Postal Realty Trust on track for 2024 acquisitions By Investing.com

Postal Realty Trust (NYSE: NYSE:) has reported a steady first quarter for 2024, meeting expectations and maintaining a positive outlook for the year. The real estate investment trust, which specializes in properties leased to the U.S. Postal Service, announced that it is on course to meet its full-year acquisition guidance of $80 million, with acquisitions made at an average cap rate surpassing the targeted 7.5%. The company also declared a slight increase in its quarterly dividend and emphasized its strong financial position, with full rent collection and a high lease retention rate.

Key Takeaways

• Postal Realty Trust added 29 properties worth $19 million in Q1 at a weighted average cap rate of 7.8%.
• The company is actively sourcing new prospects with a strong pipeline and remains focused on Postal real estate.
• They raised $14 million of equity capital and kept leverage low.
• 100% of contractual rents were collected, and lease retention rate stands at 99%.
• A quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share was approved, marking a 1.1% increase from Q1 2023.

Company Outlook

• Postal Realty Trust is optimistic about meeting its full-year 2024 acquisitions guidance.
• The company anticipates recurring capital expenditures to be between $150,000 and $200,000 in Q2.
• Total cash G&A expense for 2024 is expected to range from $9.5 million to $9.8 million.

Bearish Highlights

• Higher interest rates and reduced bank financing could impact small owners’ ability to refinance postal assets, although this is not a major driver of deal flow for the company.

Bullish Highlights

• The company has a strong pipeline of potential acquisitions and is confident in the specialized market of Postal real estate.
• Escalators have been put in place for all 2022 leases, and future escalators will be negotiated based on inflation and operating costs.

Misses

• There were no significant misses reported in the earnings call.

Q&A Highlights

• The company’s guidance change is not based on acquisitions or near-term releases.
• Sellers are motivated, but cap rates are being negotiated on a deal-by-deal basis.
• The company is hopeful that deal velocity will increase and guidance may be adjusted later in the year.
• Postal Realty Trust remains confident in its business model and tenant relationships.

Postal Realty Trust has started the year with a strong first quarter, showing resilience in a challenging market environment. The company’s focus on Postal real estate continues to pay off with a high lease retention rate and full rent collection. Their proactive approach to acquisitions and careful financial management positions them well for the remainder of the year. Investors will likely watch the company’s progress closely, particularly in light of the current interest rate landscape and its potential effects on the real estate market.

InvestingPro Insights

Postal Realty Trust (NYSE: PSTL) has demonstrated a commendable performance in the first quarter of 2024, and an examination of real-time data from InvestingPro offers additional insights into the company’s financial health and market position.

InvestingPro Data indicates a robust revenue growth of 16.45% over the last twelve months as of Q1 2024, underscoring the company’s successful expansion strategy. The dividend yield, as of a recent date, stands at an attractive 6.98%, reflecting the company’s commitment to returning value to shareholders. Additionally, the market capitalization of Postal Realty Trust is currently valued at 388.25 million USD, highlighting its stable presence in the market.

An InvestingPro Tip to note is that Postal Realty Trust has raised its dividend for 5 consecutive years, a testament to its financial stability and reliability as an income-generating investment. Another pertinent InvestingPro Tip is that analysts predict the company will be profitable this year, which aligns with the positive outlook presented in the company’s quarterly report.

For investors seeking a deeper analysis, there are 7 additional InvestingPro Tips available, which can provide more nuanced perspectives on the company’s performance and potential. To access these tips and benefit from the full scope of InvestingPro’s expertise, investors can use the coupon code PRONEWS24 to get an additional 10% off a yearly or biyearly Pro and Pro+ subscription.

The real-time data and tips provided by InvestingPro not only reaffirm the company’s current financial health but also offer investors a broader context for Postal Realty Trust’s investment potential in the dynamic real estate market.

Full transcript – Postal Realty Trust Inc (PSTL) Q1 2024:

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, greetings and welcome to the Postal Realty Trust First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Jordan Cooperstein, Vice President of FPNA Capital Markets. Please go ahead, sir.

Jordan Cooperstein: Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to Postal Realty Trust first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. On the call with me today we have Andrew Spodek, Chief Executive Officer; Jeremy Garber, President; Robert Klein, Chief Financial Officer; and Matt Brandwein, Chief Accounting Officer. Please note the company may use forward-looking statements on this conference call, which are statements that are not historical facts and are considered forward looking. These forward-looking statements are covered by the Safe Harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements and will be affected by a variety of risks and factors that are beyond the company’s control, including but not limited to, those contained in the company’s latest 10-K and its other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company does not assume and specifically disclaims any obligations to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Additionally, on this conference call, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as funds from operations, adjusted funds from operations, adjusted EBITDA, and net debt. You can find a tabular reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most currently comparable GAAP measures in the company’s earnings release and supplemental materials. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrew Spodek, Chief Executive Officer of Postal Realty Trust.

