Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Same center NOI rose 4.2% and core FFO per share increased 8.5% year-over-year, prompting management to raise its full-year 2025 earnings guidance.
  • Positive Sentiment: Year-to-date acquisitions totaled $287 million (including $133 million in Q2), and the company reaffirmed a $350 million–$450 million gross acquisitions target.
  • Positive Sentiment: Leasing remained strong with 97.4% overall occupancy (anchors 98.9%, in-line 94.8%) and renewal spreads of 19.1% and new lease spreads of 34.6%.
  • Positive Sentiment: The balance sheet features $972 million of liquidity, no meaningful maturities until 2027, net debt/EBITDAR at 5.4× and 95% of debt fixed after a successful 5.25% senior note issuance.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management estimates 85% of tenant ABR will face limited tariff impact as 70% of ABR is necessity-based, citing stable cash flows and a resilient consumer.
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Earnings Conference Call
Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and welcome to Phillips Edison and Company's Second Quarter twenty twenty May Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Kimberly Green, Head of Investor Relations. Kimberly, you may begin.

Kimberly Green
SVP & Head - IR at Phillips Edison & Company

Thank you, operator. I'm joined on this call by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Edison President, Bob Myers and Chief Financial Officer, John Caulfield. Once we conclude our prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q and A. After today's call, an archived version will be published on our website. As a reminder, today's discussion may contain forward looking statements about the company's view of future business and financial performance, including forward earnings guidance and future market conditions.

Kimberly Green
SVP & Head - IR at Phillips Edison & Company

These are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, specifically in our most recent Form 10 ks and 10 Q. And our discussion today will reference certain non GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings press release and supplemental information packet, which have been posted on our website. Please note that we have also posted a presentation with additional information. Our caution on forward looking statements also applies to these materials.

Kimberly Green
SVP & Head - IR at Phillips Edison & Company

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Edison, our Chief Executive Officer. Jeff?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Thank you, Kim, and thank you everyone for joining us today. The PICO team is pleased to deliver another quarter of solid growth. Same center NOI increased 4.2% and core FFO per share increased 8.5%. Given the continued strength of our business, we are pleased to increase our full year 2025 earnings guidance for same center NOI, core FFO per share and NAREIT FFO per share. I'd like to thank our PICO associates for their hard work in maintaining our unique competitive advantages and driving value at the property level.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

We believe PICO's growth ranker strategy and necessity based focus have helped to create a resilient portfolio that also delivers steady growth. We are driving strong rent spreads, increasing occupancy and generating dependable, high quality cash flows. This consistency in performance and growth is attributable to several factors. First and foremost, it takes an experienced and locally smart team to bring the best retailers to our centers. Our neighbors create positive community experiences built around our grocers.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Second, it takes decades to build the strong grocer and national neighbor relationships that Pico enjoys. These relationships give us an advantage in working together to optimize our properties. These relationships also are critical to our acquisition strategy. Third, it requires a portfolio focused on right sized neighborhood centers located in suburban trade areas with compelling demographic trends and continued macroeconomic tailwinds. Strong demand from national retailers continues to fill our pipeline of ground up outparcel development and repositioning activity.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Fourth, it takes a dedicated team to acquire and curate a high quality grocery anchored portfolio that is expected to deliver 3% to 4% same center NOI growth year after year. And lastly, it requires a strong balance sheet with great liquidity to invest in the properties and the portfolio. Our long operating history and track record have built these strengths for PICO that give us both offensive and defensive advantages in the market. Because of these advantages, we believe PICO is able to deliver mid to high single digit core FFO per share growth annually on a long term basis. The market continues to focus on tariffs and U.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

S. Economic stability. As it relates to PECO's grocers and neighbors, we feel very good about our portfolio. As a reminder, 70% of our ABR comes from necessity based goods and services. This provides predictable, high quality cash flows and downside protection quarter after quarter.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

This also limits our exposure to discretionary goods, which are at risk of greater impact from tariffs. We estimate that approximately 85% of our neighbors based on ABR will experience limited impact from tariffs. Supporting that estimate is the strength of our neighbor retention and leasing spreads in the second quarter, which Bob will speak about in a moment. Our neighbors are watching the consumer closely. They continue to benefit from their location in the neighborhood where our top grocers drive strong foot traffic to our centers.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

We continue to see leasing demand for our existing spaces along with a healthy development and redevelopment pipeline. We are seeing strong demand from retailers who want to be located at Pico's grocery anchored neighborhood shopping centers, especially from small shop retailers in categories like quick service restaurant, health and beauty, medical retail and personal services. These are the types of neighbors that perform well because they are part of people's everyday routines. And importantly, the PICO team continues to find smart, accretive acquisitions that add long term value to our portfolio. Our active acquisitions activity is another differentiator in PICO's strategy.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

The PICO team is acquiring in the market through all cycles, carefully and deliberately acquiring centers that fit our growth ranker strategy and right size format, while also delivering long term growth potential. This has been part of our DNA for over thirty years. We're not just maintaining a high quality portfolio, we're building one. What sets apart is that we know exactly what we're looking for, and we have one of the best operating platforms stacked quickly and execute. And that puts PICO in a unique position to grow cash flows in a way that's both disciplined and opportunistic.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

During the second quarter, we purchased $133,000,000 of assets in PICO's total share. When you include assets acquired subsequent to quarter end, this brings our year to date gross acquisitions at PICO share to $287,000,000 Despite recent market volatility, we remain confident in our ability to acquire high quality centers at attractive returns. We are pleased to affirm our guidance range of $350,000,000 to $450,000,000 in gross acquisitions this year. We continue to successfully find attractive acquisition opportunities below replacement costs with strong growth profiles that we believe will exceed our unlevered 9% IRR target. We will acquire more if attractive opportunities materialize, but we are comfortable with our current pace and IRR targets.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

We will continue to be disciplined buyers as we look forward. In summary, we are very pleased with our results this quarter and our ability to raise guidance for the remainder of the year. While it is still early to understand the full impact tariffs could have on PECO or our neighbors, we continue to see a resilient consumer and we believe our portfolio will outperform as retailer demand remains strong. Our confidence is driven by the stability of our high quality cash flows and the PICO team's ability to deliver solid growth and create value for our shareholders. Given our demonstrated track record through various cycles, we believe an investment in PICO provides shareholders with a favorable balance of defense and offense.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

In summary, we believe the quality of our cash flows reduces our beta and the strength of our growth increases our alpha. Less beta, more alpha. I will now turn the call over to Bob. Bob?

