Curbline Properties Corp. 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to Curbline Properties' third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, David Lukes, and Chief Financial Officer, Conor Fennerty. In addition to the press release distributed this morning, we have posted our quarterly financial supplement and slide presentation on our website at curbline.com, which are intended to support our prepared remarks during today's call. Please be aware that certain of our statements today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Additional information may be found in our earnings press release and in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q.

In addition, we'll be discussing non-GAAP financial measures on today's call, including FFO, operating FFO, and same-property net operating income. Descriptions and reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's quarterly financial supplement and investor presentation. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chief Executive Officer, David Lukes.

Good morning, and welcome to Curbline Properties' third quarter conference call. Third quarter results highlight a continuation of trends from the first half of the year, with more than $300 million of investments and fundraising, providing ample liquidity and capital to drive significant growth into the fourth quarter in 2027. Given that our company celebrated its two-year anniversary just a few weeks ago, I wanted to start with some details on what we've accomplished to date before pivoting to what we are seeing in the market and some operational highlights. I'll then turn it over to Conor to walk through quarterly results and our guidance increase.

As many of you know, Curbline was spun off from our predecessor on October 1, 2024, with a simple and focused strategy as the only pure play REIT dedicated to convenience real estate, which we believe offers sustainable capital-efficient growth in excess of the retail real estate industry. Our clear first-mover advantage has allowed us to construct an unmatched portfolio in this unique sector and scale the fragmented but liquid convenience marketplace. in the two-year period since spin-off, we have acquired just over $1.7 billion of convenience centers, almost entirely on an individual basis. We funded these acquisitions with $800 million of cash on hand at the time of the spin-off, plus an additional $1.6 billion of capital raised, including almost $1 billion of common equity.

This net investment activity, along with greater than 3% same-property growth in 2024 and 2025, and retained cash flow stemming from the capital-light nature of this sector, has led to significant per-share earnings growth on both an absolute and relative basis. Specifically, annualized OFFO growth has grown from $0.91 per share in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $1.28 per share if you annualize the third quarter of 2026, which is an increase of over 41%. It has also led to compelling total return for shareholders, with shares outperforming the REIT index by over 30% and the shopping center peers by a similar amount.

We are all obviously incredibly proud of our accomplishments to date, but what is most encouraging in our view is that we are still in the early stages of our company's growth plan, and we are highly focused on the large addressable market in front of us within this unique and capital-efficient business. Putting Curbline in context, at the end of the third quarter, we owned 239 convenience centers, as compared to ICSC's estimate of over 68,000 convenience shopping centers in the country. Not every property will fit our mandate, but it is clear to us that there is a meaningful stream of opportunities available to us that are consistent with the assets we own or want to own, and we are making sure that we are positioned with the right team in the right place to win.

For the current year, we have acquired just over $800 million of assets through last Friday, and now expect to exceed our prior expectation of $1 billion of total investments, with visibility on our pipeline through the early part of next year. What is interesting to note is that the addition to the themes I have called out previously, including our marketing efforts, our extensive brokerage network, and the generational tailwinds as owners look to monetize their assets for their families or heirs. You will notice this past quarter that we acquired four properties that are immediately adjacent to or part of our existing centers. If I look at our pipeline, we have a handful of additional acquisitions of adjacent properties extending another potential path for Curbline's growth. We expect this theme or trend to continue going forward with our boots on the ground driving this effort.

In each case, we continue to filter our acquisition opportunities by the factors most accretive to long-term cash flow growth: primary vehicular corridors, strong demographics, high traffic counts, and creditworthy tenants. Simple, flexible buildings with a straightforward row of shops support an extremely wide range of tenants, and the result is a growing Curbline portfolio of highly diversified credit tenants with limited capital needs over time. Moving to operations, we continue to see the elevated demand for space and signed just under 170,000 square feet of new leases and renewals this quarter. Trailing 12-month spreads remain consistent with our five-year averages as the shortage of space in the affluent markets where we operate continues to lead the attractive leasing economics.

Importantly, as I noted last quarter, commencement of our SNO pipeline started to pick up at the tail end of the third quarter, with the majority of our almost $8 million SNO pipeline expected to commence by March of next year. This operational tailwind, along with the aforementioned investment activity, is driving significant earnings growth with our raised guidance representing over 18% growth, which is among the highest in the entire REIT sector. In terms of same-property growth, third quarter growth of 3.4% accelerated as we expected, with Conor providing more details on this later. Our capital expenditures also remain well below 10% of NOI, placing us among the most capital-efficient operators in the entire public REIT sector, an important hallmark of the convenience asset class and a differentiator in a rising rate environment.

In summary, we remain incredibly optimistic about the opportunity ahead for Curbline as we exclusively focus on the fragmented convenience real estate sector in an effort to deliver compelling relative and absolute growth for stakeholders. I'd like to thank everyone at Curbline for their contributions that have positioned us and the company for outperformance. With that, I'll turn it over to Conor.

Thanks, David. I'll start with third quarter earnings and operating metrics before shifting to the company's revised 2026 guidance and then conclude with the balance sheet. Third quarter NOI was ahead of plan, driven in part by higher year-over-year occupancy and recoveries. Total NOI was up 11% sequentially and over 50% year-over-year, driven by acquisitions along with organic growth. Outside of the quarterly operational outperformance, there are no other material variances for the quarter, highlighting the simplicity of the Curbline income statement and business plan. In the third quarter, we recorded a gross up of $1.8 million of non-cash G&A expense, which is offset by $1.8 million of non-cash other income. This gross up, which is a product of the shared services agreement and nets to zero net income, is expected to continue through the third quarter of 2027 and is excluded from any G&A figures or targets.

In terms of operating metrics, the lease rate was effectively unchanged sequentially, down 10 basis points to 96.4%. Occupancy was up 20 basis points sequentially and 60 basis points year-over-year as we begin to see the impact of rent commencements. Trailing 12-month leasing volume continues to grind higher on elevated activity and portfolio growth. Though quarterly volumes and figures remain volatile, given the lack of available space in the portfolio. As David noted, we remain encouraged by the amount of activity and depth of demand for available space. As expected, same property NOI accelerated in the third quarter to 3.4%, with base rent growth of 2.8% and an easier comparison as compared to the second quarter on recoveries. Importantly, this growth was generated by limited capital expenditures with trailing 12-month CapEx of less than 8% of NOI.

Moving to our outlook for 2026, we are increasing OFFO guidance to a range between $1.25 and $1.27 per share, which at the midpoint represents just over 18% growth. We believe that this level of growth will be the highest, certainly in the retail space and among the highest in the entire REIT sector. Underpinning the midpoint of the range is, one, just over $1 billion of full-year investments. Two, CapEx as a percentage of NOI of less than 10%. And three, G&A of roughly $32 million, which includes fees paid to SITE Centers as part of the shared services agreement. Those fees totaled $1.4 million in the third quarter. In terms of same property NOI, we are now forecasting growth of 2.5%-4% in 2026, following 3.3% in 2025 and 5.8% in 2024.