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REGENCY CENTERS CORP(REGCP)Q2 2026 法說會逐字稿

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管理層發言

OperatorOperator

Greetings, and welcome to the Regency Centers Corporation Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Christy McElroy. Please go ahead.

Kathryn McKieInvestor Relations / Moderator

Good morning, and welcome to Regency Centers' Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Lisa Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer; Michael J. Mas, Chief Financial Officer; Alan Todd Roth, East Region President and Chief Operating Officer; and Nicholas Andrew Wibbenmeyer, West Region President and Chief Investment Officer. As a reminder, today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the company's views of future business and financial performance, including forward earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on the current beliefs and expectations of management and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. It is possible that actual results may differ materially from those suggested by these forward-looking statements we may make. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements may be included in our presentation today and are described in more detail in our filings with the SEC, specifically in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filings. In our discussion today, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. The comparable GAAP financial measures are included in this quarter's earnings materials which are posted on our Investor Relations website. Please note that we have also posted a presentation on our website with additional information, including disclosures related to forward earnings guidance. Our caution on forward-looking statements also applies to these presentation materials. As a reminder, given the number of participants we have on the call today, we respectfully ask that you limit your questions to one. Please rejoin the queue if you have additional follow-up questions. Lisa?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you, Kathryn. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our team delivered another excellent quarter, extending the positive momentum we have built over the past several years. We generated strong NOI and earnings growth, driven by sustained operating fundamentals and a disciplined capital allocation strategy. These results reflect the quality of our portfolio, the strength of our platform, and most importantly, the remarkable execution of our team. Across our portfolio, leasing demand trends remain robust, supported by the strength of our tenant base and their continued expansion plans. Our grocery-anchored neighborhood and community centers continue to benefit from a durable tenant mix of necessity, service, convenience, and value retailers, while the resilience of our consumer base is supported by the compelling demographic profile of the suburban trade areas we serve. We believe this positions us well to perform consistently through shorter-term periods of macro uncertainty as well as longer-term across all economic cycles. We also continue to execute on our capital allocation strategy, with momentum across our entire investments platform, including development, redevelopment, and acquisitions. Our national ground-up development program is one of Regency's most important differentiators. In an environment of continued low new supply and a scarcity of high-quality available space, our ability to source, execute, and deliver successful projects across our target markets is not only a driver of meaningful NOI growth, it also creates value in ways that no one else in our sector is replicating. Rather than relying solely on acquiring centers at market prices to drive external growth, we are building premier shopping centers at yields that represent substantial spreads to market cap rates. This platform and our ability to consistently drive value above our cost to build allows us to generate earnings accretion while also growing NAV. Mike will go into more detail, but our favorable year-to-date performance and enhanced visibility into the second half of the year gives us the confidence to raise our full-year forecasts for same property and total NOI growth, and we now expect core operating earnings per share growth to exceed 5%. Before I close, I would also like to briefly mention our recently released corporate responsibility report, which highlights meaningful progress across our priorities. Corporate responsibility has long been a foundational strategy for our company. Its principles are deeply ingrained in our culture and day-to-day operations, and the initiatives continue to generate real cost savings and ancillary revenue growth. In summary, I am energized by our business today and the opportunities ahead. Our high-quality portfolio located in the strongest suburban trade areas, our leading national development platform, our fortress balance sheet, and, most importantly, again, the best team in the business all set us apart. I am confident in our ability to deliver durable, sustainable growth and long-term value for our shareholders. Alan?

