InvenTrust Properties Corp. (NYSE:IVT) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

InvenTrust Properties Corp. (NYSE:IVT) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript April 29, 2026

Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to InvenTrust Properties Corp.’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name is Christine Nguyen, and I will be your conference call operator today. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that today’s presentation is being recorded and a replay will be available on the Investors section of the company’s website at inventrustproperties.com. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press 1 again. I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Lombardo, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Dan Lombardo: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call from the InvenTrust Properties Corp. team is DJ Busch, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mike Phillips, Chief Financial Officer; Christy L. David, Chief Operating Officer; and Dave Heinberger, Chief Investment Officer. Following the team’s prepared remarks, the lines will be open for questions. As a reminder, some of today’s comments may contain forward-looking statements about the company’s views on the future of our business and performance, including forward-looking earnings guidance and future market conditions. These are based on management’s current beliefs and expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of today’s date, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today’s call or that are in the quarterly financial supplemental or press release.

In addition, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. The comparable GAAP financial measures are included in this quarter’s earnings materials which are posted on our Investor Relations website. With that, I will turn the call over to DJ.

DJ Busch: Our first quarter results reflected steady operating performance across the portfolio. Same-property NOI grew 2.6%, while Core FFO and NAREIT FFO per share increased 6.5% and 10.4%, respectively, from 2025. We continue to enjoy meaningful embedded growth from annual escalators, healthy cash-on-cash leasing spreads, and our signed-not-open pipeline provides further confidence regarding revenue conversion. Taken together, this supports our expectation for same-property NOI growth to build in the back half of the year. Christy will provide additional details on leasing demand and backfill opportunities for our available spaces in her remarks. Given this visibility, coupled with increased confidence around our acquisition pipeline, we were able to increase FFO per share guidance for 2026.

Our nearly 100% Sun Belt footprint is roughly 89% grocery-anchored, and centered on essential goods and services in trade areas with strong long-term demographic tailwinds. The backdrop across the region remains highly favorable, with many of the country’s fastest growing cities and suburban communities concentrated in the Sun Belt. Recent migration data also underscores the appeal of our markets, with Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, Arizona, and Tennessee among the leading beneficiaries of wealth inflows. These states continue to attract new residents due to job growth, lower taxes, and lifestyle appeal. We will continue to invest in our core markets while expanding our corridor strategy into complementary secondary Sun Belt cities. That approach broadens our acquisition sourcing efforts and expands the opportunity set for capital deployment.

Within that framework, we remain disciplined, active, and selective in a competitive transaction environment. This quarter, we completed $123 million towards our $300 million net investment guidance for the year. We have another $167 million of additional deals awarded or under contract with other opportunities still in the pipeline. In February, we entered the Nashville market with the acquisition of Nashville West. It adds a high-quality property to our portfolio and follows the same playbook we have used successfully elsewhere, which is to enter areas where demographics, retailer demand, and long-term fundamentals align to support durable growth, and then build from that initial foothold over time. Selective small-scale redevelopment continues to provide another avenue for incremental NOI growth within the existing asset base.

We are focused on projects that reposition anchors, remerchandise space, add small shop or outparcel space where demand is strong and additional GLA is warranted. In 2026, we expect this pipeline to contribute approximately 90 to 100 basis points of same-property NOI growth. With visible internal growth and disciplined capital investment across redevelopment and acquisitions, we believe InvenTrust Properties Corp. remains well positioned to create long-term shareholder value in an environment where necessity-based retail continues to outperform. With that, I will turn it over to Mike.

Mike Phillips: Thanks, DJ, and good morning, everyone. Turning to our financial results, same-property NOI for the quarter totaled $48.7 million, an increase of 2.6% over 2025. Growth was driven primarily by embedded rent escalations, which contributed approximately 170 basis points. Positive leasing spreads added roughly 90 basis points, redevelopment activity provided an additional 70 basis points, and percentage rents and specialty income added 50 basis points. These gains were partially offset by a 40 basis point headwind from bad debt and 60 basis points from an expected temporary impact in occupancy. NAREIT FFO for the quarter totaled $41.3 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, reflecting a 10.4% increase from 2025. Core FFO rose 6.5% to $0.49 per share year over year.

