Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
October 24, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: PECO raised full-year 2025 guidance for NAIRI and Core FFO per share, with midpoints implying roughly 6.8% and 6.6% year‑over‑year growth, respectively.
  • Positive Sentiment: Operating fundamentals remain strong: portfolio occupancy 97.6% (anchor 99.2%), neighbor retention ~94%, and record renewal/new lease rent spreads (~23% and ~24.5%), supporting internal NOI and FFO growth.
  • Positive Sentiment: Active external and development pipeline — YTD gross acquisitions at PECO's share of ~$376M (including ~$96M post‑quarter), expansion into higher‑yield unanchored “everyday retail,” plus 22 development/redevelopment projects targeting ~9–12% unlevered yields.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Balance sheet provides funding optionality with ~ $977M liquidity, no material maturities until 2027, and net debt to TTM adjusted EBITDA ~5.3x (management target in the mid‑5s); 2025 guidance assumes no equity issuance.
  • Negative Sentiment: Near‑term headwinds include tougher fourth‑quarter same‑center NOI comps (guidance 1–2% vs. easier 2024 recoveries), lease option provisions that slow mark‑to‑market upside, and a bad‑debt guidance midpoint (~90 bps) above the current ~70–80 bps run rate.
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Earnings Conference Call
Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Speaker 4

Good day and welcome to Phillips Edison & Company's third quarter 2025 earnings call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Kimberly Green, Head of Investor Relations. Kimberly, you may begin.

Speaker 2

Thank you. I'm joined today by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison, President Bob Myers, and Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A. After today's call, an archive version will be published on our Investor Relations website. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the company's view of future business and financial performance, including forward earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, specifically in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q. In our discussion today, we'll reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings press release and supplemental information packet, which have been posted on our website.

Speaker 2

Please note, we have also posted a presentation with additional information. Our caution on forward-looking statements also applies to these materials. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison. Jeff?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Kim, and thank you everyone for joining us today. The PECO team is pleased to deliver another quarter of solid growth. Given the continued strength of our business, we are pleased to increase our guidance for NAIRI and Core FFO per share. The midpoints of our increased full-year 2025 NAIRI and Core FFO per share guidance represent a 6.8% growth and a 6.6% growth, respectively. I'd like to thank our PECO associates for their hard work in maintaining our unique competitive advantages and driving value at the property level. The market continues to focus on tariffs and U.S. economic stability. As it relates to PECO's grocers and neighbors, we continue to feel very good about our portfolio. PECO has the highest ownership percentage of grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers within our peer group. Seventy percent of our annual base rent comes from necessity-based goods and services.

Speaker 3

This provides predictable, high-quality cash flows and downside protection quarter after quarter. This also limits our exposure to discretionary goods, which we believe are at risk of greater impact from tariffs. PECO continues to deliver strong internal growth. Our neighbors benefit from their location in the neighborhood, where our top grocers drive strong foot traffic to our centers. We have high retention and strong leasing demand from retailers wanting to be located at our neighborhood centers, and we continue to see a healthy pipeline for development and redevelopment. In addition, the PECO team continues to find smart, accretive acquisitions that add long-term value to our portfolio. When you include assets and land acquired subsequent to quarter-end, this brings our year-to-date gross acquisitions at PECO's share to $376 million. A few shout-outs for the quarter.

Speaker 3

The operating environment and PECO's ability to deliver growth continue as it has for the past several years. Our leasing activity and occupancy remain very strong. We continue to operate from a position of strength and stability. Moving to the transactions market, activity for grocery-anchored shopping centers remains competitive. The strength of our activity in the first half of the year allowed us to be more selective in the second half. We remain committed to our unlevered return targets, and we remain confident about our ability to deliver on our full-year acquisition guidance. Including acquisitions closed after the quarter-end, we acquired $96 million of assets at PECO's share since June 30th. This activity includes two unanchored centers. These centers offer reliable fundamentals similar to our core grocery-anchored properties, with a stronger long-term growth profile.

Speaker 3

They're located in the same trade areas as our grocery-anchored centers, growing suburban markets with strong demographics, with a focus on everyday retail. Neighbors located at these centers are delivering necessity-based goods and services within their respective communities. We will share more details on why we believe these everyday retail centers are a natural complement to PECO's long-term growth strategy during our upcoming virtual business update. This webcast is planned for December 17. We also continue to make great progress with our joint ventures. During the third quarter, our JV with Lafayette Square and Northwestern Mutual acquired The Village at Sand Hill. This is a grocery-anchored shopping center located in Columbia, South Carolina suburb. Our pipeline for the fourth quarter in 2026 also includes additional assets for our JVs. Lastly, we are actively expanding our development and redevelopment pipeline.

Speaker 3

We build in our parking lots and acquire adjacent land to our centers. This quarter, we acquired 34 acres of land in Ocala, Florida. While it's too early to share details of this project, we are working with partners to build a grocery-anchored retail development. As you know, these take a long time. We will share more details on this project as we're able to update you. We are very pleased with our results for the quarter and our outlook for the balance of 2025. We are actively growing our leasing and transaction pipelines for 2026. We believe we are the most aggressive operator in the shopping center space. The PECO team is continuously looking for opportunities to grow our business better. We look forward to updating you on our long-term growth plans during our December 17 business update. I will now turn the call over to Bob. Bob?

