W. P. Carey Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 30, 2025
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Operator

Hello, and welcome to W. P. Carey's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. My name is Diego, and I will be your operator today. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

Please note that today's event is being recorded. After today's prepared remarks, we will be taking questions via the phone line. Instructions on how to do so will be given at the appropriate time. I will now turn today's program over to Peter Sands, Head of Investor Relations. Mr.

Operator

Sands, please go ahead.

Peter Sands
Peter Sands
Executive Director & Head of Investor Relations at W. P. Carey

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning for our twenty twenty five first quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements made on this call are not historic facts and may be deemed forward looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from W. P. Carey's expectations are provided in our SEC filings.

Peter Sands
Peter Sands
Executive Director & Head of Investor Relations at W. P. Carey

An online replay of this conference call will be made available in the Investor Relations section of our website at wpkerrey.com, where it will be archived for approximately one year and where you can also find copies of our investor presentations and other related materials. And with that, I'll hand the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Jason Fox.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Thanks, Peter, and good morning, everyone. We entered the year anticipating uncertainty, and the uncertainty surrounding tariffs clearly proved to be the key theme of the first quarter. To date, however, that uncertainty has not translated into any direct impacts on our business, and we've continued executing on the plan we previously outlined for 2025. We started the year with solid investment volume and have good visibility into additional deals closing over the near term. We also remain comfortable with our ability to accretively fund new investments this year, including through the high end of our guidance range without needing to access the capital markets.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

While the potential impacts of tariffs are causing substantial uncertainty in the broader economy and capital markets, to date, we haven't seen any direct effects on the performance of our portfolio, whether through rent collections or re leasing. And we continue to believe that our estimate of potential rent loss from tenant credit events, which is embedded in our guidance, will be sufficient, even if tariffs put pressure on tenant margins later this uncertainty over tariffs, we have now resolved the situations with two of our top tenants that were experiencing credit difficulties as we outlined in our recent business update press release. Overall, we remain cautious on the environment, but are comfortable with the assumptions baked into our guidance and also see a path to the high end of our AFFO and investment volume guidance ranges. This morning, I'll focus on several topics: our recent investment activity and an update on our sources of capital to fund those deals additional perspective on tariffs and an update on tenant credit. Following that, Tony Sanzone, our CFO, will review our results and guidance, and Brooks Gordon, our Head of Asset Management, is joining us to take questions.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Starting with our investment activity. Year to date, we've closed about $450,000,000 of investments with an initial weighted average cap rate of 7.4%, including the $275,000,000 we closed in the first quarter. Importantly, with rent escalation structures averaging in the mid to high 2% range, the average yield over the life of the leases exceeds 9%. We also have several hundred million dollars of investments in our pipeline at advanced stages, the majority of which we expect to close in the next couple of months. In addition, we currently have eight capital projects totaling $117,000,000 scheduled for completion this year.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

So four months into the year, we have clear visibility into approximately $570,000,000 of deals for 2025 in a solid near term pipeline. It's important to note that the market for net lease real estate, which generally has long lease terms, is not as influenced by near term fluctuations in market rents and leasing velocity compared to shorter term multi tenant properties. As a result, to date, we've seen very little disruption in net lease transaction activity. Furthermore, we foresee scenarios where sale leaseback transactions continue to ramp up as they can be very attractive alternative sources of capital for corporates and sponsored backed companies during times of market volatility. As the market leader in sale leasebacks, which typically comprise a large portion of our investment volume, we would be at a distinct advantage competing on new investments.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Similarly, if mortgage lenders tighten their lending criteria, real estate private equity and other competitors that use asset level debt will become less competitive. In summary, we believe we will remain on track or ahead of expectations for the first half of the year. And once we have greater visibility into how the transaction environment is likely to play out over the remainder of the year, we see a path to raising our expectations for full year investment volume, although we're mindful that the overall flow of new deal launches has some potential to slow amid the current climate of uncertainty. That brings me to our sources of capital. We continue to believe we have one of the lowest costs of debt in the net lease sector through our mix of U.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

S. Dollar and euro denominated debt. Tony will discuss the details, but during the quarter, we refinanced our euro term loan, fixing its interest rate below 3% through an interest rate swap. We don't have any meaningful additional debt maturities in 2025. And at quarter end, we were only minimally drawn on our $2,000,000,000 revolver.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Our next bond maturity is the Eurobond maturing in April 2026, and our next U. S. Bond maturity isn't until October of twenty twenty six. On the equity side, we're making progress on our plan to fund our investments this year, primarily through non core asset sales. During the first quarter, we sold assets totaling approximately $130,000,000 and are making headway on additional dispositions.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