FFO growth was driven primarily by higher same-property NOI and net acquisition activity partially offset by interest expense. We also recognized approximately $0.8 million of lease termination fee income during the quarter, which was anticipated and incorporated into our initial guidance. Our balance sheet remains strong and gives us flexibility and liquidity to continue executing on our long-term growth strategy. At quarter end, total liquidity stood at $346 million, including $27 million of cash and $319 million available on our revolving credit facility. Our weighted average interest rate was 4.1% with a weighted average term to maturity of four years. Net leverage finished the quarter at 29.7% and net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 5.2x on a trailing twelve-month basis.

Subsequent to quarter end in April, we signed a definitive note purchase agreement for a $250 million private placement of senior unsecured notes. The financing is structured in three tranches: $50 million due in 2029, $100 million due in 2031, and $100 million due in 2033. On a combined basis, the notes provide us with a weighted average tenor of approximately 5.4 years and a weighted average fixed interest rate of 5.4% over the term. Funding is expected on 06/29/2026, subject to customary closing conditions. Finally, we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share, a 5% increase over last year. Turning to guidance, we are reaffirming our full-year same-property NOI growth guidance range of 3.25% to 4.25%. For NAREIT FFO, we are increasing our full-year guidance range to $2.00 to $2.06 per share, which represents 7.4% growth at the midpoint versus 2025.

This increase is primarily driven by mark-to-market lease adjustments related to our recent acquisitions. Our Core FFO guidance is increasing to $1.92 to $1.96 per share, up 6% at the midpoint from last year. Additional details on our guidance assumptions are available in our supplemental disclosure. With that, I will turn the call over to Christy to discuss our portfolio activity.

Christy L. David: Thanks, Mike. From an operating standpoint, leasing activity remained healthy during the quarter. We executed 64 leases covering approximately 329 thousand square feet and comparable blended spreads were 10.5%, with new leases at 19.8% and renewals at 9.9%. Annualized base rent per occupied square foot increased 2.1% year over year to $20.63. At quarter end, leased occupancy stood at 96.4%, with anchor leased occupancy at 98.5% and small shop leased occupancy at 92.9%. The anticipated short-term change in occupancy was driven primarily by seven larger format small shop spaces, and we already have six of those seven spaces either signed or under LOI. For the new opportunities and spaces coming back to us, prospective rents are running approximately 15% to 20% higher.

With occupancy levels at or near all-time highs for the last several quarters, the aforementioned opportunities are a welcomed event, allowing us to maintain strong occupancy while proactively recapturing and re-tenanting space to improve the merchandise mix, retailer credit, and rent growth profile. We currently have five anchor vacancies including three tied to our redevelopment project at Gateway Market Center in Florida, one in our California asset that is in our disposition pipeline, and one space in Texas that has an LOI currently being negotiated. More recently, Painted Tree Marketplace closed stores across the U.S., including our one location in Glen, Virginia, representing approximately 30 thousand square feet or about 20 basis points of ABR.

We are well positioned to backfill this space. As we look to the balance of the year, we continue to have good visibility into future growth. The lease-to-economic occupancy spread ended the quarter at 130 basis points, with 80% attributable to small shop space that is yet to commence, giving us a clear line of sight into revenue conversion and reinforcing the embedded growth in the portfolio. Our lease-to-economic spread matched our fourth-quarter level, reflecting our team’s execution in getting tenants open and paying rent. The first quarter of 2026 was one of our highest quarters of new rent commencement since our listing. The consumer environment also continues to support our platform. Shoppers remain value conscious, with spending on convenience, necessity, and everyday services holding up well.

This is translating into tenant demand across categories such as food service, medical retail, and other service-oriented uses. Off-price is a good example of that dynamic. It remains a dependable traffic-driving category in open air retail and resonates in a consumer environment where value matters. Together with grocery and other essential anchors, these tenants help create a merchandising mix that aligns well with consumer needs and positions our centers for long-term performance. Our exposure to higher-risk discretionary categories also remains limited, and while we always maintain a watch list, the overall risk profile remains manageable. Turning to acquisitions, the opportunity set within our pipeline, while competitive, remains robust as we look to add properties in both current markets as well as adjacent or corridor markets that are complementary to the existing portfolio.

During the quarter, we added two properties: Marketplace at Hudson Station in Phoenix, Arizona, a neighborhood center anchored by EOS Fitness and shadow-anchored by a Fry’s Marketplace in a growing part of the Phoenix MSA. The acquisition deepens our presence in an existing growth market and reinforces our approach to building scale in regions where we already have conviction. And as DJ mentioned, we also purchased Nashville West, a high-performing open air power center located roughly fifteen minutes from downtown Nashville, shadow-anchored by Target, Costco, and Publix. The asset benefits from strong traffic, attractive surrounding demographics, and a location in one of the fastest growing parts of the country. We believe Nashville West gives us a solid entry into an attractive new Sun Belt market.

