Rithm Property Trust Inc. Common stock

Greetings and welcome to the RPT Realty First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should 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, Vin Chow. Thank you.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for RPT's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Additionally, statements made during the call are made as of the date of this call. Listeners to any replay should understand that the passage of time by itself will diminish the quality of the statements made. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, results to differ from expectations. Certain of these factors are described as risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2021, and in our earnings release for the first quarter of 2022. Certain of these statements made on today's call also involve non-GAAP financial measures. Those terms are directed to our first quarter of 2022 and fourth quarter of 2021 press releases, which include definitions of those non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures, and which are available on our website in the Investors section. I would now like to turn the call over to President and CEO Brian Harper and CFO Mike DesMorris for their opening remarks, after which we will open the call for questions.

Thanks, Vin. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. 2022 started off much like we ended in 2021, with positive leasing momentum, success on the investment front, and continued access to capital. In my four years at the company, I've witnessed a tangible transformation in the quality of our tenants, markets, portfolio, people, and processes, all of which has significantly improved the quality of our cash flows. Our first quarter leasing volume was the best quarterly level in over a decade, while our investments team continues to find accretive deals after a record-breaking 2021. We are reshaping our geographic mix in real time, and our success on the operating and investment front is translating into financial success. Our first quarter same property NOI growth of 9.9% and OFFO per share growth of 37% is reflected of the RPT transformation and was consistent with our expectations. Our ticker might be the same, but our company is very different from what it was just a few years ago. As I've been saying for the past few quarters, the leasing environment remains robust across property types, markets, and tenant categories as the pandemic has reinforced the importance of brick and mortar as a key and profitable component of retailers' distribution channels. Reflective of this demand, during the first quarter, we signed 716,000 square feet of leases across 82 transactions. That is more than the last two quarters combined and is the highest quarterly level since the first quarter of 2010, putting us on track to exceed the 1.7 million square feet we signed last year. Leasing activity for the quarter included 19 anchor deals highlighted by our new lease with the National Wholesale Club at River City Marketplace in Jacksonville and key leases with Dick's Sporting Goods and Ross at Providence Marketplace, two TJ Maxx leases, and $3 releases. Further highlighting the strength of the market is our ability to drive price in addition to volume. In the first quarter, we achieved a new lease spread of 20% and 25.7% on a trailing 12 month basis, reflective of the attractive mark to market opportunity in the portfolio that we will continue to harvest over the next several years. The high single-digit renewal spread that we have been reporting also reflected the improved retail landscape with our retention ratio hitting 93%, consistent with last year, but above pre-COVID levels. Tenants that were previously struggling have been exercising renewal options as their businesses improve and the value of their real estate became more apparent in the wake of the pandemic. It is worth noting that our average annual expiring rent per square foot in 2023 through 2027 are all below our in-place portfolio average. Older leases on great real estate like ours should allow us to continue to drive strong releasing spreads and achieve elevated tenant retention rates over the next few years. Strong leasing demand is also resulting in upgrades to our tenancy as retailers flock to the highest quality real estate like ours. This is allowing us to improve the quality and the value of our cash flows. In the first quarter, we signed a deal with a national wholesale club at River City Marketplace in Jacksonville that will replace the Regal Cinema. Not only will this solidify the stability of the center for many years, but it will also create significant value through cap rate compressions. Another notable deal includes Sweetgreen at Troy Marketplace in Detroit. The deal was signed on the back of our AA-rated grocery deal that is scheduled to commence later this year. We also signed Sephora at Town & Country in St. Louis. That, along with an REI that we signed earlier in the year, combined to replace a former Steinmart box. And yet another example of how the downturn has benefited our business by allowing us to upgrade our tenancy attractive economics and with investment grade credit. Strong demand is also resulting in more opportunities to redevelop our centers often with a grocer anchor leading the way. We continue to make great progress for the redevelopment plans at Marketplace of Delray and Delray Beach and Hunter Square in Oakland County outside of Detroit where we are working with leading grocers to upgrade the centers and while our Publix expansion project at the Crossroads in Palm Beach is slated to break ground later this month. We're also zeroing in on another grocer deal to anchor redevelopment at our West Broward property in Miami that will significantly upgrade the tenancy of the center where we're placing a former save-a-lot, which we believe will compress cap rates by as much as 300 basis points once the new grocer is in place. I want to end my opening remarks on investments. where we continue to flex the power of our grocery anchored net lease and wholly owned investment platforms as evidenced by our increased 2022 acquisition guidance to $225 million, up $100 million from last quarter. We are rapidly reshaping the portfolios towards higher growth markets like Boston, Atlanta, Nashville, and Florida, which collectively now account for about 51% of the company's total property value. with our three Florida markets of Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville accounting for 28% of the total. Just after the end of the quarter, we closed on the acquisition of the Crossing Shopping Center near the high barrier coastal city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the greater Boston MSA. With this acquisition, Boston moves up to our second largest market at about 12% of AVR. The asset fits nicely into our last-mile credit center bucket. The Crossings is a market-dominant 510,000-square-foot center that benefits from a lack of state sales tax and year-round tourism. It boasts a true trade area of $251,000 with high average three-mile income of $114,000. The center has two strong grocers in Aldi and Trader Joe's, who is doing $2,500 per square foot in sales. Other strong credits include Dick's Sporting Goods, Best Buy, Kohl's, McDonald's, Ulta, Chipotle, and Five Below. Center's cash flow has proven to be very durable, as the average tenant has been here for over 22 years. We acquired the crossings for $104 million, or just $204 per square foot, which is well below replacement cost. When combined with several parcel sales to our net lease platform expected later this year, we expect to generate an attractive unlevered IRR that is within our targeted 8% to 10% range. This asset also comes with 25,000 square foot of vacancy, which we believe we can realize attractive upside in the near term. We are dividing up the space in order to drive contractual annual rent increases based on tenant demand some of which is coming from a mall that is adjacent to our center. As we have mentioned previously, we have been very focused on the strategy for infill street real estate in existing markets. High street real estate such as Back Bay Boston or SoHo is not the focus here. We are targeting first ring neighborhoods in highly fragmented markets with real estate that can't be replicated. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we went under contract on Brookline Village, a small 11,000-square-foot collection of properties on Harvard Street in Brookline, Mass., just outside of Cambridge, for $5 million. This is the deal I alluded to on our last call. Brookline Village is located in an envelope market that boasts a three-mile population of 450,000 and a household income of $122,000. Our scale in the greater Boston area gives us the ability to source these types of first-ring neighborhood street properties where we can generate strong annual growth with little to no capex, which equates to solid, unlevered IRRs. This type of product is abundant and fractured, which provides us with a long runway to create a lot of value for our shareholders. We expect to share a lot more about first-ring acquisitions in upcoming quarters. Finally, our net lease platform closed on the acquisition of two single-tenant properties from two of RPT's shopping centers during the quarter for $11.6 million. Early in the second quarter, the platform closed on the acquisition of Starbucks in Ridgeland, Mississippi for $2.2 million, and on Ensonia Landing, just outside of New Haven, Connecticut, for $14 million. Ensonia is a 91,000-square-foot stop-and-shop anchored neighborhood center where the net lease platform can realize significant upside through lease up and sale of the small shop portion of the center while keeping the stop and shop in a market that is outside of RPT's core. 2022 has started off on the right foot as we execute across all aspects of the business. Our transformation is accelerating. We continue to improve our tenancy, our geographic mix, and our portfolio quality while also driving same property and OFFO per share growth that we believe will lead to substantial shareholder value creation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Today I will discuss our first quarter results, provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity, and end with commentary on our guidance. We're very encouraged by our first quarter results. First quarter operating FFO per diluted share up 26 cents, was up 1 cent over last quarter, primarily due to higher income from net acquisition activity and management fees. As we move further into 2022, we expect bad debt to revert to pre-pandemic historical levels as collections continue to hold steady. Our operating portfolio delivered strong same property and Y growth of 9.9% over last year. This growth was driven by lower bad debt expense, which contributed 7.8%, and a minimum rent growth of 1.7% comprised of occupancy gains, releasing spreads, and annual rent escalators. Our leasing velocity also continues to accelerate and exceed our expectations. As Brian mentioned, we signed 82 leases totaling 716,000 square feet. driving our sign-not-commence balance, including leases and negotiations, to $10.3 million with a weighted average ABR per square foot of over $18, representing a 15% increase over our portfolio average. This upside will continue to provide tailwinds in the 23 and 24, with a total incremental benefit to operating FFO expected to be about $0.11 per share. This quarter's leasing surge resulted in a sequential uptick in our lease rate to 93.2%, despite the expected recapture of a couple anchor spaces, one of which has already been released to an investment-grade grocer, Giant Ahold. We were also very pleased with an increase in our small shop lease rate to 85.5%, up from year-end 2021, which is atypical at this point in the year, and it is customary for this number to dip in the first quarter post-holidays. This is yet another indicator of strong tenant demand in our transformed portfolio. Based on our current leasing pipeline, we continue to see upside to our lease rate as we march to a 95% occupied level. We ended the first quarter with net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA of 6.8 times, unchanged from last quarter. However, including our sign-not-commence and leases and advanced negotiation of 10.3 million, our leverage would be a half-turn better at 6.3 times. Given the timing of our expected acquisitions and dispositions, there could be some volatility in our reported leverage levels quarter to quarter, but we continue to expect our leverage to fall towards our target range as COVID-related impacts continue to burn off and as our strong S&O backlog comes online over the next few years. Our liquidity remains strong as we continue to opportunistically access the debt and equity markets. At the end of the quarter, we had total liquidity of $383 million, including revolver capacity of $350 million, $17 million of forward basis equity, and $16 million of cash. This capacity allows us to take advantage of opportunistic acquisitions across our three investment platforms. In terms of funding 2022 assumed acquisitions, we will continue to be opportunistic with all of our capital allocation options including non-core asset sales, contributions to our grocery and net lease JV platforms, debt, and equity issuance under our ATM, all with an eye on creating sustainable growth and shareholder value while keeping leverage in check. Regarding debt activities, through our grocer, Anchor JV, we obtained a commitment on a mortgage on our Dedham Shopping Center in Boston, totaling $53 million or $27 million at our share. with a 10-year term and a fixed interest rate of 3.35%. We expect to close this loan in the second quarter, subject to customary closing conditions. Today, we have zero debt maturing in 22 and less than 20% in 23 and 24. In conjunction with our credit facility recast in the second half of this year, we plan to address all our debt maturing through 24. Also, as a reminder, virtually all of our debt was fixed at core rent, mitigating any material risks to interest rate headwinds over the next couple of years. Moving on to guidance. Given our strong leasing performance, we are raising the low end of our same property in Hawaii growth guidance by 50 basis points. We are also raising our operating FFO per share guidance to 101 to 105 from $1 even to 105. As we look forward, we expect our year-over-year same-property-based rent growth to accelerate in the back half of the year as our S&O backlog comes online. However, given tougher back debt comps that include prior period reversals in 2021, we do expect same-property and wide growth to accelerate for the remainder of the year. Also, as a reminder, we have not assumed any favorable or unfavorable adjustments from prior year bad debt estimates in our 2022 guidance. And lastly, as Brian noted, we did increase our 2022 investment guidance to roughly $225 million in acquisitions and up to $200 million in dispositions. And with that, I will turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

