Simon Property Group, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Simon Property Group first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a lesson only mode. A 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. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Tom Wadd. Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Peter, and thank you all for joining us this evening. Presenting on today's call is David Simon, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President. Also on the call are Brian McDade, Chief Financial Officer, and Adam Roy, Chief Accounting Officer. A quick reminder that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. and actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. We refer you to today's press release and our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of the risk factors relating to those forward-looking statements. Please note that this call includes information that may be accurate only as of today's date. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included within the press release and the supplemental information in today's Form 8K filing. Both the press release and the supplemental information are available on our IR website at investors.signin.com. Our conference call this evening will be limited to one hour. For those who would like to participate in the question and answer session, we ask that you please respect the request to limit yourself to one question. I'm pleased to introduce David Simon.

I'm pleased to report our first quarter results. First quarter funds from operations were $1.046 billion, or $2.78 per share, prior to a non-cash, unrealized loss of $0.08 from a mark-to-market in fair value of publicly held securities. Our domestic operations had an excellent quarter. Our international operations posted strong results in the quarter despite being negatively impacted from the surging U.S. dollar. We are also very pleased with the results from our other platform investments. We generated $1 billion in free cash flow in the quarter, an increase of 10% compared to the prior year period. Domestic property NOI increased 7.5%. percent year over year for the quarter, and our international properties, as I mentioned, performed well, driving portfolio NOI growth to 8.8 percent. Occupancy at the end of the first quarter was 93.3 percent, an increase of 250 basis points compared to the prior year, and a decrease of only 10 basis points compared to our seasonally high fourth quarter year end of 2021. The number of tenant terminations in the first quarter was the lowest recorded in the last five years and our TRG portfolio occupancy was 93.2% at quarter end. Average base minimum rent increased compared to the fourth quarter and was $54.14. Leasing momentum continued across the portfolio. We signed more than 900 leases for more than three million square feet in the quarter and had a significant number of leases in our pipeline. In fact, at our recent leasing deal committee, we approved the most deals since 2016. And overall, we'll recently have approved approximately 500 new deals representing 2 million square feet. Demand is very strong. And interesting, with the volatility of the world, our portfolio in the U.S. is in great demand from worldwide brands, restaurants, and entertainment operators, as most retailers and tenants view the U.S. as the place to be. Sales momentum continued for our retailers. Mall sales volume for the first quarter were up 19% year over year. We reported retail sales per square foot reached another record in the first quarter at $734 per square foot. For the mall and outlet, combined 43% increase and 669 per square foot for the mills, which was a 50% increase. TRG reported 1,038 per square foot, which was a 52% year-over-year increase. Our occupancy cost is the lowest that we've had in seven years. We are pleased with the results of our other platform investments in the first quarter, including Spark Group and JCPenney. JCPenney's liquidity position is strong at $1.3 billion and it has no borrowings on its line of credit and performed better than planned. I can say the same for Spark, which also performed better than planned in the quarter. Spark also completed the U.S. Reebok transaction and we anticipate great things from this iconic brand. Remember, we expect Reebok to incur operating losses for Spark in 2022 due to the integration aspects of the transaction. Spark financial position, like Penny, is strong with the recent refinancing of its ABL, and it is, in fact, in a net cash positive position. During the quarter, however, our investments in Soho House, and Lifetime Holdings, which both became public companies at the end of last year, were impacted by overall market volatility, driving an $0.08 unrealized non-cash mark-to-market. These are high-quality businesses that fit with our flywheel of unique companies, and we believe these investments will generate value above our bases as they fully reopen and reengage with their customers. On the balance sheet front, we completed very timely a dual tranche US Senior Notes offering that totaled $1.2 billion, including a 10-year fixed rate offering at 2.65% early in the year. We used the net proceeds to pay off amounts outstanding on our credit facility. We also refinanced seven mortgages for a total of 1.1 billion at an average interest rate of 2.92%. And our liquidity stands at $8 billion. Now, today we announced our dividend of $1.70 per share for the second quarter, a year-over-year increase of 21%. The dividend will be payable on June 30. including our dividends, declared today we paid more than $37 billion in dividends over our years as a public company. $37 billion. We also announced today that our board of directors has authorized a new common stock repurchase program for up to $2 billion that will become effective on May 16th. When we look at the valuation of our stock today, at an FFO multiple of approximately 10 times relative to the historical valuations closer to 15 times, and an applied cap rate of around 7% for our real estate assets, we see substantial value in our stock, particularly given our belief and conviction in our future growth opportunities. Our balance sheet is strong, continues to be a significant advantage for us while our cash flow generation provides us with the flexibility to adapt as conditions warrant and as we have proved countless times. We will be thoughtful and opportunistic on the buyback and keep in mind this is in addition to the more than 20% increase in our dividend we announced today. Now, given our outlook for the remainder of the year, we are increasing our full year 2022 comparable FFO guidance from $11.50 to $11.70 per share to $11.60 to $11.75 per share, which compares to our comparable number of $11.44 last year. This is an increase of 10 cents at the bottom end of the range and 5 cents at the top or an 8% increase at the midpoint. This does not include the previously mentioned unrealized loss or gain that may occur the rest of the year on our fair value of investments that I mentioned. And please keep in mind that this guidance increase comes in the face of a strong U.S. dollar and rising interest rates. Just to conclude, I'm pleased with our first quarter results. Tenant demand is excellent and our real estate is a great hedge in inflationary times. Hopefully our operating results and our announced stock buyback authorization today reinforces that we are primarily focused internally and growing our existing platforms organically. And I think that will conclude my comments. Ready for questions?