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Thank you, Jeff, and thank you for joining us. As Jeff said, PECO's grocery anchored focus and necessity based neighbor mix creates strong leasing momentum. That momentum is clear in our operating results again this quarter. Our long operating history has given us an informed measure of what drives quality and value at the shopping center level. We continue to believe SOAR provides important measures of quality, spreads, occupancy, advantages of the market and retention.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

This is most evident in our continued high occupancy, strong rent spreads and high retention. In terms of leasing activity, we continue to capitalize on elevated renewal demand. The PICO team remains focused on maximizing opportunities to improve lease language at renewal and drive rents higher. In the second quarter, we delivered strong comparable renewal rent spreads of 19.1%. Our in line renewal rent spreads remained high at 20.7% in the quarter.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Comparable new leasing rent spreads for the second quarter were 34.6 and our in line new rent spreads were 28.1% in the quarter. These spreads reflect the continued strength of the leasing and retention environment. We expect new and renewal spreads to continue to be strong throughout the balance of this year and into the foreseeable future. Leasing deals we executed during the second quarter both new and renewal achieved average annual rent bumps of 2.7%, another important contributor to our long term growth. Portfolio occupancy remained high and ended the quarter at 97.4% leased.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Anchor occupancy remained strong at 98.9%, a sequential increase of 50 basis points. During the quarter, Pico executed leases with Dollar Tree, Planet Fitness, Ace Hardware, and Southeast Pickleball. In line occupancy ended the quarter at 94.8%, a sequential increase of 20 basis points. Small shop retailers added during the quarter included Cold Stone, Firehouse Subs, H and R Block and Pacific Dental Services along with several other Medtail neighbors and health and beauty retailers. Given our robust leasing pipeline, we expect in line occupancy to remain high throughout the year, which is very positive.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

As it relates to bad debt in the second quarter, we actively monitor the health of our neighbors. Bad debt in the quarter was up from a year ago, but in line on a year to date basis and well within our guidance range. We are not concerned about bad debt in the near term, particularly given the strong retailer demand. We continue to have a highly diversified mix with no meaningful rent concentration outside of our grocers. A key advantage of Pico's suburban locations is that our centers are situated in markets where our top grocers are profitable.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Because three mile trade area demographics include an average population of 68,000 people and an average median household income of 92,000. This is 15% above The US median. These demographics are in line with the store demographics of Kroger and Publix, which are PECO's top two neighbors. Our markets also benefit from low unemployment rates, which are below the shopping center peer average. We believe the necessity based focus of our properties is important when demographics are considered.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

When looking at our very limited exposure to distressed retailers, the top 10 neighbors currently on our watch list represent approximately 2% of ABR. This is not by accident. It is a product of many years of being locally smart and intentionally cultivating our portfolio of grocery anchored neighborhood centers located in lively trade areas with compelling demographic trends. Our neighbor retention remained high at 94 in the second quarter while growing rents at attractive rates. High retention results in better economics with less downtime and dramatically lower tenant improvement costs.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Lower capital spend results in better returns. In the second quarter, we spent only $0.49 per square foot on tenant improvements for renewals. In addition to our strong rental growth and retention trends, we continue to expand our pipeline of ground up outparcel development and repositioning projects. At the end of the second quarter, we had 21 projects under active construction with an average estimated yield between 912%. Year to date, nine projects have been stabilized.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

This activity delivered over a 180,000 square feet of space to our neighbors with incremental NOI of approximately $3,700,000 annually. The overall demand environment, the balance of PICO's defense and offense, the stability of our high quality cash flows and the capabilities of the PICO team give us continued confidence in our ability to deliver strong growth in 2025 and in the long term. I will now turn the call over to John. John?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Thank you, Bob, and good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start by highlighting second quarter results, then provide an update on the balance sheet, and finally speak to our increased 2025 guidance. Our second quarter results demonstrate what we've built at PICO, a high performing grocery anchored and necessity based portfolio that generates reliable, high quality cash flows. Second quarter NAREIT FFO increased to $86,000,000 or $0.62 per diluted share, which reflects year over year per share growth of 8.8%. Second quarter core FFO increased to $88,200,000 or zero six four dollars per diluted share, which reflects year over year per share growth of 8.5%.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Our same center NOI growth in the quarter was 4.2%. Turning to the balance sheet. We have approximately $972,000,000 of liquidity to support our acquisition plans and no meaningful maturities until 2027. Our net debt to trailing twelve month annualized adjusted EBITDAR was 5.4 times as of 06/30/2025. This was 5.3 times on a last quarter annualized basis, which is also important to track in quarters with elevated acquisition volume.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Our debt had a weighted average interest rate of 4.4% and a weighted average maturity of five point seven years when including all extension options. At the end of the second quarter, 95% of PICO's total debt was fixed rate, which is in line with our target of 90%. During the quarter, PICO completed a bond offering principal of 5.25% senior notes due 02/1932. Proceeds from the offering were used to replenish the liquidity on our revolver, effectively match funding the $287,000,000 in properties acquired to date at PICO share. As Jeff mentioned, the PICO team is not just maintaining a high quality portfolio, we're building one.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

We continue to have one of the best balance sheets in the sector, which has us well positioned for continued external growth. As Jeff mentioned, we are pleased to raise our 2025 guidance. Key drivers of our increased guidance include a continued strong operating environment, strong year to date acquisition activity, and our recent bond offering. We updated our guidance range for 2025 same center NOI growth to 3.1% to 3.6%. As we continue to enhance our neighbor mix, our actions in 2024 to improve merchandising and capture mark to market rent growth with new neighbors are still a slight headwind to 2025 growth.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