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Thank you, Lisa, and good morning, everyone. We delivered another outstanding operating quarter, driving overall leased and shop occupancy to new highs while maintaining robust rent growth, reflective of the fundamental strength across our portfolio. These positive results collectively contributed to same property NOI growth of 3.8% in the quarter, with base rent growth serving as the primary driver. Our same property leased rate is now nearly 97%, as we are pushing both anchor and shop leasing higher supported by continued strong tenant demand and a retention rate of 84%. This is a direct reflection of the favorable leasing environment coupled with limited availability of high-quality space. Commenced occupancy was also up 20 basis points in the quarter as we continue to successfully convert our SNO pipeline into rent-paying tenants. Our pipeline of newly executed leases provides us with visibility of further upside in commenced occupancy, which will remain an important component of future same property NOI growth. Leasing is active and broad-based across nearly every category and region in which we operate. Grocers, health and wellness concepts, restaurants, personal services, and value-oriented retailers continue to expand. At the same time, quality space is in short supply, both within our portfolio and throughout our markets, providing our teams significant leverage in lease negotiations, and they are doing an excellent job capturing that opportunity. This is translating into strong rent growth, with cash rent spreads above 10% in the quarter and GAAP spreads of nearly 20%. We also continue to successfully embed annual rent escalators into nearly all of our newly executed leases, one of the primary drivers of sustainable base rent growth well into the future. This fundamental backdrop is also supporting our ability to boost expense recoveries. We are seeing our recovery rate benefit significantly from higher commenced occupancy as well as improved lease terms. We saw the power of this in the second quarter as we completed our expense reconciliations for the prior year with market conditions and the quality of our leases driving success. Building on some of Lisa's comments, our centers benefit from both trade-up and trade-down behavior, sitting at the intersection of convenience, offering value, and everyday essentials. Tenant sales growth is widespread throughout the portfolio, foot traffic is showing steady increases, and accounts receivable remain below historical averages, confirming a very healthy tenant base. Our team remains focused on capitalizing on strong tenant demand and favorable supply dynamics, creating opportunities to drive NOI higher while further strengthening the merchandising quality in our portfolio. That combination of strong fundamentals and disciplined execution gives us confidence in our ability to continue driving NOI growth. With that, I will hand it over to Nick.

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Thank you, Alan. Good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, we continued to build on the success of our investments platform, further extending our external growth trajectory. We made meaningful progress across development, redevelopment, and acquisition activity in addition to identifying future opportunities. Our new project pipeline remains particularly strong, providing a clear path to future growth. As a result, we have raised our eye level on new development and redevelopment projects, and now expect starts in 2026 to approach $400 million. This truly is a unique story to Regency. We have a visible external growth pipeline that results in real value creation on top of earnings accretion. It also allows us to approach acquisitions as opportunistic and strategic rather than as a required deployment of capital. This is especially valuable in environments like today, transaction markets that are extremely competitive and continue to compress cap rates. Year to date, we have started more than $140 million of new projects, one of the highlights of which was the start of the Berkman at Durbin Park during the second quarter. This $55 million ground-up project will be anchored by Whole Foods and T.J. Maxx, located within a vibrant master-planned community in a strong suburb of Jacksonville. We are also making great progress executing on our $680 million in-process pipeline, for which we continue to expect blended returns of 9%. Leasing momentum for these projects has been outstanding, with in-process development 80% leased. Beyond accelerated leasing, our team continues to partner with anchors to efficiently get stores open ahead of schedule and accelerate rent commencements. That includes the recent early openings of Trader Joe's at The Golden Hills in Central California and Kroger at Westchester Plaza in Cincinnati. These are just a few great examples of the success and positive trends across our pipeline. In closing, our ability to increasingly source new and exciting projects is a testament to the flywheel effect I have referred to in the past. We are excited about the opportunities in front of us as our recent successes, retailer relationships, development expertise, and access to capital allow us to continue to be confident in our ability to drive sustainable and attractive external growth, creating significant value for our shareholders. Mike?

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. As you have heard from the team, Regency delivered impressive financial results in the second quarter, supported by execution across our operating and investment platforms. We now have enhanced visibility into the second half of the year. And as you heard from Nick, we continue to grow our investment opportunity set and in-process development pipeline. All of this speaks to the power and durability of Regency's growth algorithm. We combine the strong, stable organic performance of our high-quality portfolio with accelerating contribution from accretive capital allocation focused on successful development and redevelopment projects and operating property acquisitions. As a result, we are raising our full-year outlook. We have increased same property NOI growth by 40 basis points at the midpoint, primarily due to higher commenced occupancy expectations supported by greater clarity around tenant activity in the second half, in addition to higher expense recoveries following the completion of our annual reconciliation process. Our revised outlook now reflects total NOI growth in the mid-6% area as well as core operating earnings per share growth exceeding 5%. I also want to highlight a few atypical items within NAREIT FFO, which are largely offsetting each other within our guidance ranges. These include a singular lease termination fee that will contribute to a higher level of term fees in the third quarter, as well as a reduction to our non-cash revenue outlook largely related to lower below-market rent amortization and higher straight-line rent reserves. Our A-rated balance sheet remains a competitive advantage, with leverage comfortably within our target range of 5 to 5.5x along with strong and growing free cash flow, and nearly full availability on our $1.5 billion revolving credit facility. This flexible financial and liquidity position provides us with attractive access to low-cost capital and supports our ability to fully fund our investment pipelines and pursue additional growth opportunities. Stepping back, everything that drives value for Regency is working in concert: strong leasing fundamentals, consistent embedded rent growth, and an unmatched development-led external growth strategy, a healthy balance sheet, and disciplined value-creating capital allocation position us for durable and attractive growth ahead. With that, we welcome your questions.