Thank you. At this time, we will 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 handsets before pressing the star keys. As a reminder, we request you to limit to one question and one follow-up. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Good evening. Maybe just on the guidance, I know you don't like to give too many of the pieces, but given the current volatility in the market and macro uncertainties, which may or may not be impacting Simon, guidance was increased slightly at the midpoint. So I was wondering if you could give some detail on some of the puts and takes, what's performing ahead of your initial expectations versus what might be offsetting some of that upside surprise, maybe occupancy, leasing, retailer sales, interest rates, whatever you think is most relevant.

Sure. I mean, you're right. The reason, Caitlin, we don't go through the detail is, you know, we are a big company. And, you know, there's a lot going on. And we think it's better for the market just to focus on in our totality of our results. But what's better is very simple. Our retail operations, which is, you know, our other retail companies, Properties is trending to be better than our plan. That's number one. Most importantly, our property NOI growth is projecting to be better than planned. And the only negatives that are offsetting that are we have some exposure to floating rate debt. We're probably at the very, very low end of other real estate companies, but we do have some. But we don't have any commercial paper outstanding. We don't have any outstanding on our line except for $125 million, which is primarily for tax purposes. And then obviously the strong dollar, when we bring back our foreign earnings, we have to do it at a lower dollar. That has a more meaningful impact than the rising interest rate environment. But so far, demand is really, really good. I don't want, you know, we're not, we don't pound the table here too much. We do, you know, sometimes we get carried away. But, you know, demand is great. Our leasing folks are very excited. And our property NOI is, you know, is better than what we anticipated. Obviously, Because of the COVID, a lot of restructurings on the leases, and because of our high-end tenant concentration and the amount of sales that they've had, I mean, there's volatility in that. I cannot pinpoint exactly where our sales will come out on that. And, you know, that will have some impact on ultimately our results, but we try to give you a range here that we feel very comfortable that we can produce.

Got it. Thanks for that. I think the suggestion or guide is one question, so I'll stop there.

You're very kind to follow the rules, okay? Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Rich Hill with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, good evening. I'll try to follow Caitlin's lead and follow the rules as well. Hey, David, income from unconsolidated entities was a pretty healthy number this quarter. In the past one Q's, it's been slightly negative. We modeled it negative in the quarter to be conservative. So, I'm just maybe wondering if you can walk us through what your expectations were for income consolidated entities versus how it actually played out.

Sure. Turn that over to Brian to walk you through. He actually put together a piece of paper there for you guys in the 8K to walk you through that because I know it's not confusing to us, but it might be to you. So hopefully this will help. Brian, take it over.

Hey, Rich. Brian here. So we did add some additional disclosure to our supplement to break down our income from unconsolidated entities. As you can see, the driver of the change is our joint venture activity on our property side, including the performance of our international portfolio, which David highlighted in opening remarks.

And remember, international last year really was suffering from more of a lockdown than the U.S. portfolio. Yeah.

Got it. Am I allowed to ask a follow-up question to follow the rules?

Sure. You know, since you did it so politely, yes, and you're a gentleman, we're happy to hopefully go ahead. Go for it.

Yeah, Brian, I'm sorry to advance the dumb question, but the negative 18.5 million You reported for TRG, including amortization of excess investment. What is sort of that as a clean number? And I'm happy to take it offline, but I'm actually just trying to back out how well TRG did this quarter compared to prior quarters, given the action.

