FrontView REIT Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 15, 2025

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Frontview Q1 twenty twenty five Earnings Call. This call is being recorded on Thursday, 05/15/2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Randy Starr. Randy, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. I'm joined today by Stephen Preston, Chairman and Co CEO. Before I turn it over to Steve, please note that we will be making certain statements that may be considered forward looking statements under federal securities law. The company's actual results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward looking statements, and we may not release revisions to these forward looking statements in the future. Factors and risks that could also cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's filings with the SEC and yesterday's press release.

Speaker 2

Steve? Great. Thank you, Randy. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Frontview's Q1 twenty twenty five earnings call.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, Frontview is an internally managed net lease REIT that acquires, owns and manages primarily properties with Frontage on high traffic roads that are highly visible to consumers. Since entering the public markets in October of twenty twenty four, we have demonstrated our ability to source accretive acquisitions. The first quarter of twenty twenty five was no exception, and we acquired approximately $49,200,000 of properties at an average cap rate of 7.9%, exceeding our pricing guidance by about 40 basis points and having a weighted average lease term of approximately twelve years. The acquisitions are diversified across nine industries, 13 tenants and 13 states, including eight new tenants and two new states. Investment grade tenants accounted for approximately 29% of the annualized base rent from these acquisitions.

Speaker 2

Subsequent to the close of the quarter, we have closed on one additional property for an additional $3,600,000 at an initial cash capitalization rate of 8.1% and a lease term of seven years. We also have five properties under contract for an additional $15,700,000 at a weighted average initial cash capitalization rate of 8% and a weighted average lease term of approximately eight years. The properties under contract are diversified across five industries, six tenants and four states with the investment grade tenants representing approximately 20% of the ABR. We have the ability to grow quickly and accretively with our existing team, provided that we have an appropriate cost of capital. Since February, we have seen our share price decline.

Speaker 2

Given our current share price and cost of our capital, we have slowed the pace of our acquisition activity in order to prudently allocate capital. At this time, we are now planning to acquire between $125,000,000 and $145,000,000 of acquisitions during 2025, though our pipeline of opportunities remains robust, and we believe we will be able to immediately recommence acquisition activity at our prior pace as our cost of capital improves. We still believe we will acquire above the 7.5% cap rate mark through Q2 and into early Q3. And although our current cost of capital is challenging, we believe we are acquiring frontage assets at historically elevated cap rates and accordingly believe it is in the best interest of the company to continue to acquire assets at these pricing levels, albeit at a slower pace. As of 03/31/2025, we had approximately $141,000,000 of liquidity comprised of availability under our line and our existing cash balance.

Speaker 2

We anticipate having sufficient borrowing capacity under our facility to fund our investment activity for the year, coupled with our ability to reinvest surplus cash flow and generate funds from the sale of properties. We sold one operating Freddy's Steakburgers during Q1 at a sales price of $2,050,000 at a cap rate of 6.9%. We plan to increase the level of property sales during 2025 to between $20,000,000 and $40,000,000 as we see opportunities to sell off non core assets and assets with shorter lease term durations, replacing them with longer term duration leases that fit our acquisition model. In addition, re tenanting properties can give us the opportunity to create meaningful value for our shareholders. For example, as highlighted in our investor presentation, we proactively re tenanted a Miller's Ale House with a new Raising Canes absolute triple net ground lease at a substantially similar rent.

Speaker 2

We have recently listed the asset for sale at a 4.7% cap rate compared to our prior basis of approximately 7.2%. Notwithstanding our currently planned acquisition slowdown, we reaffirm our prior 2025 AFFO per share guidance within $1.2 to 1.26 Our per share results are sensitive to both the timing and amount of real estate investments, property dispositions and capital markets activities that occur throughout the year. Drivers that could increase our AFFO per share include quickly ramping up our acquisition activity to prior levels, income from tenant replacements coming back online earlier than expected, and the accretive sale of certain properties throughout the year. Switching gears to the team front. As previously reported, in late April, Tim Diefenbacher transitioned to the private sector and left Frontview earlier this month.