Operator

Thank you, Jeff, and thank you for joining us. PECO continues to deliver strong leasing activity driven by our grocery-anchored neighborhood centers and necessity-based neighbor mix. This momentum is clear in our operating results again this quarter. Our neighbor retention remained high at 94% in the third quarter, while growing rents at attractive rates. High retention rates result in better economics with less downtime and dramatically lower tenant improvement costs. PECO delivered record-high comparable renewal rent spreads of 23.2% in the third quarter. Comparable new leasing rent spreads for the quarter remain strong at 24.5%. Our continued strong leasing spreads reflect the strength of the retail environment. We expect new and renewal spreads to continue to be strong for the balance of this year and into the foreseeable future. Leasing deals we executed during the third quarter, both new and renewal, achieved average annual rent bumps of 2.6%.

Operator

This is another important contributor to our long-term growth. Portfolio occupancy remained high and ended the quarter at 97.6% leased. Anchor occupancy remained strong at 99.2%, and same-store inline occupancy ended the quarter at 95%, a sequential increase of 20 basis points. Given our robust leasing pipeline, we expect inline occupancy to remain high throughout the remainder of the year, which is very positive. As it relates to bad debt in the third quarter, we actively monitor the health of our neighbors. Bad debt remains well within our guidance range. We are not concerned about bad debt in the near term, particularly given the strong retailer demand. We continue to have a highly diversified neighbor mix with no meaningful rent concentration outside of our grocers. Turning to development and redevelopment, PECO has 22 projects under active construction.

Operator

Our total investment in these projects is estimated to be $75.9 million, with average estimated yields between 9% and 12%. Year-to-date, 14 projects were stabilized through September 30, 2023. This represents over 222,000 square feet of space delivered to our neighbors and incremental NOI of approximately $4.3 million annually. As Jeff mentioned, we continue to grow our pipeline of development and redevelopment projects. This activity remains an important driver of our growth. I will now turn the call over to John. John?

Speaker 1

Thank you, Bob, and good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Our third quarter results demonstrate what we've built at PECO: a high-performing, gross-ranked, and necessity-based portfolio that generates reliable, high-quality cash flows. As Jeff said, the PECO team continues to operate from a position of strength and stability. Third quarter NAIRI FFO increased to $89.3 million, or $0.64 per diluted share, which reflects year-over-year per share growth of 6.7%. Third quarter Core FFO increased to $90.6 million, or $0.65 per diluted share, which reflects year-over-year per share growth of 4.8%. Turning to the balance sheet, we have approximately $977 million of liquidity to support our acquisition plans. We have no meaningful maturities until 2027. Our net debt to trailing 12-month annualized adjusted EBITDA was 5.3 times as of September 30, 2025. This was 5.1 times on the last quarter annualized basis.

Speaker 1

As Jeff mentioned, we are pleased to update our 2025 guidance. We are reaffirming our guidance range for 2025 same-center NOI growth. This reflects solid full-year growth of 3.35% at the midpoint. As we have said previously, the timing of our same-center NOI growth in 2024 presents difficult comparisons for the fourth quarter of 2025. Specifically, the recoveries in 2024 were weighted to the fourth quarter, whereas they are more even quarter to quarter in 2025. Our current forecast for the fourth quarter of 2025 reflects same-center NOI growth between 1% and 2%. We estimate this growth rate would have been closer to 3% if the recoveries in 2024 were more evenly distributed. While we are not providing 2026 guidance at this time, I will remind everyone that we believe this portfolio can deliver same-center NOI growth between 3% and 4% annually on a long-term basis.

Speaker 1

As Jeff mentioned, our increased guidance for 2025 NAIRI FFO per share reflects a 6.8% increase over 2024 at the midpoint, and our increased guidance for 2025 Core FFO per share represents 6.6% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Our guidance for the remainder of 2025 does not assume any equity issuance. Importantly, our FFO per share growth is a function of both internal and external growth. PECO is not dependent on access to the equity capital markets to drive our strong growth. As it relates to dispositions, the PECO team plans to sell $50 million to $100 million of assets in 2025. Year-to-date, including activities subsequent to quarter-end, we've sold $44 million of assets at PECO share. The private markets are more appropriately valuing grocery-anchored shopping centers than the public markets. This gives us an opportunity to lean into portfolio recycling.

Speaker 1

We have an active pipeline for the fourth quarter, and we have plans to do even more in 2026. We plan to share more details during our December 17th business update. Long-term, the PECO team is focused on recycling lower IRR properties into higher IRR properties to help drive strong earnings growth. We believe that performance over time and consistent earnings growth should be rewarded in the capital markets. We also reaffirmed our 2025 full-year gross acquisitions guidance. We believe our low leverage gives us the financial capacity to meet our growth targets. We have diverse sources of capital that we can use to grow and match fund our investment activity. Match funding our capital sources with our investments is an important component of our investment strategy. We continue to believe the PECO platform is well-positioned to deliver mid-to-high single-digit Core FFO per share growth on an annual basis.

Speaker 1

We also believe that our long-term AFFO growth can be higher as more of our leasing mix is weighted towards renewal activity. We believe our targets for growth in Core FFO and AFFO will allow PECO to outperform the growth of our shopping center peers on a long-term basis. We look forward to updating you on our long-term growth plans during our December 17th business update. In addition to what Jeff mentioned, we plan to share preliminary 2026 guidance. We also plan to share new analysis and insights related to our unanchored investments or everyday retail centers. We look forward to updating you on our internal and external growth plans. With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator?

