First Capital Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX:FCR.UN)
Canada flag Canada · Delayed Price · Currency is CAD
23.38
-0.13 (-0.55%)
At close: Apr 24, 2026
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q2 2025

Jul 30, 2025

Operator

Good afternoon and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2025 conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in the listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alison Harnick. Please proceed with the presentation.

Alison Harnick
SVP of General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, FCR

Good afternoon everyone. In discussing our financial and operating performance and in responding to your questions during today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current estimates and assumptions, many of which are beyond our control and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. A summary of these underlying assumptions, risks, and uncertainties is contained in our securities filings, including our Q2 MD&A, our MD&A for the year ended December 31st, 2024, and our current AIF, all of which are available on SEDAR+ and our website. These forward-looking statements are made as of today's date, and except as required by securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements. During today's call, we will also be referencing certain non-IFRS financial measures.

These do not have standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and should not be construed as alternatives to net income or cash flow from operating activities determined in accordance with IFRS. Management provides these as a complement to IFRS measures to aid in assessing the REIT's performance. These non-IFRS measures are further defined and discussed in our MD&A, which should be read in conjunction with this call. I'll now turn the call over to Adam.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Okay, thank you very much, Alison. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today for our Q2 conference call. We're very pleased to deliver another strong quarter of operating and financial results. It truly has been a great first half of 2025. In the second quarter, same property cash NOI grew by a healthy 6.2%. This excludes lease termination fees and bad debt expense, which happen to have a very small impact in round numbers. A little over 2% of the NOI growth was from increased occupancy and new tenants starting to pay cash rent at one Bloor East. All other factors, which are primarily higher rents across the balance of the portfolio, contributed to about 4% of the same property NOI growth. Last quarter we matched our all-time high occupancy of 96.9%.

This quarter we set a new FCR record at 97.2%. Another new record set this quarter was our average in-place net rental rate, which stood at $24.44 per square foot. During Q2, we renewed just over 625,000 sq ft across approximately 150 spaces. This included a 150,000 square foot Walmart with a typical fixed flat renewal. We also renewed four grocery stores and seven pharmacies that were completed at market rents. In total, net rental rates in year one of the renewal terms averaged $26.10 per square foot, representing a year one renewal rent increase of 16.2%. Approximately 80% of our renewed leases in the second quarter included contractual rent escalations throughout the renewal terms. This resulted in a renewal lift of approximately 21% when comparing net rents in the last year of expiring terms to the average net rents during the renewal terms.

In addition to renewal leasing, we also completed approximately 105,000 square feet of new leasing at FCR share across 42 spaces, carrying an average year one rent of just over $30 per square foot. Leasing continues to be very strong, which does not surprise us. We own great assets and our leasing team understands what's going on. From a macro perspective, this environment has been in the making for quite some time. The last number of years have been characterized by high population growth against a very low supply of new grocery-anchored shopping centers. Said another way, the customer base of FCR tenants has grown while grocery-anchored retail square footage per capita has declined. Over that time, land and construction costs have risen, meaning the replacement cost of the space our tenants occupy has increased.

This has culminated in the current environment in which many FCR type retailers are seeking to grow their store networks. With economic rents remaining well in excess of both market rents and in place rents, new supply in the trade areas where our properties are located will continue to be muted. For these reasons, we see a very long runway for accelerated and sustained rent growth for our portfolio. We're now halfway through our three year strategic plan that we presented to our investors at the beginning of 2024. At its heart, the plan is focused on delivering our primary investor objectives. These primary objectives are, quite simply, delivering on a per unit basis, stability and consistent growth in FFO, growth in net asset value, and absolutely stable reliable monthly cash distributions to our investors and growth in those distributions over time.

With a focus on these objectives, the three year plan that we outlined for investors was designed to deliver on two key metrics. The first is delivering operating FFO per unit growth of at least 3% on average over the three year time frame. The second key metric is achieving a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio that is in the low 8x range by the end of 2026. I am pleased to say that we are tracking well to deliver on both metrics through the first 18 months of the plan. Our operating FFO per unit CAGR excluding several positive but non recurring items is approximately 5%. We're tracking ahead on FFO that the EBITDA has improved to nine times or the low nines adjusting for those same non recurring items. This is exactly where we expected our debt to EBITDA to be at this time.

We are very pleased with our results to date on our three year plan and we look forward to updating you further on our progress as we continue to execute. With that, I will now pass things over to Neil.

