Curbline Properties Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 24, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • CurbLine delivered a 9% sequential increase in NOI and 2.5% same-property NOI growth in Q1, driven by higher occupancy and 120,000 sq ft of new leases and renewals that lifted occupancy to 96%.
  • The company’s capital efficiency remains best-in-class, with CapEx under 5% of NOI in Q1 yielding nearly $25 million of retained cash flow and a 5.5-month payback on leasing investments.
  • CurbLine has acquired over $475 million of convenience assets in the last nine months versus a $500 million annual target and now holds a $500 million+ pipeline, underscoring its ability to scale within a market where it owns <1% of total U.S. inventory.
  • The balance sheet is a key differentiator, with $594 million of cash and $1 billion of total liquidity at quarter end, supporting a 50/50 cash-and-debt acquisition funding plan and optionality across financing sources.
  • Management raised 2025 FFO guidance to $0.99–$1.20 per share, backed by durable demand from diverse, credit-strong tenants and blended leasing spreads of 27%, positioning the REIT for double-digit earnings and cash flow growth.
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Earnings Conference Call
Curbline Properties Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kerr Blind First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Stephanie DePrez, Vice President of Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Stephanie Ruys de Perez
Stephanie Ruys de Perez
Vice President of Capital Markets & Asset Management at Curbline Properties

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to CurbLine Properties first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, David Lukes and Chief Financial Officer, Conor Fenerdy. In addition to the press release distributed this morning, we have posted our quarterly financial supplement and slide presentation on our website at curbline.com, which are intended to support our prepared remarks during today's call. Please be aware that certain of our statements today may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws.

Stephanie Ruys de Perez
Stephanie Ruys de Perez
Vice President of Capital Markets & Asset Management at Curbline Properties

These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our forward looking statements. Additional information may be found in our earnings press release and in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10 ks. In addition, we will be discussing non GAAP financial measures on today's call, including FFO, operating FFO and same property net operating income. Descriptions and reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's quarterly financial supplement and investor presentation. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chief Executive Officer, David Lutz.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Good morning, welcome to CurbLine Properties first quarter twenty twenty five conference call. I want to start by thanking our incredible team for not only completing our successful spin off almost seven months ago, but also for completing our second quarter as a standalone public company and achieving results that prove the merits of our unique investment strategy. To that point, we are producing an increasing number of data points that highlight the fact that CurbLine is a differentiated growth company capable of generating double digits earnings and cash flow growth well above the REIT average for a number of years to come. This growth is underpinned by the economics of the convenience property type, which is our exclusive focus, the large opportunity set in front of us and our unmatched balance sheet that is aligned with the company's business plan. These ingredients clearly position CurbLine to outperform in a variety of macro environments.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I'll start the call by walking through the organic and external driver of CurbLine's growth profile and business plan and then conclude with some comments on operations and the balance sheet before turning it over to Conor to talk more specifically about the quarter and the increase in expectations for our 2025 outlook. We began investing in convenience assets now almost seven years ago, recognizing the strong financial performance of the small format asset class, both within the retail sector and the broader real estate industry. Tenant retention was high, credit was strong and diversified, and the CapEx load was extremely low on a relative and absolute basis. Retail and service tenants recognize that a significant portion of consumer spending is not only shopping but running errands. These quick trips to a local convenience center are highly profitable for the tenants but need to be, in fact, convenient.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

In other words, tenants are willing to pay a premium to secure a superior and convenient location that's more profitable, and that is driving demand for our simple and flexible spaces. Demand for the right locations and our property type has produced two noteworthy and differentiated outcomes. First, the capital efficiency of the business is superior to many other retail formats and is especially important as capital becomes more expensive and valuable. Desirable small format space not only has high tenant retention rates driving high renewal rates, but is also inexpensive to prepare for the next tenant in the event that there's vacancy. When compared to larger buildings that are generally purpose built with longer construction periods, the capital efficiency of our Simple business is unique.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

