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spk01: Good morning. This is Ashley Curtis, and I would like to welcome you to the Tanger Factory Outlet Center's second quarter 2023 conference call. Yesterday evening, we issued our earnings release as well as our supplemental information package and investor presentation. This information is available on our investor relations website, investors.tanger.com. Please note that during this conference call, some of management's comments will be forward-looking statements that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those projected. We direct you to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties. During the call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, including funds from operations, or FFO, core FFO, funds available for distribution or FAD, same center net operating income, adjusted EBITDA RE and net debt. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and in our supplemental information. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast for a period of time in the future. As such, it is important to note that management's comments include time-sensitive information that may only be accurate as of today's date August 4, 2023. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, the call will be opened for your questions. We request that everyone ask only one question and one follow-up to allow as many of you as possible to ask questions. If time permits, we are happy for you to re-queue for additional questions. On the call today will be Steven Tanger, our Executive Chair, Steven Yaloff, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Billerman, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Investment Officer. In addition, other members of our leadership team will be available for Q&A. I will now turn the call over to Stephen Tanger. Please go ahead, Steve.
spk10: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2023 earnings call. The team continues to unlock the value of the Tanger platform to drive attractive, organic, and external growth. We look forward to the opening of our newest center in Nashville, Tennessee, and we remain confident in our outlook. I will now turn the call over to Steve Yala.
spk11: Thanks, Steve, and good morning. We're pleased to announce another quarter of strong results that demonstrate the continued execution of our strategic plan to elevate and diversify our tenant mix drive total rents, and leverage our platform and balance sheet to realize additional growth. We delivered a same-center NOI increase of 4.3% for the second quarter, which was better than anticipated and contributed to our increased guidance for the full year. Leasing activity continues to be a highlight. The successful execution of our leasing strategy has enabled us to rebuild occupancy, drive rent expense recovery growth, and curate a portfolio with sought after brands that create an experience shopper seek. In the second quarter, we marked our sixth consecutive quarter of positive lease spreads and another quarter of occupancy gains. Occupancy stood at 97.2% on June 30th, up 230 basis points year over year and 70 basis points sequentially, giving us our highest occupancy since pre-COVID. As we discussed, Our leasing strategy incorporates a commitment to locking in higher fixed rents and expense recoveries. Blended average rental rates increased 13.2% for the trailing 12 months ending June 30th, 2023. Retenanting spreads grew 30.9% and renewal rent spreads grew 12.1%. Our ability to drive solid increases in renewal rents is the clearest demonstration of our retailer's commitment to our Tanger branded open-air portfolio, allowing us to capture rent upside. As of the end of the second quarter, renewals executed or in process represented 64% of leases expiring this year, consistent with last year, and we are actively addressing our role for 2024. We have rebuilt our occupancy, grown our rents, and are confident in our ability to sustain this growth. We have prioritized diversifying our tenant mix and continue to add new brands to our portfolio. One example is in San Marcos, Texas. We have recently opened multiple home furnishing brands, including Restoration Hardware, Design Within Reach, West Elm and Wayfair. This newly created outlet furniture destination, coupled with the recent opening of Shake Shack, has proven a great generator of traffic to our center, delivering on our mission to draw a new customer and have them stay longer when they visit. Our continued focus on adding new brands and converting temporary space to permanent has contributed to our occupancy gains in the quarter. We will continue to strategically utilize our temp leasing strategy to introduce new tenants to the portfolio with the objective of filling our centers with the most compelling brands over time. Furthermore, we've increased our occupancy cost ratio by 50 basis points from the prior period. from 8.5% to 9%, which is still one of the lowest in the industry, supporting our confidence and our ability to continue to grow rents. We continue to focus on enhancing our portfolio NOI by reducing or downsizing underperforming tenants and optimizing highly productive brands across our portfolio to achieve maximum productivity. Traffic was largely in line with the prior year quarter and we saw a slight decline in average tenant sales. In the second quarter, our