That concludes our prepared remarks.

Q&A Session

Operator: We will now open the call for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Todd, your line is now open.

Todd Thomas: Alright. Thanks. Good morning. First, I just wanted to ask about acquisitions. The $167 million of acquisitions that are under contract or that have been awarded, which gets you to the $300 million target for the year—are those expected to close by roughly the end of the second quarter? And then it sounds like there is appetite to be more active beyond that as you move further into the year. Can you just talk about the future pipeline and remind us of the initial yields and IRRs that you are achieving and whether those are moving around a little bit as you work through some additional deals?

DJ Busch: Yeah, thanks, Todd. Good morning. We are very happy with how the year started as it relates to our acquisition pipeline. If you remember last year, we sold in the beginning part of the year with our recycling out of California, and then much of our acquisition activity ended up being backloaded. This year, we got off to a good start, as Christy alluded to, with Nashville West and Hudson Station. The things that we have awarded or under contract, to answer your question directly, we are hoping that most of those will close at some point in the second quarter. It is hard to predict exactly when they will close, but you can expect around that timeframe, maybe leaking a little bit into the third quarter. And to your point, we have, on a gross basis, about $290 million of deals either closed, under contract, or awarded, but we do have a really strong pipeline that we are going to continue to pursue behind that.

We have discussed there will be a little bit of capital recycling, or asset sales on a very select basis, but only if we feel like we have an acquisition pipeline that continues to be actionable. That will continue to be the strategy throughout the year. One of the things that we were excited about coming into this year—and Mike alluded to the private placement that we just completed—we have a lot of dry powder. We have a lot of balance sheet capacity in a market that continues to be competitive, but we have continued to find deals at initial yields in that low-6% range or even mid-6% that are giving us healthy IRRs comfortably in the 7% range. That has been the recipe for success for us. Our guidance indicates that the cadence at which our acquisitions are coming is a little bit better than expected, which is why we were able to raise FFO per share for the year.

We will continue to be active as long as we find deals that we like and that are going to continue to be accretive to the portfolio.

Todd Thomas: Okay. That is helpful. And then in terms of funding, you have some dry powder. Leverage is below your longer-term leverage target of 5x to 5.5x. You mentioned some dispositions, but how should we think about equity capital fitting into the equation a little bit as you look at where your equity cost of capital is today as well?

DJ Busch: It is a very good question. It is good to look back when we issued equity in 2024. It was a similar situation. The stock was trading at an all-time high at that point, and more importantly, based on that equity cost of capital or weighted average cost of capital across the different pockets of capital that we had at the time, we had an attractive pipeline that was actionable and we knew we could grow free cash flow accretively. As we sit here today, we are a couple of days off another all-time high. We feel pretty good about our multiple. We feel good about where the stock is at. But having said that, it is all predicated on the opportunity set. If the opportunity set is one where we can continue to grow cash flow accretively, we will look at all different avenues.

Todd Thomas: Okay. Have you seen changes in seller expectations at all? With more capital coming into the space, are you hearing about pockets of capital that are pulling back or having a difficult time accessing capital, given some of the turbulence in the credit markets?

DJ Busch: Not really, to be frank. We are continuing to find really good opportunities, but there has not been a whole lot of distress on the seller side. Every situation seems to be a little bit unique. Almost the entirety of our acquisitions that we have done is in the private market, usually with smaller operators that are selling for one reason or another. We have done a couple of larger ones where they are rotating out of funds. It runs the gamut, but I would not say that we are seeing distress related to credit tightening.

Todd Thomas: Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Reale with Bank of America. Andrew, your line is now open.

Andrew Reale: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, on acquisitions. Nashville West is a single-asset entry into a new market. What made this the right time to enter? Do you have any additional Nashville assets in the pipeline currently? And how much scale would you aim to achieve there? And then the two acquisitions in the quarter are basically fully occupied. Can you talk about any upside you see at those assets in terms of rent mark-to-markets or other value-add?