Speaker 2

Tim has been nothing but a supporter of Frontview, and we wish Tim all the best in his new role and thank him for his work and efforts throughout our IPO process. The board has appointed Randall Starr as CFO, and he will continue to serve as co CEO. Randy is a key company executive with a strong financial background and is a natural fit for this role. Randy has financial analyst and investment banking experience and has been involved in our portfolio since its inception in 02/2016. Prior to that, Randy attended NYU's real estate finance graduate program while working for CB Richard Ellis and was more recently overseeing top calls as COO and chief development officer, including liaisoning with their accounting and finance departments.

Speaker 2

Both Randy and I have been very involved in CFO functions from the founding of our business through the IPO and throughout our duration as a public company. Randy is a natural fit for the position, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with Randy as we operate and grow the business. Although Randy will still stay involved in the acquisitions process, his involvement will move to more of an oversight role. Our dedicated established acquisitions team, which has been responsible for almost a 60,000,000 of acquisitions since becoming a public company, is a well oiled machine and more than capable, requiring no additional hires to execute on our projected acquisition volume. The board has also appointed Sean Fucamaro to become our chief accounting officer.

Speaker 2

Sean is exceptionally capable and seasoned with big four public accounting firm experience, almost nineteen years in the space, and has been integrally involved in overseeing Frontview's accounting since 2018. On the portfolio management front, we previously reported 12 properties in which the tenants were either bankrupt or not paying rent. These 12 properties represented approximately 4% of year end 2024 ABR, and the tenants were predominantly in the casual dining restaurant space. As we will be describing in a few moments, we have demonstrated that the assets we acquire with Frontage are desirable to a variety of different users and that our top notch experienced management team is capable of re tenanting, repurposing, or otherwise selling off assets to maximize value in a time efficient manner. Of the 12 assets, we have sold one asset.

Speaker 2

We are under firm contract to sell a second asset. We are under conditional contract to sell two additional assets. We have leased one asset. We are under active lease negotiations on two assets with both undersigned LOIs. Two of our Hooters are currently open and rent paying, but we are also negotiating with other major tenants interested to lease the properties, demonstrating the strong real estate fundamentals of these properties.

Speaker 2

And our Jo Ann's is currently rent paying, but we are actively marketing to be proactive. We now have parallel lease and sale activity on the eleventh asset and expect to be in receipt of LOI shortly. And we are actively marketing the one remaining asset and anticipate having activity shortly. We are proud of our team and our team's ability to quickly, efficiently, and proactively repurpose these assets. Based upon our efforts to date and subject to customary due diligence and closing conditions, we expect the equivalent return of between approximately 34% of the approximately 4% year end ABR previously noted with respect to these 12 properties.

Speaker 2

Given the projected timing of the aforementioned sales and rent commencements and new leases, equivalent rental replacement income is expected to come back online in Q4 twenty twenty five or in early twenty twenty six. At that time, we expect bad debt expenses should run at more normal levels in the 1% to 2% range. And based upon prior historical outcomes, we believe we should see similar recovery rates. With respect to our watch list, we were hit with a perfect storm earlier this year. As those tenants roll off the watch list, we do not see any major additions at this time.

Speaker 2

Burger King has been in the news recently as a large franchisee for Burger King filed for bankruptcy. However, we do not have any properties leased to this operator. We own three freestanding Burger King restaurants and two gas convenience stations with operating Burger Kings as part, all at low rents, all of our Burger King restaurants are open, operating, and current on rent. Additionally, although Applebee's has reported recent store closings, our three Applebee's are open, operating and current on rent. We have very good clarity into twenty twenty five renewals.