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 questions from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Your first question comes from Derek Johnson with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Hi, Brian. Brookline deal, first ring, street retail. This is certainly a smaller acquisition. It's probably one that a lot of your competitors wouldn't be interested in, but would love to hear more about your justification. Since it is pretty small, is there a potential to, you said it didn't need much CapEx, but are the rents below market? And do you see this as, and I think you alluded to it, a reasonable growth avenue for the company going forward where these small deals can move the needle?

Yeah, good morning, Derek, and thank you for that question. Generally speaking, I like and believe in real estate investments that have a moat. You know, a case in example is our deal in Portsmouth. While that's not street, it has a moat because of its high barrier entry coastal market that it's in, and there is zero threat of anything ever being built or tenant relocation options. Regarding Brookline, iconic first ring street neighborhoods like that, they have downtowns that can't be replicated. And really I would take away four kind of key attributes of kind of my conviction on the first ring suburban is number one, there's a large runway to scale given the fractured ownership in the core cities that RPT operates in today. This is an investment, as you said, that requires very little capex, but also it requires on-the-ground investment or leasing professionals meeting with these families or firms that own these single buildings. This could really move the needle for our company. We are extremely competent in these geographic areas and know the MSAs extremely well. As you've seen, I believe in being extremely disciplined and having local markets in selective cities instead of 40 cities and really being an index fund. I think the second attribute is healthy IRRs. Majority of these deals are assigned in areas that are targeting our first-ring strategy, require no TA or CapEx, have significant mark-to-market opportunities, and usually have at least 3% annual escalators in their leases. As we also gain scale in these communities, we can even create more cap rate compression given the portfolio premiums on portfolio sales. I think the third and something that we can all acknowledge is the pandemic shift. You know, as the pandemic has likely permanently shifted the work environment from ever being an in-office, five-day-a-week environment again, It has increased visitor frequency and dwell time to these first-ring suburban communities such as Brookline and Cambridge. And fourth is we follow the retailers. Our retailers are the ones that often point us to where they want to be. Having this first-ring strategy is extremely complementary to our other suburban centers. Sweetgreen, as an example, may want to be in Bedford at our Whole Foods Center, Dedham at our Stop and Shop Center, or Canton. at our Shaw Center, but they also began looking at Brookline and Winchester. We have seen this throughout our portfolio, and we see that same playbook occurring in this First Ring initiative.