In addition to that, we're currently in the market with a sizable portfolio of operating self storage assets, representing about half of our total self storage operating NOI. While it is too early to say what the exact outcome will be, we have seen substantial interest from self storage buyers, and we're evaluating various options to maximize value, ranging from several smaller portfolio sales to a single buyer. We expect deal timing to be the second half of the year, and to the extent there are multiple buyers, deals may close at different times. We remain comfortable that we'll generate at least 100 basis points of spread this year between our asset sales and new investments. We will, of course, look to do better than that, but currently, we're maintaining that assumption in our guidance model.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

More broadly, we believe our investment spreads are underappreciated by the market as the narrative is often around going in cap rates without any discussion of rent growth over the life of a lease. When you combine our ability to partially finance deal activity through European debt with our sector leading rent bumps, we continue to feel good about our ability to generate growth through new investments, and we remain focused on putting capital to work this year. Turning now to our perspective on tariffs. While it's too soon to determine how tariffs could impact our business this year, we would highlight several points. Our portfolio is built to withstand downturns and periods of economic weakness.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

We focus on investing in large companies, which have greater liquidity and access to capital and are far better equipped to weather economic downturns than smaller companies. Approximately three quarters of our ABR comes from tenants that generate annual revenues of over $500,000,000 We own critical real estate with strong leases. And in cases where a tenant's business is restructured, we frequently don't see any disruption in rents. One of the potential misperceptions about our international portfolio is that it inherently faces greater risks from the direct effects of tariffs compared to a purely U. S.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Portfolio. But in reality, the majority of our European tenants operate primarily domestically, selling into their local markets rather than exporting to The U. S, especially in industries like grocery, home improvement and car dealerships, which comprise the bulk of the European tenants in our top 25. Industrial and warehouse properties have also been a focal point when considering the impacts of tariffs on the real estate sector, particularly the potential impacts on releasing and demand for space. In general, our warehouse tenants are not positioned in major ports or logistics hubs where they might have obvious exposure to international supply chains.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Because our leases are long, with leases representing just 1.3% of ABR expiring this year and 2.9% next year, the leasing and occupancy pressure that may be flowing through to traditional REITs will not be as impactful on our portfolio. Furthermore, to the extent the onshoring trend continues, we think the value and importance of our industrial portfolio could be enhanced through greater demand for domestic manufacturing capacity. In fact, recent conversations with tenants have included inquiries and discussions on expansions, indicating that this is becoming more of a focus. The final and perhaps most important point I want to make regarding tariffs is that the current uncertainty over their magnitude and timing does not change the estimated rent loss we've accounted for in our 2025 guidance, which covers a variety of scenarios, including those in which we experienced incremental unexpected credit events this year. So we still feel good about the AFFO growth estimate we've guided to and continue to see the potential to increase it as we gain greater visibility into the remainder of the year.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Before I hand the call over to Tony, I want to give a brief update on the significant tenants we've been focused on from a credit perspective, namely True Value, which is now Do It Best, Hearthside and Heldig. To date, the situations with Do It Best and Hearthside have played out as we anticipated, which were factored into our initial guidance and covered in our recent business update. Helveg status is also largely unchanged since our recent press release. It remains current on rent, although it continues to face a challenging operating environment, including weak German consumer spending and a competitive do it yourself industry. Helvet continues to work with its key stakeholders, including landlords and lenders, to further improve its liquidity, and those conversations are ongoing.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

In the meantime, we're actively reducing our exposure, executing agreements at the March to take back 12 stores, representing about one third of our total exposure, with seven stores terminated by September of this year and another five stores by September of next year. We expect to re tenant most of those stores, achieving rents in line with their existing rents and to sell the rest, in both cases with limited downtime. Those steps should help improve Helveg's liquidity while also giving us clear line of sight to moving Helveg out of our top 10 tenants. Lastly, separate from the 12 stores we're taking back, we recently sold one of the occupied Helveg stores in our portfolio and have an additional three underbinding contracts, further reducing our Helveg exposure in the near term. I'll pause there and hand over to Toni to discuss our results and guidance.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Thanks, Jason. Starting with earnings, we generated AFFO per share of $1.17 for the first quarter, an increase of 2.6% year over year. Our first quarter results and activity through April reflect a solid start to the year keeping us on pace and even ahead of our expectations to date. We have reaffirmed our AFFO guidance range of $4.82 to $4.92 per share. As we continue to monitor and navigate current market dynamics, we remain cautiously optimistic that we have a path to exceed the 3.6% growth implied in our guidance.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