Andrew Spodek: Good morning and thank you for joining us. I’m pleased that our success in 2023 has continued into the current year. Our first quarter acquisition pace and weighted average cap rate were slightly ahead of the same period last year. We added 29 properties for $19 million at a weighted average cap rate of 7.8%, and our year to date activity has us on track to achieve our full year 2024 acquisitions guidance of $80 million at or above a 7.5% weighted average cap rate. While our transaction market is not immune to the current volatility and interest rates, I believe the Postal real estate sellers are less focused on movements in the 10 year treasury as they are in more heavily brokered sectors. I’m encouraged by our active pipeline sourced from existing relationships and many new prospects, some of which we have tracked for many years. Postal Realty has demonstrated time and again that we remain disciplined in managing our balance sheet to ensure we are well positioned to pursue attractive opportunities as they arise. We raised almost $14 million of equity capital from a combination of common stock and operating partnership unit issuances, keeping our leverage well within our target range while maintaining ample availability on our evolving credit facility. Despite the uncertainty of the macro environment, our entire team remains focused on what we do best, acquiring Postal real estate and improving the cash flow from assets under management. When sellers exchange property for operating partnership units, which they have done every year since our IPO, they’re demonstrating that they trust we are the premier owner and operator in this niche space. This currency allows sellers the opportunity to maintain exposure to Postal real estate and eliminate the day-to-day responsibilities of property management while deferring the potential taxable gains. Relationships are the backbone of this business. One of the many ways we stay in front of owners of our target asset is by developing strong long lasting connections. Last month, senior members of Postal Realty and I attended the 2024 Annual Association of United States Postal Less Source Conference. I personally have attended this conference for most of my life. It’s an opportunity to cultivate new relationships as well as maintain our long running dialogue with owners. Due to these efforts, along with many others, roughly 75% of our acquisitions of the past few years have been sourced internally and as the natural buyer, we believe we see all important assets that come to market. We are confident in both our business and our tenant as we continue to collect a hundred percent of our contractual rents and maintain high retention and occupancy rates. Exemplifying the importance of this irreplaceable network with no significant near term debt maturities, predictable cash flows, industry leadership As the largest owner of Postal properties and a committed team, we are positioned for a successful 2024. I’ll now turn the call over to Jeremy.

Jeremy Garber: Thank you, Andrew. The first quarter was business as usual at Postal Realty as we remain focused on acquiring, well utilized, attractive last mile and flex Postal properties. Our acquisitions during the quarter added 112,000 net leaseable interior square feet to our portfolio inclusive of 26,000 square feet from 16 last mile properties, and 86,000 square feet from 13 flex properties. Subsequent to quarter end, the company acquired six properties for 4.1 million and placed an additional 11 properties totaling 3.5 million under definitive contracts. As stated on prior calls, company’s business model generates consistent cash flow each quarter, as our business remains stable and reliable through economic cycles. We have a long runway of opportunity ahead of us and are encouraged by our growth prospects as the largest owner in this space. We have maintained a 99% historical weighted average lease retention rate over the past 10 plus years, which reflects this strategic importance of these properties to both the Postal Service and Communities they serve. This validates our due diligence process in identifying locations that are vital to this crucial logistics network. We continue to work hard with the Postal service to execute the expired leases and hope to provide an update on our next earnings call. I’ll now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our first quarter 2024 financial results.

Robert Klein: Thank you, Jeremy, and thank you everyone for joining us on today’s call. During the first quarter, we raised approximately $14 million of equity and continued to accretively acquire assets. We delivered funds from operations or FFO of $0.20 and adjusted funds from operations or AFFO of $0.25 per diluted share. We’ve maintained low leverage and minimized our exposure to variable rate debt. At the end of the first quarter, our debt outstanding had a weighted average interest rate of 4.22%, a weighted average maturity of four years, and no significant debt maturities until 2027. The company’s $150 million senior unsecured revolving credit facility had $16 million outstanding and fixed rate debt comprised 94% of all borrowings. Net debt to annualize adjusted EBITDA was 5.8 times well within our target of below seven times. During the first quarter, we issued approximately 576,000 shares of common stock through our ATM offering program at an average price of $14.25 per share, totalling gross proceeds of $8.2 million. Additionally, we issued nearly 412,000 common units in our operating partnership at a price of $14.05 per unit as part of consideration for a portfolio acquisition. Recurring CapEx was $150,000 within our anticipated range of $125,000 to $175,000. Looking forward to Q2, we anticipate the figure to be between $150,000 and $200,000 depending on the timing of projects. Cash G&A expense came in within our stated range for the first quarter. Just as in prior years, we continue to prioritize decreasing cash G&A as a percentage of revenue on an annual basis. For the full year 2024, we expect total cash G&A expense to be between $9.5 million and $9.8 million. Our Board of Directors has approved a quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share, representing a 1.1% increase from the Q1 2023 dividend. During the first quarter, we collected 100% of our contractual rents. This predictability of cash flows remains a significant differentiator for our company in addition to our strong operations and proven track record of scaling the business. Thanks to our solid foundation and hard work, we continue to be the market leader in the Postal real estate space as we execute our business plan of acquiring new assets and improving the cash flow from existing properties. That concludes our prepared remarks, and now we’d like to open the line to take any questions you may have. Operator?