分析師問答

OperatorOperator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1. Please limit yourself to one question, and you can rejoin the queue for additional questions. You may press 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Our first question will come from Michael Goldsmith with UBS.

Michael GoldsmithAnalyst (UBS)

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Can you provide a little bit more clarity on the term fees? It looks like you are now expecting a larger one in the back half. So can you provide some more details around that? How is that impacting your revised outlook? And then is that included or excluded from your same property NOI guidance? Thanks.

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Hey, Michael. Good morning. It is Alan Todd Roth. I will let Mike answer the guidance side of it. Let me just start: one of our major EV operators decided that they were not going to open 11 of our locations as part of a package deal. The operator is financially sound and they are going to continue to operate about 15 units within our portfolio. Importantly, we are collecting rent through the end of this year. We got a termination fee of four years of rent from that, and we are already engaged on eight of those 11 locations for a backfill. So it was overall an exceptional transaction in terms of what is impacting the numbers. I'll let Mike talk about the guidance piece.

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

Hey, Michael. It is a good opportunity to highlight the excellent disclosure on the reconciliation. If you look at page 6 of our slides, you can see lease termination fees are not part of Regency same-property NOI metric. So that healthy 1.5 cents guide raise in the same property NOI line is excluding the positive deal that Alan just described. So the $0.015 is incorporated into our core operating earnings raise and FFO raise for the quarter. But what I would like to highlight is that the raise in same-property growth of 40 basis points at the midpoint, raising both the low and high end, is really the material driver to our enhanced outlook: greater leasing activity, enhanced visibility into average commenced occupancy going north from this point forward, and we had a great recovery season in the second quarter. And we think that expense recovery ratio will hold for the balance of the year. Thanks, Michael.

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Thank you very much. Thanks, Michael.

OperatorOperator

Our next question will come from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

Jamie FeldmanAnalyst (Wells Fargo)

Greg. Thanks for taking the question. So you walk through a wide range of capital options to fund new investment. You are comfortably in your target range for leverage. Can you just talk about how you do think about the different sources of capital, including OP units? As we have seen some of your peers start to use a little bit more, and especially as you find larger deals, or if you want to find larger deals, how you would think about the mix of capital sources? Thank you.

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

I have got you, Jamie. So everything here starts with free cash flow, and we are very consistent with how we think about sources and uses. Free cash flow is in the area of $180 million this year. We will leverage that neutral to our balance sheet. I appreciate you noting where we are; we are at the lower end of our targeted range, 5 to 5.5x, so we have some capacity there. That levered free cash flow is the fundamental source for driving our development business. So we can go confidently into that business and make commitments and deliver upon those commitments. We do have excess levered free cash flow that we can deploy into acquisitions. And to the extent we find bigger transactions beyond that or to the extent we grow our development platform, we will consider other sources of capital. We are very fortunate to have access to all types: that could be JV capital, which we have deployed and you can see in our results; that can be more debt capital — again, I said we are at the low end of our leverage range — and that could be equity. We have raised equity in the past, and we will raise equity wisely going forward. Rest assured, what you will see us acquire will be accretive to consistent growth, accretive to consistent quality, and most importantly accretive to whatever source of capital we deploy at that point in time. Thank you, Jamie.

OperatorOperator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Andrew Reel with Bank of America.

AndrewAnalyst (Bank of America)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess just to go back to the FFO reconciliation, you moved a small number of leases to cash basis in the first half. Just any color on what type of tenants those were and maybe if you are anticipating any more cash basis conversions in the back half? Thanks.