As we have said previously, the PICO team is focused on the long term, and our actions to replace neighbors are intentional. Our updated guidance for 2025 NAREIT FFO per share reflects a 6.3% increase over 2024 at the midpoint, and our updated guidance for 2025 core FFO share represents a 6% increase over 2024 at the midpoint. We also affirmed our 2025 full year gross acquisition guidance. We believe our low leverage gives us the financial capacity to meet our growth targets. We also have diverse sources of capital that we can use to grow and match fund our investment activity.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

These sources include additional debt issuance, dispositions, and equity issuance. Match funding our capital sources investments is an important component of our investment strategy. Please note that our guidance for the remainder of 2025 does not assume any equity issuance. We continue to believe this portfolio and this team are well positioned to deliver mid to high single digit core FFO per share growth on an annual basis. We also believe that our long term AFFO growth can be higher as more of our leasing mix is weighted towards renewal activity.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

We believe our targets for growth in core FFO and AFFO will allow PICO to outperform the growth of our shopping center peers on a long term basis. With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank Your first question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Vice President at Goldman Sachs

Hi, good afternoon everyone. I guess we hear the transaction market is competitive, but Jeff like you went through you did have a strong first half. So what do you think has allowed PICO to win these transactions? And it looks like shadow anchored centers have been a focus this year. What is driving that?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. Thanks Caitlin for the question. We yes, we had a really good first half. I think it kind of goes back to the fact that we buy properties one at a time market by market. And if you step back and you look at it, that's how we were able to actually get this volume.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

It didn't come in a big chunk of buying something. It came in like being active in a lot of markets. And we've set up our acquisition team to be able to do that over a long period of time, and it's hard, but we've been able to put that in place. And I think that's how we've been able to get to those numbers. And as you know, we're very focused on a very disciplined approach to our acquisitions.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And this is I think we feel really good about that. And we're actually really excited about the opportunities because if you look at the anchors that we were able expand our exposure to like H E B and Walmart, Target to a small amount, these are really good retailers that we're sort of spreading out a little bit of our exposure to. So we feel great about the first quarter and excited about what we can do hopefully in the second half.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Vice President at Goldman Sachs

Got it. And then also in the prepared remarks, guys mentioned how the kind of turnover of some tenants that you focused on 2024 in '24 was still a headwind to growth in '25. I guess, as you guys think about tenant retention going forward and the, decisions you made in '24, when do you think those headwinds will be done? And is it to what extent will it be something that's kind of ongoing that tenant replacement versus kind of done for the moment?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Bob, you want to talk a little bit about leasing activity and how we're sort of looking at that as opportunity and as well as headwind?

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. Yes. Thanks for the question. I guess I'll start a little bit on what I would call the junior anchor side. So when our occupancy dropped a little bit in the first quarter on the anchor side, there was just noise there from Joanne, Big Lots, Party City and some of those neighbors that we knew wasn't a surprise to us.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

We've actually been able to backfill about 70% of those currently. So specifically to answer your question, we only have probably 15 spaces over 10,000 feet that are vacant in our portfolio. So a lot of the backfilling and recapturing of some of those specific neighbors, an example, the rent will come online in 2026. And it will probably be the 2026 and maybe some will dribble into 2027. The good news is the leasing demand continues to remain very strong for those junior boxes and on the in line.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

And we continue to just see from the retailers that they're hungry for sites to open in 2026, 2027 and 2028. And again, we just don't see any new supply coming on. So we're in a very good spot. And you see that the retailers are wanting to follow the number one, number two grocer because you can see it in our spreads with 35% new leasing spreads, 19% renewal spreads and 94% retention is very, very strong. So we're encouraged by the activity.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

We don't see anything slowing down. And we feel real good about selectively being locally smart and merchandising around those opportunities.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Vice President at Goldman Sachs

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sameer Kannal with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Samir Khanal
Samir Khanal
Director - US REITs at Bank of America

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I guess, Jeff or John, can you talk about the deceleration in same store NOI growth that you're expecting in the second half based on the guidance sort of the puts and takes to get to the sort of the 2.7% on average after having close to 4% in the first half? Thanks.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Samir, I thought you were going to focus on how great it is that we had all that great growth in the first half. John, do you to cover the sort of what we're looking at for the second half on same center growth?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Certainly. Thanks for the question. Definitely one that I was expecting. So, first, for this reason, we don't provide quarterly guidance. As we look at our earnings on same store NOI and FFO, we are projecting more consistent growth for the balance of the year.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Our same center growth last year was weighted to the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter alone was over 6.5%, which skews the quarter by quarter growth numbers. So as we look at our q three and q four forecast, they're actually consistent and growing, improving sequentially from q two this year. So I think it's more a function of 2024 than any real deceleration as we look at continued growth from where we stand today. And actually and that's for same center NOI for NAREIT FFO and for Core FFO.

Samir Khanal
Samir Khanal
Director - US REITs at Bank of America

Got it. Okay. No, that's helpful. And then on the just a follow-up to Caitlin's question on acquisitions. You've been doing a lot more of the shadow anchored properties over the last two quarters.

Samir Khanal
Samir Khanal
Director - US REITs at Bank of America

I know the market is competitive for the core product right now. So just talk about kind of what you're seeing for core versus maybe shadow and unanchored. And I'm wondering if pricing is sort of getting out of hand or just kind of are you getting priced out of some of the core product here? Thanks.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Thanks. So we in the through the first half of the year, we'll have bought three unanchored centers. That's 14% of what we bought, seven shadow anchors, which is 50% of what we bought and four anchored centers with that represent 35% of what we bought. It's really hard to look quarter by quarter and have a view of like a change. These were actually stores that we were very excited about getting and we saw these as great opportunities.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

I mean, you think about it, like the average sales of the shadow anchored centers we did is over $1,000 a foot on the grocer. So we've got like A quality grocer, these are all centers that are that the grocer actually owns their store in these stores, the shadows. And so our small stores get the full benefit. We don't have that sort of flat part of our cash flow, which is growth ranker. So we saw these as great opportunities for us to get increased growth and really stable strong properties.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

So it's we I wouldn't say that this is caused by the market other than these are the properties that came on the market and that sort of fit with what we were trying to get, which is that number one or two growths are driving the customer to the center day in, out because that's what allows us to really grow rents.