shoppers gravitated to brands that provided better promotions and everyday value pricing, consistent with our outlet model. The introduction of our new Tanger loyalty program launched last month with a strong start, as members of our Tanger Club can enjoy even greater value across the participating store network. Our new Digital First loyalty program provides for our customized experience and retailer offers specifically tailored to each member's interests and enables them to unlock rewards for increasing levels of purchases and engagement. This program also provides an opportunity for us to better interact with our retailer partners and for retailers to drive visits from these valuable shoppers by delivering targeted offers. I invite each of you to join the new Tanger Club to experience it. In the second quarter, we published our latest ESG report. We remain committed to reducing our environmental impact, cultivating a people-first employee culture, and fostering healthier, more resilient communities where we do business. In the report, we highlighted some of our 2022 achievements, including doubling our solar infrastructure, reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, doubling EV charging capabilities electrifying 100% of our security fleet of vehicles, and certifying over half of our GLA to meet LEED's high standards. Lastly, I'm extremely pleased to share that Tanger National, our 37th shopping center, will grand open on October 27th of this year. As of today, with just under 90 days until opening, we are currently 95% lease executed with an amazing assortment of the very best national, and international fashion, accessories, athletic, home furnishing, and cosmetic brands, many of which are new to Tanger and new to the outlet channel. Tanger Nashville will also feature a combination of famous national and local iconic food and beverage offerings with indoor and outdoor dining terraces surrounding a half-acre Central Park community space that serves as the project's centerpiece. The center will qualify for LEED Silver certification. As we look ahead, we are aware of the continued macroeconomic pressures, but are confident in our proven strategy of driving organic and external growth as we renew and re-tenant our existing portfolio while diversifying our tenant mix, monetizing our peripheral land, expanding select centers, and growing incremental revenue streams. Our people, platform, and strong balance sheet provides us opportunity to execute on these initiatives. I want to thank our entire team, our shoppers, retailers, and all of our stakeholders for their continued support. I'd now like to turn the call over to Michael.
spk05: Thank you, Steve. Today I'm going to discuss our financial results, which came in ahead of our budget, our strong balance sheet position, our external growth initiatives, And I'm going to end with our increased 2023 guidance. Our second quarter results came in ahead of our expectations with core FFO of 47 cents per share compared to 45 cents in the prior year period. Same center NOI for the total portfolio increased 4.3% for the quarter and 5.9% year to date driven by the gains in occupancy from our robust leasing activity that Steve talked about. Strong rent spreads, which have led to higher base rents and higher expense recoveries. as well as the benefits from operating expense efficiencies and the timing of some of our expenditures. Our operating results reflect our ongoing strategy of structuring leases to grow total rental revenues and higher CAM contributions, while also converting percentage rents to fixed rents. We continue to maintain a conservatively leveraged, well-laddered balance sheet with the liquidity and the flexibility to pursue our growth objectives. We have no significant debt maturities until late in 2026, and we've been proactively addressing the February 24 expiration of our current $300 million of interest rate swaps. At the end of the quarter, we had $1.6 billion of prorated debt, and we had $234 million of cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments. We also had full availability on our $520 million unsecured lines of credit which in aggregate provides Tanger with over $750 million of immediate liquidity. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA RE was 5.2 times for the 12 months ended June 30th, one of the lowest in the retail sector, and importantly, we are carrying $90 million of incurred costs to date for Nashville without the commensurate EBITDA, which is going to come on next year. During the quarter, we are pleased to receive further validation of our balance sheet strengths, with an investment grade BBB rating from Fitch, which adds to our existing investment grade ratings by both Moody's and S&P. With the addition of this rating, we're going to realize an improved cost of debt with a 25 basis point reduction on our unsecured lines of credit, as well as our term loan, which is factored into our updated guidance range. Now, in terms of our $300 million of interest rate swaps that will be expiring in February 2024, We have executed attractive forward starting swap agreements on $125 million of these expirations, and we've locked in adjusted SOFR at a rate of 3.4%, up from the current swap rate of 0.5%. Our new swaps will start at the expiration of the current swaps next February and carry an average duration of 2.3 years, which would