As Jason noted, we have good momentum on the deal front and our guidance continues to assume investment volume of between 1,000,000,000 and $1,500,000,000 During the quarter, we sold nine assets generating total proceeds of $130,000,000 We continue to expect dispositions for the year to total between $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 with a large majority expected to be opportunistic noncore asset sales, including operating self storage properties. We remain confident in our ability to generate proceeds from these asset sales at cap rates that allow us to accretively fund investment activity even above the high end of our guidance range. Contractual same store rent growth for the quarter was 2.4 year over year and is expected to remain around that level for the full year. As a reminder, about 50% of our contractual rent increases are tied to CPI positioning us well if inflation starts to rise as a result of tariff although the tailwind to our lease revenues would be more impactful next year and beyond. Comprehensive same store growth for the quarter was 4.5% year over year, partly benefiting from the rent abatement for Helwig during last year's first quarter as well as the commencement of ongoing cash rent this year from our warehouse lease to Samsung.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Historically, our comprehensive same store has typically tracked around 100 basis points below contractual. Although based on our current estimates, we're on track to do better than that for the full year. Leasing activity for the quarter comprised 16 renewals or extensions, representing 1.8 of portfolio ABR, which continued to trend positively, recapturing 103% of prior rents while adding six point two years of incremental weighted average lease term. Our AFFO guidance continues to include an estimated 15 to $20,000,000 for potential rent loss from tenant credit events. We currently have visibility into identified rent loss, which is expected to represent about one third of our total estimate, including downtime on the Helwig stores we're taking back with the balance of the reserve reflecting the uncertainty of the current macro environment.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

We continue to believe that our estimate of potential rent loss will be sufficient and possibly conservative even if tariffs put pressure on tenants later this year. Other lease related income totaled $3,100,000 during the first quarter and is expected to increase as the year progresses. Based on current visibility, we continue to expect other lease related income to total between 20,000,000 and $25,000,000 for the full year consistent with where it's been in recent years. On the expense side, both G and A and income tax expense tend to run higher in the first quarter due to timing and are expected to resume a steadier run rate beginning in the second quarter. For the full year, we continue to expect these expenses to be in line with our initial guidance expectations as provided in our earnings release.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

During the first quarter, operating property NOI totaled $16,600,000 comprised of 13,600,000.0 from our portfolio of 78 operating self storage properties and a total of 3,000,000 from our four remaining hotels and student housing assets. Excluding the impact of expected dispositions, our operating property portfolio would be expected to generate between 70 and $75,000,000 of operating NOI during 2025. However, as previously noted, a significant portion of our dispositions this year are expected to be sales of self storage operating assets, which our guidance assumes occurs in the second half of the year. As we get more clarity regarding the timing of asset sales, we will update our operating NOI estimates accordingly. Nonoperating income for the first quarter totaled $7,900,000 comprised of a $2,800,000 dividend from our equity stake in Lineage, dollars two point six million of interest income, and $2,600,000 of realized gains on currency hedges.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Our guidance assumes the dividend from Lineage is held at its current level for the remainder of the year. Beginning in the second quarter, interest income will decline to a nominal level, generally less than 1,000,000 per quarter, as we've now fully deployed our excess cash. While foreign currency gains from our hedging program are now expected to be lower given a weaker US dollar, it's important to remember that our European cash flows and therefore AFFO are positively impacted by a stronger euro and pound offsetting any decline from currency hedging. In total, we currently expect nonoperating income in the low to mid $20,000,000 range for the full year. Moving now to our balance sheet and leverage.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Our balance sheet remains extremely well positioned with ample liquidity and very minimal near term debt maturities. Following the repayment of the $450,000,000 bond that came due in the first quarter, we fully deployed the excess cash we had on our balance sheet at year end. We ended the first quarter with liquidity totaling almost $2,000,000,000 comprised largely of the availability on our credit facility. Our remaining twenty twenty five debt maturities comprise less than $140,000,000 of mortgage debt, and our next bond maturity is not until April 2026. As previously announced, at the end of the first quarter, we refinanced our €500,000,000 term loan, extending its maturity an additional three years to 2029 with an option to extend up to an additional year.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

