank you very much. Good luck in 2026.

speaker
spk03

Thanks, Michael. Thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Smedes Rose from Citi. Please go ahead.

speaker
Nick Joseph
Analyst, Smedes Rose

Thanks. It's Nick Joseph here with Smedes. Maybe just following up on that last question, I think in the opening remarks you talked about opportunistic sales and really just risk mitigation. So as you look at the portfolio today, is that a comment more on industries or is that tenant or property specific?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I think last year we sold a lot of properties. And so that was really addressing some of the concentrations, trying to bring those down. I think we're more or less done with what needs to get accomplished there. We hit the goal that we set out at the beginning of the year. And so when we think about dispositions now, we've got some relationships where people will come to us with very aggressive cap rates on some assets that we own. And we feel like, okay, they're valuing those assets more than we are, and so we can take that capital and redeploy it accretively and improve the quality of the portfolio. So anytime we can do that, we'll take advantage of those situations. And then it's just general risk mitigation. I think you can kind of look at the histogram to get some idea of the things that we're thinking about. And if we start to see degradation of performance, either at the corporate or unit level, those will likely be more likely to be disposable in the future. you know, when you think about the quantum of what we'll be selling, it'll be significantly less than what we did last year.

speaker
Nick Joseph
Analyst, Smedes Rose

Thanks. And then I know there's not a high percentage of rent expiring this year, but what are the expectations for kind of the new rent versus the expiring rent?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I mean, I think in most cases, they're just going to renew the lease. And then I think there's one property where the rent's about $160,000, where we do not expect the lease to get renewed, but we're in conversations with a convenience store operator that would be interested in taking that over as a ground lease, either to ground lease it or to just sell it. We're going to kind of figure out where we're getting the better outcome.

speaker
Michael

Thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Jay Kornreich from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jay Kornreich
Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald

Hey, good morning, guys. Following up on the deal spreads you outlined at currently 160 to 170 basis points, Can you maybe just describe the competitive landscape for net lease assets currently? I mean, it looks like cap rates hold up at seven, seven and a half percent in 4Q. So just curious if you anticipate, you know, elevated competition to compress rates in 2026, or perhaps that's why you like these non-rated tenant investments that they face less competition and have better yields. So just curious of your thoughts on that as the year goes on.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah. And, you know, we've certainly, you know, read a lot about competition coming into the space and, uh, We're aware of some groups stepping in and buying some larger portfolios, but they're really not chasing the smaller opportunities. We're averaging $3.5, $4 million per property. It's a little bit too cumbersome for a lot of those larger shops with smaller teams to go out and compete there. So we just haven't really seen them very much. And so the competition has not changed at all. We're typically competing with the seller's expectations in most cases and occasionally a 1031 buyer. But for the most part, the competition has not had an impact on pricing at all. We've seen a very tight band of where the 10 years trading, I think it was a little less than 4.2% before we got on the call. So it's really kind of bounced around four, low fours, and maybe a little bit under four here and there. But that tight band has really allowed prices to get very sticky. And so we expect, at least through first quarter and even some of what we've acquired or looking to acquire in the second quarter that's in our pipeline to see very similar cap rates to what we saw throughout 2025.

speaker
Jay Kornreich
Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald

Okay, I appreciate that. And then just one follow-up. You received your first rating at investment grade from Fitch in December. So can you just outline, you know, what the cost of capital improvements are you expect from that and any update to timing or impact from further ratings from Moody's or S&P?

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Sure. Look, as you can see in the disclosure, most of our term loans priced down 25 to 20 basis points. So it kind of resulted in basically $2 million of annual interest rate savings. We feel good about the rating that we received. To the degree that we got an upgrade in that rating, it'd be another probably 10 basis points of upside across the term loan stack. As we stay here today, we don't really have a need to go out and raise long-term debt until probably mid-2027, so we're not necessarily in a rush to get another rating, but certainly we'll be talking and speaking with the agencies throughout this year and into next year just to maintain dialogue.

speaker
Michael

Okay. Thanks very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Wes Galladay from Baird. Please go ahead.

speaker
Wes Galladay
Analyst, Robert W. Baird & Co.

Hey, guys, I believe you mentioned you added 31 tenants in 2025. When you look at the deal volume in 2026, do you expect to add a lot more relationships like you did last year, or are you just going to work more with the existing relationships?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I mean, it will certainly be a combination. We expect to add new tenants. To be totally frank, those 31 tenants, most of those are one or two properties, a couple portfolios in there. But, you know, a lot of those are just kind of, you know, very small investments that kind of, you know, make that number seem maybe a little bit bigger. But I would expect us to be adding, you know, five, six new tenants per quarter would be a good assumption.

speaker
Wes Galladay
Analyst, Robert W. Baird & Co.

Okay. And what about categories? Do you expect to add a lot this year or lean into a lot more?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

I think we'll be shopping in the same food groups as we've been more recently. So we're seeing really good opportunities, and convenience stores continues to be a big one. Grocery, even some fitness selectively, and quick service restaurants has been really good for us as well.

speaker
spk03

That's all for me. Thank you. Thanks, Wes.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Michael Gorman from BTIG. Please go ahead.

speaker
Michael Gorman
Analyst, BTIG

Yeah, thanks. Just one quick one for me, Dan. Going back to your mention not needing to raise long-term debt until kind of mid-2027, can you just remind us of the roadmap? Would that be an unsecured listed – would you be looking at the unsecured listed market then or just kind of what the roadmap is to get to the unsecured listed market there? Thanks. Thanks.