Speaker 2

At this time, we expect three tenants not to renew this year, one of which is a Walgreens that we previously mentioned that now has leasing and purchase interest. The other two are leases for small properties that have not yet expired. We are already negotiating a contract to sell one of the assets and are in active negotiations to lease the other asset, so we do not expect any meaningful downtime for these two assets. Moving now to the portfolio highlights. Our portfolio continues to perform well.

Speaker 2

As of 03/31/2025, our portfolio consisted of three twenty three freestanding properties with an average remaining lease term of over seven years. We are heavily diversified across 37 states and 117 metro areas. We are pleased to keep a very diversified portfolio with limited exposure to any one tenant. At quarter end, our largest tenant exposure was about 3.1% of ABR. While our occupancy rate at the end of Q1 twenty twenty five ticked down slightly to over 96, it is expected to return to more normalized levels once the replacements have taken occupancy.

Speaker 2

Rental collections on contractual rent were strong at approximately 99.5% for the period. Our tenants are predominantly service in nature, and we do not have a large exposure to general retailers that could be impacted more so from prolonged or higher tariffs. We continue to monitor our tenants in this regard. On a go forward basis, beginning with the release of our first quarter financials, we will be expanding the detailed disclosure of our tenancies from top 20 to top 40 in our investor presentation. Thank you, and let me turn it over to Randy for more detail on the quarterly numbers and guidance.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Steve. I'll begin by discussing our financial results for the first quarter, followed by an overview of our capital markets activities and our guidance for 2025. I am very pleased to report that for the first quarter, we reported AFFO per share of $0.30 reflecting certain operating efficiencies and strong rent collections for leased properties of 99.5%. Our G and A and property leakage figures came in better than expected when compared with our modeling, reflecting our team's ability to efficiently and effectively operate and manage our business. We continue to be pleased with our acquisition volumes at above market cap rates, thanks to our ability to capitalize on our niche market, and we expect these acquisitions to contribute significantly to cash flow growth as our cost of capital improves.

Speaker 1

Our debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre ratio finished the quarter at 5.7 times, underscoring our prudent approach to leverage and our robust balance sheet. Long term, we'd like to keep this ratio between five and six times, but we do expect in the near term to exceed six times staying well below seven times. As we continue to draw down on our line to acquire properties throughout the year at a revised cadence. We do not have any debt maturities in the near term. And in terms of capital markets activities, during the first quarter, we recently locked in our $200,000,000 term loan for three years at a SOFR rate of 3.66%, representing an all in borrowing rate of 4.96%, approximately 65 basis points lower than our current revolver borrowings.

Speaker 1

Given the makeup of our capital structure, our earnings were a bit more sensitive to short term SOFR swings until we achieve greater scale, which was the rationale for prudently locking in a large portion of our previously floating rate debt. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, we are reaffirming AFFO per share guidance within the range of to $1.26 Key assumptions for fiscal year twenty twenty five underlying this guidance include: net real estate acquisitions totaling between $125,000,000 and 145,000,000 property dispositions ranging from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 nonreimbursed property and operating expenses projected between $2,000,000 and $2,600,000 maintaining a previously disclosed bad debt expense of between 23% of cash NOI. This figure includes the seven of the 12 previously disclosed tenants that are allocated to 2025. Total cash, general and administrative expenses estimated between $8,900,000 and 9,300,000.0 Our AFFO guidance affirmation is driven by our inherent ability to source and acquire assets at above market cap rates, prudently recycle existing assets from our granular and diversified portfolio with new replacement properties and effectively and efficiently managing our property, legal and G and A expenses. As Steve mentioned, our disciplined underwriting and sourcing of assets outside the competitive public REIT landscape are key differentiators.

Speaker 1

We remain committed to returning capital to shareholders. Our board has declared a quarterly dividend of 21.5¢ per share for the first quarter that we believe appropriately balances shareholder returns with reinvestment into growing our portfolio. Thank you for your attention. And with that, we'll turn it back to the operator for the q and a portion of our call today.