In connection with this refinancing, we executed an interest rate swap, locking in an attractive all in rate of 2.8% through the end of twenty twenty seven, which further demonstrates the advantages of having access to euro denominated debt and multiple pools of capital. Our overall weighted average cost of debt for the first quarter remained low at 3.2% and is currently expected to stay around that level for the remainder of the year, supported by the excellent execution we achieved on our term loan. We ended the quarter with our key leverage metrics well within our target ranges with debt to gross assets at 41% and net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 5.8 times. The strength of our balance sheet combined with our ability to generate proceeds from non core asset sales leaves us very well positioned to accretively fund our acquisition volume this year without the need to raise equity capital. On an administrative note, we expect to file a registration statement this week updating our existing shelf registration upon its expiration in May, which will include the renewal of our existing ATM program.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Lastly, during the first quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.89 per share or $3.56 annualized, representing a 2.9 increase over the prior year. Our dividend is very well covered by our AFFO per share with an expected annual payout ratio of 73%. And with that, I'll hand the call back to Jason.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Thanks, Tony. In conclusion, we feel very good about how we've started the year and the progress we're making towards executing plans outlined in our previous call. We're tracking slightly ahead of the initial expectations we provided on investments, and we're actively working on the noncore dispositions we highlighted. So we continue to have confidence in accretively funding investments through the high end of our guidance without needing to access the equity markets. Although there are still a range of potential scenarios that could play out with tariffs, in most scenarios, we believe we have already accounted for this uncertainty in our initial guidance.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

We are very comfortable affirming our growth expectations, and we see the potential to raise guidance from here as we gain greater visibility into how tariffs, tenant credit and the transaction environment are playing out for the year. That concludes our prepared remarks. I'll hand the call back to the operator to take questions.

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, we will take questions. Our first question comes from Greg McGinnis with Scotiabank. Please state your question.

Greg Mcginniss
Director at Scotiobank

Hey. Good morning.

Greg Mcginniss
Director at Scotiobank

Jason, you know

Greg Mcginniss
Director at Scotiobank

that there's several hundred million dollars of deals in the pipeline. Could you just provide some details on cap rates, retail industrial split, and US Europe split on that?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Sure. So, you know, like like always, our cap rates, you know, spread across a range, and sometimes that's a relatively wide range depending on a number of factors. We're still currently targeting deals in the sevens on average. You know, we'll probably, guide towards mid-sevens, which is where we ended last year, so it's where we were in the first quarter, and it's roughly where our current pipeline is priced as well.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

So that's and I would say that's generally the same across The U. S. And Europe. Obviously, Europe can have even a wider range of cap rates depending on countries. But generally speaking, I think that they're relatively consistent within that range.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

When you think about Europe, obviously, have a much lower cost of debt in Europe. We're probably 150 to 105 basis points inside of where we could borrow in US dollars. So, you know, we're seeing some pretty interesting spreads in Europe. In in terms of pipeline, you know, I think deals to date were largely weighted towards North America, but the pipeline, I would say, is, you know, maybe fifty fifty, maybe a little bit more, weighted towards Europe. So we're starting to see activity levels pick up a little bit more there.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

And I think in terms of property type, it's maybe consistent with how we've allocated historically. It's going be mostly industrial and warehouse, especially year to date. The retail side is a little bit light right now, but I would expect that to pick up some as the year goes. So so pretty typical year. You know, much of the deals are sale leasebacks, which is typically a theme for us, so so no surprises there.

Greg Mcginniss
Director at Scotiobank

Okay. And and on the the dispositions, are helping to fund the acquisitions, just to make sure I understood correctly, you said it's a hundred basis points under, the acquisition cap rate. Is that right?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. That's that's roughly where we're estimating right now and kinda built into our our guidance model. We hope to do better than that. That's probably, you know, a good number to use right now based on current visibility.

Greg Mcginniss
Director at Scotiobank

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Smedes Rose with Citi. Please state your question.

Smedes Rose
Smedes Rose
Director at Citi

Hi. Thank you. I just wanted to ask you. You sort of indicated that it seems like a reasonable chance that you'd be able to get on a path of acquisitions above the high end of your current outlook. In order if if that happens, you're and in order to fund that, would you look to potentially sell more of the self storage, operating assets?

Smedes Rose
Smedes Rose
Director at Citi

Or, I guess, maybe just sort of thoughts in general about about funding anything above, what's currently in guidance?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Sure. I mean, you know, we've talked about this before. I think that our, kind of range of disposition possibilities can include funding that would take us, you know, at two or or maybe even through the top end of our investment guidance. So, you know, I think we have, you know, lots of flexibility there on on on how we think about that.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Know, I think that, you know, even if we go beyond that, I think that we have, you know, the ability to to lean into storage even more. We we talk about the amount of storage we're selling right now that's kinda baked at the midpoint. It's about half of our portfolio, so we certainly can look at more storage. We also have other longer term sources of capital such as the Lineage, equity stake, although we wouldn't expect that to be available to us anytime soon. Maybe more, near term would be the construction loan in Las Vegas.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

That's about $250,000,002 $60,000,000, And obviously, we have a fair amount of free cash flow as well. So I think we're comfortable to continue to fund deals without the need to be in the equity markets through this year even if we continue to outperform on the investment side.

