BRIXMOR PROPERTY GROUP INC. 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining Brixmor's third quarter conference call.

With me on the call today are Brian Finnegan, CEO and President, Steve Gallagher, Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Horgan, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that some of our comments today may contain forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, and actual future results may differ materially. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. Also, we will refer today to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Further information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in the earnings release and supplemental disclosure on the investor relations portion of our website.

Given the number of participants on the call, we kindly ask that you limit your questions to one per person. If you have additional questions, please re-queue. We would also note that today's call is intended to focus on our third quarter operating and financial results, and we would appreciate it if questions focused on those topics. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce Brian Finnegan.

Thank you, Stacy, and good morning, everyone. We delivered an exceptional quarter, reflecting continued operating momentum and strong execution across the business. Retailer demand for space in high-quality grocery-anchored centers remains robust. Traffic to our centers continues to grow, and new supply remains limited. While there continues to be volatility in the broader environment, particularly around interest rates, inflation, and the capital markets, the underlying fundamentals of our business remain very healthy. Against that backdrop, we remain focused on what we can control, executing our strategy with discipline and continuing to create value across the Brixmor portfolio. That execution was clearly reflected in our third quarter results. We increased NAREIT FFO per share by 7% over the prior year and grew same property NOI by 6.6%. We returned to our record level of total leased occupancy, generated exceptional leasing economics, and continued to advance our reinvestment pipeline at attractive returns.

Given the strength of our performance during the quarter, we again raised our full-year outlook for both same property NOI and NAREIT FFO per share. Our board also increased the quarterly dividend by more than 7%, reflecting the strong visibility we have into continued earnings and cash flow growth. The strength of the quarter further reinforces our confidence in the Slate transaction announced last month. The opportunity is a natural extension of the strategy we have successfully executed across Brixmor, creating value through redevelopment, occupancy upside, and meaningful rent mark-to-market. Our focus between now and closing is straightforward, making sure we are positioned to begin executing on day one. Our third quarter results provide a clear demonstration of what our platform can deliver. Starting with leasing, we executed approximately 1.6 million square feet of new and renewal leases during the quarter at a blended comparable rent spread of 25%.

New lease spreads were 43%, including anchor spreads above 70%, while renewal spreads exceeded 19%. These results show how effectively our team is capturing the significant mark-to-market embedded in our portfolio, and the gap between our in-place rents and the rents reflected in our forward leasing pipeline gives us a meaningful runway to capture additional mark-to-market over time. Just as importantly, we are using this environment to continue improving the quality and relevance of our centers. During the quarter, we continued to grow our relationships with leading retailers across a range of categories, including multiple leases with Ross and TJX, as well as another new lease with Trader Joe's. Our team also continues to operate with greater speed and efficiency. We completed our eight largest anchor leases during the quarter in less than 60 days, including one with a leading off-price retailer in under 30 days.

Our national retailer relationships, together with the investments we have made in technology and AI, are helping us streamline the leasing process, reduce downtime, and accelerate rent commencement. Ultimately, that allows us to more effectively capitalize on the strong retailer demand we are seeing across the portfolio. That activity drove total leased occupancy to 95.6%, up 80 basis points sequentially and 150 basis points year over year. Small shop occupancy reached a new record of 92.8%, while anchor occupancy increased to 97%. With anchor occupancy still 70 basis points below its prior peak, we see additional upside ahead. Those occupancy gains also benefited from an 88% retention rate, up 300 basis points year over year as tenants continue to succeed at our centers and renew with us at near record rates. Importantly, we continue to have excellent visibility into what comes next.

We ended the quarter with $69 million in our signed but not yet commenced pipeline after commencing approximately $42 million of rent year to date. That pipeline provides a clear bridge between the leasing activity we are generating today and future NOI and earnings growth. Turning to reinvestment, it remains one of the most compelling uses of capital in our business and a key driver of long-term value creation, allowing us to deploy capital into assets we already own at attractive double-digit incremental returns. During the quarter, we stabilized four projects representing $55 million of investment at a 10% average incremental return. We also added six new projects to the active pipeline, representing approximately $37 million at an 11% return. At quarter end, our active pipeline totaled approximately $322 million at an expected return of 10%.

Beyond the active pipeline, we continue to see a substantial runway of high return reinvestment opportunities across the portfolio. The projects we added during the quarter illustrate both the depth and breadth of that opportunity. In Port St. Lucie, Florida, we are redeveloping East Port Plaza to accommodate a new 50,000 square foot Publix prototype. This is our sixth reinvestment project with Publix, with several more already identified in our future pipeline. At Westridge Court and Block 59 in suburban Chicago, we are building on the successful first phase of the transformation with the addition of a 97,000 square foot IKEA, the retailer's first large format location in our portfolio. We also continue to build momentum in our outparcel program, adding three projects during the quarter and bringing our year to date total to 13. We see a deep pool of opportunities to further densify our centers and generate attractive returns.

Turning to transactions, we acquired Village West Shopping Center in Southern California for approximately $50 million during the quarter. The center is anchored by a high-performing Stater Bros. grocery store and is exactly the type of acquisition we target: high quality, grocery-anchored real estate, where our platform can create additional value through leasing, remerchandising, and reinvestment. We also completed approximately $43 million of dispositions, bringing year to date proceeds to approximately $166 million. Importantly, these sales are consistent with the capital recycling strategy we have been executing independent of Slate. We are selectively monetizing assets where we believe we have substantially completed our value creation plan and can redeploy those proceeds into opportunities offering more attractive long-term growth and returns.

Despite higher rates, demand for grocery-anchored, open-air retail remains deep, giving us confidence in our ability to continue executing our capital recycling strategy while remaining disciplined on pricing and certainty of execution. The core business has tremendous momentum. Occupancy is at record levels with additional upside ahead. We have meaningful embedded rent mark-to-market, and our reinvestment pipeline continues to generate attractive opportunities across the portfolio. Slate provides another meaningful avenue to put our platform and capabilities to work and extend that growth over time. Most importantly, our team continues to execute at a very high level, and I want to thank everyone at Brixmor for another outstanding quarter. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve for a deeper review of our financial results and updated 2026 outlook.

Steve? Thanks, Brian. Our third quarter results reflect another period of strong execution across the portfolio, with growth in same property NOI and FFO supported by continued strength in the underlying business.

Same property NOI increased 6.6%, driven by a 480 basis point contribution from base rent, with healthy occupancy growth, strong expense recoveries, and contributions from ancillary and other income also benefiting results. NAREIT FFO grew over 7% to $0.60 per share. That core performance is reflected in our updated outlook for the year. We increased our expectations for same property NOI growth of 5.5%-5.75%, and FFO per share of $2.36-$2.38, reflecting the strength of our year to date results, including same property NOI growth of 6.2% year to date. The increase reflects broad-based strength across all components of NOI, supported by our team's execution and the favorable operating environment.