Samir Khanal
Samir Khanal
Director - US REITs at Bank of America

No, I appreciate that. Thanks.

Operator

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

Haendel St. Juste
Haendel St. Juste
MD & Senior REIT Analyst at Mizuho Financial Group

Hey guys, good. Well, I don't know if it's good morning or afternoon out there, but it's afternoon here. I was hoping you could add a bit more color on the transaction market broadly, the opportunities you're looking at. Maybe there's anything under LOI at the moment, but looking at kind of $280,000,000 of acquisitions completed year to date, I guess I'm really curious what's holding you back from moving the guide up a bit here? It seems like you're pretty far along and seems like the remaining delta is pretty achievable here.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Haendel, thanks for the question. Yes, we are very excited about having put $290,000,000 on the board for the first half. And we are prepared to do more than guidance if we find the opportunities. I would say that our macro look at the market right now is it's actually fairly stable. There is more product on the market and there are more buyers.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And we are finding certain buyers that are getting very aggressive, which is where we've got to keep our discipline and stay out of that competition or desire to be in that and stay true to what we do. I think so I think we did that in the first half. If we can find the same amount in the second half, we'll do it. We're a little bit, I think, cautious there in terms of what the second half is going to look like. So that's why we maintained our guidance.

Haendel St. Juste
Haendel St. Juste
MD & Senior REIT Analyst at Mizuho Financial Group

Got it. Got it. Appreciate that. And then one, just on variable rate debt, pretty low today, 5%. I think there's some swaps expiring later this year, John.

Haendel St. Juste
Haendel St. Juste
MD & Senior REIT Analyst at Mizuho Financial Group

I know it's one of your favorite topics, but I'm curious on the outlook or the plan there and what you feel is a comfortable level of variable rate debt. Thanks.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

John, do want to take that?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Haendel, I saw your I saw your note, and and I'm I've been looking forward to this question, man. I I know you love, I know you love variable rate debt. So so okay. I appreciate the question.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

So, yes, currently, we're 95% fixed. And so we continue to monitor and look at the markets, but we want to approach the debt capital market and the equity capital markets opportunistically. The key thing for us is making sure that we're in a position where we choose to move because we we like the market and the opportunity, not because we have to. That's kind of why we went in June, and we did 5.25% debt and extending our our maturity ladder while also continuing our pattern and and reputation in that unsecured bond market. So as I look to the swap market, you know, the swaps that are expiring our debt profile, we wanna continue to be a repeat issuer in that market.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

We we feel we've been well received. I would note that we continue to talk to the agencies where triple b flat, but but notice that our balance sheet is very comparable to those of our peers that are either positive or even more highly rated than we are. So, you know, we continue to talk to them, think there's opportunity, and we wanna use that. So we're going to manage our variable rate exposure through, additional maturities in that market. We're gonna continue to buy assets and do what we've been doing in the last several years to do that, and and we'll just keep extending from there.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

So we don't have any plans to to further put it, you know, more swaps in place unless it matches with things that we do in the term loan market. So we will manage it through issuance and at the same time, you know, are grateful for for the deal we got done. And our again, our long term target is, you know, we we target about 90% fixed. So we'll that's what I was gonna look at on a sustained basis.

Haendel St. Juste
Haendel St. Juste
MD & Senior REIT Analyst at Mizuho Financial Group

Got it. Got it. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

Operator

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

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Hey, just two quick ones. So just one on the just remind us on the occupancy side, I'm looking at the anchor at 90 almost 99 in line almost 95. Just how do you guys think about sort of the structural ceiling there and the sort of the things that you're doing to maybe maximize either rent spreads or rent escalators, just the interplay between what your peak occupancy you think it is and where you can get more pricing power? Thanks.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Great. Thanks, John. So before I turn it over to Bob, we're going to keep saying this, and I know some of you will buy it, some of you won't. But we truly believe that occupancy is the it's our stores making a decision about where they want to be. And if you have the highest occupancy, our view is you have the highest quality assets.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And we have consistently been able to do that because our the retailers are telling us with their leases that we have the best properties. And so we're we're we're really happy and and about, you know, the the getting to these occupancy levels, and I and we're very happy to be, you know, partnered with our neighbors to be able to get the to achieve those goals. So, Bob, do you want to talk a little bit about occupancy and where we might be able to take it?

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Absolutely. Yes, I appreciate the question. We've done really well in the first half of the year. We moved anchor occupancy up about 50 basis points and in line about 20 And that certainly comes as a result of the retailer demand.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

I think we have another 100 basis to 150 basis points of in line occupancy. So I really feel that we can get in the 96s up from the 94.8%, I believe it is today. I think anchor occupancy will always be 99.2%, 99.3%. We still have some work to do to get that. But I feel good about the leasing demands, the LOIs that we had out for Signature.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

I think one real important strategy in our business though is that we run a parallel path of not only growing occupancy in our current portfolio, but also on the acquisition side. And I mentioned this over the last year or two, but in 2023, we bought a great portfolio combination of 14 to 16 assets that were around 87% occupied and today those are 98. In 2024, we acquired $300,000,000 that was at 93.1%, that currently sits at 95, and we're already making good traction on the assets that we've acquired this year. The demand is as strong as we've seen it in years. And I just feel like we're going to continue to move occupancy up, and you see it through the retention.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

When you're retaining 94% of your neighbors at spreads of 20% and you're only spending $0.49 a foot in tenant improvements to execute that, that is money well spent. So I feel really good about the current environment, our occupancy. And that's a long winded answer to your question. But yes, I do feel like we still have room in occupancy.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Super helpful. Look, my second question is on tariffs, right? I mean, you guys have put out some data on your what you think your tariff risk is. Clearly, you reiterated sort of the credit loss and you raised the same store. So nothing in your portfolio.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

But I guess, as you're sort of taking a step back and talking to tenants, I'm curious about sort of the categories that are most impacted. And where do you think like what's happening on the ground? Who's eating that incremental cost on tariff that we know people are paying? Is it the tenants? Is it the consumer?