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

Sure. Thanks, Andrew. Yes, so the noncash line item we did revise down this quarter and there is really a couple of things going on there. As you mentioned, this is a normal part of the business: tenants will move from accrual accounting to cash accounting. As we know, when that occurs whatever straight-line rent you have accrued to that point in time gets reversed, and that is what is occurring in this quarter. To highlight that, there is one lease in particular that had an outsized impact on that outcome this quarter, and that is really what is driving our revised outlook for the year. By the way, just as an aside, that lease that did convert to cash is current on their cash payments, so we are not losing any cash flow in our core operating earnings guidance. The second element that is going on in the noncash line item is accelerated below-market rent. Pardon me for getting technical, but the good news of retaining more tenants that were on our watch list — that we had provisioned for departing or moving out — is that those departures are not occurring. What that also means is below-market rent that you would have accelerated into income is also not occurring. So that is revised out of our noncash outlook this quarter. When you zoom out, cash earnings are growing at Regency. We are retaining more tenants. Average commenced occupancy continues to increase. That is also translating and amplifying through recovery income, and that is what is driving our core operating earnings guide increase of $0.03 at the midpoint. All of those indications are very positive for the outlook. The noncash items are NFFO and unfortunately they have moved in the wrong direction for that metric, but those again are not impacting the free cash flow number I mentioned earlier. Thank you, Andrew.

OperatorOperator

Moving next to Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley.

Ronald KamdemAnalyst (Morgan Stanley)

Hey. Staying on the presentation, the 94.5% sort of commenced occupancy — I think we have talked about further upside from here. Can you just tell us in terms of how high you think occupancy can go, specifically in commenced occupancy, and how you guys are sort of incentivizing the team to keep driving that higher? Thanks.

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Ronald, good morning. It is Alan. Appreciate the question. I have had the luxury of saying 'records are meant to be broken' for many quarters, so I have stopped saying that and really am not guiding to any specific ceiling. Our teams are focused on great operators and quality merchandising, and they are going to continue to keep the pedal down. When I look back at the last quarter of deals that were completed, there are a number of great users out there where the power of the platform has come into fruition. For example, Sourdough and Company — we signed four deals with them in Oregon, Colorado, and Georgia — around the country where our teams are banding together on a great use. Everbowl: a couple of deals in North Carolina and California. A concept that might be newer to some is pop-up bagels; we have executed deals there. And then in the fitness sector, you have Solidcore, which has been a strong staple for us, and Pilates Addiction owned by the Sequel brand. There are great retailers that the teams are executing on multiple deals around the country, leveraging the platform. So they are going to continue to press forward on great users without any expectation of where ultimately it can go. From a commenced occupancy perspective, to answer that question, we are at roughly a 240-basis-point SNO spread today, and historically that stabilized number is about 180 basis points, so that gives a little bit of context in terms of where we think there is runway. We certainly have runway ahead. Thanks, Ronald.

OperatorOperator

And Greg McGinniss with Scotiabank has our next question.

Greg McGinnissAnalyst (Scotiabank)

Hey. Thank you. Was hoping that you could give us some maybe a little bit of color on the acquisition environment: the availability of shopping centers that fit your underwriting criteria, cap rate trends, and then your use of JVs to acquire those. Is there dry capital in these structures or mandates to spend where we could see you continue to invest there?

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Greg, this is Nick. Good morning. We will start first with what we are seeing in the market. The market is very active in the transaction world and we continue to see private capital allocate towards grocery-anchored shopping centers for the same reasons we are attracted to them. As I said in my opening remarks, that is continuing to compress cap rates quarter over quarter. When we talked about this last quarter, I was talking mid-fives plus or minus, and we are now seeing some things trade starting with a 4. So very aggressive capital from a core acquisition standpoint. The blessing we have given our business plan, as Mike already talked about, is first and foremost we are focused on growing our development and redevelopment platform given the yields you can see that we are accomplishing there. We feel really confident in our visibility to continue the in-process ones and continue to grow that pipeline. As Mike also said, we do have excess capital. One part of that is our JV capital, and we are very proud of our long-term partnership with the State of Oregon. They have reupped their capital commitment, so there is quite a bit of availability still within that partnership. We still have capacity on our balance sheet, as Mike talked to. So you can see this quarter we are still active in the transaction market, but we are going to be picky. We are going to make sure that they check all the boxes Mike spoke about earlier: that we can fund them accretively, whether that is on balance sheet or with our partnerships, and make sure that we like the quality of the asset from the quality of the trade area, quality of the tenants, and importantly, the quality of the future growth. When we see those opportunities — and again, the market is very active — we are just very particular to only pursue those that check that box, and we are doing that very effectively. Thanks, Greg.

Greg McGinnissAnalyst (Scotiabank)

And could you just touch on the difference in kind of the acquisition cap rate—Sorry.