Christy L. David: Thanks, Andrew, for the question. Nashville West is a dominant power center with really healthy and competitive shadow anchors—Costco, Publix, and Target. One thing that is unique, and how we view this property, is that there is the ability to raise rent here. While it is largely occupied today, we see long-term value in rent growth and there is a little bit of remerchandising we think we can get done as well. Holistically, the Nashville market is an exciting opportunity. We do have a few other assets in the pipeline—nothing currently under LOI or near execution—but there are things that we have our eye on and have had long-term conversations about. Over time, we hope to establish a presence that would allow us to have three or four assets in the market and operate there, and in the interim we are able to utilize our boots on the ground in surrounding markets to help us service that asset and operate effectively.

As for your question about the acquisitions being fully occupied, both are in markets where, over time, we are able to put the InvenTrust model to work. We are able to grow rents, implement annual escalators, and get them on fixed CAM, all of which will help us produce cash flow growth.

Andrew Reale: Thank you. And I think it was last quarter there was a comment that acquisitions from 2024 and 2025 were generating blended spreads in the low-20% range. How much below-market rent is left in that acquired pool, and over what time frame does it get marked to market?

DJ Busch: The great news is there is a lot left because we only get access to a certain amount of leases every year. More importantly, if you look at all the acquisitions that we have made since 2021—or even since 2024—the average annual escalator within those tenants or at those properties is about half of what we are getting in the remainder of the portfolio. On every new deal now, we are achieving over 3% annual escalators, while the in-place escalators are about 1.5%. So there is a tremendous amount of opportunity not only at the initial cash spread—20% plus on those deals—but also in being able to put in annual escalators and fixed CAM, as Christy mentioned, to drive continual NOI and cash flow growth year in, year out.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Cooper Clark with Wells Fargo. Cooper, your line is now open.

Cooper R. Clark: Great. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about the same-property NOI acceleration in the back half of the year. In the press release, you noted the acceleration is driven by contractual rent and also a strong pipeline of lease commencements over the balance of the year. Could you provide a little more color on the contribution coming from the lease commencements, within the context of the SNO pipeline declining quarter over quarter in terms of the $4.6 million ABR contribution, and how lease commencements compare to some of the other core items driving the acceleration in the back half?

Mike Phillips: Yeah, Cooper. Most of the SNO pipeline is small shop—about 80%—and we do expect 90% of that to be coming online by the end of the year. It is weighted very much to the back half of the year. Q3 and Q4 is when you will see most of that come online.

DJ Busch: The only thing I would add is when you think about the NOI cadence—we do not guide to quarterly cadence, but it is important in this case because of the acceleration—the second quarter we are expecting to be very similar to the first quarter. You will really see the acceleration in the third, but mostly in the fourth quarter. You can expect the same thing from an occupancy standpoint. It is always hard to gauge leased versus occupied, but you can expect us to comfortably accelerate in the back half, and that SNO pipeline actually increasing as we get to the back half of the year, which is going to serve us extremely well going into 2027.

Cooper R. Clark: Great. And then on the acquisition market, could you talk about the buyer profile you are finding yourselves competing against today? As the transaction market remains highly competitive, do you think competitors are reflecting a higher risk tolerance for the asset class, whether it is lower exit cap rates or higher rent growth?

DJ Busch: It has been and will continue to be competitive. Where we have found our sweet spot at InvenTrust is we do not do many deals under $10 million to $15 million—that tends to be very competitive in the private market—and we also avoid anything over about $200 million so we do not take on undue single-asset risk. Along with our cluster/corridor strategies in complementary secondary markets, we have found a niche where we have been able to get phenomenal properties with strong embedded growth at a good initial return and, most importantly, a good growth profile and unlevered return over time. There has been more competition in some gateway markets where there is probably a liquidity premium, especially because of activity from private funds.

That is not where we have been focused. If we are able to announce the deals that are awarded or under contract, you will see much of the same: introductions to new markets that are very complementary to the core markets we are already in.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Gorman with BTIG. Michael, your line is now open.

Michael Gorman: Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Christy, I am sorry if I missed it, but for those seven larger-format small shop tenants, was there anything thematic in there? Were they all the same operator, or did it just happen to come in a cluster in the first quarter?

Christy L. David: Thanks for the question. There is nothing systematic or thematic about what departed. There are seven, and on a blended basis they are around 5 thousand square feet each. These are spaces we have had our eye on for a long time with operators that may have been limping along. There is no single use-related issue; they are spread across categories and across our markets. As I mentioned, we have six already identified with either LOIs or executed leases with 15% to 20% spreads. We are actually excited to get our hands on some of these to capture the lift. It has been a long time since we have been able to take some of these opportunities.

