Joey Agree
Analyst · Janney. Please go ahead
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us for Agree Realty's second quarter 2018 earnings call and mid -year update. Joining me this morning is Clay Thelen, our Chief Financial Officer. I am very pleased to report that we had another very strong quarter with our team executing across all aspects of our operating strategy. In addition to reporting on our second quarter performance, I look forward to providing a mid-year update and then lastly welcoming two fantastic additions to our Board of Directors. In conjunction with the call this morning, we've posted a few slides to our home page as well as sec.gov. Building upon momentum from the first quarter, we continue to strengthen and diversify our industry leading portfolio through strategic investment activity and proactive asset management. Investment capital deployed across our three external growth platforms in the quarter totaled more than $104 million among 29 high quality retail net lease properties. Of those 29 investments, 23 were stores through our acquisition platform representing total acquisition volume of approximately $102 million. The properties were acquired in weighted average cap rate of 7.2% and had a weighted average remaining lease term of 12.4 four years. Notably, more than 61 % of the annualized base rent acquired during the quarter is derived from tenants with an investment grade credit rating. The acquired properties are located in 16 states operating in 12 diverse sectors, including home improvement, health and fitness, convenience stores, auto parts and tire auto service. Notable retailers acquired during the quarter include Home Depot, LA Fitness, Best Buy, O'Reilly Auto Parts and National Tire & Battery. Through the first six months of the year, we've invested a record $207 million into more than 60 retail net leased properties geographically dispersed throughout 23 states. Of the $207 million invested during the first half of 2018, approximately $201 million was source to our acquisition platform. The 53 properties acquired in the first half year are leased to 30 leading retail tenants operating in 15 distinct sectors. These properties were acquired at a weighted average cap rate of 7.2% with the weighted average remaining lease term of 30 years. Approximately half of the annualized base rent acquired in the first two quarters comes from retailers with an investment grade credit rating. Our focus is and will remain on industry-leading operators where brick-and-mortar retail play an integral role in their omni-channel strategy. Given our record acquisition volume to the first half of the year, and our very strong pipeline, we are increasing our 2018 acquisition guidance to a range of $350 million to $400 million. Our acquisition team and our many partners have done a fantastic job securing the highest-quality opportunities. While raising our acquisition guidance for the year, I want to reiterate that our investment standards are more rigorous than they have ever been. We remain intently focused on the best operators and on retail, real estate fundamentals including adaptability, synergy, visibility demographics, traffic patterns and access. This focus has further strengthened our best-in-class portfolio which is of the highest quality has ever been in the company's history. The quality of our portfolio is evidenced by the continued transformation of the company's top tenant roster. In the past year, Academy Sports, rite-aid, BJ's Wholesale, 24-hour Fitness and Burger King Franchise, the Meridian restaurants have all been eliminated from our top tenant list. The past quarter we are pleased to have added O'Reilly Auto Parts and Best Buy as top tenants in our portfolio. These two leading operators complement the recent editions of the TJX companies, AutoZone and Dave & Buster's to our top tenant list. You can anticipate that our portfolio will continue to evolve as we proactively embrace the dynamic retail environment. We intend to lead through this dynamic retail period to the acquisition of the highest-quality real estate, leads to the strongest omni-channel retailers or those that have a significant mode around their business model. Turning to our development and partner capital solutions platforms. During the first six months of 2018, we had 10 developments in PCS projects either completed or under construction that represent total committed capital of approximately $52 million. During the second quarter, we completed our third Camping World. The project located in Grand Rapids, Michigan is subject to a new 20 year net lease and had total cost of approximately $9.6 million. The company also commenced its second project with leading Burger Kings franchisee, TOMS King during the second quarter with total anticipated cost of approximately $2 million. The project is located in Aurora, Illinois and is subject to a new 20 year net lease. Construction continued during the quarter on four projects. The development include the company's first PCS project with all the Chickasha, Oklahoma, the company's first project with Burlington Coat in Nampa, Idaho, and the company's third and fourth development with Mister Car Wash in Orlando and Tavares, Florida. While we had