Speaker 4

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press star one. We also ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. For any additional questions, please re-queue. Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Reel with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. First, can you just share more on your thinking around acquiring development land at this point in the cycle? Why is right now the right time to pursue opportunities like this, and are you evaluating other ground-up development sites at this point in time?

Speaker 3

Thank you for the question, Andrew. Bob, you want to talk a little bit about this specific project?

Operator

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Jeff and Andrew. Thank you for the question. You know, we're really excited about this opportunity. We had a nice partnership with a national grocer that was interested in the growth aspects of Southern Ocala. 10,000 new homes and residential opportunities coming into the market over the next five years. A lot of positive growth. It's going to be a 34-acre site, and we'll end up selling part of it to the grocer, and then we'll have seven out parcels available for us to continue to do what we do year over year. I mean, we've developed 51 out parcels in our portfolio over the last five years, and we'll either do ground leases or build to suit. This is kind of a one-off scenario. Will we continue to look for sites in the future? Yes, if it makes sense.

Operator

This particular asset, we're going to deliver about a 10.5% unlevered return. We feel really good about, you know, not only being some of the retailers' largest landlords, but this is a great opportunity for us to step in in the right market.

Operator

Okay, thank you. That's helpful color. If I could just ask a follow-up, could you maybe just provide more detail on the makeup of your current acquisition pipeline and just how much more incremental volume could you potentially close before year-end? I know, Jeff, you had mentioned you're being a little more selective in the second half now, just curious on where we might shake out relative to the acquisition range. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'll give you a, and Bob, follow-up as well. The way we're looking at it, we kind of have given you guidance. We're pretty comfortable. We're going to be at the bottom end since we're already about $25 million above the bottom end of the range that we've given. You know, we continue to see good product, and we're continuing to see a volume of product that we feel comfortable will be in good shape in terms of our ability to buy. As you know, going quarter by quarter is a little bit difficult because stuff moves a month or two, and that's just the closing process. It's always a little bumpy. We feel really good about the products we bought. We had a really great first half that, you know, it's a little slower, but I would tell you that we feel good about what we're getting.

Speaker 3

You know, we bought $400 million. The midpoint's about $400 million this year. It was $300 million last year. Pretty good. That's a pretty good increase, and we see that continuing to happen. Bob, anything else on the?

Operator

Yes, I would like to add that we've acquired 18 assets this year for $376 million, and we do have deals that have been awarded and under contract to close before year-end. We feel really good about we're going to be well within the range. The other thing I would mention is we're delivering unlevered returns above a 9 in all these categories. We feel real good about the acquisitions. The other thing I would mention is these blend to like a 91.5%, 92% occupancy going in. When you look at our portfolio at 97.7%, this continues to give us internal growth in the future for same-center NOI growth. It is a dual path in terms of growing earnings and NOI. We're really excited about what we've acquired so far, and early indications would suggest that we're operating them extremely well, and we're getting continued leasing momentum.

Operator

Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Andrew.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, everyone. Maybe sticking on the acquisition side, looking at leverage now, it's at 5.1 times, which I'd say is totally reasonable. I guess it sounds like going forward, you might be interested or willing to increase leverage. Wondering if you could discuss for a little bit what the kind of upper level is on leverage and how you think about that as a funding source.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Caitlin, I'll give you and John follow-up as well. What we've said and continue to believe is, you know, we want to be in that 5.5% or below range net debt to EBITDA on a long-term basis. We are, you know, we'd be willing to move around that if we had a clear vision of bringing it back down into that, you know, sort of mid to the mid 5s to lower 5s. We're very happy with where we are. We've got good capacity to continue to grow our acquisition program. It's nice to be where we are right now. If the opportunities come, you know, as you know, we're prepared to take advantage of them if we can. Anything else, John?

Speaker 1

Nope, I think that's good.

Speaker 1

Just as the other kind of source of funds, it sounds like you might lean more into dispositions. If we look at the dispositions you guys have done historically, you do give great disclosure on the cap rates of the acquisitions versus dispositions. Historically, the dispositions have been at higher cap rates. I was wondering, going forward, are there assets that you would be, I don't know, maybe newly looking to sell that would make that process accretive? How are you thinking about that acquisition versus disposition cap rate and the types of properties you'd be looking to sell and who the buyers are and what they're willing to pay for them?

Speaker 3

Yeah. John, you want to talk about that?

Speaker 1

Sure. Thanks, Caitlin. I think the dilution or accretion on the recycling of assets is going to depend on the mix of assets sold and acquired. Ultimately, as you know, we are IRR buyers and sellers. We believe that recycling will be beneficial to our earnings per share over time. As owners of about 8% of the company, that's really important to us. I think as we look at it in terms of we are achieving victory on a lot of these. We've already sold some properties this year, and we're going to look to do that. Ultimately, I'm going to repeat, we believe we can do mid-to-high single-digit FFO per share growth. Although we're not giving guidance until December, I think that is going to be true in 2026 as well.

Speaker 1

Not exactly answering your question because it's going to depend upon the mix of the timing of the closings, but we're managing that very closely. The relationship you're describing has been true historically. I think it's going to tighten and improve as we look forward, but again, it depends upon the mix.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Caitlin, I would just add, I mean, I think the way we think about it is we're going to be trading out of lower growth for higher growth properties, and that is the strategy of the disposition program. There is some de-risking in that, but mostly it's going to be trading to areas where we can get more growth.