Smedes Rose
Smedes Rose
Director at Citi

Thanks. And and I just wanted to ask you, you know, you provided a comprehensive outlook on reducing overall exposure, to Helwig. You know, it's about eight well, eighteen months, I guess, in terms of, to completion. If you need to, is that something that where you can accelerate if if things go south more quickly for Hellwig relative to maybe your expectations? Or just kinda what's the flexibility there, I guess?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Sure, Brooks. You wanna take that?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Sure. Yeah. So as you described, you know, we've got a clear path to reduce that exposure, you know, over the this year and into next year. You know, I'd expect that to be cut roughly in half over that time frame. So we will evaluate a few other dispositions.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

You know, bigger picture, as we've said on previous calls, you know, we're we're well advanced in any potential contingencies as well. So to the extent we, have a path to take back more stores, you know, we have, demand for those stores, at rents in line with the existing. There would be some downtime as we as we discussed and Tony mentioned, But that's, you know, that's fully contemplated in our guidance and our credit loss reserve. So, you know, there are other levers we can pull, and we'll continue to evaluate those. But as is, you know, we have a good path, and we're executing on that path to reduce that exposure proactively.

Smedes Rose
Smedes Rose
Director at Citi

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please state your question.

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. You have exposure in both The U. S. And Canada, and I know you've talked a lot about the tariffs or U.

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

S. And Europe, sorry, and you've talked a lot about tariffs on the call today. So maybe can you just talk about maybe the difference in some of your exposure in The U. S. And Europe and how tariffs could maybe make this tariff is that a bigger tailwind for your Europe exposure?

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

Or is that a greater headwind? I'm just trying to understand you know, the portfolio and and how it will, you know, how your tenants are functioning in this kind of post tariff world.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Sure. Europe's not a headwind. I think that's for sure. I mean, we've we've, you know, heard some of the commentary around that that may create more risk within our portfolio.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

But, you know, I mentioned this earlier, the majority, maybe even the vast majority of our European tenants primarily operate domestically. So they're selling into their local markets. You know, they're not exporting to The US, and they're really not, dependent on imports from The US as well. These are industries like grocery and DIY and car dealerships that they can try to comprise the bulk of our Europe tenants. Could it be a tailwind?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Hard to say. I think, generally speaking, you know, we like our European portfolio, but it's somewhat, you know, insulated or maybe an isolated from what's happening here in The US.

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

Got it. And then just, you know, I know you've talked about the three item, the three big names on the watch list, but, are has there been any notable additions or removals from the list? Know, I I know this you know, the three that have come up kinda kinda came up pretty quickly. You know? So just kind of have you seen any impact from tariffs or, you know, tenant credit issues from the tariffs, anything that you're monitoring in particular?

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

Thanks.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. I mean, broadly speaking on the portfolio side, you know, while tariffs, of course, are creating a lot of uncertainty and, you know, we're hearing companies talking about tightening expenses and maybe pushing decision making back on new capital spending, but we haven't seen any direct impacts based on tariffs and the performance of our portfolio. In terms of maybe kind of a broader look at watch list, Brooks, I don't know if you have a comment on on that.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Just that, you know, I think, you know, to reiterate, it's it's really best to think about it in the context of our guided credit loss reserve. You know, we think that's the best tool to really model credit risk. You know, that said, the the watch list has come down substantially because two of the big tenants came off. So in in do do it best in Hearth's side. But, again, we we wanna really focus on that credit loss reserve guidance.

Michael Goldsmith
US REITs Analyst at UBS Securities LLC

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

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yes. Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Your next question comes from Janet Gallen with Bank of America. Please state your question.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Thank you. Good morning. Maybe going back to that question for Tony and Brooks. Appreciate the detailed guidance assumption, but that 15 to 20,000,000 of potential rent loss in the guidance, does that also account for the expenses on vacant assets? And what do you assume for repositioning capital?

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Or will most of these assets, potentially be sold?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Toni, do you want to start? Maybe Brooks can talk about the second half.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. I think in in terms of the credit loss, the numbers that we're providing are really on top line revenue. But I would say there is a factor built into our property expense assumption that takes into account some downtime there as well. So that's been factored in. It's just separate from the range that we provided on the 15 to 20,000,000.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

And, yeah, just to add, you know, the downtime, again, Tony mentioned, is is baked into our analysis. It will be pretty moderate. And, you know, capital expenditures,

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

kind

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

of TBD per store, they're not very, capital intensive. These will be, you know, paving work and some facade cosmetics. So not huge capital expenditure amounts associated with the repositioning. The tenants will perform their own fit out.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan. Please state your question.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Executive Director at J.P. Morgan