take us into mid-2026. There is no impact from these swaps. in 2023 and our next debt maturity isn't until September 2026. Our quarterly cash dividend remains well covered with a continued low payout ratio providing the company with additional free cash flow after dividends to drive our growth. With our low leverage balance sheet and our strong liquidity position, along with the continued free cash flow that we're delivering, we have significant optionality to pursue additional growth opportunities, including expanding our centers by activating our peripheral land, new development, and the acquisitions of open-air shopping centers. Now, in terms of our immediate cash needs, the largest use is the remaining funding for our Nashville development. And to date, through the end of the second quarter, we have incurred costs of $89 million, against our narrowed cost range of $143 million to $147 million, which leaves $56 million to spend at the midpoint. And the majority of this spend will be incurred during the third and fourth quarters. And we are very pleased to note that we are also increasing our projected stabilized yield on this project by 50 basis points to a range of 7.5% to 8%, primarily due to our successful leasing activity and our forward outlook for the center. And now turning to our increased 2023 guidance, which reflects the better than anticipated performance in the second quarter and our outlook for the remainder of the year. We are increasing our expectations for core FFO by two and a half cents at the midpoint to a revised range of $1.85 to $1.92 a share. We are also increasing the same center NOI growth expectations by 50 basis points at the midpoint to a range of 3.5% to 5% and have increased interest and other income by $2 million at the midpoint as interest rates have remained elevated. We're also reducing the anticipated recurring CapEx in 2023 to a range of $45 to $55 million, which is down $5 million at the midpoint, largely due to the higher renewal activity which in turn reduces our second-generation tenant allowances. For additional details on our key assumptions, please see our release issued last night. And now I'd like to open the call up for questions. Operator?
spk13: Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 from your telephone keypad, and the confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd 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. So that we may address questions from as many participants as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may re-queue in time permitting those questions will be addressed. Thank you again. Our first question comes from the line of Greg McGinnis with Scotiabank. Please receive your questions.
spk09: Hey, good morning. Michael, could you just touch on the factors that could drive Tanger to the top or bottom end of the guidance range in addition to expectations on full year impact of bad debt and what you guys have seen so far?
spk05: Sure. Thanks, Greg. So, if you look at the assumptions in the release, really, you know, the majority of it is the top and bottom range of our same store guidance and all the other elements, whether it's G&A, interest, interest and other income, that's going to get you to the low and the high end of our guidance range. In terms of bad debt, when we initiated our guidance beginning of the year, if you remember, we started the year at $1.80 to $1.88. We increased that guidance last quarter by two cents, where we lifted our same-store guidance range by about 75 basis points to the midpoint, and now we've increased guidance again, raising that same-store guidance by 50 basis points, And we talked about how we were being prudent in our approach on bad debt, and we continue on that level as we sit here today with a low watch list, and we're just mindful of the overall environment.
spk09: Okay, thanks. I'm just moving on to Nashville real quick. I can see that 95% lease rate there. Could you touch on the expected initial yield when it opens and what the path to achieving the full 7.5% to 8% stabilized yield looks like in terms of time?
spk05: Sure. We're really excited about the Nashville execution where the center is going to open in late October 95% least. We did increase our stabilized yield by 50 basis points. based on all the leasing that we've been able to do to date and the forward outlook that we see. Coming out of the ground, we still expect, as we said in the, I think, last call or may have been the call before, coming out in the six percent, in the sixes as a start. I remember Field of Dreams where they said, if you build it, will they come? There's a lot of marketing in opening our center to ensure the customers No, there's a new center in town. So there's just that ramp from a marketing expense perspective, as well as sales that are going to build over the course number of years, building to that stabilized yield of seven and a half to eight.
spk09: There. Okay. Final question for me. So based on our math, more than 80% of newly leased GLA in Q2 went to tenants outside the top 25. Just give any color on the new tenants in the portfolio, who's growing fastest with you, and any, you know, I appreciate you talking about the furniture outlet destinations, but is there any other tenants that you can point to as being ones that you're proud to have in the portfolio and growing with you faster than others?