Speaker 3

Thanks.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Handel St. Juste with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi there. This is Ravi Vedi on the line for Handel. Hope you guys are doing well. I wanted to ask about redevelopment here and the broader redevelopment pipeline. What's your target size for this to be, and how should we consider funding? Is this going to be primarily through free cash flow or through further dispositions? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Okay, Ravi, when you're talking about that, are you talking about all of our redevelopment, including the outlot stuff that we're doing, or is that what you're focused on there?

Speaker 3

Yeah, both ground-up new development and redevelopment of existing pads or any outlot kind of work.

Speaker 3

Great. Okay. Bob, you want to take that?

Operator

Yeah, no, absolutely. I appreciate the question. Over the last three or four years, we've generated between $40 million and $55 million in our ground-up redevelopment bucket. In those years, we were solving for between a 9% and 12%. We find that this is a wonderful complement to our same-center NOI growth, and we are hopeful to get 100 to 125 basis points towards it through this pipeline. We have a nice pipeline out for the next three years that would be consistent of approximately $50 million to $60 million a year to contribute to that. We don't see anything slowing down on the development side or redevelopment side, and we've seen a lot of success with generating solid returns.

Operator

Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just one on the bad debt. Would you say that this quarter's bad debt expense in the current tenant credit landscape is appropriate to consider as a run rate going forward into fourth quarter and into 2026? Thanks.

Speaker 3

John, you want to take that?

Speaker 1

Sure. Thanks, Ravi. I would say that yes, I think that when you look at it, whether it be on a same-store, total portfolio, we've been between, let's say, 75 and 80 basis points. I do know that the midpoint of our guidance range is 90 basis points, and it's more just giving ourselves a little bit of the elbow room. I will say for the fourth quarter of 2025 and for 2026, we don't actually see the environment materially changing. We think that this 70 to 80 basis points in the range that we have is pretty reasonable. I do think that when you look at PECO's demographics at $92,000, we are 15% above the U.S. median, and our retailers continue to be very, very successful. Our watch list is lower than anyone else's and very consistent with historical around 2%.

Speaker 1

We feel really good about it, but I think this is a good run rate as we look forward.

Speaker 1

Got it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Ronald Camden with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, thanks so much. Just going back to the occupancy and more of the inline occupancy here, you're getting good retention rates. You're pushing rent. Just remind us what the message is to the team, how much more occupancy upside you think there is, and just strategically, how are you guys messaging pushing rents here at the expense of retention rates? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. Bob, you want to grab that one?

Operator

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the question. Currently, we're at 94.7%, and we believe that we can generate another 125 to 150 basis points of inline occupancy. The demand and the retailer interest that we're seeing and all the meetings and our national account team shows very good momentum. The visibility I have out for the next six months, seven months with our pipeline would suggest that we should move in that direction. I feel very good about moving the needle on inline occupancy. I think in terms of growing rents on the renewal question, in particular, at 94% retention, that's a very solid retention number. I think last quarter, we spent $0.60 a foot in tenant improvements, and this quarter, we spent $1.00 to generate 23.3% renewal spread. We feel very good about the retention at 94% and the current spreads we're seeing.

Operator

I don't see any new supply coming online to compete with that. I think we'll just keep our neighbors profitable and healthy and look towards the future. I don't see anything slowing down.

Operator

Great. If I could ask a quick follow-up just on the unanchored centers, we talked about it last quarter, but as you're sort of looking at more of the opportunities, what's the update in terms of the opportunity set and the conviction in that strategy? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Great. Bob, you want to grab that one?

Operator

Yeah, another great question. I'm really excited about the strategy. We've acquired eight properties in this category for about $155 million, and we've seen very positive momentum operationally. I believe our centers currently, from what we paid, were about $300, $305 a foot. We are seeing unlevered returns between 10.5% and 12%. Early indications, we're seeing new leasing spreads above 45% and renewal spreads above 30%. You'll hear more about this in our December update. Early indications, this is going to be a great complement to, you know, growing our same-center NOI in the future. We're really excited about it.

Operator

Yeah, Ron, it's a great question. One thing, we have built a phenomenal team at leasing. We kind of look at this as just having more neighbors. We have a way of bringing this, you know, finding more neighbors that we can put the machine to work on and get the kind of returns that Bob was talking about. We're excited about it. Again, as you know, it's a very small piece of the overall portfolio, but it's very consistent with our focus on necessity retail and giving the consumer what they want and being locally smart at the property level. All those pieces are encouraging to us, as well as the results Bob talked about in terms of investment in that product.

Operator

Really helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my question. My first question, Jeff, is when you said in the prepared remarks about being more selective in the second half, what do you mean by more selective? Are you looking more on price? Is it more on location? Is it more on shopping center format? Just trying to get a sense of where that selectivity is leading you.

Speaker 3

I think it's tough for underwriting. It's not a difference in terms of what we like, what we do. In terms of underwriting, with the potential risks of the stability of the economy, I think we took a tougher, we were tighter on some of our rent spreads. We were tighter on some of our pace of leasing. That's really what I'm saying in terms of volume. That translates into us offering lower prices than we would at other times to get to that 9% unlevered IRR. I think that's what slowed down some of our pace a bit. It's important to know, though, we're at the midpoint, we're buying $400 million of assets on an individual basis. That's the most, I think, in the space on an individual basis by far. We think that is $100 million more than we bought last year.