The $18 million was primarily from the excess investment for the Taubman purchase. So this is net income, remember, Richard? Yep.

So we have to, when you capture things, obviously you put it to market value, and then we amortize that investment over its life. It has nothing to do with cash flow.

Okay. We can catch up later on it, Brian. Thank you.

Sure. No problem. Thank you. Our next question is from Derek Johnson with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Thank you. I guess I get one on the retailer NOI contribution, or I think it's the NOI from other platform investments. It was $26 million this quarter in first queue. But when I look at it versus last year, the contribution was, I think, around $3.5 million. So just wondering if you could walk us through the drivers and maybe the delta between this quarter and last year.

Derek, the change is simply better performance out of our retailer investments in the first quarter of this year relative to last year. There was still a lot of volatility still in the world, and there were definitely still closures throughout the U.S., specifically California in the first quarter of last year. So the driver is just simply better performance out of the retailer investments.

It's good news, by the way. I just don't want you to be confused. It's always good to have better performance. Thank you, Brian. I just want to put it in perspective. It's good to have better performance. Next question.

Thank you. Our next question is from Sameer Khanal with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Good evening, everybody. David, clearly the leasing environment is very strong. You talked about the 3 million square feet. But I was wondering if you could maybe provide color on sort of the pricing trends that you're seeing in the portfolio, whether it's the outlets or the malls or the mills. Thanks.

Yeah, I would say, you know, generically that, look, you know, and I say this and it sounds hokey, but you have to create the win-win. But we are in a better position today to negotiate what we think is a fair deal for us than we were the last couple of years. So we are absolutely seeing the ability to get what we think is fair market value. And the good news is, given the occupancy cost, our retailers are – you know, we're getting deals done. So we're finding that happy win-win.

Thanks, David.

Sure.

Thank you. Our next question is from Greg McGenese with Scotia Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good evening. So, David, there is a, you know, fairly substantial increase in month-to-month leases increasing from 1.9% to 5.4% just curious you know what the primary drivers there were and what the opportunity is for leasing those potentially to maybe longer term leases well I think I think what you're seeing is the fact that we have some big account leasing that

We are not rushing to do but doing it in a thoughtful manner because these are really good properties and really important for the retailer and we're taking our time to get that done and that's really what you're seeing. You know, last year or the year before, you might have seen a rush to get those signed up and in the door. We're taking a more strategic approach to create the kind of the win-win that I talked to, you know, I mentioned earlier. So it's really part of our strategy. And, you know, my anticipation, without question, that number will be way down for Q2.

Okay, so this is just a during negotiation phase increase, but no kind of expectation for loss of those tenants and more so all shifting to long-term leases.

Absolutely not. And that was more of a decision on our side to get the right kind of deal that we have with some of our larger national accounts. So no issue there.

Okay. Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you. Our next question is from a nurse just with miserable. Please go ahead.

Hey, uh, good, good evening. Um, David, I want to ask you about, I guess, capital allocation given where the stock price is. Now you put out the valuation discount, uh, as you consider the debt market. Um, I guess, would you buy back stock now? And then, In the same answer, how do you think about acquisitions? There's rumored to be a very large seller out there, some pretty good malls. So just curious, under any scenario, would you be a buyer of some? Thanks.

Sure. Well, as I said to you earlier, I mean, we got the authorization because we want to buy our stock back because we think it's undervalued. So, you know, where are we? because of the technicalities, we really can't get into the market until the 16th. But, you know, this is not window dressing. I expect us to be in the market. And all I can say to you, you know, and I, you know, I really don't like to comment on, you know, like the, you know, the stuff that's out there on M&A, but I would... throw caution note to all that I would suggest that please don't believe any rumors or media reports concerning our M&A activity, okay? Where, you know, we are very focused on what I said. If you, you'll see that, see our, if you weren't, or weren't able to listen to my prepared remarks, you'll see, Kind of what I said on that front, we're really, really focused internally. And obviously, you know, given where the stock has performed over the last couple of months, I mean, we think it's an opportunity to, you know, to be opportunistic in terms of buying our stock back. So that's kind of, I mean, again, that's kind of how I look at things. So don't believe what you read. or any rumors out there, we're really focused on growing our existing platforms and taking advantage of the opportunities that our lower stock price represents.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Connor Michelle with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So can you please tell us what percent of tenants are now on percent rent deals and how those tenants are performing in the current environment? Is it different at all?