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Just I'm just curious how that's playing out on your grounds and what you're hearing from your tenants? Thanks.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. We're probably not the best ones to ask about it because the necessity based side, which is where we are, just we don't have a ton of exposure to tariffs. But I will like our views have been that for that small part, the 15% that we think will have some impact, the story they've told us to date is that they have been able to pass that on to the supplier the majority of it. And if it stays in that low teens kind of a percentage that they feel pretty comfortable that they will be able to absorb that between a combination of them taking a little bit of hit on their profits, but the majority coming from the supplier and then moderate impact on the buyer. If you and so that I think that's our view on where that impact is going to happen, How long it's going to take and how where we're going to see it?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

I mean, as Bob pointed out, I mean, we're certainly not seeing it on the ground on a leasing basis. That part, we still don't see any cracks from that. So we're I mean, we're as they say, we're very cautious probably more cautious, but still have a little bit of optimism there that this is not going to have the kind of impact that we thought it would just three months ago.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Helpful. Thanks so much.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yep.

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, thanks. Just first question, I wanted to follow-up on Sameer's question around the same store growth and growth outlook. Bob, you talked about some of the things that you've completed on recent acquisitions and certainly some upside on some of those more recent deals. Just curious, the methodology for your your quarterly pull, is that different than the full year pull the way that you you calculate that?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

I'll jump in on this one.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Todd, it's it's it is the same. So we we disclose the quarter and the year on the same basis. So the same store pool is calculated as all assets acquired, before January 1.

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

Okay. Before '25 or 2024?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sorry. 01/01/2024. Sorry, man. That's difficult. 01/01/2024.

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

Got it.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

So the assets acquired last year and the assets acquired this year are not in the same center pool.

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

Right. Okay. That's helpful. And then, John, just sticking with you. So you talked about some of the funding sources for acquisitions going forward.

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

Obviously, you have a lot of options, equity debt. You've talked about retained earnings and free cash flow. Does the stock price where it is today and the company's cost of equity, does that limit the amount of acquisition volume that you can achieve? And how do these positions factor into the equation today?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. So, you know, thank you for the recap there. Yeah. We actually are are very happy with the amount of liquidity that we have and the ability that we have to to, participate in the transaction market. I wouldn't say that the equity issuance is is limiting where we are or see the equity price isn't where, is limiting us today.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

I mean, we we do believe that the the stock is is at a discount relative to private market values, relative to our peers, that are in the same business we are, which is grocery anchored shopping centers. And so, you know, I think the key thing for us that you've heard us talk about previously is match funding. And so we're being opportunistic, and and wanna find those acquisitions that that make the most sense. I do think that, you know, I mentioned in the prepared remarks that we don't have any equity issuance planned, in our guide for 2025 and are very happy that we can execute on our growth plans without, you know, needing to go to the equity markets. The pieces that I would say is we are very committed to our mid five times on a leverage basis.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

So we're gonna stay in this area. I do think that we're looking at it if it's a great transaction market and there's competition out there. It also means it's a good disposition market as well. So I think you will see us, go through and and capture some of the, the gains that that we've realized over the years. So we'll look to sell some of that in the back half of the year.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

But to Jeff's earlier comment, if the acquisitions present themselves, we will look forward to taking our share of that.

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

Okay.

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

What's the pricing? I realize you're underwriting to a 9% unlevered IRR target, on on new deals, but what's the, how should we think about the the cap rate spread, between what you're buying and what you might look to sell?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. So we haven't been really I talked about this in first quarter or year end. We talked about, we hadn't been selling as much as we wanted to. So some of the things that we're selling, you know, to start will be closer to the $7.07 and a half range, I would say, as we look forward on a weighted basis. But but still, you know, capturing great returns for PECO.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

And then that's relative to kind of the range of what we've been buying at. So the the difference isn't isn't very great, but then we will we are, you know, taking opportunities to monetize, you know, other assets that are are meaningfully lower than that. So I think that probably gives you some guidelines. And all of that would be captured in the guidance numbers we've provided.

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

Okay. Helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mueller with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Michael Muller.
Michael Muller.
Venture Capitalist at JPMorgan Chase

Yes. Hi. Guess, is there a max percentage of the portfolio that you'd want to have in shadow anchored or unanchored centers?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Hey, Mike. Thanks for the question. So I think if you look at the unanchored, kind of 10% is probably the number that we're thinking there. The shadow anchored, we see as very interchangeable with our core anchored stuff. I mean, these are the exact same projects you just own a little different piece of it.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And you own the small store space, which gives us more upside. It's seven percent of our portfolio today. So not worth spending a ton of time talking about in terms of impact. But we see it as a really great opportunity to be able to buy some of these centers that have, in our mind, a lot of upside because of the strength of the grocer and the dominance it has in the marketplace. So we're I would say that I'm hopeful that we'll be well above and the 7% includes what we bought in the first half of the year.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

So I'm hopeful that we can get that number higher than that, but it will be driven by sort of what opportunities come in the marketplace.

Michael Muller.
Michael Muller.
Venture Capitalist at JPMorgan Chase

And maybe just one quick follow-up to that. If you're looking at, as you mentioned, because the it's just part of the center that's interchangeable. So if you're looking at a traditional shopping center that you would own that's grocery anchored where you own the grocer, what do you think is the cap rate differential for that center that comes with the grocer versus one that's shadow anchored?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

How different is it? So that's a very complicated question. And obviously has I mean, we're making that a number of generalizations to come up with what that is because they each property varies a lot in terms of like risk, what the tenant makeup is and then occupancy and the rest. But I think generally our look is we think we can get about 100 basis points 50 to 100 basis points wider unlevered IRR from our shadow anchored than we can from our core grocery. And so I think that's a way of looking at it.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

From a pricing standpoint, on a cap rate basis, it's more complicated. But let's just say that it would be 50 basis points to 75 basis points difference between a shadow and an owned.