OperatorOperator

Re-queue for a second question. Thank you. And moving on to Todd Michael Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Todd Michael ThomasAnalyst (KeyBanc Capital Markets)

Hi. Thanks. I wanted to ask about the Kroger-Albertsons merger. I was wondering first, can you just discuss whether there is any geographic overlap across the banners there and if any, what potential formats could be at risk longer term? And then second, that combination would create a new top tenant for the company, with almost 150 basis points more rent exposure than Publix. Just any considerations around that larger concentration and whether that creates any asset management sort of needs or opportunities?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Hey, Todd. It is Lisa. I think you might be confusing Giant, which is part of Ahold, with Albertsons. The announcement is Kroger with Albertsons. I'll let Alan touch on the specifics.

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Yeah. Todd, Albertsons is Boise-based and that is the announcement with Kroger. We do not own any Albertsons in our portfolio. From a market perspective, the only overlap for us would be Columbus, Ohio, and that is super de minimis — maybe three Kroger centers that have some trade area overlap. So I do not think it is a material issue for Regency. Thanks, Todd.

OperatorOperator

We will go next to Michael Griffin with Evercore ISI.

Michael GriffinAnalyst (Evercore ISI)

Greg. Thanks. Maybe sticking on that vein of grocers: one of your larger tenants had some cautious commentary in their recent earnings report around consumer sentiment and I think it's maybe the lower-end consumers getting squeezed. Maybe that is not applicable within your footprint in Regency's portfolio, but do you have a sense as to whether grocer health or the outlook has changed at all or if occupancy costs are stable? Any insights there would be helpful.

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Of course, Michael. I have been in the business a really long time and the grocery business has always been extremely competitive through decades of my experience, and it continues to be so today. The best physical locations with the better operators are going to continue to be critical to the entire grocery sector, and you see that through all of their expansion plans, which Alan and Nick already talked about. We're seeing it in our development pipeline with those expansion plans. I will remind you that there was even more concern pre-COVID, and then coming through COVID there was a renewed appreciation for physical locations. Grocers understand that they need to invest in every aspect of the business from an omnichannel standpoint, and we are seeing that happen. From our perspective specifically, we have not seen anything in our portfolio or in our close relationships and conversations with our grocers that would give us any pause or change our view of grocery whatsoever. We are in active dialogue, and while it is a really competitive environment, we believe that operating with and owning the best real estate, and operating with the best grocer banners in those markets, is a winning long-term strategy. Thanks, Michael.

OperatorOperator

Our next question will come from Floris Van Dijkum with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Floris Van DijkumAnalyst (Ladenburg Thalmann)

Hey, thanks. Congrats. Solid quarter again. Maybe if you could talk — you mentioned your fixed rent bumps that you are getting. I would imagine all your shop tenants have three percent or greater escalators. Maybe talk a bit about what you are seeing on the anchor side: how successful are you in getting annual rent bumps for your anchor tenants? Are grocers now willing to contemplate those leases? Obviously those do not come up very often, but maybe talk a little bit about what is happening on the anchor front in terms of pushing those escalators through to your tenants?

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Good morning, Floris. You are right: more than 80% of our new shop leases have 3% or more escalators, and importantly because we are leaning into the 'or more' component for the quarter, things have improved on the anchor side. Is it as successful on annual escalators as the shop world? No, the anchor side has not transitioned as much as the shop world has. However, we are experiencing larger rent spreads than we were seeing before, and many anchor tenants that may have had 10- or even 20-year terms at flat rents are now accepting escalators in shorter intervals, for example in five-year increments. So there is certainly improvement. We are leaning in where we can appropriately lean in while being mindful that we want the best operators that are right for our asset, right for the community, and right for further merchandising. Thanks, Floris.

OperatorOperator

Moving on to Craig Mailman with Citigroup.

Craig MailmanAnalyst (Citigroup)

Hey. Good morning, everyone. Lisa, I know you spent a lot of time discussing the differentiator that the development platform has been for Regency and you guys are upping the starts this year to $400 million. I am curious about the potential sustainability or acceleration even from here to put capital to work and continue to drive the value. And just curious also, with cap rates falling to below 5% in some instances, how does that change your replacement cost rent math or your risk appetite? Does that free up more projects that may have been harder to pencil now that the exit value may be better?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Hi, Craig. Appreciate the question. I will reiterate something: we have the best national development platform in the business. It is not an easy business. The reason for our success is the experience we have on the team, the relationships we have locally as well as nationally, and simply the ability to execute. We have confidence that we are able to sustain, if not grow, the levels at which we have been starting projects and delivering in the past several years. There is no question others have a difficult time making a project pencil, but it is all of those things: cost of capital, relationships, and experience that are enabling us to be successful. I have 100% confidence that this will continue into the foreseeable future. Thanks, Craig.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Mike Mueller with JPMorgan.