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

Thanks Adam and good afternoon everyone. Consistent with our usual practice, we have a slide deck available on our website at www.fcr.ca and in my remarks today I will make some references to that presentation. If we start with slide six, FCR earned operating FFO of $73 million during the second quarter. On a year- over- year basis, this was an increase of 6% from $68 million. OFFO per unit was $0.33, also equating to an increase of 6% from $0.319 in Q2 2024. Overall, these are very strong results with most of the growth coming from core operations. I will note that in totality there is approximately $2 million of income, or about $0.01 per unit, within Q2 2025 OFFO that may not necessarily repeat in subsequent quarters. These contributions are spread across several line items.

In this regard, there's approximately $900,000 in net operating income including prior year CAM and tax recoveries, and a small $300,000 bad debt recovery. Elsewhere in the P&L, there's approximately $1.2 million of non-recurring fees and other income. A few more points of note on income and expenses starting with net operating income. Firstly, same property NOI, where strong growth was at the core of the second quarter performance. Same property NOI, excluding bad debt recoveries and lease termination fees, increased by 6.2%, representing a year- over- year increase of $6.5 million to $111 million in the quarter. As Adam referenced, approximately one third of that growth was due to the conversion of straight line rent to cash rents during the quarter.

This is something that we specifically discussed on this very same quarterly conference call one year ago and at that time it was an important element of our conviction in strong performance for 2025. Secondly, on a year- over- year basis, the NOI lost from dispositions is approximately $1.5 million. This relates to property sales totaling $140 million from the third quarter of last year to the end of the second quarter of this year. Thirdly, within the other non-same property NOI line, the $1.2 million decline that you see relates to straight line rent which decreased by $1.6 million year- over- year. Therefore, the year- over- year growth in cash NOI in this line item was actually about $400,000. Further down the FFO statement, general and administrative expenses of $10.7 million declined by about 6% year- over- year. You shouldn't read too much into this decline.

The timing of expenses can move around a bit from quarter to quarter, and in general we expect a recurring quarterly run rate of about $11 million this year for 2025 G&A expenses of approximately $44 million. Moving to slide seven, first half results have generated same property NOI growth excluding lease termination fees and bad debt of 5%. With this very strong performance to date and a constructive outlook for the balance of the year, we expect FCR to deliver 2025 same property NOI growth of approximately 5%. This compares to an expectation of approximately 4% that we cited on the Q1 conference call in early May. slides eight and nine cover key operating metrics, some of which Adam already touched upon. In short, the themes remained consistent again through the second quarter with continued and broad strength across key occupancy, leasing velocity, leasing spreads, and rental rates.

Metrics slides 10 and 11 provide various distribution payout ratio metrics during Q2 and on a year-to-date basis, FCR's AFFO and ACFFO payout ratios are running at a mid-80% level. Advancing to slide 12, the REIT's June 30 net asset value was $22.20 per unit. This is an increase of $0.14 from Q1's $22.06 and a year-over-year increase of about 2% from $21.82. The NAV change during the quarter included only a few small value movements, which resulted in a net fair value increase of $4 million in the REIT income statement. Turning next to capital investments as outlined on slide 13, during Q2, $53 million of capital was invested in the business, bringing the first half to $125 million of investment. Q2 capital deployments included $37 million of development expenditures and nearly $16 million of investments into leasing costs and CapEx into the operating portfolio.

The most significant development expenditures during the quarter related to our Yonge and Roselawn developments, our Humbertown Shopping Centre redevelopment where phases two and three are advancing, and our 1071 King project which is now nicely up and out of the ground with second level forming in progress. On the topic of development, and while not specifically covered in this slide, I will note that the value of our density and development land that's included within our IFRS values was $424 million at June 30, 2025. This is little changed during the quarter. Notably, within the aggregate value are two properties that are classified as held for sale. One of those properties sold last week and the other has a Q4 closing date.

Net of contracted or recently completed sales, the balance of density and development land is really only about $357 million or $1.65 on a per unit basis. Slide 14 summarizes some key financing activities. During Q2 we repaid $140 million of debt with a 3.3% weighted average interest rate. As we mentioned on our last call, we repaid in mid April a $75 million term loan and further to that on June 2nd we repaid a maturing $56 million mortgage that was secured by our Royal Oak Centre Calgary. The major new financing activity during Q2 was the issuance of $300 million of Series E debentures on June 13th. The financing carried an eight year term and a 4.83% coupon. The offering had exceptional demand with an order book of $1.8 billion from approximately 50 buyers.