Operator

Thank you. And now ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer Should you have a question, please press the star button followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star button followed by the number two. Our first question comes from John Kolichowski from Wells Fargo.

Operator

Maybe

Speaker 3

if we could just start with the credit loss guide of 2% to 3%. I appreciate the color you gave kind of the seven properties there. But I was just hoping for maybe a little bit more here because Hooters and Joann's are still paying rent. Could you tell us if that was expected in that guide or where that puts you? And then also maybe the three tenants that told you that aren't renewing, you know, what of that is included in this guide as well?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Sure. So for our internal modeling purposes, we did assume that within that 2% to 3% that we had those seven vacant for the year. And that's that's how we have modeled. We have taken a small additional vacancy expense just for some sort of unknown that may populate that gets us to that 2% to 3% for the year.

Speaker 2

With respect to the three assets that we expect not to renew, they are small in nature. We have a Walgreens, as we mentioned, and then we have two smaller tenants combined. They represent less than 100 bps of ABR.

Speaker 3

Got it. Thank you. And then maybe, Randy, one for for you. Congrats on taking over the this CFO seat now as well. Maybe strategically, I don't know if you differ from Tim at all here.

Speaker 3

And I know we're a long way now from thinking about issuing equity in 2026, but at some point, hopefully, becomes a consideration again. How are you thinking about that? Where do you all need to be trading for that to kind of come back into consideration?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's no secret that we're obviously very unhappy with our current share price. It certainly doesn't reflect the value of our portfolio. That is one reason why we have while we continue to see it's a very constructive transaction environment out there right now. So our acquisition team has a number of fantastic leads that we would be

Speaker 4

able

Speaker 1

to act on, but we have purposely scaled down, as you can see from our guidance, just to make sure that we have sufficient liquidity at the end of the year. With our acquisition cadence now, that would leave us in between 60,000,000 and $70,000,000 of liquidity pre projected at year end, which we think gives us some flexibility heading into next year and also gives us more time to have the stock rebound.

Speaker 5

Mhmm. Got

Speaker 1

it. We also have Thank you. Obviously, we're also very mindful of our, you know, our debt to EBITDA ratios here, and those will be staying in the sixes projected this year. But we do have $200,000,000 accordion feature on our line, so we do have ample access to liquidity. Okay.

Speaker 4

I appreciate the response. Thank you. Sure.

Operator

Thank you so much for the question, John. And now we're going to move on to Daniel Guilhermeux from Capital One Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate the work you all have been doing around the offline properties. Have you as you've gone through those negotiations, have you seen any tangible benefits from the properties having direct frontage? Are there pricing benefits, more interest, quicker closing time?

Speaker 6

Anything you have around that would be great.

Speaker 2

Yes, for sure. And that's a great question. Thank you for that. Yes, no, I think that it speaks to the makeup and composition of our portfolio and assets that do contain that frontage. So given the short time that these were hit, the fact that we have made such progress such quickly or so quickly, I think we'd love to say it's the management team that we put a pat on our back.

Speaker 2

And certainly that is some component of it. But the assets themselves from the real estate standpoint that we so very carefully choose is very integral to that response and that quick response. And again, the asset size that we have with the larger footprint makes these buildings and land tracks interesting to a lot of other opportunities and options, which allows us to facilitate a quicker cleanup of any assets that come back. So yes, I absolutely believe that these assets compared to a large box that sits back without frontage is certainly a huge benefit, and it allows us to tailor an approach that is a lot quicker to clean up.

Speaker 6

Great. I appreciate that. And then in the commentary, you mentioned the increased disposition guidance. Are there certain characteristics of the properties in the portfolio that you feel are kind of right for recycling? You mentioned the shorter lease terms, but is there anything else that's been enticing buyers to transact at a lower cap rate?