Great. Thanks. Just wondering, I think there was a little bit of occupancy slippage from 4Q to 1Q, and it seemed like you you kind of addressed a lot of the credit items, and and it didn't seem to be related to that. So just wondering, you know, what drove that?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Yeah. The occupancy slipped a little. There was some removals from the vacancy list and a couple ads really driven by two European warehouses where we did partial renewals with a tenant where they they stayed in about 70% of the two buildings. And so, you know, we're seeking to backfill those. So that was really the net add.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

You know, I'll add that we have active transactions on, you know, the large majority of the existing vacancy. So we, you know, we expect to chip away at that pretty efficiently over the course of the year.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Executive Director at J.P. Morgan

Okay. And just on on that note, if we look out, you know, I guess, maybe next eighteen months or through '26, like, is there much in the way of, like, known vacates to to think about just outside of, like, you know, sort of watch list credit matters, just known vacates?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Yeah. So I think, you know, first of all, important to note that the overall scale of lease expirations over the next several years is is quite small. So that's kind of the big picture. You know, we have one warehouse sorry, a pair of warehouse properties in Europe in July that we expect a nonrenewal on. You know, that's about 50 bps of ABR.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

So in the back half of the year, it's fully embedded in our guidance, and we don't, the guidance does not contemplate any, lease up this year on those buildings. But we're actively marketing them, and expect to lease them up down the road. But to be clear, that's not, lease up is not included in the guide guidance.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Executive Director at J.P. Morgan

Okay. And if I could just sneak one more in. On the self storage operating assets, is there much appetite to do more net leases there, or is it just more accretive to do, sales and and reinvest at this point?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. I mean, I I

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

think we still have the flexibility. I mean, you know, last year, we leaned into some of the conversions there. You know, this year, we think that sales are the best way to fund new investments, especially given the spread we can generate between, you know, what we're selling and and and what we're buying. But, yeah, I I think that for the, you know, the the other half of the portfolio that's not being marketed right now, I think there's flexibility there, and we'll have to continue to evaluate what we wanna do. And it doesn't have to be all of one or the other.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Mean, we could sell some more, We can convert some some some more as well. So I I think it'll it'll depend on the situation at the time.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Executive Director at J.P. Morgan

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Spencer Glimcher with Green Street Advisors. Please state your question.

Spenser Glimcher
Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Thank you. Just as it relates to the capital projects in progress, is is there any concern on input costs, or do you guys have pricing agreements in place?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Brooks, you wanna take that?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Yeah. So the vast majority of our capital investments are really subject to guaranteed contracts. And, you know, where we do take any cost exposure, we we build in very large buffers to that. So it's something we're certainly cognizant of, but the vast majority of our capital deployment is subject to guaranteed max price contracts.

Spenser Glimcher
Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, LLC

K. Great. And then on the the labor side, has there been any disruption to date or, you know, any concern there at all?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Not that we've seen.

Spenser Glimcher
Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Okay. Great. And then just maybe one broader one. I was just hoping maybe you guys could provide some additional color just on the makeup and breadth of competition in both The US and Europe. I know you mentioned, obviously, if the lending environment tightens, you know, that's gonna help keep PE and debt capital on the sidelines.

Spenser Glimcher
Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, LLC

But just curious how active you've seen, debt capital players essentially been year to date.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. I think the the net lease market is always been competitive, and that's especially in The US. I think over the past year or so. We've seen a bit of a pickup, with some new private equity entrants, including some that are on non traded platforms. And and as you mentioned, it's hard to predict how impactful they'll be, especially right now given that many of them will be focused on using higher leverage, and that's gotten more expensive and maybe a little less reliable in the current environment.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

And, you know, as an all cash buyer, that puts us at a pretty good advantage. So I think it's incremental to competition. We've seen that historically. You know, people come and go, especially the big asset managers, when they may, you know, see an opportunity to add you know, AUM. Europe has always been less competitive, and I think that's still the case.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

There's really, you know, no one, you know, new popping up there that's that's making any impact.

Spenser Glimcher
Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Okay. Thank you so much.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from Jim Kammert with Evercore ISI. Please state your question.

James Kammert
Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Hi. Good morning. Thank you. Given that you do so many sale leasebacks, know, create your own lease, etcetera, In your discussions of late, have you been able to detect any ability to shift with the annual escalator in your negotiations upward or downward? Curious what the sellers and PE owners today are thinking about inflation and how that might impact the organic growth you can extract on these sale leasebacks?