a record six months of investment activity across our three external growth platforms, we've also look to strengthen and diversify our portfolio to proactive asset management and disposition efforts. During this past quarter, we sold five properties for gross proceeds of approximately $11 million. These dispositions were completed at a weighted average cap rate of 7.1%. Included in these dispositions were the Walgreens and Waterford Michigan as well as a number of franchise fast food restaurants. Through June 30th, we have now disposed 10 properties for gross proceeds of approximately $28 million and the weighted average cap rate of these dispositions was roughly 7.3%. Given our disposition activities through the first six months of the year, and our increased visibility into these activities, we are increasing our 2018 disposition guidance to $50 million to $75 million for the year. The increased guidance highlights our commitment to proactively managing our portfolio in line with our previously stated goals. This increase is supported by approximately $12 million in assets held for sale at the end of the second quarter. Subsequent to quarter end, we sold our only Shopko located in Boston, Wisconsin, thereby eliminating any exposure to the company. Additionally, post quarter close we completed the disposition of Walgreens in Delta township, Michigan further reducing our Walgreens exposure which currently stand at 6.7%. This is a decrease of approximately 210 basis points since the second quarter of last year and more than 2,000 basis points since the end of 2013. Similarly, our pharmacy exposure stood at 10.7% at quarter end and now stands at 10.5% inclusive of the aforementioned sale of the Walgreens in Delta Township. This represents the reduction of approximately 320 basis points since the second quarter of 2017 and almost 2,700 basis points since the end of 2013. Our asset management team has been focused on leveraging our relationships with our retail partners to proactively address upcoming lease maturities. As a result of these efforts, we've just three remaining lease maturities in 2018, representing 0.3% of annualized base rent. 80% of the annualized base rent expiring this year is attributable to our two key mart locations in Mount Pleasant, Michigan and Frankfurt, Kentucky. Kmart sales exercise options at both locations and we look forward to the opportunities to redevelop both sites and create additional value. As I mentioned on last quarter's call, we've executed a 15 years lease with Hobby Lobby in Mount Pleasant, Michigan for the construction of a new 50,000 square foot prototype. We anticipate demolish of the former Kmart will begin this quarter with rent commencing in the second half of 2019. As previously discussed, we are also nearing announcement with several retailers in Frankfurt, Kentucky. We've executed letter of intent with three tenants and look forward to update you on our redevelopment progress next quarter. As of June 30th, our growing retail portfolio consisted of 481 properties located in 44 states. Our tenants are comprised primarily of the industry leading retailers in over 28 diverse retail sectors with more than 46% of annualized base rent coming from tenant that carry an investment grade credit rating. The portfolio remains effectively fully occupied in 99.7% and has a weighted average remaining lease term of 10.2 years. We continue to believe there is ground lease portfolio present an extremely attractive risk adjusted investment for our shareholders. Our ground lease portfolio continuously to represent more than 7% of annualized base rent and includes leading retailers such Lowe's, Walmart, Home Depot, Wawa, Aldi, Chick-fil-A and McDonald. At quarter end, nearly 90% of our ground lease portfolio derived its rent from retailers that carry an investment grade credit rating. Before I turn the call over to Clay to discuss our second quarter and first half 2018 financial results, on behalf of the entire Board of Directors I'd like to welcome both Craig Erlich and Greg Lehmkuhl to our board. After an in-depth wedding process, we are confident that both will provide unique perspectives that will be invaluable to our growing organization. By way of background, Craig Erlich is a Senior Vice President and General Manager of the George P Johnson Company, a global experience real marketing firm with 30 offices worldwide. George P Johnson's clients include global leaders in manufacturing, finance entertainment and technology. And Craig has full responsibility for operations at its world headquarters here in Detroit as well as its Nashville facility. Craig has deep leadership experience, notably in the context of a growing organization and his entrepreneurial background is a great fit for our team. Greg Lehmkuhl is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lineage Logistics and oversees all facets of the company's global operations. Many of you are most likely familiar with Lineage which today is the second largest cold storage provider in the world. Greg's operational expertise and background in lean continuous improvement is an ideal fit for our growing portfolio and organization. With that I'll turn the call over to Clay to discuss our financial results.