In other words, less capital is needed to generate the same organic growth as the rest of the retail real estate industry and helps generate compounding cash flow growth for CurbLine. To that point, in the first quarter, CapEx as a percentage of NOI for CurbLine was under 5%, which led to almost $25,000,000 of retained cash flow before distributions despite the fact that NOI was just $28,000,000 As Curb scales, this retained cash flow will increase, providing a durable source of capital that is outsized relative to the company's asset base, boosting earnings and cash flow. The second outcome is that our space is highly liquid due to the fact that the number of tenants that are willing to take a 1,000 to 2,000 square foot shop unit is significantly higher than for purpose built large format units. This liquidity allows the property type to keep up with inflation remarkably well, improves tenant diversification, reducing credit risk concentration and fallout and provides an opportunity to drive rent growth as we seek to maximize rental income given the productivity of the unit size. The liquidity of our units was highlighted by the depth and the breadth of first quarter leasing volume with almost 120,000 square feet of new leases and renewals signed, including deals with AT and T, Verizon, Orangetheory, Darden, Five Guys, First Watch and Sherwin Williams, among others.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

In other words, this is a business where we can recapture growing market rents with little landlord capital or downtime since there is a shortage of high quality convenience real estate in suburban communities and steady demand from a wide range of tenants. All of these factors are evident in Curbline's operating metrics with our leased rate up 50 basis points sequentially to 96%, among the highest in the sector, 27% blended straight line leasing spreads and our expectation that same property NOI growth will average greater than 3% for the three year period ending in 2026. Shifting to the investment side, which is the second driver of CurbLine's growth. The positive attributes of capital efficiency and strong top line growth that I just described led us to explore the addressable market for convenience properties almost seven years ago. We now own the largest high quality portfolio of convenience assets in The United States with over 3,300,000 square feet of inventory.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Despite that fact, what we own today represents less than 1% of the nine fifty million square feet of total U. S. Inventory according to ICSC, providing a significant runway to scale and grow curb line. In fact, the addressable market is so large that we see a long path of growth where we can stay focused on high quality convenience centers without the need to broaden our simple and focused strategy. Not every asset we look at will be a fit for CurbLine, but we believe there is a significant opportunity set of properties that share common characteristics with our existing portfolio, including excellent visibility, access and compelling economics highlighted by a broad available tenant universe and limited capital needs.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

And importantly, that deal flow is less reliant on the health or status of the financing or capital markets given a significant percentage of volume is driven by life events with demonstrated availability and liquidity through past cycles. For context, each week, our team is reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deals. While those weekly volumes may rise and fall, the sheer size of the addressable market gives us confidence that there will always be a steady subset of opportunities that do indeed fit our investment criteria. To that point, our original guidance included 500,000,000 of convenience acquisitions for the year, which equates to around $125,000,000 per quarter.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

We've significantly exceeded that pace with over $475,000,000 of acquisitions in the last nine months. And based on our current pipeline, this momentum is likely to continue in the near term. Specifically, our pipeline today is just over $500,000,000 This is on top of assets we have closed year to date and includes properties under contract or awarded with an executed LOI. The majority of these assets are expected to close late in the second quarter or early third quarter. The acceleration in activity is a function of our marketing efforts as we have seen a larger number of brokers and individual sellers proactively engage with us, a change from the pre spend environment.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

This situation allows us to work directly with sellers on a timeline and a structure that works best for both parties and has increased the visibility of our future pipeline of investments. That was a key driver of the first quarter where we acquired 11 properties for just over $124,000,000 including our largest portfolio to date, a six property portfolio in Jacksonville, Florida. Assets continue to be concentrated in the affluent markets the CurbLine operates in already including Phoenix, Houston and Philadelphia. However, like Jacksonville, we continue to make acquisitions in new wealthy submarkets that share the key characteristics we seek, including our first property in Seattle, which were acquired subsequent to quarter end and where we hope to scale long term. Average household incomes for the first quarter investments were nearly $110,000 and a weighted average lease rate of over 95%, highlighting our focus on acquiring properties where renewals and lease bumps drive growth without significant CapEx.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Moving to operations. As I previously mentioned, overall demand for available space remains very strong, driven by a mixture of existing retailers and service tenants expanding into key suburban markets, along with new concepts competing for that same space. Activity remains wide in terms of tenants seeking to lease space and includes numerous, primarily national service tenants, banks, fitness operators and quick service restaurants. We have not seen any changes since the April in terms of leasing appetite but do recognize that changes in macroeconomic scenarios will likely have an impact on the type and the demand for space. However, the value proposition of small format retail with close proximity to wealthy suburban customers remains attractive to a very wide variety of tenants, especially when considering that those businesses pay a relatively small annual occupancy cost due to the small size of the retail suite to have convenient access to those valuable customers.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