Thank you, Brian. I know that that was very helpful.

And the next question is, you guys obviously have a pipeline of deals that did raise acquisition guidance. We know that's just a placeholder. But one avenue we've noticed is ATM issuances being used a bit more, and I think it was raised to $150 million from $100 million. So outside of that, could you discuss the varying funding strategies, given the pipeline that you're seeing, the opportunities, your partners, and your thoughts there?

Sure. This is Mike. Good morning, Derek. At this point, you know, keeping leverage in mind, our lowest cost of capital continues to be our disposition currency. And to your point there a second ago, we did lift our disposition guidance about $100 million to about $200 million. You know, we still currently sit in a very attractive environment for asset sales, specifically our assets. not only do we have the ability to sell an asset outright, but we also have the option to contribute assets to our two JV platforms that still have about $2 billion to deploy. And that's great for us because we get to retain the management and then really enhance our fee income while still owning very, very quality institutional assets. And all these options are on the table for us. for 2022, so you'll see that the $200 million that we have out there, it'll be a mix of these various options I just mentioned. But with that said, you know, we have full use on the revolver of about $350 million, and we have been absolutely opportunistic with equity issuance through our ATM. But simply, our goal is to always strive for the right, you know, formulaic mix of debt, equity, and disposition currency to redeploy into acquisitions to really complete the buy box for us. And that's improve portfolio quality, be accretive to earnings, and keep leverage in check.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.

Next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBank Capital Markets.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the first ring neighborhood street retail deals that you're targeting here. I realize it's a relatively small initial investment, but two questions. I'm curious what the initial yield was like on the $5 million investment and how initial yields sort of compare to what you're buying otherwise. And then how much capital Do you envision allocating to the strategy as you, you know, sort of think about the overall portfolio and begin to, you know, move a little bit further in that direction?

Yeah, I mean, really we're IRR focused, as we've said on every call. This Brookline deal was north of a seven IRR. There are other deals, you know, where high single digit IRRs. And really what's driving that is, very low and unembedded mark-to-market rents. These were single-owned property for quite some time. You have a top-performing Starbucks in the region. We have tenants in tow to really put in and really maximize that value. I see the street of being more 10% to 15% of our buys. We are actively looking at other deals in our target MSAs. You know, such as your St. Pete's and Tampa's of the world and as well as Miami. But there's great unlevered IRRs to achieve here. And at the end of the day, that's what we're striving for for our shareholders.

Okay. That's helpful. And then, you know, as you kind of think about allocating capital, deploying capital from here, across the different sort of buckets that you're looking to invest in. Does the increase in borrowing costs, I guess, have an impact on return hurdles for, say, RGMZ in any way, such that there are implications for RPT and its ability to execute and be in the market buying assets and contributing parcels? Is there any impact on pricing and economics for RPT?

There hasn't been at all yet, Todd. I can tell you all three platforms are hungry with large appetites. I should say large disciplined appetites. RGMZ with the triple net platform, obviously that is a volatile world around triple nets. So we're being very patient, and thankfully we have patient capital in that fund. We think there's going to be enormous opportunities to deploy that, and Tyler and his team are focused on a lot of larger deals that should come in later this year and into next year. But as far as R2G with GIC, they're unlevered buyers. I think that's another additive way for us of all cash. And as we're seeing in the markets today, you know, rooms are being thinned out as they're wanting all – or sellers are wanting all cash buyers as opposed to buyers with – that require debt. And you may even be able to get a discount on that. So we think, you know, having the lowest cost of capital sovereign wealth fund out there as a partner is a very big advantage in this environment.