The new issue spread was 159 basis points over Canada's, marking the tightest FCR spread ever for an eight year unsecured debenture and one of the tightest eight year offering spreads for any Canadian REITs. Overall, we were very pleased with the outcome of the offering. At June 30 and still today we continue to carry most of the net proceeds of that offering in the form of cash. This cash is earmarked to repay the $300 million of maturing Series S debentures that have an effective interest rate of 4.2% this coming Thursday, which is July 31. To wrap up, slides 15 through 17 summarize some key credit metrics and the debt maturity profile. FCR is in a very strong financial position. The REIT ended Q2 with more than $900 million of liquidity in the form of the cash I just mentioned plus undrawn revolvers.

FCR's unencumbered asset pool had a total value of $6.6 billion, equating to 70% of total assets, and its secured debt to total assets ratio was a low 15%. This concludes my remarks and I'm now pleased to turn the session to Jordan to elaborate further on investing and related activity.

Jordan Robins
EVP and COO, FCR

Thank you, Neil, and good afternoon. Today I'm going to provide an update on our investment, development, and entitlement activities. In Q2, we closed or entered into binding agreements on three properties with gross proceeds of $77 million. The first property we sold is Place Anjou, and closing occurred last week. It's a 4.7-acre site in Montreal's east end with two freestanding retail buildings totaling 52,000 sq ft of GLA. It's occupied by a Toys R Us and a Maison Ingros. The $33 million sale price equated to a mid 2% yield based upon income in place, and it was sold at a premium of approximately 30% over our IFRS value. In addition to these metrics, what's noteworthy is that our work to crystallize this value actually started in 2018. It was that year when the municipal government announced plans to extend the blue line from St. Michel to a new terminus directly adjacent to Place Bas Anjou.

We had correctly predicted that this 8-km, 5-station blue line transit extension would result in residential intensification in the broader node. Shortly after the announcement, we submitted for and in 2023 secured approvals for the first phase of a redevelopment which contemplates 370,000 sq ft of residential density. We marketed for sale this first phase, but ultimately negotiated the sale of all of the lands based upon the value of the as-of-right density and the additional anticipated density totaling approximately 950,000 sq ft . This past quarter, we also entered into a binding agreement to sell our Montgomery assembly for a total consideration of $42 million. Assembled between 2019 and 2022, the Montgomery assembly is a 0.75-acre development site.

It's comprised of 13 continuous homes on the north side of Montgomery Avenue between Yonge Street and Duplex, three blocks north of Eglinton Avenue. In 2024, following extensive engagement with city staff and local residents and after an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal, we secured approvals to permit the development of a 27-story high-rise tower of approximately 250,000 sq ft of gross floor area. The sale price equates to approximately $170 per buildable square foot, which compares favorably to similar recent transactions and is approximately 25% above FCR's Q1 2025 IFRS value. As part of the sale, we took back a $12 million mortgage for 12 months carrying a 7% interest rate paid monthly. Our active developments are also progressing well at Yonge and Roselawn. We remain on schedule and on budget.

You'll recall we own 50% of this 636-unit residential rental building with 65,000 sq ft of retail space and serve as the Development Manager. We set out to design Yonge and Roselawn as a zero carbon building. In Q2, the project received the Zero Carbon Building Design certification by Canada Green Building Council. The ground floor slab will be completed this month and formwork is progressing to the second floor. 81% of the project costs are now awarded. We continue to receive strong interest from a variety of retailers for the 65,000 sq ft of large and smaller format retail space that we're developing at Roselawn. With time on our side from a demand and a market rent perspective, we have no plans to enter into commitments for the space until next year at the earliest.

Construction of our 1071 King Street West development project in Liberty Village also remains on schedule and on budget. Formwork for the second floor slab is underway. You'll recall we own 25% of this 298-unit, 225,000 square foot purpose-built residential rental project which includes 6,000 sq ft of at-grade retail space. Phases two and three of our Humbertown Shopping Centre redevelopment continue to advance as well. Included in phase two, we expect the new and enlarged 34,000 square foot Walmart store to open the middle of next year. Within phase three, the newly created 20,000 square foot Shoppers Drug Mart and the Scotiabank, along with a number of other to-be-announced tenants, are on target for completion in late 2026.