The economics of our business, a high return on leasing capital and the widest pool of tenants to work with, along with significant national exposure, position CurbLine for absolute and relative success throughout a cycle. Before turning the call over to Conor, I want to highlight one of the key differentiating aspects of the CurbLine spin off, which is our balance sheet. The net cash position at quarter end matches the business plan with almost $600,000,000 of cash and $1,000,000,000 of liquidity at quarter end. I couldn't be more optimistic about the opportunity ahead for CurbLine and our ability to generate compelling stakeholder value. And with that, I'll turn it over to Conor.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Thanks, David. I'll start with first quarter earnings and operations before shifting to the company's 2025 guidance raise and concluding with the balance sheet. First quarter results were ahead of budget due to higher than forecast occupancy along with higher lease termination and other income. NOI was up almost 9% sequentially, driven by organic growth along with acquisitions. Outside of the quarterly operational outperformance, there were no other material surprises or callouts for the quarter, highlighting the simplicity of the curve line income statement and business plan.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

In terms of operating metrics, as David called out, leasing volume in aggregate was extremely strong, even after adjusting for the growth in the portfolio. And given the current pipeline, we expect another strong quarter in 2Q. However, as I noted last quarter, with this small but growing denominator, operating metrics will remain volatile and be heavily impacted by acquisitions. That said, overall leasing activity remains elevated, and we remain encouraged by the depth of demand for space, which we expect to translate into trailing twelve month spreads over the course of the year consistent with 2024. It is important to note that Curb's leasing spreads include all units, including those that have been vacant for more than twelve months, with the only exclusions related to first generation space and units vacant at the time of acquisition.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Same property NOI was up 2.5% for the quarter, driven in part by better than forecast occupancy. Importantly, this growth was generated by limited capital expenditures with first quarter CapEx as a percentage of NOI of just under 5%. Moving to our outlook for 2025, we are raising OFFO guidance to a range between $0.99 and $1.2 per share. The increase is driven by better than projected operations along with the pacing and visibility on acquisitions that David mentioned, with the top end of the range assuming that deal volume exceeds our initial annual forecast consistent with the pipeline that David outlined. Underpinning the midpoint of the range is approximately $500,000,000 of full year investments funded roughly fifty-fifty with debt and cash on hand, a 4% return on cash with interest income declining over the course of the year as cash is invested, and G and A of roughly $32,000,000 which includes fees paid to site centers as part of the shared services agreement.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

You will note that in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we recorded a gross up of $630,000 of additional non cash G and A expense, which was offset by $630,000 of non cash other income. This gross up, which is a function of the shared service agreement, nets to zero net income, will continue as long as the agreement is in place and is excluded from the aforementioned G and A target. In terms of same property NOI, we continue to forecast growth of approximately 2.8% at the midpoint in 2025, but there are a few important things to call out. Similar to our leasing spreads, the pool is growing but small and is comping off of twenty twenty four's outperformance. Additionally, Curbline's property pool is set annually, so it includes only assets owned for at least twelve months as of 12/31/2024.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

This results in a larger non same property pool, which is roughly a third of first quarter NOI and is growing at a faster rate. To highlight this point, the occupancy for the entire portfolio was 93.5 at quarter end versus the same property pool of 94.5%. We continue to expect this relative gap to compress in the first half of the year, delivering significant organic growth. Additional details on 2025 guidance and expectations can be found on page nine of the earnings slides. In terms of moving pieces between the first and the second quarter, interest expense is set to increase to about $2,000,000 in the second quarter and termination fees are expected to decline to fourth quarter levels.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Two factors CurbLine was spun off with a unique capital structure that positions the company to execute on its business plan and differentiates Curb from the larger private buyer universe acquiring Communist properties. Specifically, at quarter end, the company had $594,000,000 of cash on hand and full availability under its 400,000,000 revolving credit facility. We did fund the $100,000,000 term loan at the end of the first quarter, providing additional liquidity and remain in a net cash position. The execution of the company's business plan, to David's point, is expected to lead to significant earnings and cash flow growth for a number of years well in excess of the REIT average. With that, I'll turn it back to David.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Thank you, Connor. Operator, we're available for questions.

Operator

Your first question comes from Craig Mailman with Citi. Please go ahead.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Hey, good morning. Just on the acquisitions, congrats on getting that big of a pipeline here. It sounds like it will largely close by the end of the third quarter. You have clearly enough cash to do this in line capacity. How are you guys thinking though about rebuilding the war chest here?