DJ Busch: The only thing I would add—our small shop occupancy and retention rate has continued to climb to all-time highs, which is a good problem to have. At an all-time high in the fourth quarter, we found this to be the perfect time to have some planned tenant transitions in an otherwise highly occupied portfolio. We can still drive solid growth, and this is going to set us up exceptionally well as we get these re-leased and open in the back half of this year going into 2027.

Michael Gorman: Thanks. And maybe one more on the acquisition side. The outparcel in Atlanta—was that just an opportunistic purchase, or is there a potential redevelopment of the center that that outparcel was critical for? And bigger picture, can you remind us of your view on outparcels and your outparcel strategy for the properties that you own?

Christy L. David: That particular outparcel is one we have had our eye on for some time. It sits at the entryway to that asset. The more we can control the “front door” of a property, the better off we are. This was an opportunity. It is not a redevelopment play in and of itself at this asset; it currently has a new lease with an urgent care, which complements our current uses at the center. But it does provide us the opportunity to work with that tenant and potentially add an additional outparcel there in the future if demand warrants. Across our portfolio, we consistently look at where we may have outparcel opportunities to purchase—whether relevant for redevelopment or to give us better control of our assets. Owning everything helps us have better control of our properties, including with OEAs and REAs.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Hong Zhang with JPMorgan. Hong, your line is now open.

Hong Zhang: Hey. How should we think about the size of your active redevelopment pipeline for the remainder of the year, given that you completed a number of projects in the first quarter?

DJ Busch: We delivered a couple of projects early, which, as I mentioned, is a nice building block for our NOI growth this year. As you see in the supplemental, we have a number of projects we are working on at any given time, at different stages—waiting for entitlements or with shovels in the ground. The cadence will be consistent. One of the things that is exciting over the next couple of years is we do have some larger redevelopment projects—mostly related to grocery rebuilds or relocations within the same center. Those are the best bang for our buck and the best thing for the center on a long-term basis, and we will continue to do some of those. The Florida project you are alluding to was an exciting opportunity to do some remerchandising to upgrade the merchandise mix.

We will continue to look for those select opportunities. As Christy mentioned, one of the most important aspects of our outparcel acquisition strategy is really just controlling as much of the property as we can. If and when we do get an outparcel back, we have full control over what we want to do in the future of that pad.

Operator: Your last question comes from the line of Paulina Rojas Schmidt from Green Street. Paulina, your line is now open.

Paulina Rojas Schmidt: Hi. You mentioned the market has remained competitive. Have you seen any shift in terms of cap rates, or do you see a continuation of the trends that have been in place for a while now?

DJ Busch: It is always hard to pinpoint because every asset has its own unique story, so it is hard to find a trend. It has remained competitive. There has been a lot of activity and interest in the open air multi-tenant retail space, which would allude to stronger private market pricing. We have seen that in certain markets—that was an opportunity for us in California. We have seen strong pricing in the larger markets in Texas. We have found unique opportunities on a one-off basis in complementary markets to our core markets where we are seeing just as good growth but a less liquid market, which can be reflected in the cap rate and unlevered return. Everything we bought we tend to feel better about six months later, both from a pricing perspective and a performance perspective.

Not only do we feel good about our initial yields, but we like the activity and demand we were hopeful for when underwriting. So it is much of the same rather than any material difference from last quarter or a couple of quarters ago.

Paulina Rojas Schmidt: And going back to the occupancy loss—similar to what some of your peers experienced—how do you distinguish normal seasonality from something more worth monitoring?

DJ Busch: The reason we can tell is because our portfolio is of a size where we have really good intel and conversations with every one of our tenants. The seven tenants that were the predominant needle movers this quarter were ones we had our eyes on and had discussions with for some time. They continued longer than they otherwise might have given strong underlying fundamentals. Two or three of those spaces we proactively went after because we needed the space back—either for expansion of existing concepts or to accommodate a tenant we had to get into the property. The other ones we had been waiting on. That is why we already have six of the seven earmarked either with a deal underway or in some form of LOI or legal. If we did not have the demand right behind those, perhaps I would say there was some softness, but that is absolutely not the case.

It is transitory in nature, and moving some larger small shop spaces while increasing guidance and setting up success for the next couple of years is a very good position for us.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to DJ Busch for closing remarks.

DJ Busch: Thank you, everyone, who joined us. We appreciate your time and your interest in InvenTrust Properties Corp., and we look forward to seeing many of you in the coming months either at ICSC or at several conferences over the summer and early fall.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.