Michael MuellerAnalyst (JPMorgan)

Yes. Just out of curiosity on the Berkman development here in our backyard. Is that something you have been pursuing for a while and maybe could not get a plan before, or is that more of a recent opportunity?

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Yeah, Mike. Appreciate the question. We have been working on that project for several years. These projects are complicated and do not just fall out of the sky like some acquisitions do. This is a great master-planned community; it is the entrance into the community. We have been working with that owner for several years to come up with a site plan that works for us and works for them. Bringing another Whole Foods to Jacksonville and a T.J. Maxx to St. Johns County is something we are really excited about. It is a several-year process and reinforces why we are bullish about our ability to continue to deliver. We have a pipeline of projects we are currently working on that is very healthy. We are not going to bat a thousand, but we feel really good about projects like this one and about bringing them online, starting them, and delivering them as we have done time and time again. Thank you for asking the question.

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

It gives me an opportunity to reiterate that the Berkman project is a great example of the elements I described: a fantastic local team working on the project, relationships in the market that enabled it to happen, and the relationship with Whole Foods. It will be an incredible center and one that we will own for a very long time. Thanks, Mike.

OperatorOperator

Moving next to Juan Carlos Sanabria with BMO Capital Markets.

Juan Carlos SanabriaAnalyst (BMO Capital Markets)

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the time. Just curious on the acquisition front: have you studied or thought about expanding the breadth of opportunities to maybe include non-anchored strips or larger lifestyle or power centers, given the compression in grocery-anchored values? I suspect I know the answer, but curious on the thoughts and rationale given the strength of the asset management team to take advantage of opportunities in those other subcategories.

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Appreciate the question, Juan. We are constantly looking at all opportunities across the spectrum of retail real estate, but we continue to be particular. We like our format: grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers and best-in-class community shopping centers for durability, merchandising, and the long-term ability to grow rents. That remains our primary focus, as you have seen repeatedly. We do look at adding on to our existing centers with smaller strip centers and have bought those when they match our strategy and we can fund them accretively. Regarding power centers, the big-box business is a different business, and you should not expect to see us move into the power center business unless it is something very unusual. Thank you, Juan.

OperatorOperator

As a final reminder, that is star-1 if you would like to ask a question. Next we go to Paulina Rojas-Schmidt with Green Street.

Paulina Rojas-SchmidtAnalyst (Green Street)

Good morning. This is a follow-up on JV structures. Some of your JV deals made me wonder how you think about the tradeoffs of growing your JV partnership more aggressively to benefit from fee income to boost yields versus the complexity around partial ownership. We have seen other players scale this arm in an environment where acquisition yields are hard to find, so how are you thinking about this tradeoff?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I will start and Mike can add detail. Think about JVs: we employ them for three reasons — access to capital, access to opportunity, and access to expertise. The other two reasons — access to capital and access to opportunity — are relevant when it's a different use or when we need additional capital. We are not currently in a position where we need access to capital, but we appreciate the partners we have and will continue to invest in those partnerships and maintain those relationships. The partnership with the State of Oregon is an example; it helps us execute on acquisitions on an accretive basis. To the extent of scaling further, that is something we will always evaluate, and if a JV checks one of those boxes and is accretive to earnings and future growth, and consistent with the quality of what we already own, we will pursue it. Thanks, Paulina.

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

I'll just add that we view JVs as complementary to our balance sheet and our capital allocation. They provide optionality and scalability when it makes sense, but we remain disciplined on returns and alignment with our long-term strategy.

OperatorOperator

Moving on to Michael R. Herman with BTG Pactual.

Michael R. HermanAnalyst (BTG Pactual)

Thanks. Good morning. Lisa, you mentioned the corporate responsibility report and Regency has seen significant growth in renewable energy out of the portfolio in recent years. With the national and local conversation active around power generation and electricity bills, I'm curious what the go-forward opportunity is to expand the solar program at Regency and how you think about that from both a corporate responsibility perspective and an investment perspective — whether on the expense side for Regency or services you can provide to tenants and communities. Some color on where that could go in the coming years would be helpful. Thank you.