I mean, every one of our retailers generally has a percent rent clause. Not every single one of them. I mean, some of our big boxes and our department stores do not. But all of our All of our small shop retailers usually have some kind of percent rent aspect to the lease. So, you know, that's a high percent. So that's number one. And number two, you know, look, so far, you know, we're in an uncertain environment, you know, as a global economy. But what I would say to you just in general terms, so far from the better, you know, the higher income folks, we have not seen any kind of slowdown. There may be a little bit of slowdown on the, you know, on the lower income folks. consumer obviously. Unfortunately, inflation is a huge issue and we need to do everything we can to figure out, as a world and a country, figure out how to deal with the impact on inflation for the lower income consumer. But we are not So far, we're not seeing it in our portfolio. Great. Thank you. Sure.

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Billiman with Citi. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. David, you talked a little bit about spending a lot of time internally, obviously, leasing the portfolio. I was wondering if you can update us a little bit sort of on the external front in terms of retailer investments or technology investments. I know you still have the SPAC out there, which obviously that market's gotten a little choppier, but just how much time and what sort of opportunities are coming out of this macro environment for you to further, you know, moving this tanker towards a lot of those activities that you've been planting the seeds for for a number of years?

I think, Michael, we still have confidence in the SPAC. We have a clock running out, but we still have confidence that there's a really good chance the SPAC will find a good opportunity. I think the opportunity set clearly has increased given the market volatility, even with existing public companies and we were smart enough to not do a deal probably at the time after we raised the SPAC that would have been at the market top. So hopefully our investors in that obviously recognize that. And remember, this is immaterial for Simon Property Group. But I want to say that. So on the external front, I mentioned to you earlier, right now, we are really focused internally. Now, we're investing in all of the platforms that we have in our existing portfolio. Lots of redevelopment is still on the drawing board. you know, Spark is making investments in its tech, uh, technology. Penny will be making investments. Those come from those entities. You know, we don't have to fund those. They're self-sustaining, you know, Penny, you know, has hundreds of millions of dollars that EBITDA. So, so they're, they're funding themselves. Um, but right now our focus is, um, what I mentioned to you before. And, um, You know, look, if we see an interesting add-on here and there or bolt-on for one of our properties or, you know, one of our investments, you know, maybe there's some capital allocation. But I think right now it's capital allocation I see is either to the shareholders or, you know, to grow our existing assets. book of business.

David, just as a follow-up, just in terms of just understanding sort of the value to Simon and the value for shareholders of all these investments you've made, the board back in, I think it was like mid-February, granted, I think it was about $36 million to five senior executives and I think a little bit more to 18 others for the successful investment in ABG. Now, I recognize you have made money. You've exchanged stakes. You've invested more capital. But maybe just to step back, can you sort of share a little bit, at least at the Simon Group level, how much these investments have made for which the board then paid the cash out to executives?

Well, I don't even know how to answer that, Michael. Well, I'm not going to talk about comp on this call. If you or an investor would like to talk to our COP chairman, you know, we're happy to arrange that for one of your investors directly. I think what you're referring to is we've made a billion dollars on our ABG investment and, you know, that was kind of, we were moonlighting in that activity and I'll leave it at that, but thanks for your question. And our COP committee, Our comp committee chair is available to any institutional investors and shareholders on the rationale for what they did, but we'll move on from now.

Okay, yeah, we've just been, we got asked what the math was.

Like I said, any institutional investor, we're more than happy to set up a phone call with our chair of our comp committee. Thank you, Michael. Okay, thank you, David.

Thank you. Our next question is from Vince Tiboney with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Domestic property NOI growth was up 7.5% in the first quarter, which implies you're expecting NOI growth to be only marginally positive for the remainder of the year based on the 2% NOI growth guidance you gave last quarter. Just given the contractual rent bumps and year-over-year occupancy gains that you should experience each quarter, what factors are negatively impacting the growth rate for the rest of the year?

Well, I don't, again, it's a completely appropriate question, and I thank you for that. We give guidance, NOI guidance at the beginning of the year, We are always trying to be conservative, and we always hope to outperform it. We don't update it during the year, but I have confidence based upon what I know today that we'll outperform our initial guidance. Obviously, we have a little more variability than maybe, and again, I don't want to over dramatize this, but we have a little more variability than maybe we did 10 years ago because of the overage rent that we've structured. I think we've actually structured it pretty smartly, but it does create a little more variability. And that's the only thing that's out there to throw some caution to the wind. What we see now, we expect to outperform, but we don't update it, and it is an uncertain world, but we're working extremely smartly and diligently to outperform our initial property NOI expectations, without a doubt.