Michael Muller.
Michael Muller.
Venture Capitalist at JPMorgan Chase

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

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

Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Good morning. Some metrics suggest the consumer that is very pessimistic and a lot of caution while others point to a more constructive outlook. From your perspective, how are consumers that shop in your centers behaving today? Are you seeing any trend in terms of them trading down, changes in, visit frequency or other shifts that are worth highlighting?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Great. Thanks, Paulina. Thanks for for the question. Yeah.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

It's it's there there's this there's this dichotomy in the in the that's really weird, which is all the polling, all the, you know, the the consumer sentiment, all that stuff is negative and yet sales continue to grow. So the consumer is sort of saying one thing and then doing another. And our views and our from the placer information and other information, we continue to see really strong foot traffic at our centers. And that is as current as you know, within the last fifteen to to twenty days. So we're you know, the what you're there is a sort of sentiment, and I our view, is look at employment.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And if we actually just did a study on our properties and I think our properties were 30 had a 30% lower unemployment rate than the nation. So I and and I think employment is what drives consumer behavior more than what they think about, you know, what's happening in Washington DC or what's going to happen to the the different things that are changing. The job is a driver there. And we continue to see really strong employment numbers from a historical standpoint. So until we see a major change in that, we think the consumer is going to stay the same.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And our retailers are telling us the same thing with their the time they've been with us, their renewal pace, all the rents of which they're willing to move to. They're they're all telling us that they they believe the consumer is strong.

Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Thank you. And then a second question. We we saw that Kroger recently announced the use of store closures. So first question is, are you aware of any locations within your portfolio that may be impacted? And then some parties, we're also seeing a number of grocers pursuing expansion strategies.

Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC

So I'm intrigued. Which grocers are you seeing most actively expanding in your markets?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

So I want to make sure I got your questions right. One question was which grocers are expanding in our markets? And the other is what impact Kroger's announcement of closing 60 stores has. Are those did I get that right?

Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Yes, exactly right.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Okay. Bob, you to talk about the Kroger exposure and then we can talk a little bit about the grocers that are expanding.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. So in terms of the Kroger announcement in the 60 stores, we had one on the list. So that's our exposure. And it wasn't a surprise.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

We've been working with Kroger on that particular location now for about five years. The good news is we expect them to close this month in that site, but we already have another grocer that's going to backfill it. So it's still a good grocer location. So we just haven't that's what we know currently in terms of what Kroger shared with us. We had a meeting at their corporate headquarters last week. And right at this point, it's they had all their store closings on hold as they were trying to do the merger with Albertsons over the last three years. So it's not a surprise that the announcement came out. And it wasn't a surprise for us, Paulina, to have the one.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

The answer to the second question in terms of our markets and grocers that are expanding, and they are, they're very selective about it, but it's Sprouts, it's Kroger, it's Publix, it's Whole Foods and Walmart. Those seem to be the grocers that are active in either they're all committing money to remodels and Publix is still very motivated on their teardown rebuild concepts. Kroger is looking to expand in some new markets. And again, since we're Kroger's number one landlord and Publix number two landlord, we're working alongside them to see if we can assist in any way.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. The only thing I would add to that, Paulina, is these these are not massive changes. These are small I mean, with like, in the scheme of things, they're they're it's it's a very small amount of space that that that's happening. And the only two I would add to Bob's list would be HEB and ALDI, both sort of playing, a growth strategy. And I mean, in all honesty, ALDI doesn't have a very big impact in our business, but they probably have the most aggressive expansion plan of any of the grocers.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

It's just they just don't have that much impact because their sales per store are just not that big. It's almost like having a dollar store go in versus a grocer. But they've been doing well and we'll continue to follow them.

Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Thank you so much.

Operator

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

Juan Sanabria
Juan Sanabria
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

Hi. Thanks for the time. I just wanted to follow-up on the prior line of questioning around same store NOI. The guidance implies, like was mentioned before, a second half slowdown. And I noticed expenses year to date on the same store side are running very, very low.

Juan Sanabria
Juan Sanabria
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

So just curious if the implied decel is in part related to maybe timing on expenses. And if you could just elaborate on kind of what the range of expectations are there for same store NOI or if there's just a level of conservatism assumed. Okay.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Great. Thanks, Juan. John, do wanna take that?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. I will. So thanks for the question. As I mentioned before, I think as we look at same store NOI and and if I think about it in an absolute dollar rather than a relative from last year, we see growth from q two to three to four. I would, again point out that last year, it was the timing of expensing and the spend and the recoveries associated with that that that moved that to the fourth quarter.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

And so I think we we see a bit smoother this year just related to some of our spend in the mix that I had referenced last year. I would say that, you know, from an expense standpoint, there may be some more expenses. But overall, we see NOI growth in the portfolio sequentially from here. And, you know, again, it's it's tough to provide, you know, quarterly guidance because of some of these factors, but that's the part I would say is if we just focus on this year forward, you know, we we do see growth. And last year at six and a half percent in the fourth quarter was was more timing related.

Juan Sanabria
Juan Sanabria
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

Gotcha. And then just on on the dispositions that you mentioned, so what's the kind of the the numbers dollar values we're talking about for, dispositions that are assumed in guidance just to think of the ops as an offset versus the gross acquisition guidance?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. I, so we we aren't giving guidance on that. But I would say that we're, you know, our we kind of see 50,000,000 to $100,000,000 of dispose for the year as kind of fairway, almost a year in year out that we will continue to have those opportunities assuming we get the pricing in the market. But I think the key there is you just have to be as disciplined on your dispose as you are on your acquisitions. I mean, they're just the same thing just on the different side.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And where we can manage our portfolio and from a growth standpoint and from a risk standpoint, we're going to be more active I think than we have been the last three years, probably less a little bit less active than we've been over the last ten. But we will continue to push that.

Juan Sanabria
Juan Sanabria
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you.