spk11: Yeah, sure. I'd love to focus on category more than retailers themselves, but I'll share some things with you. First of all, just make sure in your numbers, our renewal rates have been extremely high. So a lot of that leasing velocity that you've seen is really our existing tenants voting to stay in our portfolio and pay rent increases averaging around 12% in order to do so. And remember, when we do a lot of that renewals, we do it relatively low. capital cost. With regard to new tenants in the portfolio and tenants that are quite active, a lot of the athletic brands, as you can probably imagine, we've done a number of deals with Adidas. In the apparel business, the Victoria's Secret has been a big contributor of a lot of the new leasing for us. We talked a lot about the furniture brands. I've listed them in my written remarks earlier. And then at food and beverage, which we've been saying for the last A year and a half, two years has become a far more important part of our business. We just opened up our first Shake Shack in San Marcos, and we'll have Shake Shack joining us in a number of our other centers moving forward. So that's just a quick random sampling. You know, just other categories, direct-to-consumer brands. We're finding a lot of success with direct-to-consumer brands coming into the outlet channel now, and they're growing with us. So there's a number of brands that we've leased. Their first-ever store, I'll give you Somersault, is a great example of a direct-to-consumer brand. Opened their first store in Myrtle Beach, and now it is expanding with us rapidly throughout our portfolio. Thank you, Steve.
spk13: Our next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas with KeyBank Capital Markets. Excuse me if there are questions.
spk14: Hi, thanks. Good morning. First question, I wanted to ask about the higher expense recovery income and lower operating expenses in the quarter. I know it's been an initiative to drive total overall revenue, not just the base rent component, which you talked about. And your expense reimbursement rate is higher by over 1,000 basis points compared to 21 and 22, which is good. So you're making really good progress there. You know, is this sustainable as we think about the back end of the year and heading into 2024?
spk05: Thanks, Todd. You know, there's a couple of things going on. So as you articulated and as we've been talking about, we've been structuring our leases to drive total rent, which has driven an increase in our fixed camp. And so that's part of what's flowing in the numbers over the course of this year. relative to last year, right, which we're driving total NOI with the retailers paying us both in base as well as in fixed cam. Now, in terms of the timing of that, obviously when you go to fixed cam, it's fixed over the course of the whole year, where our operating expenses, given our business, are more variable. You know, there's obviously things like snow, which we had in the first quarter, which was much lighter. It didn't snow that much, and so we didn't have as much snow expenses but we still got the same amount of fixed cam. And so the percentage recovery will look very high. We had a continued amount this quarter where we've continued to mitigate as much of our expenses, but also the timing of those expenses. So another example would be like our marketing expenses, which tend to be heavier in the back half of the year relative to the first half of the year. Therefore, you should expect our expense recovery rate On average, in the back half of the year, it's probably more in the low 80s in terms of percentage relative to being in the high 80s that we've had in the first half. And as we think about our same center NOI growth, we really believe this on a full year basis. And at three and a half to five, that's what we're sort of guiding to for the entire year.
spk14: Okay, that's helpful then. Are you able to share, since this initiative maybe was implemented or you've been driving a little harder at it a little bit more recently, it seems, can you share what the sort of expense recovery rate or the target rate looks like on leases that you've executed over the last few quarters? I'm not sure if you're familiar. achieving a, you know, sort of a greater than 100% margin on new leases if we could potentially see the expense recovery rate, you know, continue to move higher and kind of climb up, you know, another 500 or 1,000 basis points over the next couple of years. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit.
spk06: Hi, Todd. It's Doug. We are continuing to drive total rent, like Michael said, And we do expect the recovery rate to move higher over the next few years, but we're not at a point that we can provide guidance on where we would target that recovery rate in future years.