Speaker 3

We're taking our share of the market, and I think it kind of shows the discipline that we've had for 30 years in this business. You've got to be disciplined, and you've got to make sure that you're not getting ahead of yourself or too aggressive or not aggressive enough in the market. I think that's what we kind of bring to the market on that.

Speaker 3

Thanks for that. My follow-up is, on the competition, you said it remains competitive. Has it gotten any more incrementally competitive in the last quarter? If you can provide some color on deals that you don't win, who are you losing to? Is it new entrants or is it kind of the same folks that are still bidding?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I don't think it's gotten more competitive. I think it's, but it's fairly stabilized. I mean, there is good demand out there, and it's the full gamut. I mean, it's some of the repeaters, it's some of the institutional players, as well as some private players. You have a pretty wide range of people looking in the space. Our feeling is that it's kind of stabilized at where it is and really has been for the last couple of quarters. We think that that's kind of going to be more normalized and probably what we're going to see for the next quarter and certainly, or maybe the next few quarters. The beauty is with what we've done, we look broadly at the country, and we're looking for that number one or two grocer to buy.

Speaker 3

That breadth gives us the ability to find product consistently over year after year after year. We feel comfortable we'll have another good year next year. We're not, that's not a concern. It's just, it's a little harder shopping to buy than when a lot of others have gotten into the space that we've been in for 30 years.

Speaker 3

Thank you very much. Good luck in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

Thanks.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Amateo Akusana with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, yes. Good afternoon, everyone. I was wondering if you could just give a view on the outlook for grocers in general. I think your sales are going up, but we just hear a lot of conflicting noise around a more selective consumer. Inflation is kind of causing volumes or trips to grocers to slow down. If you could just give us an update in general on what you're seeing and how you think that space is evolving, we'd appreciate that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I want to take a shot, Bob, to join in as well. From our conversations with the grocers, they continue to see a very resilient customer, and we're not hearing any sort of pullback, any kind of dramatic concerns. It's kind of business as usual. For some of our grocers, they see it as really, really positive. I mean, when you talk to Publix and HEB and Trader Joe's, they are actively growing. They see things very positively. I would say our feedback overall is that the grocers are thinking long-term. They're very positive about what the environment is today and their ability to pass on increases in cost to the consumer. They're always going to be nervous because they're nervous all the time, and they should be because it's a really tough business.

Speaker 3

They're really good at it, and they're great partners for us in the shopping centers that we have.

Speaker 3

That's helpful. How do you think about when we kind of think about sources and uses of capital, how does potential stock buybacks kind of fit into the equation at that kind of current stock prices?

Speaker 3

You know, the way we look at it is it's a tool, just like selling properties, just like raising public equity. It's a tool to be used at the right time when it's the best investment and the best use of your free cash flow. That's the way we think about it. It's one of the tools, and we wouldn't be hesitant to use it at the right time. We're not also eager to use it if, particularly in the environment where we are today, we have really good uses of our capital that we think we can grow significantly. That's a great question, and it is one that is part of our sort of regular conversation about where we should be depending on where the stock price is.

Speaker 3

Gotcha. One quick last one for me. How do we think about acquisitions? You're already at $376 million year-to-date, guidance is $350 million to $450 million. I'm just kind of curious whether there's some conservatism in that number or if the way the forecast is shaping up, there may not be a lot of deal activity.

Speaker 3

I would say, you know, $100 million a quarter is a pretty decent activity. You know, that gets us to $400 million for the year, which is the midpoint of the guidance. We feel good about that. I wouldn't be overly, you know, we don't feel a lot more aggressive than that, or we would, you know, we'd change guidance, but we don't feel, you know, that we won't meet that either. We think the guidance is a pretty good place to be looking at.

Speaker 3

Thank you very much.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas with KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks. First question, just regarding dispositions, you commented, it sounds like next year will be higher than this year's $50 to $100 million target. Is there a segment of the portfolio or kind of a larger portion of the asset base that you ideally would like to recycle out of? Is there any insight around how much you might look to sell over time and also whether the plan is to sell assets on a one-off basis or if there could be some larger transactions, perhaps just given the increased competition that you're seeing?

Speaker 3

Yeah, John, do you want to take that one?

Speaker 1

Sure. Bob, you can follow up after that. Todd, I would say that we're looking at multiple options because we do think that as there is great competition for grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers in the market, there are a lot of them that we've taken to a stabilized place. There are buyers out there that are just interested in more of a completely solved button-up solution. That is something you're going to see. I think you will see us sell more next year. It's hard to say because, again, similar to the acquisition timing, it can move quarter to quarter or things like that. I wouldn't say, and this is where Bob will come in, I wouldn't say we're looking at anything specific on an individual region or things. It's more the IRRs.

Speaker 1

If we look at forward and realize that we've taken most of the or achieved most of the growth in the asset, we will look to sell that. I think we look to sell it individually or as a portfolio. Bob, anything more?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'll just add that I think we'll end up selling between $100 million and $200 million next year. I believe that it'll all be done on a one-off basis. I don't see a portfolio there because we do want to be very surgical as being active portfolio managers. Jeff touched, or Jeff and John touched on it, but certainly 100% stabilized assets that when I look at our forward IRRs would generate 6.5% to 7.5% returns. We think we can replace those assets with these 9%, 9.5%, 10% unlevered return deals and pick up 200 basis points in spread over the long term. That's what we're focused on, and that'll be our strategy.

