Joey Agree
Analyst · Raymond James
Thank you, Keith. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us for Agree Realty's first quarter 2016 earnings call. Joining me this morning is Matt Partridge, our Chief Financial Officer. We are pleased to report that 2016 is off to a strong start. In the first quarter we invested over $38 million in 13 high-quality retail net lease properties. Of those 13 assets, we acquired 12 through our acquisition platform for a total investment of $33.3 million. The acquired properties are located in nine states and are leased to 30 national and super regional tenants operating in nine diverse retail sectors including the entertainment retail, specialty retail, quick service restaurant, discount and auto services sectors. The properties were purchased at a weighted average cap rate of 7.9% with the weighted average remaining lease term of approximately seven years. Our first quarter acquisitions combined with our robust pipeline puts us well on our way to achieving our targeted 2016 acquisition volume of $175 million to $200 million. We are currently conducting diligence on a number of opportunities comprised of both individual assets as well as portfolios. On to the development front, we continue to see more opportunities to leverage our unique capabilities for a number of national and super regional retailers. As previously announced, the company completed its hobby-lobby project in Springfield, Ohio, during the first quarter of 2016. The property, which is shadow anchored by Wal-mart is located in a dominant retail trade area and is subject to a new 15-year lease. The development was completed ahead of schedule at a total cost of approximately $5 million. In addition to the company's recently completed hobby-lobby development, construction has commenced in our previously announced Burger King and Farr West, Utah. The development has a total cost of approximately $1.6 million and is the inaugural project of our previously disclosed partnership with Meridian Restaurant to develop up to 10 Burger King locations. The company-own a 100% fee interest in the property upon the project completion though we anticipate rent to commence in the third quarter of this year. Subsequent to quarter end, we commenced construction on our second Burger King project in partnership with Meridian in Devils Lake, North Dakota, which like Farr West will be subject to a new 20-year lease. These projects are in addition to our Wawa in Orlando Florida, our Chick-fil-A in Frankfort, Kentucky, as well as our Starbucks in Lakeland, Florida, all of which are currently under construction. We also continue to make significant progress in our partnered capital solutions platform. Our three differentiated external growth platforms give us the capability to work with retailers at various points in their growth cycles. An ability that has positioned us a comprehensive solution and an uncommon and differentiated growth model in the net lease sector. As we continue to leverage our three external growth platforms, we look forward to updating you if these opportunities take shape. We have maintained our discipline bottoms up underwriting approach emphasizing real estate fundamentals. We continue to couple that emphasis with the top down focus on ecommerce resisting retail sectors. Our industry leading portfolio was wholly-concentrated in retail net lease properties and represents a very well diversified mix of tenants, retail sectors and geography. As of March 31, 2016, our growing retail net lease portfolio span 42 states and consisted of 291 properties with leading tenants that operate in over 25 distinct retail sectors. By nearly any measure our portfolio continues to be among the strongest in the net lease space. It is comprised almost exclusively of national and super regional retailers with over 50% of annualized rents coming from tenants with an investment grade credit rating. In addition to our current acquisition, development and partner capital solutions opportunities, we continue to believe that our portfolio has unique value that is attributable to our ground leased assets where the company is a fee simple owner and groundless or to leading retailers. With over 8% of our total base rental income derived from these ground leases, we feel that the portfolio presents an extremely appealing risk-adjusted investment for our shareholders. Currently 88% of these ground leases are with tenants that have investment grade credit ratings, including JPMorgan Chase, McDonald's, all the PMC, Wal-mart, Lowe's and Wawa. These assets are a direct reflection of the value that we can add through our development platform. Overall portfolio occupancy rate remain 99.5% at the end of Q1. Hence our portfolio continues to be effectively fully occupied and has a weighted average remaining lease term of 11.2 years. These metrics demonstrate a stable and long-term asset base. As we look to our lease maturity schedule, we are in a fantastic position to maintain strong occupancy levels throughout the remainder of 2016 and into 2017. We now have no remaining lease maturities in 2016. Last but not least, I'd like to thank our many loyal shareholders for their continued support through a combination of share price appreciation and dividend growth, the company realized a total return of nearly 15% in the first quarter of 2016 representing one of the highest total shareholder returns in the retail net lease space. With that, I will turn it over to Matt to discuss our first quarter 2016 financial results. Matt?