Brixmor Property Group Inc. (NYSE:BRX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

James Taylor: Well, we continue to prune the portfolio as we fix the assets and stabilize them to maximize value. We’ve sold over $2.5 billion over the last few years, and we’ve done it one asset at a time, which is harder to execute, but we think much, much more value accretive given the pricing and execution you get on single asset and sometimes partial asset transactions versus large portfolios. So, having sold a substantial part of what we consider to be non-core, there’s some that remains, but it’s relatively modest in the context of our overall portfolio and will be opportunistic in harvesting that value as we’ve maximized it.

Todd Thomas: Okay. All right. Thank you.

James Taylor: You bet. Thank you, Todd.

Operator: Next question, Greg McGinniss with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Greg McGinniss: Hey, good morning. Could you just talk about Bed Bath and anchor leasing in general, whether these are all direct backfills or types of tenants, how much is left to work through from the bankruptcies or is in progress? And, finally, the level of TI’s and what that means for net effective rent growth versus the 76% rent spreads mentioned?

Brian Finnegan: Yeah. Greg, hey, this is Brian. We’ve been encouraged by the demand for really all our bankruptcy spaces, particularly on the Bed Bath. We’re down to a handful of boxes remaining. We found another one yesterday. All but two have been single tenant backfills with operators that are in the specialty, grocery, home accessory, off-price space. We expect net income, as I mentioned, to start to come back online late next year. And from a cost perspective, you’re going to see those costs in line with where we’ve been leasing anchored boxes over the last few quarters. I’d highlight that our net effective rents, we set another record this quarter at over $20 a foot. Thinking about anchor leasing in general, there remains a significant amount of competition for box space, considering we took 70 basis points back of bankrupt GLA and only lost 20 basis points in occupancy.

We’re continuing to see great demand for these boxes. And in terms of the rents, we’re signing those leases at $15 a foot. We’ve got anchor spaces rolling at under $9 for next 3 years. So we feel really confident in the team’s ability to drive rate with better tenants and bring those spaces to market.

Greg McGinniss: Okay. Thank you. And then, could you give us some of the background on your Rite Aid exposure expected loss so far through bankruptcies, maybe what you anticipate being rejected in the future and then size of those boxes and types of tenants you’re looking to backfill with?

Brian Finnegan: Yeah, sure. It’s another great example of our team really getting ahead of these spaces. We weren’t obviously surprised by the announcement. In fact, we took back some Rite Aid spaces recently that we backfilled Ulta and with Trader Joe’s. In regards to the bankruptcy announcement, five of our locations were rejected immediately. We have a new – two more that are expected to close. All but one or that inline kind of former [Eckert Vintage] [ph]. So we’ve got good rent basis on those. We expect to drive over 30% mark-to-market upside. We’ve got four of them already spoken for with operators in the off-price, general merchandise, home accessory space. So we’ve been pretty pleased with what we’ve seen thus far. But again, it’s another great example of our team getting ahead of these boxes so we can capitalize on them pretty quickly.

Angela Aman: Yeah, I just add in total of the exposure as of 9/30 was only 20 basis points of GLA or ABR. So overall, this is just a very small exposure for us.

Greg McGinniss: Okay, thanks. And just, sorry, a quick follow-up. What were the commonalities on those Rite Aid boxes that caused those to be the selected ones to close?