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

Page 9 of 11

Lisa Palmer : That prioritization has not changed. The best use of our capital has been and will continue to be the developments and redevelopments. We get the best returns. We have a really successful track record of delivering our underwriting and the underwritten returns that we disclosed to you, which are clearly a premium over competitive bidding acquisition market. At the same time, we do have the capital to invest, as I just stated. And if we are able to check those boxes of accretive to earnings, accretive to quality and accretive to our future growth rate, then we will invest in high-quality shopping centers as well. We’ve been successful with that. We had quite an active — really the past two years, we’ve been successful in closing on shopping centers that check all three of those boxes, some off-market and one or two that were actually competitive bidding as well.

And share repurchases, we’ve had the opportunity to take advantage of what we believe to be a significant dislocation in the market a few times in the history of Regency, and we will continue to use that arrow in our quiver when the opportunity presents itself.

Tayo Okusanya : Great, thank you.

Operator: Our next question is from Paulina Rojas with Green Street. Please proceed with your question.

Paulina Rojas: Good morning, and — so transactions are spars and having a retool on pricing, it’s more difficult than it was before, but there are still hundreds of millions of dollars of exchanging hands. So what in your assessment of how pricing for your product has changed since, let’s say, the peak last year?

Lisa Palmer : I’m going to Paulina, going to — I’ll let Nick handle this as he’s — again, we haven’t been active, as you’ve seen from the results as I said, the market is falling, transaction activity is still pretty thin. But Nick’s team is the one along with Barry Argos are really kind of farming those opportunities. So I’ll let Nick address that.

Nick Wibbenmeyer : Appreciate it. Thank you for the question, Paulina. I don’t have a lot to add. As Lisa said, there just aren’t specific data points we can point to yet. However, we do expect here in the next 60 to 90 days as some of these transactions that have come to market and we are seeing real competition for them. There’s solid demand for our type of asset, high-quality grocery-anchored assets around the country can continue to be in demand from investors. And so — we do expect to have some specific data points here in the next, call it, 60 to 90 days as some of these deals close. But we’re expecting those to be — to highlight the quality of our assets.

Paulina Rojas: And can you characterize point to a specific segment of investors that are back at the table that have regained confidence? Because we also hear a lot of institutional investors that are selling product and need to sell product today. So how can you characterize the demand at the margin that you are seeing coming back?

Nick Wibbenmeyer : Again, great question. And again, as these deals close, we’ll be able to point to specifically who the buyers were, but what we’re seeing and hearing as these — as our team continues to underwrite and talk about specific transactions is it’s really broad-based. And so it’s institutional investors around the country. And so as much as we’re seeing broad-based in the sellers, we’re seeing broad-based and the buyers. And so I can’t point to a single institution that’s the buyer or the seller right now. It’s broad-based in both respects.

Page 9 of 11