spk14: Okay. And then if I could just last question, you know, I just wanted to touch on, you know, Nashville's on track, slated to open in October. And I think in your prepared remarks, you talked about being, you know, positioned for, you know, additional opportunities and, you know, external growth. Just wanted to see if you could speak to any new developments or external growth initiatives that you're, you know, beginning to say.
spk11: Todd, as we mentioned in prior quarters, we're definitely – out there looking at a number of transactions, land. We think that the outlet business continues to be a very strong business, evidenced by how quickly we were able to lease Nashville. I mean, with about 90 days until opening, 95% lease executed. I've been doing this for a long time. I think that that's one of the highest leased that I've seen. So we're excited about that, and we think that there's room to grow this platform across the country. Obviously, nothing to announce on this call today, but as that changes, we're looking forward to sharing with you what we're thinking about and what we're looking to grow and build.
spk14: Okay. All right. Thank you.
spk13: Our next questions come from the line of Samir Fahani with Evercore. Pleased to see you with your questions.
spk12: Good morning, everyone. Steve, can you talk about your ability to continue to push rents here? I mean, sales were down a little bit here. I mean, even if sales are flat, and I understand occupancy cost ratios are still low, but what is your ability to still push rents here? Thanks.
spk11: Bill, thanks. You know, I look at the sales number. I mean, obviously, that's an important metric for us. But, you know, I think a lot of that sales impact has a lot to do with higher price point product in the market across all channels. Higher price point product happens to be struggling. What is in favor right now is great brands promotionally priced, and we see that through our platform. If you take a look at our sales productivity and compare it to 2019, we're still up 15% and managed to be holding at that 15% rate We're truly optimistic about the second half of the year, and we think there'll be some positive sales impact in the second half of the year. But, you know, that said, if you look at the product that we're actually selling is real estate, and we continue to push the pricing on our real estate, we've seen great growth. Our re-tenanting is 30% increase, six consecutive quarters of rent spread growth. We still think there's a lot of runway, a lot of headroom for us to push our rents going forward. You mentioned occupancy cost ratio. When I first started here in the middle of COVID, extremely low. We talked about pushing our occupancy cost ratio as a huge focus of ours. We're now up to about 9%. But our historic highs are over 100 basis points greater than that. And because of that, we think that there's plenty of room for us to continue to push. Our leasing team is extremely focused on pushing rents. Our occupancy is 97.2%, although very high. You know, if we have to trade rent for occupancy at this point, rent and growing NOI is really our main focus.
spk12: Got it. And, Michael, I know the uncollectible tenant revenue, I think there was about a $1 million in there. I mean, what was that related to? And when you think about the watch list as it sits today, it feels like you're in a good position. maybe just a bit long-term looking at maybe into even next year? Any sort of early reads on that, you think?
spk05: You know, I think the bad debt in this quarter is just consistent with, you know, some things that we have within the portfolio that we're just mindful of. It's all embedded within our guidance, nothing out of the ordinary, and our watch list remains low.
spk13: Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Craig Mailman with Citi. Please receive your questions.
spk04: Hey, good morning. Just want to follow up on the capital deployment opportunities. Michael, you know that you guys have more than $750 million of cash. Clearly, part of that's earmarked to finish Nashville and then probably some leasing costs and other things on deals that you've done. But I'm just kind of curious, as you look at your opportunity set here, vis-a-vis the cost of capital, which your equity has improved, but the debt costs continue to rise here. How would you rank the attractants of the different options that you have right now?
spk05: Sure. Thanks, Craig. I'm really happy you're so curious about our external growth strategy. At the end of the day, deals... that we're going to do have to be prudent and disciplined and where we want to do something, we want to create value. We have significant optionality given the capital that's on our balance sheet to deploy. And we're looking at a lot of different opportunities that Steve sort of highlighted. And when we get the deal, we'll evaluate It's long-term IRR relative to our current cost of capital in terms of how we're financing it, as well as sort of how we see capital evolving over the future. We feel that there's a significant opportunity to really add value with our operating strategy, our leasing strategy, our marketing strategy, and the Tanger platform that we've built. And we're looking at a lot of different opportunities across acquisitions as well as development.