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

I think in the past you said you can put an ATM in place around October. Just kind of thoughts on kind of funding sources, that cost of capital versus what you're seeing from a yield perspective in the market?

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Hey, Greg. Good morning. It's Connor. I'll start with available liquidity. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we expect to fund investments over the course of the year fifty-fifty with cash and debt.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

The good news is we're entering the year with a position of balance sheet strength, net cash position, completely unencumbered pool. We're looking at a variety of sources, bank market, the bond market, the insurance market. And it's fair to assume we've got advanced stages in all three kind of paths, and we'll pick the best approach as we get later in the year. But again, with that kind of balance sheet strength and the available cash on hand, we've got time, we've got optionality, and we'll take the best course of action.

Operator

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

Ronald Camden
Ronald Camden
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Back to sort of the acquisition pipeline, obviously this quarter there was a larger deal in there. Maybe a little bit more color on the pipeline. Is it granular? Are there some big deals in there? And just sort of what kind of cap rates are we thinking?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Hey Ron, it's David. Would you mind repeating that? We just lost the first couple of seconds.

Ronald Camden
Ronald Camden
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Sorry about that. So the question was on the acquisition pipeline. You had a larger deal in 1Q twenty twenty five. So just wondering if there are other larger deals in the pipeline and any thoughts on the cap rates that you're thinking?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. Sure, Ron. And good morning. The amount of deal flow we look at is, as we mentioned in our remarks, pretty substantial and the vast majority of it are single asset sellers. There are typically regional owners that may own two, three, four, five, six assets at a time.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

But in general I would say our pipeline is usually going to be made up mostly of single asset purchases and a handful of two or three packs. That seems to be the cadence. It may be over time that we find a portfolio that's a little bit larger, but this asset class tends to be very, very granular. In terms of cap rates, we're still blending to around a 6.25%. If you look at the past trailing couple of quarters, that can get pretty lumpy.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

When you get into individual assets, it can be in the mid-5s and it can be upwards of 7% depending on whether there's vacancy and what the lease duration looks like on the rent roll, the amount of credit. But in general we're still blending to a low six.

Ronald Camden
Ronald Camden
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

And then if I could just follow-up just quickly on just a tariff question. Obviously, things have changed since April 2. Just curious if that changes your thinking on underwriting, what sectors you want more exposure to, less exposure to? Just how does that business plan change since April 2? Yes.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I would say that one of the non changes is the fact that the vast majority of our tenants don't carry inventory. And so if you go back to what we've mentioned in our prepared remarks where shopping centers are for shopping and that usually involves stores that have inventory, large discounters or large mass merchants. This business is more of a running errands business. And there are some tenants that have inventory, but the vast majority are service tenants. Some of the ones we mentioned include banks and the business operators, nail salons, UPS stores, Verizon Wireless.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Those are the types of tenants that occupy these spaces because they want to have that quick access to convenience for running errands for the customer. So in general, I would say that the idea that tariffs are causing an increase in inventory cost probably has a lesser impact. I think a prescient question is your other one, which is does it change our underwriting? And I would say that we recognize that both debt and equity seem to be more expensive. And therefore, ought to respond by making sure that the investments we do make exceed that and make up for that cost of capital.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

That can show up in cap rates, where in some cases, we might be less willing to pay a lower cap rate. On the other hand, market rents are still growing and the suburban customer is still running errands. And so in many cases we're seeing larger mark to markets on the in place versus market rent and that factors into the IRR as well.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Thanks so much.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Thanks Ron.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Todd Thomas
Todd Thomas
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hi, good morning. I just wanted to follow-up a little bit on the deal flow and the $500,000,000 under contract and LOI pipeline. Are you able to break out the pipeline between what's under agreement versus LOI? And can you share how the deal environment, just in general, has changed, if at all, since the April, whether you're seeing any change at all in conversations with sellers in terms of pricing or willingness to transact just given the market volatility more recently?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Sure, Todd. I'll refrain from kind of breaking out the under contract versus LOI, and that's primarily for one reason. That is even if a property is under contract there's usually an out for diligence. And in this business because a lot of the assets are owned by smaller individual families, diligence is a real it's a real workflow for There's a lot to make sure that what we're buying is institutional quality. And so I think that as we said on our last earnings call, a pipeline is always going to be fairly high and there are some properties during that time that just don't make it through the diligence process.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

But in general, would say our closing rate is extremely high. The second half of your question, just lost.