Speaker 2

Yes. No, again, a good question. And so we look at that and we come through the portfolio. And certainly, the shorter term duration assets are ones that are good to sell off into the space. And then if we can accretively turn that into an asset that happens to have a longer lease term, then that's beneficial to us.

Speaker 2

You know, at the at the same time, you know, there are, you know, other assets that

Speaker 5

sorry. Was just sorry. We did. I just I just lost my

Speaker 2

that have sorry about that. That have, some certain rent that, you know, could be harder to, backfill at the time of a renewal. So we're looking at that aspect of it as well that allows us to take an asset and offload it and then replace that later with better cap rate asset and an asset with a rent that is more replaceable.

Speaker 1

And we also, Dan, will look at the sector as well. We've been very cognizant of the type of sectors that we've been acquiring in for the past since the IPO. We've really been targeting medical, dental, veterinary services, automotive services, convenience stores, QSR, fitness, finance, and if they're well located, a few dollars per store as well. So we have the opportunity to recycle, let's say, a sector, whether it's casual dining or one that we're really not focusing on now with the newer asset with a longer lease term, we see that as quite favorable for the portfolio.

Speaker 2

And there's also cap rate arbitrage as well that has a role into that. As we mentioned on our remarks, we have assets that would trade in the marketplace at significantly lower cap rates than at cap rates that we're acquiring at.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1

In terms of how we try to do this, just to give you a little bit more information on it, when when we're selling properties, we we we hire brokers who we know have phenomenal, you know, Rolodexes and buyers all over the country. And these are these are brokers who we typically don't like to buy from because they get very good cap rates. We like to buy from the brokers who are smaller and also direct with through our relationships. So we we they're very strategic on who we hire to sell our properties.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you. Appreciate the color.

Speaker 2

Yes. You bet.

Operator

Thank you so much for the question, Daniel. And now we're going to move to Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yes, thanks and good morning. First question is, if I look in your supplemental, you ended the quarter with you show $62,000,000 of annual base rent. Can you just maybe bridge the 12 properties? Like what's in that 62%? What's not?

Speaker 4

Just so we understand kind of your guidance, what's more of a sort of guide or reserve for lack of a better term versus like what you're showing here that's actually contractually still in place?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So so we've got Sean here as well that can jump in. But within that 62, we believe that the the seven are not part of that. So we

Speaker 6

would just

Speaker 2

have any additional incremental vacancy that we would be taking off the top of that. So that rental revenue is not built into the 62 and then being taken off of. We're at a net number on the 62.

Speaker 4

Okay. So we should think about if with those seven properties, a number of tenants

Speaker 2

Yeah. You shouldn't take off another 22% and change off of the 62 to reflect the seven properties.

Speaker 4

Right. So conversely, like, '25, early '20 '6, you're going to add to the 62,000,000 in theory if those get backfilled?

Speaker 2

Correct.

Speaker 4

Okay. Got it. And then you mentioned kind of normalized bad debts of, I think, 1% to 1.5% over time. How should we think about that just on a in terms of steady state? You have contractual bumps of, call it, about one point points.

Speaker 4

So

Speaker 2

what do you

Speaker 4

think the steady state recovery of that 1% to 1.5 bad debt number is net against sort of the organic growth rate? Like so that like how should we think about just steady state net NOI growth, if you will?

Speaker 2

Yes, for sure. So, that's right. So typically, the leases have either annual rental escalations or they bump typically every five years. And you're usually bumping about 10% every five years, seven point five percent to 10%, or you're sort of 1% to 2% annually and that gets you into that 1.3%, one four five % sort of average. It's based on the 10%.

Speaker 2

It's not an exact science each year. So you have that inherent to the portfolio. And then with respect you know, the the the other bad debt of the the portfolio, it's

Speaker 1

We recover about 75%.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We recover about yeah. We kinda keep the recovery about the same, the, you know, 75 to a % based upon our historical recovery rates.