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the line of Anthony Paolone with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Paolone: Great, thanks. And good morning. I just wondering if you could update us on just how negotiations are coming along with the 90 some odd holdover leases and whether or not you anticipate new leases with contractual bumps the way you were able to achieve last year and or step up in starting rents on the new leases.

Andrew Spodek: Hey, Tony. This is Andrew. I wish I could say that we’re completed with the negotiations. This is still a fluid process. We’re working very hard with the full service to resolve them and to come to a mutually acceptable solution. Everything is going well. It’s just taking longer than what we would have anticipated. And we’re working towards getting those avenue bumps, even though I can’t commit to it actually being done until it’s completed. And we hope to have a better update for you in the next quarter.

Anthony Paolone: Do you think, Andrew, that like the process there is changing so that, like as we look out into future years, the negotiation than the process could just be a bit faster or smoother or do you think this will always kind of be a given the counterparty a tough process?

Andrew Spodek: So the answer is that we’ve had these type of situations in the past over my life of dealing with the post service where it takes longer than anticipated to resolve this. We are currently working with the full service to make it more efficient so that way in future years we don’t have these issues. And I’m hopeful that we’ll get to that place. But I can’t commit to it until it’s been resolved. But regardless, we’ve been collecting our rents. We will continue to collect our rents when we do resolve it, they do pay the difference in the rents that we negotiated and when the leases had expired. And so it’s just a matter of trying to complete them as quickly as possible.

Anthony Paolone: And then just last one for me, you mentioned that the CapEx in the quarter and also what you anticipated for 2Q, but if you get these holdover leases over the finish line, do you anticipate like in the back half of the year having to spend anything incremental that would come along with that process? That that would be outside of that kind of $100,000, $200,000 range that you outlined for a quarter?

Robert Klein: Yes. Thanks Tony. This is Rob. We don’t anticipate that the guidance change is based on acquisitions or on releasing really in the near term. So no that guidance will hold, the next quarter will come forward with the guidance for future quarters.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Dumanski with Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead.

Stephen Dumanski: Thank you. I know that the state of the transaction market was addressed earlier in the opening comments, so I just wanted to get more insight with the overall macro environment. How motivated are potential sellers currently and where do you project an increase or decrease in the velocity of the acquisition pipeline going forward?

Andrew Spodek: I appreciate the question. Sellers are maybe motivated, but they’re not motivated to the extent that they are adjusting their cap rates across the entire market. We’re still having to deal with sellers on a deal-by-deal basis to try to adjust cap rates to inch them up to places where we want to acquire them in an accretive way. I am hopeful that the velocity of deals will pick up and we are able to adjust our guidance as the year progresses. But as of right now, we’re maintaining our guidance of $80 million forward the year.

Stephen Dumanski: And just another one regarding I guess more of the macro environment is the higher for a longer interest rate environment and the pullback in bank financing impacting the ability for a small owner to refinance postal assets when their current debt expires, or is having the USPS on the lease still the golden ticket essentially.

Andrew Spodek: The Postal real estate market, at least on the flex and last mile facilities is not a very heavily financed space. With that being said, if sellers do have mortgages that are coming due, they’re able to refinance them, but obviously at a much higher rate. And so while that would normally be a motivating factor for people to consider selling because it’s not a heavily financed space, it’s not typically a major driver of deal flow.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Jon Petersen with Jefferies

Jon Petersen: Could you remind us what percent of your portfolio has annual escalators built in and where you expect that number to trend over the next as you renew all these leases over the next few years?

Jeremy Garber: It was the entire vintage of 2022 leases that expired, that we put an escalator in place. And we’re working on deals — and going forward right now.

Jon Petersen: So is the expectations, these are typically five year leases. So if we fast forward four years in the future, is the expectation you guys have that a hundred percent of the portfolio will have annual escalators or will there be kind of friction in future years and getting that in there now that inflation is coming down a bit?

Jeremy Garber: I think, it’s a fluid kind of conversation that really depends on inflation and the cost to operate the properties. And so I can’t commit to all of future leases having and escalator. But when it’s appropriate, that’s definitely something that we will be negotiating for.

Operator: As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Andrew Spodek for his closing comments. Andrew?

Andrew Spodek: On behalf of the entire team, we thank you for your support and taking the time to join us today. We’re confident in our business model and the opportunity in the specialized market. The fundamentals of the business remain strong and we look forward to what the future brings. Let’s connect in the upcoming months. Thank you again for your time.

Operator: Thank you. The conference of Postal Realty Trust has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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