On completion, we'll have added a total of 23,000 sq ft of GLA, removed all of its enclosed common area, and Humbertown will look and feel like a brand new grocery and pharmacy anchored shopping centre. Looking at the related financial returns, we'll have invested approximately $45 million on this redevelopment and will generate an unlevered return that exceeds 7%. We have other redevelopment opportunities in the planning and construction stage, including several of our enclosed centers and the redevelopment of the former Molson Pub site in Calgary. I look forward to updating you on all of this activity in future quarters. Turning to entitlements in 2025, we anticipate we will receive approvals for an additional 1.7 million sq ft of incremental density at share during this year. We also expect to submit rezoning applications for a further 1.8 million sq ft of incremental density.

This past quarter we submitted entitlement applications for nearly 1.1 million sq ft of this contemplated space to date. Netting out the density we've already sold, we've submitted for entitlements on approximately 18 million sq ft of incremental density. This represents 79% of our 23 million square foot pipeline. Once secured, the value of this approved density will be crystallized either through the sale of 100% interest, as is the case with Montgomery and Anjou, or a partial sale to a strategic partner like Yonge and Roselawn. We continue to advance our objectives and feel very good about our progress to date. Thank you for your time today and your continued support of FCR . With that, operator, we can now open it up for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause while the participants register. We thank you for your patience. The first question is from Lorne Kalmar from Desjardins . Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Lorne Kalmar
VP Equity Research, Desjardins

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Neil, you mentioned the increase in the same property NOI growth outlook. Was there anything changed quarter- over- quarter that drove the increase, or was there just an element of conservatism built into the prior outlook?

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

Hi, Lore. Good afternoon. No, I would say it's just a progression of the results through the year. You know, we came into 2025 with the view that it would be, I'll call it, an above trend year. You know, that is continuing to materialize and adding to our confidence that we think we can deliver about 5% organic growth for the year.

Lorne Kalmar
VP Equity Research, Desjardins

Okay, fair enough. Just on the revenues from temporary tenant storage, et cetera, et cetera, was up $1 million sequentially. I know you called out some one-time items. NOI. Would that be part of that bucket?

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

No, not specifically.

Lorne Kalmar
VP Equity Research, Desjardins

Okay. I guess another way of asking that, do you guys kind of expect that to be the trend going forward for that line item?

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

There is a bit of seasonality in that line item, Lore, I believe.

Lorne Kalmar
VP Equity Research, Desjardins

Okay, thank you for that. Just one last one. Maybe getting a little bit ahead of myself here, but looking at the average rent on 2026 expiries, it's quite a bit higher than any of the years prior to 2030. Is this just a function of where the lease expiries are, or should we expect a step down in rent growth versus 2025?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Yeah, it's Adam. It's a good question, Lore. I would describe, when you see expiring rents that are higher than normal, the composition of the space is typically different. I mentioned this particular quarter, we had an expiring Walmart, 150,000 sq ft. That was a single digit net rent. Next year, we do not have any Walmarts that are expiring. That's one thing in isolation that moves the needle. I can tell you from our perspective the type of rent growth that we've been experiencing in % terms we expect to continue in 2026 notwithstanding. On the surface, the average rent that's expiring is higher than some other years. It's a function of the nature of the space and the type of tenants that are expiring.

Lorne Kalmar
VP Equity Research, Desjardins

Okay, great. Thank you so much. I will turn it back.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Michael Markidis from BMO . Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Markidis
Managing Director of Global Markets, BMO

Thanks, operator. Congratulations on the strong second quarter results. Just one question for me. I guess you guys are maybe a little bit like $350 million- $375 million of dispos left to do to sort of get to that $750 million target. I just wanted to give some thoughts or color around what the composition of the balance might look like, just in terms of the split between density and maybe potentially some of the income producing but still non-core assets in your non-core portfolio.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Thanks for your question, Mike. I would say in this particular case history is a good indication of the future. If you look at the $400 million that we've either sold or contracted to sell since the beginning of the plan, it's been a mix of no yielding assets, development sites like Montgomery or low yielding assets like Anjou and some others that we've sold. When we look at the remaining part of the plan and the composition of the assets, it's very similar. It's a roughly even split between lower yielding income properties and development sites. Hopefully that gives you some clarification around what to expect. It's very similar to what you've seen so far.

