Glenn Cohen
Chief Financial Officer at Kimco Realty
Thanks, Ross, and good morning. We are pleased to report another strong quarter, highlighted by brisk leasing volume, higher occupancy, positive same-site NOI growth and a healthy increase in leasing spreads. These operational achievements led to double-digit FFO per share growth. NAREIT FFO was $246.4 million or $0.40 per diluted share for the second quarter 2022. This compares favorably to second quarter 2021 NAREIT FFO of $148.8 million or $0.34 per diluted share, which included a $3.2 million charge or $0.01 per diluted share in connection with the Weingarten merger.
FFO per diluted share grew by 17.6% compared to a year ago and 14.3% if you exclude the merger-related costs. The strong increase in FFO was primarily driven by higher consolidated NOI of $97.1 million, including $87.3 million from the Weingarten acquisition, $4.7 million from other property acquisitions and $6.6 million from core portfolio growth.
FFO contribution from our joint ventures was $9.3 million higher than the same quarter last year, comprised of $8.2 million from the newly acquired Weingarten JVs and improved credit loss from our other joint ventures. This growth was offset by higher interest expense of $9.7 million and G&A of $3.2 million primarily due to the 150 property Weingarten acquisition.
Our operating portfolio delivered positive same-site NOI growth of 3.4%, which included a 30 basis point benefit from our redevelopment projects. This is a strong result as we were comping against a 16.7% level last year. An additional encouraging sign from the same-site NOI growth was the contribution from the minimum rent component of 470 basis points and lower abatements of 70 basis points. This was offset by the change in credit loss due to the significant level of credit loss reversals recorded in the prior year quarter.
Certainly, our same-site NOI for the next 2 quarters will also be challenging given our prior year comps of 12.1% for the third quarter and 12.9% for the fourth quarter, which resulted from large reversals and credit loss in 2021. Furthermore, our outlook for the remainder of 2022 doesn't anticipate additional reversals of bad debt or collections from cash basis tenants for prior periods.
Notwithstanding, we expect same-site NOI growth to be positive for the full year. In terms of our ABR from cash basis tenants, it is now down to pre-pandemic level of 4.3% in which we collected over 76% that was due during the second quarter of 2022.
Turning to the balance sheet. Our look through net debt to EBITDA, which includes our pro rata share of joint venture debt and NOI and our perpetual preferred issuances stands at 6.4x, which remains the best level achieved since we began disclosing this metric over a decade ago. This level does not include any potential benefit from monetizing our Albertsons investment, which has a current market value of over $1 billion. As mentioned earlier, our liquidity position remains strong with $2.3 billion of immediate availability comprised of $300 million in cash and our $2 billion revolving credit facility as well as our Albertsons investment.
With respect to capital activity, during the second quarter 2022, we judiciously utilized our ATM program to issue 450,000 shares of common stock at a weighted average price per share of $25.3 raising $11.3 million. In addition, we repurchased $36.1 million of our 3-38 notes due in June of 2023, and $11 million of our 3-3/8 notes due in October 2022. We also repurchased $3.6 million of our outstanding preferred stock. Lastly, we repaid $30 million of consolidated mortgage debt during the quarter and have a $290 million bond as our only remaining consolidated debt maturity for 2022.
Also worth noting, over 99% of our outstanding consolidated debt is at a fixed rate having a weighted average maturity of nearly 9 years.
Based on the strong results for the first half of 2022 and our expectations for the remainder of the year, we are again increasing our 2022 NAREIT FFO per share guidance range to $1.54 to $1.57 from the previous range of $1.50 to $1.53. The new range is based on the following assumptions: positive same-site NOI growth for the full year, a range of $1 million to $6 million of credit loss for the remainder of the year, no additional charges associated with debt prepayment or the redemption of our callable preferred issuances that are outstanding and no monetization of our Albertsons investment.
Separately, we want to call out something important with respect to interest expense to your 2023 models. As a reminder, the reduction in the fair market value adjustment associated with the Weingarten debt we assumed will result in approximately $13 million more of interest expense over that in 2022. To better illustrate this, we expanded our disclosure on the consolidated debt detail page in our supplemental package.
Moving on to our dividend. Based on our strong second quarter results and favorable outlook, our Board of Directors has again raised the quarterly cash dividend for the third consecutive quarter to a new level of $0.22 per common share. This represents an increase of 10% from the previous level of $0.20 per common share and 29.4% over the $0.17 per common share paid a year ago.
We continue to maintain a dividend distribution level, which is in line with estimated taxable income from recurring operations and expect to generate over $200 million of free cash flow after the payment of both dividends and leasing capex. We truly appreciate and thank the entire Kimco team for their outstanding efforts and drive to create shareholder value.
And now we are ready to take your questions.