Todd Thomas
Todd Thomas
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Just whether or not there's any sort of change at all in sellers' willingness to transact or any pricing talk as you're kind of working through additional deals moving forward?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. Willingness to sell, it's been a pretty firm no and that is because almost everything we look at is a life event. Someone is at that point in life or beyond where they need to sell and would like to sell and therefore they're not really timing the market as much as they are timing their point in life as to when they want to sell. So the inventory seems to be fairly consistent. The pricing conversations have everything to do with who else is in the bidding tent.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

And if bidding tents stay large, then I think some of those pricing conversations may not change. There has been a lot more institutional interest in the asset class. We have seen more folks getting involved in the asset class and so competition is still there. So there have been recent conversations in the last month about what is the right valuation, but I wouldn't say it's been long enough to make any changes.

Todd Thomas
Todd Thomas
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. That's helpful. And Connor, if I could just ask a quick clarification. You mentioned, I think, that same store growth in the quarter was driven primarily by better than expected occupancy. But same store occupancy was down sequentially 60 basis points for the commence rate, 80 basis points for the lease rate.

Todd Thomas
Todd Thomas
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Was that due to seasonality still just better than what you had anticipated? Or was that attributable to the change in the same store pool or something else?

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

No, Todd. It's a good question. Higher than expected occupancy, meaning we renewed a couple of tenants over the course of the quarter that we did not expect to or had budget to renew. So the problem is it's a small pool. A couple of tenants renewing is a big deal in terms of percentages.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

And so it was probably ten, twenty basis point pickup, over the course of the year in that regard. In terms of the change quarter over quarter, you are correct. We did have a couple tenants we did not renew. We had a couple of terminations, obviously, higher termination income this quarter as well. I would attribute to a lot of little things, but no kind of one answer I could say that was driving the quarter over quarter change.

Todd Thomas
Todd Thomas
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

You're welcome.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Hey, good morning down there. Just a few questions. First, David, just going back to the acquisitions of yes, I know that's been asked, but if we think about volatile capital markets, there's a bid ask spread that in normal times is always an art to arrive to and certainly in a disruptive time, especially with increased capital cost or for sellers, their reinvestment options, everything's up in the air. You guys seem pretty confident that your ability to close the existing pipeline and buy new deals to put under contract remains pretty much unchanged. And I'm just sort of curious, just given all the disruption we've seen, how you guys are that are still that confident.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. Well, I guess two points and good morning, Alex. Two points on the deal flow. One, I already mentioned that it's not like elephant hunting where you're waiting and waiting for some very large property to come to market and sophisticated institution is deciding when they list that. And as you know, we've sold a lot in the last couple of years.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

We're pretty knowledgeable that there are times to sell a large asset and there are times not to sell a large asset. But if look at our supplemental on Page 16 and you kind of look at the volume of what we've been buying the past couple of quarters, the average ticket size is somewhere in the 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 range. And so these smaller properties owned by local investors, given the fact that there's often a change in death in the family, there's a change in the allocation of their resources, generational changes in desire for ownership, There seems to be much less focus on when is the right time to sell relative to capital markets and more to do with personal decisions. So I do think the inventory is going to continue to be there. I think the important question you asked is about price discovery and whether the bid ask spread is widening or not.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I would certainly assume that if the economy starts to go into a negative position, you would see fundamentals change on occupancy levels or demand for space. And that would certainly help cause a widening of the bid ask spread. But right now the operations and the fundamentals are fantastic and leasing volumes are high, renewal rates are high. And so I think sellers and buyers don't see quite as much risk in the asset class. And so that bid ask spread is not that wide yet.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

That doesn't mean it won't change over the coming months. But I think in our business, we tend to focus on how fast information is getting out there about the economy. But when you're buying hard assets, that information doesn't necessarily flow into negotiations within a month.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

And Alex, expanding on the first part of Dave's response, as it relates to financing activity to Craig's question, it feels like a very different playbook or scenario or outcome versus whether it's COVID or the GFC in terms of bank availability or liquidity in the sense that banks are open for business today. That could obviously change tomorrow, but I would say the IG market is a great, great indicator of the general health to date. Again, that could change next minute, next hour, whatever it might be. But, again, it feels like maybe the GFC playbook is not appropriate in this scenario, and we'll see how it plays out.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. So, David, forgive me, but it does sound like death and divorces are probably pretty good for your business to drum up transaction value.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

At the risk of at the risk of saying yes, yes.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