If I may just kind of squeeze in a follow-up. I mean, how do we think about leasing economics here? Because, you know, you took away the disclosure on the leasing spreads a few quarters ago, which I think made sense given, you know, it was no longer really conveying a ton of useful information. But just because I think what I'm trying to get at is guidance implying that releasing spreads could be negative or Like, I'm just trying to figure out what the pullback here is. Is it expenses? Because I get the variability portion, but to your point, it's not... It really... Yeah, I'm sorry, Vince.

I didn't mean to cut you off. It really is... It really does boil down to the sales part of the equation. It's not... We're seeing better rents than we anticipated. And we are seeing... Look, if you... Again, I don't want to get into this, and we tried to... to get everybody to do the spreads the way we did it, but no one was interested in really doing what we did. If you really read the footnotes, and I don't want to get into it, but it's comical what red spreads are. Words are different, whatever. It's not really important. Point is, the way you really see it is what is our portfolio on a wide. And that manifests itself with everything, operating expenses, sales-based rent, overage rent, et cetera, occupancy. Our rents are firming. If you really would do just space to space, our spreads are basically positive. Because we went through a lot of pain in the last couple of years. And again, because the overage was really quite exciting last year, we just don't know if we can be as excited this year. And that's why we're being a little cautious. But we're off to a good start.

Thank you. That's helpful. Additional color. Thank you, Vince.

Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Mueller with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, I'm curious. Has your view on the pace or the magnitude of the occupancy recovery changed meaningfully, thinking about for the next few years since the beginning of the year?

I would say to you, if I understand your question, I think, you know, we are... really happy at the pace of, um, our accelerating occupancy and, um, clearly based upon last year, I think we're ahead of where we thought we would be. Um, and I'm hoping that to get the occupancy up to kind of where we were, you know, prior to, to, uh, the COVID. So, um, I think, I think we're, you know, and I, and look, I mean, demand, again, until the lease is signed, until it's a piece of paper, until I get that first month rent, you know, it ain't over until it's over. But, you know, we feel pretty good. And like I mentioned in the call, I mean, our terminations were, you know, at the lowest level they've been in a long, long time. And our deal committee, you know, I think we have a, We have a really good leasing group. They're energetic. They're grinding away. They're working. I mean, we've turned our leasing group kind of not over, but we've added a lot of new talent to the organization. And, you know, I think we're in a pretty good spot, assuming, you know, things continue to be, you know, macro continue to be reasonable. I don't think we need, you know, last year's results. And don't underestimate, and I'm rambling on here, but don't underestimate that, you interest in our domestic portfolio is worldwide. And as retailers or restaurateurs or entertainment operators, they're, you know, they're not looking at China. South America is a tough market for them. Europe is, you know, it's got the recovery play because of the COVID lockdown, but it's relatively flat. Obviously, you got, you know, the Ukraine issue, which is more there than here. And so the growth for the worldwide retailers is in the U.S. We were not at the top of mind three, four years ago. That was China. It is here. It's happening domestic. So that's exciting.

Got it. Okay, so it sounds like the past couple of months really hasn't derailed that at all. Not at all. Okay, that was it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Linda Sy with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. How are you thinking about distribution channels for the various brands within your Spark platform? What's the best way to maximize the reach and visibility of these retailer investments?

Well, you know, they still love physical stores. You know, look, I think each brand is different. With Arrow, it's the physical stores and the e-commerce. With Nautica, it's stores, but wholesale business is very important. Brooks Brothers is a combination of e-commerce, wholesale, and stores. Forever 21, the stores are really important. That's the big differentiating factor. it has compared to some of its peers on the other hand it needs to improve its e-commerce business so it really within spark there's different brands and it really depends on the brand but um don't underestimate and i think you know what we've seen since covert i mean don't let's not forget when we had covet everybody said the stores are out of business no stores e-commerce You know, what we're seeing is generally out performance, way out performance in the physical world, less performance on the internet. And that's not just for our brands, but across every, essentially every retailer.

And then how does JCPenney fit in there as a distribution channel?

Well, I mean, they have their stores and their e-commerce business. I think the store business is doing well. And, you know, I think over time they'll improve their e-commerce. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question is from Greg Smith with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. David, what percent of expiring rents in 2022 have been addressed? And are you primarily working on 2023 at the ICSE leasing convention?