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Yes. So you actually don't even need an investment grade credit rating to access the private placement market. It certainly is preferred. So as we sit here today, if we wanted to go out and access the private placement market efficiently, I think we could. As we think about 2027, it's a year and a half away. I think it could be a private placement. It could be an unsecured bond to the degree that we got a second or third rating from one of the rating agencies. I think it just kind of depends on kind of the growth of the company and where we see the lowest cost of capital from the debt side. So it just kind of remains to be seen, Michael.

speaker
Michael

Great. Thanks, Dan.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Upal Rana from KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Upal Rana
Analyst, KeyBank Capital Markets

Great. Thank you. Mark, I want to get your thoughts on the broader retail space and what you're seeing in terms of any kind of troubled tenants or troubled categories. You've had your fair share of headline risks in 24, but was able to sidestep that last year. So just curious on your thoughts heading into 26 and how maybe bankruptcies or short closings might impact how you invest or divest this year.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, sure. I mean, there's really not anything in our portfolio that, you know, any themes there. I think just more broadly, as you think about the consumer, you know, not new news to anybody, but the K-shaped economy is real, and the lower-income consumers felt a lot more pressure, and that's leaked into some middle-income consumers. So I think you have to be very careful about understanding who the consumers are of each business and whether these are necessity products or how discretionary they are. And so that cross-section of the lower-income consumer and more discretionary spend is likely to have a little bit more pressure. We've seen You know, a handful of casual diners, you know, come under some pressure, whether it be Bahama Breeze, I think, you know, completely shutting their doors, one of the Darden concepts. And, you know, we've seen a couple of those types of things. But I think that's going to be the theme is it's going to be the lower income consumer at a cross section of more discretionary spend.

speaker
Upal Rana
Analyst, KeyBank Capital Markets

Okay, great. That was helpful. And then, you know, I'm just doing less dispositions this year. Just curious, are you still planning to reduce store count exposure to some of your troubled tenants, or are you comfortable with what you currently own? And maybe you could talk about the appetite for those types of tenants in the transaction market today.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm not sure if we have troubled tenants. I think we had a couple of tenants that maybe the news flow wasn't quite as positive. But that being said, we're unlikely to be adding to the tenants that we were decreasing exposure to. I think they're likely to continue to decrease a little bit on the margin. But the portfolio, as it sits today, and even with those tenants, we've got really strong performing assets. Our relationships with the tenants are really very helpful in making sure that we understand what that risk looks like and making sure that we've got locations that generate very strong cash flow, and we're very confident in the portfolio.

speaker
Michael

Okay, great. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Yana Galan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

speaker
Yana Galan
Analyst, Bank of America

Hi, thank you for taking the question. Following up on the rent recapture conversation, Mark, I thought your comments on rent coverage of 5.1 times for the near to medium term lease expirations was very interesting. Do most of these tenants still have renewal options available, or can lease recapture in the future be higher than the historical level?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

I wish we had a lot of leases with no options, but very rarely do we have any leases that don't have options left Our expectation is that almost all of those locations, or at least the lion's share of those locations, the tenant's just going to hit the option because they're generating so much cash flow there.

speaker
Yana Galan
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you. And maybe for Dan on the balance sheet, some of your peers in net lease have implemented commercial paper programs. Is that something you would look to in the future?

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

Yeah, it's not something I've looked into the near term. I think you have to be, you know, much more sizable than we are today to access that program. So it's something we would look forward to doing, but I think at our size today, I don't think that, as well as our credit ratings, I don't think that market is available to us at the moment.

speaker
spk05

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question is from Dan Guglielmo from Capital One Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Dan Guglielmo
Analyst, Capital One Securities

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. On the net investment guidance, do you think of kind of the higher end of the range as a limit, or would you be willing to push through that if the conditions are right?

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, I have very few concerns about us being able to source attractive opportunities, so that's not really a limit, you know, at all. In fact, I think we could do significantly more than the high end of the band there. It's really going to come down to, you know, how accretive would it be for us to to go down that path. If we've got a really strong cost of capital and our stock price is doing really well, then I would expect us to increase that.

speaker
Dan Guglielmo
Analyst, Capital One Securities

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. And then on the 3Q call, you all had said there was about 100 million acquisitions the last two days of the quarter. Were there similar kind of investment volumes the last few days of 4Q, or was it more evenly spread?

speaker
Dan Donovan
CFO

No, it wasn't as bad as the third quarter, just because we really started to accelerate our growth when we got to follow on in mid-July. I think our average closing date was kind of middle December, and we did close about $77 million of transactions in the last three days of the quarter. So it was more back in what waited, similar to third quarter.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

And then just to piggyback on that, I would not expect that in the first quarter, where we were able to close more earlier in the quarter.

speaker
Michael

Great. Thanks. Appreciate that, Connor.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mark Vanheimer for closing comments.

speaker
Mark Manheimer
CEO

Well, thanks, everybody, for joining today. We appreciate your interest in the company and look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming conference season.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer

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