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I will let Alan hit the tactical pieces, but corporate responsibility is indeed ingrained in our culture. Our values reflect connecting to our communities, being responsible, and striving for excellence. Renewables and solar are an important part of that. Alan?

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

I'll expand on that. A lot of our developments are incorporating renewables right out of the ground, whether municipalities require it or not. We also think about it from an ancillary income perspective, beyond just solar. It is nearly $35 million a year of ancillary income and growing. That includes EV revenues, fees, temporary deals, and various marketing events. It is checking a lot of boxes and is something we remain keenly focused on.

Michael J. MasChief Financial Officer (CFO)

I'll add that we continue to invest in our solar program. We are adding new projects this year and underwriting new projects for future years. We have had the most success in states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, and California, and we expect continued growth in the program.

OperatorOperator

We have a follow-up question from Floris Van Dijkum with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Floris Van DijkumAnalyst (Ladenburg Thalmann)

Hey, thanks for taking another question. More on capital allocation and development, which is really your unique advantage. You mentioned you do not seem to have a huge land pipeline. How do you tie up land? Because land is one of the biggest swing factors in whether a project pencils. Can you talk about your strategy for accessing land and how you are building your future pipeline going forward?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Floris, I'll let Nick answer specifically but I will reiterate that development provides visibility to future growth because we are allocating free cash flow into projects that otherwise would require acquisition at market cap rates. That ability to develop at attractive yields is a major differentiator.

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Floris, specifically to your question: our land held has actually shrunk over the last couple of years as we have grown our development program because we have brought legacy land into production and have not needed to speculatively buy land to grow the program. We are very efficient in our approach: more times than not we do not close until the project is derisked — entitlements in hand, preleasing with anchors and sometimes shops, and hard bids in hand. That allows us to manage contingencies and cost escalations while delivering on yields. We work with sellers and often control the real estate through contracts so that sellers share in some of the risk and maximize their land value. The relationships and track record we have help us execute these deals and bring them into production. Thanks, Floris.

OperatorOperator

We have another follow-up question from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

Jamie FeldmanAnalyst (Wells Fargo)

Greg. Thank you. Along those lines, just thinking about construction costs: can you give us the state of affairs on construction costs across your markets for the major pieces of your projects? And a second question: medical and fitness have been growing in the portfolio. How large could that get in terms of total ABR, and what is the credit quality of those types of tenants?

Nicholas Andrew WibbenmeyerWest Region President and Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

We will take both. On construction costs: it is volatile and not a fun part of the business. Fuel prices and other inputs are volatile. The good news is our team has a lot of experience and derisks projects by bidding the majority of costs before starting, carrying appropriate contingencies and cost escalation allowances to deal with unknowns. Over a blended basis we are winning more than we are losing in our underwriting, which is why the vast majority of our projects come in on time and on budget. On medical and fitness, I will hand that to Alan.

Alan Todd RothEast Region President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Jamie, on medical and fitness we are at about 12% of ABR and that is up 200 basis points over roughly five years. We are leaning into it more. Medical tenants tend to be stickier, and fitness is part of a healthy living mindset that consumers want. We feel comfortable with fitness as a renter category and it is about aligning with the right operators. I do not have a specific target, but it is a meaningful and growing part of our portfolio.

OperatorOperator

Our next question will come from Tayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank.

Tayo AtosanyaAnalyst (Deutsche Bank)

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Lisa, while I recognize the focus on development for external growth, how are you thinking on the acquisition front? It's been a while since you have done a large deal. How are you thinking about further consolidation among public names in this space, and is your strategy more to be selective — finding onesies and twosies where they fit your bill?

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Appreciate the question, Tayo. We are always active. Last year we acquired a large portfolio in Southern California, which was funded accretively. We constantly evaluate the entire market. Whether it is a single asset, a portfolio, or a company, we have the balance sheet and the team to act. When opportunities present themselves that fit our criteria, we will be aggressive and act offensively. Thank you.

OperatorOperator

This now concludes our question-and-answer session.

Lisa PalmerPresident and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you all for your time today. And happy Thursday.

OperatorOperator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

逐字稿來自第三方供應商(Alpha Vantage),非本平台第一手解析;講者職稱依原始資料呈現,未經正規化。