Speaker 3

Okay, got it. It sounds like a little more of an ongoing portfolio sort of asset management process. The plan is to remain that acquired, just sort of prune the portfolio over time by selling lower growth assets and upgrading quality and improving growth.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3

Okay. My last, just for John, real quick, can you just talk about the drivers behind the interest expense decrease underlying the updated guidance? Are there any updates on the swap expirations in November and December?

Speaker 1

Sure. With regards to the guidance and interest rates, I think part of it was conservatism for us and then the timing of the acquisitions relative to the guide. I don't think there's anything much farther than that. With regards to the swaps, we're 5% floating today. If those burn off and nothing changes, we'd be about 15% floating today. We do have a long-term target of about 90%. Ultimately, if they went based on where today's rates are and no further cuts, they'd be kind of around 5.3%. We can issue in the long-term debt markets around 5%, but I think we are in a position now where interest rates are coming down. At least that is the perspective of the market. We are looking opportunistically at extending our balance sheet.

Speaker 1

We do like the idea of being a repeat issuer in the long-term bond market, and that's where there'll be capacity. I think we're comfortable right now with if those expire and we remain floating with that floating rate, but we will be looking to access the bond market. I would point out we don't have any meaningful maturities until 2027, and our actions will be consistent with what we've done in the past.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Cooper Clark with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Just given the supply backdrop and current strength in the leasing environment, curious how we should think about long-term upside to NOI growth on an occupancy-neutral basis as you capture upside on spreads, improve escalators, and other lease structures.

Speaker 3

John, do you want to break? I think that's probably best broken down in terms of what we see as the pillars of that growth.

Speaker 1

Cooper, I think the pieces for us is we're going to look to deliver 3% to 4% on a long-term basis. Our rent bumps are approximately 110 basis points. I'll point out that that's up, I think, 50 basis points over the last couple of years. We think that we've got good continued growth there. Our leasing spreads continue to be very strong on both renewal and new leasing basis. I think as we look at it, there's a combination of the new leasing, the rent bumps, the development that we're able to do on the out parcels that are already a part of our existing properties to really drive that towards that, keeping us in that 3% to 4%.

Speaker 1

I think that we will continue to buy assets that Jeff or Bob referenced earlier with occupancy availability that will allow us to continue that momentum and move up from there. Bob, I don't know if you have anything you want to add.

Speaker 3

I don't have anything to add, John.

Speaker 3

Great. You noted you expect between $100 million and $200 million of dispositions next year. Curious how we should think about additional funding sources in your current cost of capital with respect to the $350 million to $450 million annual long-term acquisitions target.

Speaker 3

Yeah. John, do you want to just give the latter on that?

Speaker 1

Sure. As we had said on the call, I would say our funding sources are going to be the over $100 million of free cash flow that we generate and retain after the dividend, which I would also highlight we just raised almost 6% this quarter. We have the cash flow that we generate. We have the growth in the base. We're levered at 5.1 times on the last quarter annualized. This disposition is going to allow us to recycle using asset management strategies like Todd just talked about. That is going to be able to drive us and propel us forward in executing our growth plans.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Cooper.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Floris van Dijkum with Ladenburg. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, guys. I've got two questions. By the way, you guys had, I think, was it 23%, almost 23% renewal spreads? If you look at your overall spread, they were only, you know, 13% because I think 46% of your leasing activities were options. Can you, and obviously, what would the growth have been if you didn't have those options? What would the growth have been in your same-center NOI? What are you doing in terms of your, you know, new leases? Where are you limiting, you know, options, etc., so that you can, you know, mark to market more rapidly? Bob, do you want to talk about the options? John, do you want to talk about what Floris was? By the way, hello, Floris. Good to hear your voice.

Speaker 3

On the options, and then John, if you can just kind of walk through what that impact would have been without the options, so the growth without options.

Operator

Sure. Floris, good to hear from you, and great question on the options. This is absolutely an area that we're very focused on, on structuring any new renewal or any new lease. This is something that we've improved over time. I know directionally for our team, I give direction that we don't want to give any tenants an option unless there's a 25% increase in the option period. The challenge with it is, you know, national retailers are making a large investment in this space. They do want to have options, usually three to five-year options as an example. They certainly want to negotiate that number. As a foundation to our strategy, you know, we're always starting with no options. There are a lot of reasons why we say that because the landlord has nothing to gain from it.

Operator

We want to push back hard on that as we negotiate options.

Speaker 1

With regards to the math, I would say that it's tough because the options, the biggest portions coming from our grocers, is a part of the strategy. As we look back at the combined leasing breadth of all of it, it was 16% last quarter. It's 13% now. I think, as Bob said, we have strategies to do that. I do think this is where the compliments come in of more neighbors in other ways. The new leases was almost 30% over the last 12 months and 21% on renewals over the last, so if the volume of footage is about the same, you'd have had 25% net growth instead of the 13% net growth adding to your NOI. It's very strong. I do think the options are something we try to mitigate, but are still part of the portfolio.

Speaker 3

Thanks, guys. John, I appreciate that. My follow-up question is regarding, and maybe I get your view on cap rates. I mean, you know, we hear that cap rates for grocery-anchored are very low relative to other retail types. You've been able to acquire an average 6.7% cap rate. Jeff, what is your view on what's going to happen to grocery-anchored cap rates? Are they going to go up or are they going to go down? Also, what is your appetite for, you know, if there's such strong institutional appetites, maybe doing a larger JV with part of your portfolio to where you benefit from, you know, getting management fees, maybe not for your lowest growing assets, but, you know, to free up some more capital and to prove to the market that, you know, your stock is undervalued.