So second question is, you and some of your peers highlight high average household income, the portfolio you bought in Jacksonville just over $110,000 in average household income. At the same time, some of the restaurants are reporting slowdown in traffic and you see anecdotal evidence from different data points about people pulling back on shopping at all levels, absent, I guess, the Uber crowd. So even 110,000,000 is still being impacted. How do you guys feel confident that when you say, hey, we have an affluent portfolio and yet we still see nationally that there is an impact in the consumer, they are pulling back on transactions that we thought were used to be sort of for certain as people are trying to save money. How do you still feel confident in saying, hey, we have an affluent portfolio and it's pretty bulletproof regardless?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. It's a really good point. I think that comes up a lot because we do highlight average household income. And I guess the real question is why. It's not because consumer spending is higher and high household incomes and therefore the tenants pay higher rent or a portion of profits.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

As you know, ours are fixed rent leases. We really don't have much in terms of percentage rent. So the sales volume of the retailers isn't really what we're handling for. The reason I personally am very focused on household income is more to do with zoning. When you get into wealthy suburban communities and remember that zoning is local, not national or even by the state level, Those local zoning boards are not very wild about entitling additional strip center retail.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

And so it tends to be the higher household suburbs, higher income suburbs tend to have less square footage per capita. And that generally means that there's a scarcity value. And part of the thesis of this asset class is when you lose tenants, because you do lose tenants, when you lose them, it is less expensive and faster to backfill them. And that gets compounded in these higher income suburbs because there is a scarcity value of real estate. So to me, it's less about the gross sales volume of that specific retailer.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

It's much more about the scarcity value of how much real estate is available.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

And, Alex, at the risk of stealing David's normal joke, I mean, restaurants are fine dining as Five Guys. It's a different restaurant exposure than white tablecloth fine dining.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Yeah. I'm talking fine dining. I'm talking like QSR, just some of the traffic trends year to date from some of the different operators. Yes, I think we're talking the same thing. But the zoning point is an interesting one. So thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Mueller, JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Michael Mueller
Michael Mueller
Analyst at JP Morgan

Yes, hi. Just a quick one, sticking with acquisitions for a second. Just wondering, are you have you been thinking at all about changing, I guess, the guidance for the acquisition pace just because it seems like you are seeing a lot of transactions, a lot closing near term? Or are you just really planning on sticking with the about $500,000,000 a year for the next few years?

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Mike, it's Conor. In 2025 and I'll let David speak to out yours in 2025, the midpoint of the range still assumes $500,000,000 for the full year. So that's an additional $360,000,000 closing. The top end of the range assumes the pipeline that David alluded to, which is about $05,000,000,000 closes over the course of the year. So that would be, in aggregate, about $640,000,000 You are correct.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

We've seen or we've demonstrated over the last two years that we can do north of $05,000,000,000 a year. I think given this is our second quarter as a public company, we feel comfortable maintaining that current range. But you're right. We're seeing enough deal flow, we're demonstrating quarter after quarter that there's enough of an opportunity set for us to potentially see that over the longer term. I would just say for now, Mike, it feels like $500,000,000 is a good base case to use. And David, I know

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

if could expand on that. I agree. I think in two quarters into the business, it's probably prudent to stick with what our original targets were. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. You're welcome.

Operator

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

Paulina Rojas Schmidt
Senior Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Good morning. You mentioned previously that your business would have or has quicker and less expensive reconnecting, which is by itself a great advantage. But could you elaborate on how you believe your portfolio would perform in a recession or a period of slow growth relative to other search center formats?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Sure, Paulina. Good morning. So if you look on Page 13 of our supplemental, I think that's probably a pretty good example. And you looked at the bottom row. If you look at the trailing four quarters, our total leasing volume, which is new leases and renewals, and if you take the first year's base rent and then you look at it as a ratio with the total leasing CapEx, our business is about five point five months to pay back the cost of leasing.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

That includes both the renewals and the new leases. Now you'll also notice that renewals is about 2.5 times the amount of new leases. So my thought is that during a recessionary environment, you would start to see that shift. Maybe you have more vacancy and therefore your renewals are a little lower and your new deals are a little higher. But if the baseline is a ratio of 2.5 to one and a five point five month payback, you're going to end up with something that's still, call it, eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen months, that's probably one fifth to one sixth of the payback period that we were experiencing in previous portfolios that had large format boxes that needed a tremendous amount of reconfiguring.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