spk04: I guess if you think about the risk-adjusted returns of doing an out parcel on an existing asset, what kind of IRR would you be targeting there? What kind of differential would you need to do something outside of the portfolio, either another outlet or potentially going to open-air shopping centers.
spk05: So adding density to our existing sites where we already own the land obviously has a very high return, but just in terms of capital size, doing an out parcel is very different than building a center or acquiring a center. And the opportunity set as we look at larger scale, those are two different things. The real estate intensification is part of our business. And, you know, we have a significant amount of free cash flow that allows us to fund those initiatives as well as our liquidity. And then as we look at things that are truly external growth, where either we're buying something or we're developing something or we're going to a joint venture with someone, you know, every deal, Craig's got to stand on its own. And we got to look at what the economics are and what the opportunity is over time with whatever center that we're buying.
spk04: Okay. I think just one last quick one. You guys are sitting on cash. Deposit rates are going up. You're getting a nice lift from interest income here. But as we think about 24 and kind of a sustainable run rate here, do you feel like you have enough in the hopper from commencements to offset kind of potentially deploying that capital and losing that interest income that you guys aren't going to have any diminution there? sort of in the run range we had in the 24, knowing that you guys haven't given guidance yet, just trying to get a sense?
spk05: Look, our cash is currently, you know, we're earning interest income on it. Our hope is, and I think you would hope that this is true, that anything we go out and buy is going to be a higher yield than our cash. So we should be able, that should be a decent hurdle for us to get over so that as we deploy that cash, we're going to see accretion from it. as we put additional capital out. We feel we're in a great spot right now with $234 million of cash and only $56 million left to fund on Nashville. That's the main capital commitment. And then if you look at our dividend payout ratio, which was in the 50% range in the first half, because we were able to retain more cash flow in the first half, that just adds to that liquidity as we go forward over the next 12 months as we deploy that. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Craig.
spk13: Our next questions are from the line of Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.
spk08: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Maybe just following up on that last point, Michael, it sounded like you were suggesting outlet expansion could be possible. So I was just wondering, when you look at the centers that are 100% occupied or high 90s, I guess, is there extra land at places like Deer Park, Foley, San Marcos, Myrtle Beach? There's a number that fall into that category of high 90s to 100. So just wondering if there is that opportunity, I guess, from a land and demand perspective.
spk11: Right. Caitlin, it's Steve Gallup. So just, you know, to answer that question, embedded in a lot of that occupancy also is some of our temp tenants. So understand, you know, in the past we've been, if we marked our temp space to market, there is three to four times rent opportunity. So I think that's a real important part of our organic growth story, particularly in some of those locations that you shared. Also in the case of a deer park where we have a Christmas tree shop as an example. You know, we all know what's happening with Christmas tree shops. So we don't look at that as a burden. We look at that as great opportunity. So when you have 100% occupied shopping center in Long Island, in Deer Park, we find ourselves with a great opportunity to get that space back and engineer it into a number of shops and definitely drive additional rent there. With regard to our peripheral land, we have a lot of unmonetized, across our portfolio. We've got a team in place focused solely on generating revenue peripherally. So that's just, we call that our organic growth story. And we've got great, you know, anecdotes of that occurring all across our portfolio. Savannah is a great example where we've recently, and we're under construction on an out parcel with Dave and Buster's. And as part of the Dave & Buster's build, we also built, in addition to our small shops, so for us, you know, that Savannah market has been a great success story for us. There's a number of other out parcels and opportunities to monetize the additional land there and expand that shopping center. So those are things that we're looking to do from an organic growth point of view.
spk08: Got it. And just a quick follow-up on the temp occupancy. Is it still around 10% today? Just trying to figure out how big that opportunity is that you mentioned.
spk11: It's probably around that, but a lot of that occupancy growth that you've seen in this last quarter has, where we've been able to trade a lot of that temporary tenants into permanent tenants, we're seeing growth in our permanent occupancy as well.