James Kammert
Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Thank you.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Sure. I mean, you know, since the spike in inflation a couple years back in, you know, really in both markets, but it's been more impactful to The US, I would say it's gotten a little more difficult to get those escalators into our US leases. We still get them in Europe. It's more, you know, customary in Europe to have rent increases indexed to inflation.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Inflation. You know, right now, it's probably half of our pipeline, which mainly correlates to, you know, the the European assets in our in our pipeline. But to your question, when we're not getting CPI linked increases, let's say, The US, we have been able to push through higher fixed increases. I think historically, we've probably been, you know, in and around the 2% range if you look back over the, you know, the prior, you know, ten, you know, even twenty years. But more recently, it's been, you know, kind of in the, you know, mid to high twos on average, which many of our deals, you know, even north of 3%.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

So I think our average year to date right now, the fixed bumps are 2.8%. So so, yeah, I think the answer to your question is we we have been able to continue to push through on the fixed bumps within the lease. And a lot of that is market specific. We want to do our best to have our bumps track what we think market expectations are long term, and we're seeing some of that.

James Kammert
Managing Director at Evercore ISI

That's helpful. Thank you. That's helpful. Thanks.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Welcome.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Eric Borden with BMO Capital Markets. Please state your question.

Eric Borden
Eric Borden
Vice President at BMO Capital Markets

Hey, good morning. I

Eric Borden
Eric Borden
Vice President at BMO Capital Markets

appreciate your comments around no direct impacts as it relates to tariffs, but there may or may not be some tangential impacts. So I was just curious if there's any tenants or any sectors or geographies that you're watching more closely, you know, as it relates to additional, pressures.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Maybe I'll have, you know, Brooks kinda weigh in that a little bit, but it's probably worth noting that we did add, to our disclosure in our IR deck, some some new disclosure that breaks out our property types and tenant industries by region. So you can see a little bit more more detail. And and, again, we've added it by property type and region. So I don't know, Brooks, if there's anything broad you wanna touch upon there.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

You know, not not at anything incredibly subtle. I mean, we've taken the time to look at all of the industries, and as Jason mentioned, we've we've added some disclosure around that so you can do the same. And we've evaluated all the tenants within those and and kind of characterized each of those, industries in terms of our view of whether it's a direct impact, an indirect impact, or or really more of just a broader economic, sensitivity if, you know, if there's a slowdown more broadly. You know, the ones that are intuitive are the ones that we're we're certainly focused and paying close attention to, ones with big global supply chains. But, you know, I think we feel quite good that our specific investments are with big tenants where our facilities serve the regional market.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

We have tenants that are very, very important to their industries. And so, you know, we're focused on them, but I think we're comfortable with them. You know, certainly on the other end of the spectrum, we've got ample exposure to to industries that we think are will fare quite well, whether that's food retail or or services like self storage or or or gyms or education. So, look, it's a big diverse portfolio. There'll certainly be impacts if tariffs are high and persistent.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

That's not clear right now. So we're paying close attention, and, you know, I think we feel comfortable with our our exposure and and looking to mine for opportunities as well, especially in conversations with management teams. Over time, we're gonna be able to help them adapt, and that's what we're good at.

Eric Borden
Eric Borden
Vice President at BMO Capital Markets

I appreciate that. And then more of

Eric Borden
Eric Borden
Vice President at BMO Capital Markets

a bigger picture question, you know, I we understand that you have a dearth of capital, you know, without having to issue equity, and, you know, that may even lead to, you know, hitting your above investment target for the year. But on the other side, your your equity shares have performed well year to date, and, you know, your your implied cap rate is below your, investment spread target. So just curious, you know, how are you thinking about, you know, issue issuing equity maybe in later '25 or '26 if acquisitions do continue to ramp and the the market is continues to hold?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Look. I mean, that that's a good question for us to get, you know, especially since we have had, you know, a a, you know, good start to the year in terms of equity. But, but I think, you know, generally speaking, we can consider getting back into the equity markets if we some more momentum, but the reality is we don't need to. We have a plan to fund our deals, you know, through this year even if our investments are, you know, at the top end or even above the top end of our range, we feel comfortable there.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

So I think it's it's purely opportunistic. We'll keep on monitoring what the best sources of capital are. And, you know, at at some point in time, certainly, will will be one of those. But, you know, right now, I think we're more focused on on the, noncore asset sales.

Eric Borden
Eric Borden
Vice President at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. Appreciate the time.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yep. You're welcome.

Operator

Your next question comes from John Kochowski with Wells Fargo. Jason,

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

earlier you referred to that property type diversification page where you broke out industrial warehouse. Thank you for for that. And earlier, you touched on how Europe, you felt like your exposure in in those categories was very levered towards the domestic side. I'm curious for your United States exposure.

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Do

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

you feel like you have a good idea of what portion of those are domestic versus international weighted in terms of their supply chains?

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Yeah. Brooks, do you have any comments on that? You might be on mute. You might be on mute, Brooks.

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

Oh, I'm sorry about that. You know, not specific changes in some of the observations we've made so far on the call today. You know, I think important to note that across all our property types, the vast majority of what our tenants do, even if they're global companies, is regionally focused. There's much less, you know, for example, port dependent trade type investments that we make. You know?