So I do think that these small fungible spaces that can change user types quickly and cheaply is a lot different than a business where you're buying credit in a purpose built building. Paulina, from

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

a credit perspective, that we started to have more credit events or bankruptcies, which we've had none in the last year plus. If you look on page 15 of the supplement, we only have nine tenants with greater than 1% ADR exposure. My guess is a year from now, we'll have two or three. And two or three years from now, we'll have one, our largest tenant, which is tough to avoid because they have great real estate. From a risk perspective, the odds of one tenant impairing or impacting FFO growth over the course of the year is also materially lower for us versus other retail companies.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

To David's point, it's the economics of the business plus the diversification by tenant perspective that really makes us feel a lot better about the ability to grow the portfolio and grow cash flow over the course of the cycle.

Paulina Rojas Schmidt
Senior Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Thank you. And then my second question, you have mentioned the strong leasing activity, But have you seen any early signs of tenants experiencing a deterioration in their business or adopting a more cautious stance toward growth? And if so, where are those news coming from?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I Paulina, I would love to be very transparent. It's honestly been a matter of weeks, so we just we just really haven't seen anecdotal information that's really worth talking about. There are a couple of conversations that I can see. We've had a couple of tenants that did have inventory and their business relied on gaining inventory. Those conversations seem slow, but they're just offset by service tenants that are looking to access the same small units.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I guess the amount of anecdotal information we have is pretty limited right now.

Operator

Craig VanVelen with Citi. Please go ahead.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Hey, guys. Thanks for getting me back on. I was going to follow-up and just ask, Connor, the pricing differences between those three sources of debt that you were talking about kind of what's the is there anything meaningful or are they kind of all on top of each other?

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Hey Greg, good morning. Apologies for cutting off there earlier. The pricing range, again, at the risk of reiterating my answer, it's changing by the minute, by the day. I think it's fair to assume and this is going depend on tenor or attachment points depending on leverage for the secure route is pretty wide in a sense. It's probably low 5s to high 5s.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

There have been points in time over the last two weeks where it's been north of six. Again, I would just come back to my original answer. We're coming into this with a position of strength or from a position of strength. We've got a completely unencumbered asset base, and we're in a net cash position. So we can be patient, but I would just tell you we do still expect to fund half of the 2025 investment volume with debt.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

And then from there, to your point, we do have access to the ATM and other sources of equity capital starting in October. So, again, we're not reliant on equity capital. We've got a great balance sheet. We can be patient. But the kind of pricing or pricing quotes is all over the place in the last month, which is going make us be patient and make sure that we get the right deal done.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

I don't know if that answers your question. I apologize.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

No, does. I know it's tough to get into the basis point differences between the three as everything shifts. I guess if pricing was the same, what capital source would you guys be most interested in, right? Are you guys wanting to do private placements and then be an unsecured borrower longer term? Or do you like the insurance market? Kind of what's the preference?

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Yeah. It's a great question. Look, just as David mentioned, if our average ticket size is about $15,000,000 we are well suited for the unsecured market, which means likely a private placement start and then you naturally graduate over time to, potentially the public bond market. We have been a little unique in the sense that we have always liked to have some secured exposure on the balance sheet. That's usually less than 5%, but there are periods in time where the secured market is more efficient than the unsecured market and vice versa.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

We've always tried to maintain relationships with the life coach for that very reason. All that said, your question is, again, most likely it's private placement and with a natural kind of graduation over time or, shift over time. But don't be surprised if we have some mortgage debt in the cap structure just because there are times of inefficiency between the two

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Okay. That's helpful. And then apologies, I don't think anyone asked this, but if they did, you can just tell me. You guys are getting good cash run spreads. What kind of bumps are you guys pushing through?