Operator

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

Rich Hightower
Rich Hightower
MD - U.S. REIT Research at Barclays

Hey, good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking the question. Forgive the ignorance, but back to the Kroger question for a second. Are there any in situation like that, are there any co tenancy, issues that crop up that need to be dealt with? Just how should we think about those situations in general to the extent, you know, they they kind of happen periodically? And then I've got one follow-up after that.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Bob, do you want to you want to take that one?

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So in this particular example, in this site that they're closing, there's no cotenancies.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

I think when you get into cotenancies, you're typically in the power space. So you think about Ross, they typically have cotenancy language with two or three other junior boxes or possibly an anchor. We just don't see that in our portfolio with our grocery anchored focus. Our grocers are the anchor. So typically, it's going to be the co tenants that would want that to make sure that Kroger is going to stay there.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

In our example, we're absolutely fine. We just don't see it much in our space. That is really more of a different strategy, which I would I see a lot in the power space.

Rich Hightower
Rich Hightower
MD - U.S. REIT Research at Barclays

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just quickly on the modeling side, I know guidance does not foresee equity issuance. But is there any incremental debt issuance baked into the guide? Or is that not the case?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Sean, do you want to take that?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. So from an incremental debt issuance, I would say that, you know, we talked about the sources and uses. We don't explicitly have another bond offering planned this year, but as we look ahead in addressing Endel's variable rate interest, it's a possibility. I think the key piece that I would highlight from my previous answer is we wanna access the markets opportunistically and and very thoughtfully. So we will look to manage the maturity calendar as well as any debt that we are getting related to acquisitions to match fund the acquisitions and to turn that out. So, you know, stay with that.

Rich Hightower
Rich Hightower
MD - U.S. REIT Research at Barclays

All right. Great. Thank you.

Operator

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

Cooper Clark
Cooper Clark
VP - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to touch on updated bad debt guidance held at the midpoint but tightened the range. Just wondering if there's any more visibility into the back half of the year and what outcomes could get you to the higher low end, anything to call out there?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

I think John gets to get that one. That's fun.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Cooper. So, look, I think for us, it's it's pretty consistent. As we look at the second quarter, it was consistent with the first quarter twenty five. And if you look at it, you know, six months of '25, pretty consistent with '24.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Overall, we're not concerned with the level that we've got and give us the confidence to tighten the range. When we're looking at the strong leasing demand and our leasing spreads that Bob talked about, we're achieving 35% on new leases and 19% on renewal spreads. And we were still able to deliver 4% same store NOI growth. So, you know, as we look at the remainder of the year, I mean, we have great conversations and relationships with our retailers. You know, I would say we we think it's probably consistent where we are.

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

We intentionally set the range wider at the beginning of the year and are are pleased with the portfolio performance so far that allow us to tighten it up. So, I guess the other piece is that, you know, the nature of our neighborhood grocery anchored shopping centers is is that, you know, it's small pieces. So each neighbor is a small component. So we don't we're not impacted by you know, as greatly impacted as the large anchor bankruptcies. And so I think you're gonna see kind of this, you know, incremental here and there, but, you know, we really feel good about our our centers over the long run.

Cooper Clark
Cooper Clark
VP - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Great. Thanks. And just a quick follow-up. Anything specifically that led you to tighten it on the, low end or, really just kind of tightening the range more generally?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

I think for us, was just tight tightening the range more generally, consistent with what we've been experiencing.

Cooper Clark
Cooper Clark
VP - Equity Research at Wells Fargo

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Billingsley with Compass Point Research and Trading. Please go ahead.

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Hello. I have a question that's a little more granular, and it's about option leases. For the second quarter, it was 7.1%. And looking on an annual basis, it was 4.8%. Anything that's unique about the second quarter?

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

I know last year was a little bit higher than the rest of the rest of the quarters. Anything unique about the second quarter that drives that?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

So help hey, Ken. Help me with that again. What was the what the the said the option leases?

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

The the rent spread. Page page 40 of the supplement. Option leases. Rent spread was 7.1%. The total is 4.8.

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

I mean, obvious I'm I'm I'm just curious of is there anything unique about why the second quarter tends to roll that way? It's higher than last year, but it it seems to be elevated in prior years as well.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. John, do you wanna you wanna cover that?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. So, Ken, I wish I had a better answer for you, but it it it kind of depends on whether or not it's grocers that are rolling or or other leases in the case. Because as as the grocers roll, those tend to be lower. If we have options with with other, you know, neighbors, that can tend to be higher. So, unfortunately, you know, doing 40 options in the quarter, it it's, you know, it's just unfortunately mix.

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Mix. Okay. And and the other question I have, and and this is getting back to the question about your cap rate spread between what you're buying and selling. On the what what was the spread on the acquisition the cap rate on this on the acquisitions for the quarter and and maybe for year to date?

John Caulfield
CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company

Sure. So I'll I'll take that one. Oh, no. Go ahead, Jeff.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

No. No. I I I are you saying are you asking the cap the cap rate of, what we year to date, what the cap rate is? Is that

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Yeah. What you're acquiring. Yes. I know you get a range of 7 to seven and a half is what you're targeting, but what is it? What could do you have, like, specific?

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

And if you if you said it earlier, I I might I may have missed it.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Well, the I mean, year year to date is 6.3 cap rate is what we bought stuff at. And we so that that that's at, based on the sort of the full market what we market value of what we bought.

Kenneth Billingsley
Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC

Great. Appreciate it. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Yes. Thanks, Tim. Your next question comes from the line of Floris Van Dijkum with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Hey. Thanks, guys, for taking my question.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah.