Operator

All right, Floris, you asked like four questions there. Let me start with the supply-demand dynamic right now. It's fairly stabilized. We don't see a major compression in cap rates from where we are right now. It will be by segment. When we generalize about cap rates, it's a broad brush we're painting with because, as you know, it's a market-by-market event. It's going to be very different in the Midwest than it's going to be in Florida. You've got a lot of variety to talk about there. I think generally we would say that the supply-demand dynamic is fairly stabilized. The amount of product coming on the market is taking care of the increase in demand from some of the primarily institutional players that have come into the market and added additional capital into the market. That would be our answer on that.

Operator

In terms of JVs, we do have two active JVs that we're growing. We do see that as a way of having growth and getting better returns, as you point out, through the fee structure and owning less of the overall equity. That is an opportunity. It's not a major part of our business, but it is an opportunity to continue to find places to put the PECO machine to work and create value. That's what we do. I think that will continue to be something that we look at. We'll look at our disposition program too, because are there ways to take assets that are slower growth, but that we would like to own on a long-term basis and maybe take a little less equity in those. Those are all things that we're looking at as opportunities in a market where the values are compressed in our space.

Operator

We've got a lot of options, and we'll continue to use those.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Yep. Thanks, Florian.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Hong Zhang with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Hong, your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi, can you hear me?

Speaker 3

Yep, yeah, we got you.

Speaker 3

Oh, cool. Thanks. I guess just a question on funding your acquisition pipeline for next year. You've traditionally funded your acquisitions through with majority debt. I guess what is the thinking around changing that composition to be more with dispositions next year, especially with rates falling where they are? Because correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you get more of a spread if you were to fund your acquisitions on debt currently?

Speaker 3

I'll take the first thing, John. You can answer the question. We always have been and will continue to be focused on keeping a really good balance sheet so that we can take advantage of opportunities as they arise. That doesn't really change based upon exactly where the rates are. We're really focused on making sure that we have the right debt capacity. Right now, we have capacity in terms of our target of 5.5, but that's going to be used when we have great opportunity. We are very protective of our balance sheet. John, do you want to go on to talk a little bit about dispositions and how we can use that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, Hong, the piece that I would say is that at 5.1 times in the last quarter annualized and a long-term target of 5.5 times, we do think we have capacity there in addition to the $100 million of cash flow that we retain. The other piece I would say is that we believe that on a leverage-neutral basis, we can buy $250 to $300 million of assets a year. Leading into disposition gets to what Jeff was saying, which is that in a market where we believe there are great acquisition opportunities and an opportunity to recycle assets that we have achieved and stabilized the growth plans that we have, that's something we're going to do. When we talk about the dispositions, it is balanced based on the acquisition opportunity. We have a very solid portfolio and nothing that we're looking to get rid of quickly.

Speaker 1

We're going to be thoughtful and prudent, but it's ultimately so that we can recycle into better IRRs and that kind of balanced plan.

Speaker 1

Got it. Just on thinking about the cap rate on your potential dispositions, you've talked about selling stabilized centers. Could you give a general range of what cap rate those centers would trade at today?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'll take that one.

Speaker 3

Go ahead, Bob.

Speaker 3

Based on some of the assets that we currently have in the market, we believe that the assets will trade anywhere between a 6.3% and a 6.8%.

Speaker 3

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Paulina Rojas with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Good morning. I'm wondering about dispositions. You had the sale of Point Lumis, which to my knowledge included a Kroger store that recently closed. I understand the buyer is a small grocery operator. When you consider the sale price of that property, how do you think the store's closure impacted its value, if at all, compared to what it might have been had Kroger not closed?

Speaker 3

Paulina, thank you for the question. Bob, do you want to talk about Point Lumis? It's a great story, actually.

Operator

It is a good story. I mean, it's an asset that we've owned now for, I believe, around eight years. We ended up doing some redevelopment in the parking lot and built a little small out parcel development. We had a really nice bank, Chase Bank. We had Kohl's as an anchor, and then we had Pick N Save. We knew that Pick N Save was struggling for the last, I would say, five to seven years. We had worked with them on two-year renewals, and then finally came to a point when they announced that they were going to close those 60 stores, that this would be on the list. It wasn't a surprise. The good news is that we did have another grocer lined up who was an owner-operated operator that purchased it that we recently closed.

Operator

It was time for us to move on from the asset, and we did well with it. I think specifically, you know, and Jeff may have a different answer than I do on this, but I think when you lose a grocer like a Kroger, it could certainly impact your cap rate, you know, 100 to 250 basis points.

Speaker 3

Yeah. The only thing I'd add there, Bob, is once you know that the grocer's in trouble, which we've known for seven years, the cap rate's already changed. You're not going to see a 200 basis point change in that cap rate the day that, you know, they close. It will have already happened. That's what happened here. When we bought the property, we bought it at a cap rate that was very high. We knew we were taking on that risk from the very beginning. That's why we made a lot of money on that property, even though it didn't, you know, it's not very pretty, but we made a lot of money on it. That is how we think about it.

Speaker 3

That's why you've got to be very, you've got to be thinking really long-term because the moment there is a question about the grocer, that's when the cap rate hits.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that makes sense. Somehow related a little bit, regarding the new development that you mentioned, I think I heard an expected IRR of around 10%. I also believe you mentioned that you plan to sell a portion to the grocer. I presume you will focus on small shops mostly in that center. My question is, how much would your IRR differ if you retained ownership of the grocer store rather than selling it to the retailer?