Brooks Gordon
Brooks Gordon
MD & Head of Asset Management at W. P. Carey

So that's really not, you know, our bread and butter. So, know, while I don't have a specific percentage for you, you know, I think where we've got some comfort is number one in the criticality of of the buildings, and that these buildings are serving businesses that are regionally focused. They're not, generally speaking, completely tied to kind of international trade dynamics. So there's certainly gonna be some of that, but, you know, I think that the vast majority are are very much focused on our local markets.

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Thank you. And then on your credit loss assumption, and apologies if you've said this earlier, have you given what percentage is Helwig versus your kind of unknown buffer piece?

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

No. I well, I think the if I can reiterate here, as we sit here today, I said we had line of sight to about a third of the total reserve that's identified rent loss. And included in that is the downtime on the Helvetic assets we expect to take back this year that Jason referenced in his comments. So that's part of the kind of the six to seven million or so of identified rent loss. And then there's another two thirds of the reserve that's out there for anything, you know, generally broadly across the portfolio.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

So, you know, nothing specific for Helwig in there, but I think we presume that that two thirds of unidentified would be sufficient to cover a number of scenarios and different outcomes around Helwig over the balance of the year.

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Thank you. And then last one for me. Just it looks like there may have been a a straight line write down in the quarter. Anything to note there?

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

No. Nothing notable there. I think we had a couple of, accelerations of intangibles, probably the the Joanne's tenant that, vacated, through the first quarter. So we did see a little bit of acceleration there, but nothing really notable.

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Vice President - Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Jason Wayne with Barclays. Please state your question.

Jason Wayne
Jason Wayne
VP - Equity Research at Barclays

Hi. Yeah. The same store growth, in Europe came down sequentially last quarter. I noticed there was a change in the same store pool there. Just wondering what those changes were, you know, in a same store growth, was lower due to a change in property type or lease escalator mix at all or what's driving that.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Tony, do you have a view on that?

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

I'm looking at the the totals here. I mean, I don't think there's anything specific that stands out. I think on a year over year same store, highlighted here on the European side, we're seeing the impact of Helwig, you know, that's benefiting kind of on the quarter. On the contractual side, I, you know, I think it's really just CPI coming down. So we're seeing our leases bump in the first quarter.

Toni Sanzone
Toni Sanzone
MD & CFO at W. P. Carey

The majority of our leases have rent bumps that are weighted towards the first quarter. And so that's really just, you know, based on where current inflation or even inflation over kind of the last, you know, two to three months before year end, was tracking. So I think it's really more CPI driven and as opposed to specific tenant driven.

Jason Wayne
Jason Wayne
VP - Equity Research at Barclays

Got it. Uh-huh. Thank you so much.

Jason Fox
Jason Fox
CEO at W. P. Carey

Welcome.

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I am not showing any further questions. I'll now hand the call back to mister Sands.

Peter Sands
Peter Sands
Executive Director & Head of Investor Relations at W. P. Carey

Great. Thank you everyone for your interest in W. P. Carey. If anyone has additional questions, please call investor relations directly at (212) 492-1110.

Peter Sands
Peter Sands
Executive Director & Head of Investor Relations at W. P. Carey

And that concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.

Operator

All parts may disconnect.

Executives
    • Peter Sands
      Peter Sands
      Executive Director & Head of Investor Relations
    • Jason Fox
      Jason Fox
      CEO
    • Toni Sanzone
      Toni Sanzone
      MD & CFO
    • Brooks Gordon
      Brooks Gordon
      MD & Head of Asset Management
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • The uncertainty over tariffs has not had direct impacts on rent collections or re-leasing, and the company’s guidance already embeds potential rent loss scenarios for 2025.
  • W. P. Carey closed about $450 million of new investments YTD (including $275 million in Q1) at a 7.4% cap rate and has clear visibility into roughly $570 million of deals, positioning it to reach the high end of its investment guidance.
  • The balance sheet features low-cost funding via euro-denominated debt (refinanced below 3%), minimal 2025 maturities, a $2 billion revolver, and asset sales (including $130 million of non-core assets in Q1) to accretively fund new acquisitions.
  • Credit issues with Do It Best and Hearthside have been resolved as anticipated, and the company is proactively reducing Helveg exposure by taking back 12 stores for re-tenanting or sale, all within its existing credit loss reserves.
  • First-quarter AFFO per share rose to $1.17 (+2.6% YoY), with full-year AFFO guidance reaffirmed at $4.82–$4.92 per share and dividends covered at a 73% payout ratio, while management sees upside to its growth outlook.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
W. P. Carey Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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