spk08: Got it. Okay. And then just you've mentioned the focus on increasing base rents and reimbursements, which makes sense. I was wondering if you could talk some about percent rents. It seems like percent rents are still high now versus pre-COVID levels. So wondering what's driving it and should we expect the ratios to come down? And kind of if they do, to what extent should we expect they shift into base rents versus experience some leakage?
spk11: Well, look, what's driving better percentage rents is our ability and our pricing power as a company to make better real estate deals. Historically, percentage rent pay ratios were far less than they are today. And we've essentially asked for greater percentages on a lot of the new transactions that we've done, whether they're in our new center in Nashville or as we're re-tenanting or renewing deals going forward. and retailers have been far more agreeable to paying those higher rates. With those higher rates as a natural break point is calculated, the rate at which the break points also come down. So we find those higher percentages will be achievable at a lower sales volume than historic in our company. So as I said earlier, we're optimistic about sales in the back half of the year, So we're actually optimistic about the contribution of overage rent as well.
spk08: Got it. Thanks.
spk13: Thanks, Caitlin. Our next question comes from the line of Floris van Dykem with CompassPoint. Please proceed with your questions. Good morning, guys.
spk02: Steve, I think the playbook is playing out as – as you laid out in terms of increasing cash flow from the operations. I'm curious, a couple of things. I guess my two questions for you are, your guide implies that, you know, same store NOI is going to slow in the second half. What's going to be the biggest, you know, you know, factor for that expected slowing in the second half? Is it the fact that occupancy can't be pushed much, or is it the fact that you think your temp to perm conversion, which, you know, again, has been driving some of the growth, is going to slow down going forward simply because you'll have less temp to convert, although 10% still sounds like it's a pretty high number, probably twice of what it normally is. So maybe you can give some more color. And then, I want to delve into the OCR a little bit more as well, please.
spk11: All right, so Michael's going to just handle the first half of that question, and then we'll talk about the OCR, please.
spk05: Yeah, and so, you know, Floris, when we think about our same-store NOI, we really think about this on an annual basis. In part, you know, what we were talking about, I think it was with Todd earlier on the call, you know, fixed CAM is fixed during the year, but our operating expenses are are variable. And given two factors, one, we had better operating expenses in the first quarter and second quarter, in part driven by the mild winter and all the operating expense savings, and flip over to having a little bit higher expense load in the back half, that's really what's impacting the sequential or the quarterly same-store NOI. But when you think about this business on an annual basis and the the trajectory into 2024, just like the trajectory into 2023. If you remember, we had positive same-store growth last year. We started this year thinking it was going to be 2 to 4. We're now up to 3.5 to 5. Based on all of the drivers that we've been talking about, that's going to impact the run rate into 2024, and we're not getting into – we don't give quarterly same-store guidance, and we are very – As we think about where we're going into 24, all of the drivers of our business are supportive of that on an annual basis. And I'll let Steve go on the OCR.
spk11: So you want to frame your question on OCR?
spk02: Yeah, no, and you sort of alluded to this earlier. I mean, I think one of the upside things drivers potentially for you guys is the fact that your OCR, again, it was, you know, in the eights, in the low eights, you know, I think as, you know, as recently as, you know, a couple quarters ago, but it's now at 9%. You've talked about, you know, the fact that your peak OCR ratio is you know, in the 10%, you know, 10 and a half, you know, maybe as high as 11% range. How is that progressing? And how much of that increase in OCR is going to be from that temp to permanent conversion? How much of that is going to be driving rates and other things around the lease structure?
spk11: Well, look, it's coming across – all of our business. I mean, if you take a look, you just have to look at the rent spreads. You know, for this quarter alone, 12% on renewal, 30% on re-tenanting. So, I mean, that's just, and that's just sort of, and that's without 290,000 square feet that we just leased to Nashville. So we'll continue to press rents. We still think there's plenty of headroom, 50 basis points of increase, since the last quarter. We continue to grow these numbers. Our leasing team is extremely aggressive. We're going after retailers that are far more productive. Far more productive retailers can pay better rents. And that's how we're merchandising and leasing our portfolio. We're going to continue to do that. And as I mentioned to Greg at the beginning of the call, I rattled off a number of the brands that are doing new deals with us. These are highly productive retailers that that are enjoying great sales in our portfolio.