Speaker 3

All right. We are going to answer that question December 17th for you. We can't really answer that. I don't think we really want to answer that right now. It's early, and we want to make sure that we're far out, but far out long. Your point's well taken. If we had to grow, if we kept the grocer, the IRR would be less. We'll talk more about that in December. If that's okay.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Juan Sanabria with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks for the time. I'm just curious if the plan for 2026 may include moving the acquisition volume or focus more towards that unanchored, given presumably higher yields, or if that's not necessarily the case. As part of that, do the unanchored centers that you're interested in buying also have that previously mentioned occupancy upside, or is that not part of that particular story?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Bob, you want to take that one?

Operator

Yes, that's a great question. To answer the question, we're going to speak more in December in terms of our guidance next year. Early indications would suggest that we'd be in the same zip code of where we were at this year. In terms of the unanchored strategy, we are going to look more aggressively in that category next year. We are already seeing great results from it and better returns. I can't tell you specifically if we'll buy $100 million or $200 million of the product next year, but we are finding, you know, there's 65,000 opportunities in the market in that category. Given our operating expertise, we feel like this is something that we can step into. We'll be highly selective. We'll be solving for above 10% unlevered returns in the strategy. I just think it's a very solid complement to what we're doing.

Operator

Okay. Just the last one for me, G&A went up the guidance there. If you could just provide a little color as to why and how we should think about growth. Should it, in 2026, is that more in line with inflation? Is there any sort of tech or other type of investment opportunities you're looking at that may increase it higher relative to history next year?

Speaker 3

John, you want to take that?

Speaker 1

Sure. It's primarily related to performance-based and incentive compensation. Ultimately, last year, our growth was lower, and therefore, we have an environment that we incentivize for results. You're seeing an improvement in that, as well as investments, as we talked about, in technology and resources that are going to allow us to scale as we look forward. When I think about going forward, I would think we would be in this range here. I still think that we are quite efficient when we look at it on a variety of metrics. The key piece for us is going to be driving that mid to high single-digit FFO per share growth going forward.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Hightower with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. I think just one for me, but maybe to put a different twist on Juan's question, you know, you guys have mentioned it a couple of times on the call, so it strikes me as something that's fair game. When you acquire assets with, you know, fairly significant occupancy upside, does that represent sort of a material component to the long-term 3% to 4% same-center NOI target? Is just so I understand it, is there any sort of qualitative element about the asset in particular or even in general, you know, where you have sort of low occupancy going in? Is there anything to read into the quality of the asset or the location, you know, when that circumstance occurs? Thanks.

Speaker 3

I don't know. Bob, you want to take the sort of the qualitative part? Then John, maybe you can talk about the impact on the lease up.

Operator

Yeah, I definitely believe that the strategy is to find assets. If you look at what we've acquired, the eight so far, we've been anywhere from 82% occupied to about 100%. It's all over the map. There's so much criteria that goes into the decision based on our 30 years of experience and the growth in the market and the criteria around foot traffic, configuration, and upside. We certainly, I think right now we're at like a 6.7, 6.8 cap rate on what we've acquired, and we're in the mid-10s on the unlevered return. Certainly, our average around 92% occupied on a blended basis will help us get to those returns. I wouldn't say that there's any quality creep or actually the markets that we've acquired.

Speaker 4

are staying very disciplined in terms of what we're buying, and we feel really good about it. The demographics are stronger than our core portfolio.

Speaker 2

I think as it gets to the NOI growth, one of the pieces that I would highlight is a lot of times, you know, that asset class doesn't have the exclusives or option restrictions that some of the larger ones do. Ultimately, as we look to our forward NOI growth, I think this gets a little bit to why we don't often try to talk about cap rates and we're IRR buyers because there's a direct tie between the going in cap rate and ultimately what the growth in that asset is. I think the other piece that I would say from a quality standpoint is true on all the assets that we acquire, where we're looking at inefficiencies in the market.

Speaker 2

Ultimately, for undermanaged assets, where an experienced operator with the capital to invest in the asset and the platform that has the leasing expertise and the legal expertise to really maximize the value there, that is what is really driving the IRR growth that we have. I think those and all of the growth-oriented assets that we acquire are really just kind of pushing through that PECO way of delivering on the growth, and that's where we excel.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. Thanks for the color.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back to Jeff Edison for some closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. In closing, the Phillips Edison & Company team continued our solid performance in the third quarter, and we're pleased to increase our full-year 2025 earnings guidance for NAIRI, FFO, and Core FFO per share. Because of our growth-oriented grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping center format and our unique competitive advantages, we believe Phillips Edison & Company is able to deliver mid to high single-digit Core FFO per share growth annually on a long-term basis. The Phillips Edison & Company team remains focused on delivering on this expectation and driving value at the property level. Given our demonstrated track record through various cycles, we believe an investment in Phillips Edison & Company provides shareholders with a favorable balance of quality cash flows, mitigation of downside risk, and strong internal and external growth.

Speaker 1

In summary, we believe the quality of our cash flows reduces our beta, and the strength of our growth increases our alpha. Less beta, more alpha. On behalf of the management team, I'd like to thank our shareholders, Phillips Edison & Company associates, and our neighbors for their continued support. Thank you all for your time today. Have a great weekend.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

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