Speaker 4

Okay. Got it. And then just last one. I mean, obviously, you're doing you're taking actions here to get your cost of capital back. But I mean, if we sit here and think about fast forward, whether it's twelve months, eighteen months, if you're still in a situation where you just don't have access to equity, what is sort of plan b?

Speaker 4

Mean, how long do guys foresee doing this before there has to be some other action beyond just waiting for the capital cost to come back through recycling and so forth?

Speaker 2

Yes. No. I mean, listen, it's a good question. It's top of mind for everybody, of course. Right?

Speaker 2

We want to make sure that we can continue to execute, which I think we've been doing. We want to continue to make sure that we're making prudent decisions within the portfolio. I think that we've demonstrated that we've got the resiliency of the portfolio, certainly based upon the quick and successful re tenanting of the 12 assets we've mentioned. And then ultimately, we want to make sure that we can recycle assets accretively. So we do have that option.

Speaker 2

If we get back and we get to a point where we're sitting a couple quarters down the road and we're still sitting in a stock price that looks the way it does today, you have to take a position that you start to look at M and A and other options for the company. But all along the road, we're going to continue to make the best decisions and then make the best responses for the business.

Speaker 4

Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Thank

Operator

you for the question, Anthony. And for our next question, we're going to move on to Janna Gillan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thank you, and good morning. I'm curious how you're thinking about your investment spreads between recycling the portfolio and using new capital. And it sounds like you could buy in the mid to high 7s and then sell in the mid to high 6s. Is that the correct way to think about it?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think it's going to look like when you kind of see a blended average of the assets that are going to come offline versus through sales, I think you're going to see a blended average. So yes, we are seeing that that's accretive. We have some as the case of the Raising Cain that we mentioned that will be below that 6.5%. There are other noncore assets that you think they will be slightly elevated beyond the 6.5%.

Speaker 2

But yes, I like to see I think you can see about 100 basis point or so spread on average between where we would exit and then where we would acquire.

Speaker 1

And in the meantime, increasing our walls.

Speaker 5

Great. And I apologize if I missed this in the sub, but do you disclose average or median tenant rent coverage? I see that you get, financial reporting from a large portion of your portfolio. We we do not. We just don't we don't get a lot of reports.

Speaker 1

Yeah. We we we do not disclose at this time.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much for the question, Janna. And since there are no further questions at this time, please continue, Steve.

Speaker 2

Yes. No. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate the questions. We appreciate your time, and we look forward to collectively building this company.

Speaker 2

And we hope for improved share price as we go, but we're going to continue to make the right prudent decisions for this business. And we'll be at NAREIT. And anyone that would like to sit down and visit, we're going to be there and welcome the opportunity. You all.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you, everyone.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Matt.

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Key Takeaways

  • Frontview closed Q1 2025 acquisitions of $49.2 million at a 7.9% average cap rate, diversified across nine industries, 13 tenants and 13 states, and has an additional $19.3 million under contract or recently closed at cap rates near 8%.
  • Due to a decline in its share price and elevated cost of capital, the company has prudently slowed its acquisition pace and now plans $125 million–$145 million of investments in 2025 with the flexibility to accelerate as financing conditions improve.
  • Frontview expects to sell $20 million–$40 million of non-core or shorter-term lease assets this year—including a Freddy’s Steakburgers at a 6.9% cap rate—and has demonstrated value creation through re-tenanting (e.g., Miller’s Ale House to Raising Cane’s projected at a 4.7% cap rate).
  • The company reaffirmed its 2025 AFFO per share guidance of $1.20–$1.26, highlighted strong Q1 rent collections (99.5%), projected normalized bad debt of 1%–2%, and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.215 per share.
  • Frontview ended Q1 with $141 million of liquidity, locked in a $200 million three-year term loan at a 4.96% all-in rate, and maintained a conservative 5.7× debt/EBITDAre ratio, targeting 5×–6× long term leverage.
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Earnings Conference Call
FrontView REIT Q1 2025
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