Kevin Habicht
Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead
Alright. Thanks, Steve. And as usual, I will start with the cautionary statement that we will make certain statements that maybe considered to be forward-looking statements under federal securities law. The company’s actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward-looking statements and we may not release revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect changes after the statements were made. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time-to-time in greater detail in the company’s filings with the SEC and in this morning’s press release. Okay. With that, headlines from this morning’s press release report quarterly core FFO results of $0.79 per share for the third quarter of 2022, that’s up $0.08 or 11.3% over year ago results of $0.71 per share. The year-to-date 9-month core FFO results were $2.35 per share and that’s an 11.4% increase over year ago results. Today, we also reported that AFFO per share was $0.81 per share for the third quarter and that’s up $0.06 per share or 8% over prior year results. We did footnote third quarter AFFO included $1.7 million of deferred rent prepayment and our accrued rental income adjustment for the third quarter without which would have produced AFFO of $0.80 per share for the quarter. Likewise, in the first 9 months of 2022, AFFO included $4.7 million of deferred rent repayments in our accrued rental income adjustment, without which would have produced AFFO of $2.38 per share for the 9 months of 2022 and that represents a 10.2% increase over the similarly adjusted $2.16 results for 2021. So as these scheduled deferred rent repayments continue to taper off from peak levels in 2021, we are starting to see the improved results kicking in from our recent acquisitions over recent quarters and years. Excluding the deferred rent repayments, our AFFO dividend payout ratio for the first 9 months of 2022 was approximately 65% and that suggests we will create approximately $190 million of free cash flow after the payment of all expenses and dividends for the full year 2022. As Steve mentioned, occupancy was 99.4% at quarter end, that’s up 40 basis points for the year. G&A expense we reported today was $10.1 million for the third quarter and that’s down from $11.1 million year ago levels. We ended the quarter with $752.8 million of annual base rent in place for all leases as of September 30, 2022 and that’s our first time over $750 million. Today, we did increase our 2022 core FFO per share guidance from a range of $3.07 to $3.12 per share to a new range of $3.11 to $3.15 per share. And similarly, we increased the AFFO guidance to a range of $3.18 to $3.22 per share. The guidance midpoints for both the core FFO and AFFO were increased by $0.035 or 1.1% compared to the prior quarter guidance. The supporting assumptions for our 2022 guidance are on Page 7 of today’s press release and are modestly fine-tuned from our last quarter guidance, including $25 million increase and the acquisition volume midpoint. As usual, we do not give guidance on any of our assumptions for capital markets activities, except for the general assumption that over the long-term, we are going to behave in a fairly leverage-neutral manner. But really, the most important takeaway from all this is that we expect to grow core FFO per share results in 2022 by about 9% to the new guidance midpoint. This is a very good year for us, what I would call above our target trend line of mid single-digits per share growth over the long-term. Admittedly, 2022 was aided by some tailwinds, including some of the refinancing we did in 2021 most notably, redeeming our 5.2% preferred stock, which saved us approximately $0.03 per share as well as $3.3 million increase or about $0.02 a share increase in our cash basis deferred rent repayments in 2022 compared to the prior year. And additionally, we did have one less executive position, which generated some G&A savings in 2022. So, that all helped 2022 results, those tailwinds. Like seemingly the vast majority of REITs, we will publish our 2023 guidance in early February when we report our year end results. It’s always somewhat of a challenge to project acquisition volume and cap rates. But in this transition period of rising capital cost, pushing up cap rates, it’s more difficult to make that projection today than it has been in the past. So, the shifting price discovery sans of acquisition cap rates and capital costs has compelled us to wait until early February to publish our ‘23 guidance. Having said that, we are still optimistic that we will be able to continue to grow per share results next year despite the high bar created by the 9% plus growth in our 2022 results as well as the continuing headwind from the reduction in our cash basis tenant deferred rent repayments, which are scheduled to decline from $9.1 million in 2022 to $3.3 million in 2023 as can be seen on the schedule on Page 13 of today’s press release. One important element to support our expectation for continued growth in 2023 results is the position of our balance sheet and liquidity. The third quarter was fairly quiet in terms of capital markets activity. We were fairly active and very active in the debt markets in 2021 and not unhappy with that decision. We did issue $97 million of equity in the third quarter of ATM executing trades around the $47 per share level. But despite acquiring $223 million of properties in the quarter and $588 million in the first 9 months of the year, we ended the third quarter with only $47.5 million outstanding on our $1.1 billion unsecured bank line and that’s just a small increase over the prior quarter’s $40 million outstanding. So our liquidity is in excellent shape. Our weighted average debt maturity is now approximately 14 years. Our next debt maturity is $350 million, with a 3.9% coupon in mid-2024. And with the exception of our small balance outstanding on our bank line, all of our debt outstanding is fixed rate debt. A couple of stats, our net book to gross book assets was 40.3% and that’s been relatively flat for the year. Net debt-to-EBITDA was 5.3x at September 30 and that’s down 10 basis points from the prior quarter. Interest leverage and fixed charge coverage of 4.7x for the third quarter. And again, that’s relatively flat with recent quarters. So we are in very good shape to produce strong core FFO per share growth. Current 2022 core FFO guidance is suggesting about 9% growth to the midpoint with some tailwinds that put us above our typical growth rate, 2023 should continue that growth despite the absence of some of those tailwinds that we had in 2022. Our focus remains on growing per share results over the long-term. We think the asset growth focus acquisition volume content in many sectors over recent past quarters and years has downshifted materially as the market the marketplace seeks to adjust to the new environment and appears to be getting a little more disciplined on price. If so, we think renewed investor focus on per share results and managing balance sheets will accrue to our benefit. But time will tell. While there is currently an increased level of increased economic and capital market uncertainty, we think we’re reasonably well positioned for such. So only with that, we will open it up to any questions.