spk02: Can I follow up on one aspect of that, Steve, if you don't mind? If I correct, your rent spreads include your CAM in there as well. Obviously, your operating costs have increased significantly over the last couple of years. Have you guys looked at what that would be if you exclude the increased CAM portion of that?
spk11: It's really a question of how we allocate our rents. So, you know, there's a lot of math in those numbers, you know, and perhaps offline we can go through that math. But at the end of the day, a lot of the retailers are paying us rent based on their occupancy cost, based on the sales volume that they're doing and what percentage of that sales volume they're Are they going to pay us in rent? And that's really the critical part of the negotiation. We allocate a portion of that to our CAM expense because we happen to pride ourselves on managing what we believe are best-in-class looking, maintained, and operated shopping centers. So that's just how we elect to operate our business.
spk02: Thanks, Steve. Keep up the results.
spk12: Thanks, Boris.
spk13: As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, you may press star 1 from your telephone keypad. Our next questions come from the line of Mike Muller with J.P. Morgan. Pleasure to see you with your questions.
spk03: Thanks. Hi. I have two quick ones here. One, can you talk a little bit about what's going on with some of the, I guess, the portfolio occupancy outliers that look to be in looks like Michigan, New Hampshire, and maybe Foxwoods. And then second, what are the typical rent reset mechanisms that are in your legacy options versus the options that you're signing today?
spk11: Well, first of all, very few of our leases have options. So when we're renewing leases, those are pure new deals that we're negotiating from scratch with our existing retailers. With regard to The other properties that you just pointed out, we're seeing meaningful progress on leasing in all of those properties. They're all cash flow positively. And, you know, we're very optimistic about continuing to push our leasing in those properties.
spk03: Okay.
spk13: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Emily Arf with Green Street. Please receive your question.
spk07: Hi there. I was wondering if you could describe what the refinancing process was like for Houston and what things they're looking for with respect to lending requirements today. Do you need double-digit debt yields or certain quality property? Any sort of color there would be helpful.
spk06: Sure, Emily. It's Doug. That was a unique asset because it's given the vintage. It was at a period where it had higher role than usual. That limited some of the options, but there were still a wide variety of CMBS providers and certain banks that were willing to bid on that. One of the things that we were targeting, though, is a shorter term with that deal. We believe that as the project stabilizes off of the higher role than usual, that there will be additional refinancing opportunities at what we would deem better rates, better terms.
spk05: And Emily, you know, at Tanger, we are predominantly an unsecured borrower. We predominantly use secured debt in our joint ventures, and on the unsecured side, You know, that's where we feel, you know, our cost of capital is an advantage, especially, you know, with the recent decline in our line of credit cost and our term loan cost overall.
spk07: Thanks. And then kind of moving on to the leasing pipeline, can you remind us where your current lease to physical spread is at? And then looking at the retailers, how quickly are they opening up today and What does the cadence of openings look like in your pipeline for the next 12 months?
spk11: Well, first of all, 95% renewals, there's no downtime. So I think that's a really important thing to keep in the back of your mind. You know, we're doing a lot of our existing retailers at much higher rents and, you know, we lose absolutely no downtime and no capital when we renew those. As far as new tenants, the time from them to take occupancy and open up a store obviously varies based on the complexity and the size of the store going in. But I think the mitigating factor is our ability to keep those rooms occupied until the very last minute. So we talked about our temp leasing strategy, which I think is a really important one here If we have a tenant that's leaving a shopping center and a new tenant that's taking the space, and if there's as little as a month of downtime between those, we're going to make sure that we keep that room lit, occupied, and cash flowing during that period of time. Great.
spk13: Thanks. Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. That will also conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines and log off your computers. Thank you.
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