Okay, got it. And then one last one. Mike, you mentioned in your comments that you see a path toward achieving 95% occupancy. So that's a little over 400 basis points of upside. With regards to the outlook as it stands today, is there an update to the timeframe that you anticipate to achieve that portfolio occupancy rate? And then what's in the guidance? you know, for 22 at year end? Where do you think occupancy, you know, shakes out at the end of the year?

Sure. So, you know, we ended the quarter, you know, right at 90.6% and then 93.2% on the lease trade. By the end of the year, we're going to be between 91.5% and 92%. So nothing's changed there from our original guidance that we gave back in February. We do fully expect to get to pretty close to the 95% level by the end of 2024, based on the visibility we have today. We've talked a lot about in our disclosure last night and a bit in our prepared remarks that we do have $10.3 million in sign-not-commence, which it does include some leases and negotiation, and it's going to come online over the next three years, really about 11 cents of operating FFO. But behind that, Todd, we have about 8 to 9 million of additional ABR and recovery income that will come online during that time as well. That's currently occupied by spaces, so it's not necessarily incremental, but at least gives you directional indication and credence for us to get to that 95% level. And we had a really, really good start to the quarter. or to the year this year with, you know, over 700,000 square feet leased, you know, onwards towards our goal to about 2 million square feet leased this year. So we have a lot of conviction to get to that 95% level. And another thing that's supporting that as well is the retention rate. During the quarter, as Brian mentioned in his prepared remarks, was at about 93%. We'll be at about 85% for this year. That's what's embedded in our guidance. I'm just given some of the proactive anchor recaptures that we're doing to re-merchandise those to much better tenants. And we continue to see that retention ratio over the next two years, based on the visibility that we have today, you know, around 90%. And to kind of give you the historical context on that, for this portfolio, which is a little bit different than it was, you know, two years ago, it was about 80%. So between the retention ratio, the sign not commenced, and the $8 million to $9 million behind that, we feel very, very good about getting to that 95% level by the end of 2024.

Okay, that's helpful. Just to clarify, what's the $8 million to $9 million of ABR and recovery income attributable to?

Yeah, that's rent and recovery income for spaces that are currently occupied today that will be taken back over the next several months.

Okay. So, you know, an increase in sort of re-tenanting rent. Correct. An increase in mark-to-market opportunity there. Okay.

Correct.

Got it. All right. Thank you. You bet. Thanks, Todd.

Thank you. Next question comes from Hondo St. Jude with Mizzouho. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. So, maybe you could spend a second or two on the balance sheet here. I guess the question on the debt maturity you mentioned, there's no debt maturing this year. There's a couple smaller term loans next year and in 2024, 50, 60 million each. And you talked about a plan to address those via, I think, an unsecured issuance last quarter. I'm curious if that's still the thinking given the moving rates and maybe a sense of what spot pricing would be for you today. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Sandell. Good question. So 100% of our debt is fixed today. So we have our complete term loan component of our debt stack, which is about $310 million. That's all fixed today and none of those hedges roll off until next year. So we're going to have a modest maybe impact to interest rates. to that $60 million that will run naked in 2023, but maybe half-penny at most, given where that rate is at today, which is about 3%. But in terms of what we're doing in the recast, we're going to take that $310 million that matures you know, from 23 through 2027. It really just, it's a duration play. So we're going to punt it out between 26 through 29, added about a year to our total duration for our capital stack. We expect to do that in the second half of this year. So really there isn't any interest rate headwind for RPT, just given we have, you know, currently, you know, 100% of that debt is It's hedged currently all the way out through 2027.

Great. Thank you for that, Culler. And then maybe some thoughts on kind of JD versus balance sheet capital as we go forward in terms of acquisitions, given the moving rates, where you're seeing your cost of capital. Curious how we should think about maybe the split in terms of what's on balance sheet versus off balance sheet. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, it's very opportunistic-driven. We do like this first-ring strategy, and as I said earlier to Todd, that we'll dedicate 10% to 15% of our acquisitions towards that. At the same time, we love GIC and the grocer platform. We're spending a lot of time on deals in the market, both marketed and off-market deals. And so I see this as like a two-to-one ratio of what balance sheet versus our JVs, but that could change. So a lot of this, Andel, is very dependent on deal-specific.

Got it. Got it.