Well, we would, again, I think you missed part of the earlier call. So I'd say to you by the end of Q2, we'll probably be in the 70, 75% range. of all of our leasing activity for 22. I would say we are doing a combination. At this point now, you're really more focused on 23 deals, but we're doing a combination of finishing lease to get lease assigned this year. Some may open, but a lot of them opened for 23. I think the primary focus at ICSC will be you know, a new business, 23 business.

Great. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Juan Sanabria with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the time. Just wanted to talk a little bit about investment opportunities external. I know you said not to Listen to what's out there in the press, but notwithstanding, do you see better opportunities or would Simon be more interested as the real estate company investing more in high quality malls or is the idea of maybe looking at shopping center real estate kind of interesting given what we've seen in some of the changes with COVID and consumer behaviors?

Well, that's the fallacy. I mean, our mall, you know, outdoor versus indoor, our mall business is doing great. So I think that's, you know, and I would say to you, Juan, good real estate can be indoors. It could be outdoors. It could be hybrid. And don't get carried away in the physical world. the physical plant of great real estate. It could be a mixed use, it could be an outdoor center, it could be a big enclosed mall like Houston Galleria. I know a lot of people spin it that way, but I will tell you, good retail real estate can come in a lot of different forms, a lot of different forms. We're not, we're just, I can't really answer the question because there's not one project that we're pursuing right now. And, you know, like I said earlier, we think the opportunities, the greatest opportunities lie within Simon Property Group.

And just if I can, a quick follow-up. You mentioned you think your cap rate, your implied cap rate's around 7%. What do you think high-quality malls are valued at today, given the moving interest rates? I'm just curious what your thoughts are on mall valuations.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know I wouldn't be selling our stuff at a 7% cap rate. That's all I – I can only speak for myself. Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question, David. We've touched a lot on the outlook, but does the updated guidance consider any changes in expectation for the retailer investments for 2022 and then the 15 to 20 cents of additional investment expected for the year? What's the expected cadence? Is that equally distributed through the year or is that hitting harder in the first or second half?

Okay, the first question is not really on the retail side. We're anticipating more or less that they come in on plan. And then I didn't follow Brian. Did you understand the second part of the question? Can you repeat it, please? Yeah, Michael.

Yeah, the last quarter you talked about 15 to 20 cents of additional investment expected in the year. What's the expected cadence of that?

Yeah, that's what I thought, but I want to make sure. So Reebok closed. Spark bought the U.S. operations of Reebok at the end of February. if I remember correctly, and we think that will come out most of, it's kind of, it probably will come out in the Q2, Q3, but it's not really, it's kind of a work in progress of when those operating losses will take hold. They incur certain operating losses, I should say they, we, SPARC incurs certain operating losses as part of the deal and then they're capped And it really is just a function of when those come. But we know it's limited to kind of the number that I gave to you. But that's probably a Q2, Q3 event. Thank you very much.

We've got to ramp up, Michael. So they've got to actually incur the cost for this to happen. So it's just going to take a little bit of time.

Thank you. Our next question is from Flores Van Dijkum. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. David, maybe you touched upon the fact that your occupancy cost is low. If you could just, you know, can you share that occupancy cost? And also, what was your occupancy cost prior to COVID? And how quickly will you get back to those kinds of levels in your view?

Yeah, so our the number right now is 12.3. What was it? What was it? No, no, before COVID. No, it was higher than that. That was higher than that. Anyway, we'll get you the number where it was pre-COVID. But I thought it was in the kind of the high 13, 14 range. But we'll get you what was it? 13 and change. 13 and change. And Look, I can't tell you how long it's going to take. A function of it is just marking leases to market. But it's fortunate for us and our retailers that they're profitable in our stores. And yet at the same time, we can mark the rents up to market and... and be able to grow our business too. So that's what we're trying to achieve.

Great. And if I can maybe have a follow-up as well. Obviously, you cited your leased occupancy. What is the gap between occupied and leased space right now? And how do you see that trending over the next couple of quarters? And presumably... some of that lease space could be anchors, which could be slower to, to get online. So is that, is that, you know, gap always going to be or remain steady or do you expect that to narrow over the next, over the next 12 months?

I think Tom, you know, can give you the exact numbers later, but I mean, both trends are in the moving in the right direction. So you know, Tom can get you the actual numbers, but both are moving in the right direction, and I think that the gap between the two in a good market like we have now will narrow.

Great. Thanks.

Sure. Okay. I think... Oh, sorry. Go ahead, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I would like to turn the call back to Mr. David Simon for closing remarks.

Okay, thank you, and I'm sure we'll see some of you in the next few weeks. Thank you. Thank you.

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