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

And has there been any kind of pushback on that side of the leasing equation?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I would say, Craig, in general, the bump question when you're dealing with tenants, is always combined with what is the starting base rent and how much capital is being put in. Netnet all those conversations in general when we deal with small shop tenants we're looking for 3% bumps. There are some new deals that are done with large national tenants that are still 10% every 5%. And there might be reasons why that is acceptable to us. But in general, the shop leases are done with 3% annual loss.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Are you guys trying to push to get closer to 4%? Is that possible? I'm just trying to think of part of the benefit of this asset class, the low CapEx, but also the potential for same store, you guys have said above 3%, but like is there a way to differentiate yourself where you guys could put up 4% to 5% same store by changing the structure because you don't have to worry about obviously the low bumps of anchors?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. Well, I'll go back to the same comments before that the tenants even local tenants have Microsoft Excel. So when they do a net present value calculation and the bumps and the starting rent both calculate into that, sometimes if you're looking at a tenant that you think will grow over time in their sales, you might want to start with a lower rent and have a 5% annual bump. There have been situations like that. But generally, the higher credit sophisticated tenants, the purpose of that rent is to be a little bit higher than inflation, but start at a market rent that you think is achievable for them.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I would say that when we're talking about rent bumps, it's a relatively small number of leases relative to the entire portfolio. A lot of our growth over time is simply mark to market. And one of the benefits of this business is that the weighted average lease term is lower, is smaller than in a large anchored portfolio. So when you have a mark to market and a lower wall, you're more likely to capture that mark to market. And that's a big piece of what's going to drive the same store numbers.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

Yes. And Craig, to that point, our 2024 number was 5.8%. This portfolio, to the genesis of your question, is very capable of doing more than 3%. And the biggest piece that intrigues us, to David's point, and multiple responses, though, is the capital needed to generate that. So even if we're doing a similar same store number to the peer group, the capital needed to generate that, in our view, is less than a third.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

That's the biggest differentiator. So yes, we can do north of 3%. Yes, we've proven that in 2024. But that capital piece, would just reiterate or flag for you, is the critical kind of differentiator for us versus peers.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

That makes sense. Just one last housekeeping. Did you guys change the bad debt reserve embedded in guidance? I think it was 55 basis points last quarter.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

No, we did not. So unchanged. And to my earlier response, I think it's falling out. We've had zero credit events year to date or last year either.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Great. Thank you.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

You're welcome. Sorry to cut you off earlier, Craig.

Craig Mailman
Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

I won't take offense. Appreciate it.

Conor Fennerty
Conor Fennerty
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Curbline Properties

It wasn't personal.

Operator

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

Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I know it's probably too early to talk about the tenants impact for the regarding tariffs, as you've indicated. I think that's on everybody's minds and recession fears, etcetera. Presumably, there will be a slowdown at some point, but it's too early to say that at this point.

Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

But I'm actually more curious on the competition that you're seeing for your acquisitions. And I know we've spoken to a couple of your peers. Most of them have a portion of their portfolio on these kinds of assets. One of your peers has actually been acquiring about $100,000,000 of these assets last year and is continuing to push that. Are you running into other well capitalized REITs or is this such a big market that it doesn't really impact your ability or you're not really competing with those players?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Morning, Floris. It's David. So far the competition in the bidding tent is still primarily local private investors. There has been an increase in, I would say, institutional capital that is moved into private funds that are kind of looking at a similar strategy. We have not run into direct large institutions or direct competition against any public REITs.

Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Great. And maybe a follow-up question. I know the CRO portfolio appears to be on the market again. I don't think it's going to be of interest to any REITs with the management contracts in place. But maybe can you comment on exactly what do you think that's going to mean in terms of a marker for value potentially?

Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

And what do you think the appetite is there? And maybe also talk about because I think you mentioned your portfolio is now the largest. How does that portfolio compare in size relative to what you now have assembled?

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Yes. They're great questions, Floris. Mean, reality is it is a private portfolio. It does not have published information. And so I hate to even speculate on size, quality or outcome.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

I will say that what we're interested in is the simplicity of our business, which is we buy each building that we want to and we ignore those that we don't. We want them to be simple. We prefer not to have a joint venture. We want to manage our own destiny and build a portfolio, construct a portfolio over time that we're really happy with. And that is one of the huge benefits of being able to handpick assets one or two or three at a time.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

But there are other great portfolios out there in the country. They may or may not be targets for us. But with $950,000,000 of square feet of inventory in The U. S, it's a pretty deep pool to be shopping in. So I don't think we're forced into looking at things that may not be a threat.

Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Thanks, David. Thanks, Boris.

Operator

I will now turn the call back over to David Wilkes, CEO, for closing remarks.

David Lukes
David Lukes
President and CEO at Curbline Properties

Thank you all for taking the time to join our call, and we will speak to you next quarter.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Stephanie Ruys de Perez
      Stephanie Ruys de Perez
      Vice President of Capital Markets & Asset Management
    • David Lukes
      David Lukes
      President and CEO
    • Conor Fennerty
      Conor Fennerty
      EVP, CFO & Treasurer
Analysts
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