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

So, Jeff, you mentioned something really interesting. You said that if I if I recall correctly in answering one of the previous questions, about 10% of your total acquisition volume is likely going to be in these unanchored centers. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on the cap rates and the rationale behind buying some of those assets? Are they, you know, you know, where's their location? What's the strategic rationale, etcetera?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yeah. Well, thank you, for the question. I'll I'll dig in, and, Bob, you, you know, join in with me. This is a new initiative we've been talking about and implementing over really over the last year and a half. And it basically is taking the view that at centers that we own and in markets where we are really locally smart and have a very strong presence in the markets, there are selected, there are select, unanchored centers that we find really intriguing in terms of both initial yield, but also our ability to grow the rents in them.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

And because we have boots in the ground in these markets, we actually have a really good insight into them. And so we've started to gradually buy a few of these as we've gone to make sure that we're testing them from a risk perspective, from a return perspective, from our ability to really grow rents at centers. And we've had very I mean, results have been very positive. So we continue to see this as an opportunity for us to grow. And it will probably be in that 10% maybe it could get to 15%, but I would say it probably would remain below 10% of our total portfolio.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

But I do believe it will add incremental growth to what we do with the risk profile that we again, we feel really good about because these are in really strong markets, strong locations, great traffic. They tend to be closer to very close to a grocery that's driving traffic to the area. So they create, we think, really good retail locations that we can buy at yields that will get us a return at least 100 basis points wide of what we can get on the own grocery anchored centers. So that's why we're excited about it. I don't know, Bob, if you have any things you want to add to there, but we're excited about that opportunity.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. The only thing I would add, Jeff, is that we've acquired 11, all right? So it's about 3.5% of our entire portfolio. It's a small part of our business. Markets like Minneapolis, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, South Florida, Denver, as an example, it's early indications, early days, but I'm super excited about the opportunity set.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

We have a very strict criteria in terms of how we operate, can we get consistent spreads, can we still get 20% renewal spreads, 30% new leasing spreads. And when I went through all the numbers on the activity so far, our new leasing spreads on our unanchored piece is right around 43%, and our renewal spreads were in the mid-30s with CAGRs above 3%. So again, as Jeff mentioned, we're going to be very opportunistic about the space. It is a natural complement to what we do well day in and day out. So early indications are very positive.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

And if we can be selective over the next two or three years and continue to acquire this type of product type, I think we'll do very well. These assets have a CAGR of up 5.5%, so a great complement to growing same center NOI.

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

And maybe just a follow-up, just because I noticed the one asset that you listed unanchored at 84% leased. How quickly are you able to ramp up occupancy in those assets as well?

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. So a great example is the assets that we bought in Denver. And I believe that one trying to see what the occupancy it was in the low 80s, and we've already leased 13,000 feet. So we're in the upper 90s on that within two months of acquiring the asset. So that's not uncommon.

Robert Myers
President at Phillips Edison & Company

As I mentioned, when we acquired in 2023 a portfolio that was 87% occupied, within a year, we were 98%. So we're already seeing one of the assets in Houston, we've already completed six new leases in a period of a year. So we're seeing, again, retailer demand, as long as you're buying with the right criteria in mind, it happens quickly.

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Thanks, Bob. Maybe my follow-up is related, I guess, on the the acquisitions for JVs. You you do have a couple of JV partnerships. How do you feed those? And how do you, is there more demand from your JV partners to acquire more assets in this kind of environment?

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

And have their return expectations changed over the last twelve to eighteen months?

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. So the, we we have two, JVs that we are currently buying, buying into. And what we've done is we've basically set a target for each of the funds that is outside of PICO's balance sheet. And we now have bought, I think, I believe it's four properties between the two. We'll I think we'll make even better progress in the second half of this year on those.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

But they I mean, the way we look at it is we own four centers today that we wouldn't own without these JVs. And we think we're going to be able to make very strong returns on our equity investment as well as fees in doing that on these properties. So we see it as a growth opportunity. And in terms of whether we're going to buy more or less, that again is going be really driven by the what's in the market and how well it fits with both of these funds. But we do anticipate having one of them fully placed by the end of this year.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

It's a smaller fund. And the second one will continue for some period of time.

Floris van Dijkum
MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc

Thanks, Jeff.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes. Thanks, Lars. Thanks for the questions.

Operator

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

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Yes, great. Thank you everyone for being on today. We appreciate it and thank you operator for helping us. In closing, the PICO team continued our solid performance in the second quarter. Given our strong leasing momentum, year to date acquisitions activity and recent bond offering, we're pleased to increase our full year 2025 earnings guidance for same center NOI, NAREIT FFO per share and core FFO per share.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

The balance of PICO's defense and offense, the stability of our high quality cash flows and the capabilities of the PICO team give us continued confidence in our ability to deliver strong growth in 2025 and over the long term. Because of our unique format and competitive advantages, we believe PICO is able to deliver mid to high single digit core FFO per share growth annually on a long term basis. The PICO team remains focused on delivering on this expectation and driving value at the property level. Given our demonstrated track record through various cycles, we believe an investment in PICO provides shareholders with a favorable balance of quality cash flows, mitigation of downside risk and strong internal and external growth. In summary, and I think you've heard this before, we believe the quality of our cash flows reduces our beta and the strength of our growth increases our alpha.

Jeffrey Edison
Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company

Less beta, more alpha. On behalf of the management team, I'd like to thank our shareholders, Pico associates and our neighbors for their continued support. And thank you all for being on the call today. Have a great weekend.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

Analysts
    • Kimberly Green
      SVP & Head - IR at Phillips Edison & Company
    • Jeffrey Edison
      Chairman & CEO at Phillips Edison & Company
    • Robert Myers
      President at Phillips Edison & Company
    • John Caulfield
      CFO, Executive VP & Treasurer at Phillips Edison & Company
    • Caitlin Burrows
      Vice President at Goldman Sachs
    • Samir Khanal
      Director - US REITs at Bank of America
    • Haendel St. Juste
      MD & Senior REIT Analyst at Mizuho Financial Group
    • Ronald Kamdem
      MD & Head - US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley
    • Todd Thomas
      Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
    • Michael Muller.
      Venture Capitalist at JPMorgan Chase
    • Paulina Rojas-Schmidt
      Senior Analyst, Retail at Green Street Advisors, LLC
    • Juan Sanabria
      Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets
    • Rich Hightower
      MD - U.S. REIT Research at Barclays
    • Cooper Clark
      VP - Equity Research at Wells Fargo
    • Kenneth Billingsley
      Senior Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC
    • Floris van Dijkum
      MD & Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc
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