Regency Centers Corporation (NASDAQ:REG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 4 of 11

Alan Roth : Yeah. Really well said, Lisa. I think the only thing left to answer there, Floris, is where is the peak occupancy? And that’s at 93% historically. And so we are at 92% on a shop occupancy perspective right now and again, as I said, we feel really good about kind of where our pipeline is and what remains in our ability to not only get there, but hopefully, we can exceed that.

Floris Van Dijkum : Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could walk through the assumptions behind base rent growth seeing that as the primary driver of 23% same-store NOI guidance. What exactly are you assuming for contractual rent in-place rents and then the commencement of rent from redevelopment? Or if you could just talk about your strategy on how you’re balancing the Street?

Michael Mas : Sure. I’ll walk through the components and Lisa or Alan may provide some color from a strategy perspective. North of 3% base rent growth, you got it right, and we’re excited about that opportunity in 2023. It’s really coming from a combination of several things, as I talked about earlier with Michael’s question with respect to our NOI growth algorithm. So rent steps, that’s the bread and butter of our growth profile. It’s been a — the positive contribution has been in the 140 basis point range for a long time, and we’re trying with every lease to move that needle as we continue to embed higher and higher contractual rent increases. Rent spreads continue to be a positive contribution. You saw a 7%-plus outcome in 2022.

That will translate to growth in ’23. That will be in that call it, 75 basis point area. It depends on timing from that perspective on rent commencement from a delivery perspective. What we’re really excited about is now that we’re starting to contribute from a redevelopment perspective. We’ve talked about this $15 million of NOI that’s coming online from our redevelopment and development pipeline. A lot of that is from the redevelopment pipeline. It will come through our same-property NOI growth line item. We strategically try to deliver 25 to 75 basis points of impact to NOI growth. I will say with this pipeline that we are delivering at this point in time, we should be at the upper end of that range. And then I made some comments in the remarks around our outlook for occupancy.

We’ve made tremendous strides in moving that commenced rate in 2022. We will continue to deliver our SNO pipeline, hopefully, maybe even a little sooner in 2023. But now we’re getting into the impact of the credit loss and the BK reserve. So that could be a bit of a dampening impact depending on how the bankruptcies play out over the course of ’23. Those would be the contributing factors to face rent growth.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thank you. Another follow-up, I was wondering what is included in your assumptions for the $65 million of dispositions baked within guidance at a 7% cap rate? Is this just based on what you’re seeing in the market? Or is that kind of an estimated — just an allocation for now? Thanks.

Michael Mas : It’s specifically identified projects. They are actually a collection of assets coming from one of our larger JV portfolio. So that’s — we’ve long been a — we’ve long believed in kind of culling the bottom of our portfolio, whether it’s wholly owned assets or JV properties. It’s one of the reasons why our exposure to risk is so minimal. It’s just Regency’s active commitment to calling on a limited basis, lower-quality, nonstrategic, lower-growth assets. So this — the $65 million is just that specifically identified projects. Note the timing expectations there are an assumption that could move around. But it’s just a placeholder for now on those identified projects.

Page 4 of 11