Good to have optionality. And forgive me if I missed this, but the cadence of that $7.5 million, including the snow rents, I guess what's under advanced negotiation, the split between this year and next year may be a quarterly cadence of how we should think about you achieving that $0.11 of potential FFO. Thanks.

Sure. So in 2022, you'll have a $0.02 incremental benefit to your quarterly run rate from Q1. In 2023, you'll have a $0.07 incremental benefit, so about $6.2 million or so. And then 2024, you'll have a $0.02 benefit there, which is about $1.4 million. And then you'll have a smaller benefit, maybe a half penny or so in 2025. Great.

Thank you, guys. You bet. Thank you.

Next question comes from Wes Galladay with Baird.

Hey, good morning guys. Can you give us an update on what's left on the known tenant move out?

So, yes, so for this year, you know, during the quarter, We recaptured, you know, two of the spaces that we, you know, previously discussed on earlier conference calls. You know, one was the Shopper's World. It was about 54,000 square feet at our Crofton Center in Baltimore. We took that back in the first quarter. That, as I mentioned, I prepared remarks, Wes, that's already released to Giant Othold. The second one that we took back during the quarter, first quarter, was a 28,000 square foot space at one of our Michigan assets that we're prepping for redevelopment. The additional spaces that we'll take back are going to be primarily in the second and third quarters. That's about 200,000 square feet or so, all of which has been already released to premier tenants. Over half of that 200,000 square feet, Wes, is the The wholesale lease that we did down at our River City project in Florida, that's backfilling a Regal feeder. So very excited about that. And then the remaining 100,000 or so square feet is already released to your essential tenants. We got about three brochures, total wine, a couple TGX concepts, and another discount. So when you kind of add all that up, you know, the rent that's coming offline is about $3.4 million. The rent that's coming back online is about $4 million. That represents about a high teens releasing spread. And that's going to come out in line between $23 and $25.

Got it. And then turning to the acquisition front, you know, how is pricing changing for larger centers versus smaller centers? And are you still seeing a lot of cash buyers that are winning deals?

It's very kind of under $50 million, Wes. The cash buyers are still there. We have a few dispositions out and have one even where it's very competitive on us selling, where you had some extremely large deposits of $5 million in some cases. So I'd say that under $50 and even under $30, it's very competitive on the cash run. I think, obviously, as you get into the higher altitude of prices it becomes less cash buyers and more reliant on debt so we think that's an opportunity uh in the future you know both with gic uh and with us so it's uh cap rate compressions are are still happening this is power this is community this is street this is grocer um And I think we're in a very good situation with our three platforms to take advantage of that.

Got it. One last one for me. I know the asset recycling is going to be highly quality or creative, but can you talk about the spread between the cap rates for acquisitions and dispositions?

Yeah, it's relatively neutral based on our visibility today. So not much different than what we've got to historically. Okay.

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Yep.

Thank you.

Next question comes from Linda Tsai with Jefferies. Hi. Good morning.

Are you still embedding 100 basis points of bad debt for the whole year because it sounds like bad debt came in lower than expected?

It did come in a little bit lower than expected, but just given where we're at in the year, Linda, we are still embedding a total of about 100 basis points, which is about 1.3, 1.4 million for the year for bad debt.

Got it. And then in terms of suburban street retail, you noted less CapEx required, more rent upside. What's your overall approach to scale this strategy? For example, one of your peers purchases contiguous street retail assets to control merchandising. Do you have an approach to scale as to gain efficiencies?

Sure. I mean, it really depends on the MSA, but we do like scale for efficiency's sake. There's some where we really like to try to curate this ourselves and not be buying the portfolios you know, together. I think that's creating more shareholder value of buying these one-offs and really curating and creating a portfolio out of that. We have boots on the ground in each of those markets, but there are, you know, opportunities out there throughout, you know, the Southeast and in Boston Northeast where, you know, maybe there are five or six or seven, you know, deals to be had in the portfolio. Yeah. So it's a little bit of both, but I really think there's just great value creation and us doing the buying individually and creating a portfolio from that, as opposed to a broker-led 20, 25-building portfolio that's already leased. We want to do the buying. We want to get the upside from the under-market rents.

And then are there other retail formats you're also considering currently? Like what are your thoughts towards power or lifestyle centers since the overall retailer environment has improved?

We want really great real estate, and that comes in all shapes and sizes. Retailers now are agnostic on product type. They will go to power. They will go to lifestyle. They will go to grocery. They will go to street. They just want the best real estate. And so having these deep tenant relationships, they really lead us to where they want to be. There's really no science at all to that. Sure, we use data analytics and use our market intelligence, but it's mostly the retailers that really lead us to these sites. And an example of that is this deal in Highland Lakes where it was 50% occupied center. Stein Mart was vacant. We had a double A rated grocer among two other grocers tell us that that is a site that they would very much want to be in. We tied up that center and had a lease sign with that double A rated grocer on the day we closed. So, you know, stabilizing that at a seven and a half call it could trade that at a low four cap. Retailers are a partner to us, and they are very, very important to our investment decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next question, Craig Schmidt with Bank of America.

Thank you. I'm just wondering, given the elevated level of acquisitions, Do you think this could be a source of additional redevelopment opportunities going forward?

It could. I mean, it really depends, Craig, on the asset level. I think in many ways we've proven, like we did in Jacksonville, where we contribute land to a residential builder in DeBartolo. We own 50% of roughly 375 units. There could be densification opportunities, particularly in Florida and Boston. But relatively, you know, our re-merchandising efforts and all of that, I mean, we're getting double-digit yields on that. So we certainly want to extract the lowest-paying rent tenant and bring in the highest-paying rent tenant with great investment-grade tenants. We do look for ways to achieve the highest IRR, and if that's redevelopment that goes into that, we will look at doing that.

Yeah, and then based on, you know, our estimates today and the opportunities that are in front of us, to Brian's point, you know, re-merchandising is the highest yield that we're getting on our capital allocation. And so between that and redevelopment, you know, we'll spend probably about, you know, $20 to $30 million over the next three years on re-merchandising and some redevelopments that we just disclosed in our SUP over the next two years. That's a year? Correct.

That's per year?

Yes, per year, correct.

Okay, so say 60 to 80 or so in total for the next three years.

Yeah, 25 to 30 per year.

Okay, great. Thank you.

You bet.

Next question, Omoteo Akusanya with Credit Suisse.

Yes, good morning, everyone. So I wanted to go back to this kind of first-ring strategy. Seven percent unlevered IRR, again, it would afford to assume there is no cap rate compression off the back of that deal, you know, as you kind of calculate your exit valuations. You know, when I look at that, it seems like maybe your first year cash NOI yield is probably mid-fours or so. So should we be kind of thinking the more of the stuff you do, you know, kind of like the first year or so, it's actually going to be dilutive to your earnings?

Call it mid-fives. And really, on this one, for example, we can get at that cash flow within that first year. several months with new leases. So it really depends on – this one would be not diluted from an IRR perspective, but it really depends on each asset. I can tell you there's one we're hovering around right now that's 10 unlevered that really hits you know, cash flows very quickly, and then it's in one of the hottest markets and fastest growing markets in the country. So we are very much want high IRRs and want them quickly. So we don't look at, you know, buying real estate and saying, oh, we'll get that lease back in year four or year five. We're really looking at this as like a one or two years on hopefully getting a crack at that lease.

Okay.

That's helpful.

And then the second question, your JV partners, again, your acquisition volume guidance does go up for the year, but just kind of curious, is most of that on balance sheet? And if And just how your JV partners are thinking about kind of putting capital to work just given the current uncertainty around capital markets in general and possibly even cap rates?

That, for the guidance, is really one-to-one from a balance sheet and our JV partner. I think from, as I alluded to before, the triple net fund is We're being very patient. We think cap rates will move much wider in that sector today and are being very disciplined in that approach. And for GIC, we're really looking at the best real estate, the highest IRRs, iconic real estate. I talked about the moat philosophy earlier in my first question. They had that same conviction around that. So they do like all shapes and sizes of great real estate, and I think you'll be seeing some stuff hopefully soon with that JV announced.

Okay. Thank you.

I will now turn the floor over to Brian for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. So as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have the same ticker, but RPT is a much different company today than it was just a few years ago. The changes made to our people, processes, portfolio, and our platform since 2018 are now being reflected in tangible improvements in our geographic mix, our tenancy, our portfolio quality, Most importantly, to our operating and financial performance that we believe will again be amongst the top of the pack amongst the open-air shopping center REITs in 2022. Our sector has great tailwinds coming out of the pandemic, and RPT is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these tailwinds given our differentiated strategy and complementary investment platforms. Thank you all so much for joining. Have a wonderful day.

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