Michael Markidis
Managing Director of Global Markets, BMO

Okay, no, appreciate that, thanks. If we exit the Walmart this quarter, then the leasing spread looks even better. I recognize that you do have these sometimes from quarter to quarter in your portfolio. If we thought about just flat renewals or very punitive fixed rate steps, I guess punitive for you, not for the late person who occupies the space. What would be the proportion of your portfolio that's subject to these type of fixed rate renewals in the future?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

We will have to get back on what % is subject to fixed rate renewals. What we've seen, not necessarily quarter to quarter, but year to year, there's been a fairly high degree of consistency for several years now. We're still saddled with a very small number of sporadic fixed rate renewals. We typically don't give them ourselves. These are properties where we bought them and consequently bought the leases years ago. Let's get back to you on a little more color on the exact %. One thing I can tell you is it's fairly consistent year to year. When we look over the next few years, that remains the case.

Michael Markidis
Managing Director of Global Markets, BMO

No, that's fair. I guess just last one, I promised this time, last one. When I say that obviously market rents have had to grow a good amount to get to where we are today, how would you characterize the pace of market rent growth over the past three to six months? Do you expect that we've plateaued here for the next little while and we're just going to continue to eat into mark to market, or do you think market rent growth will continue to progress at a reasonable clip over the next several years?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Yeah, look, we see all the makings for it to continue to progress and grow at an above average rate relative to the historical norm. It's really a function of what we touched on today. If you take the time frame from, say, 2017 to today, we've seen Canadian population grow by nearly 5 million people, or about 13%. That growth has been focused on the urban areas. The trade areas where our properties are located have benefited disproportionately from that growth. We've seen very little supply of our product type. You've seen inflation positively impact our tenant base in terms of top line sales. Equally as important, we know that they've protected profit margins. Their store profitability is up, their rent paying capability is up, and we're seeing broad based growth.

I mentioned that we had four grocery stores and seven pharmacies renewals in the quarter, all which were owned by grocery stores. The rent increase on those were just as good or better than the average for the quarter. We're seeing a broad base and we see all the makings for continued market rent growth. Economic rents are still way, way above in place for market rents today. You're not going to see meaningful supply as a result of that, which means market rents are poised to continue to grow at an above average rate. That's what we hope and that's what we expect to see. That's currently what's been playing out in the business and coming through our results.

Michael Markidis
Managing Director of Global Markets, BMO

That's very good. Thanks, Adam. Congrats again, and a little early, but hope you guys enjoy your long weekend.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Okay, excellent. Thank you. You as well.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Pammi Bir from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Pammi Bir
Managing Director of Real Estate and REIT, RBC Capital Markets

Thanks. Hi, everyone. I guess a pretty positive outcome on the Montgomery assembly transaction. Can you maybe just provide some background on the buyer there? As you kind of work through some of these slower housing markets, have you seen any changes in the buyer landscape, positive or negative?

Jordan Robins
EVP and COO, FCR

Hi, Pammi. I'm Jordan . We can't yet disclose the name of the buyer, but I'll say historically a condominium developer with a very long and successful history, they are considering doing multi family rental on the site. I would say they were motivated primarily by the location of the site and the prospect they saw for success and growth, particularly its proximity to transit. As you know, you've got the Yonge University line and you've got obviously the east-west Eglinton LRT, and both of those elements and the surrounding 500,000-person trade area was of huge value to them and hit the threshold that they were seeking.

Pammi Bir
Managing Director of Real Estate and REIT, RBC Capital Markets

Got it. As you kind of think about the balance of the year, are there any more transactions that might be in any advanced stages in negotiations or that you expect before year end?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Hey, Pammi, look, we've been at this for a while now and it's been a patient, focused, methodical approach, and it has not been easy, notwithstanding the success that Jordan and his team have had. At any given time, we have multiple transactions underway. There are various stages. Obviously you know the ones that get done, others we continue to work on. Our full expectation is that we certainly get more done this year, but it would be premature to say whether, you know, which properties or what quantum. Importantly, we're on track for a three year plan. We believe that we will get that done. Maybe a bit chunky or lumpy in terms of quarter to quarter, but we can tell you we're working on other transactions and we'll update you as they progress to an appropriate stage.

Pammi Bir
Managing Director of Real Estate and REIT, RBC Capital Markets

Got it. Okay. Maybe just switching gears, just given the consistent strength that we've seen in the grocery-anchored space, how would you characterize the depth of the private market demand for acquisitions at this stage? Are you seeing any new capital being formed, domestic or foreign, that might perhaps put some pressure on cap rates?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

The demand is pretty good. I think probably something that's more likely to drive cap rates lower in the short term is where interest rates go. Cap rates have been pretty sticky. When you look at where you can finance grocery-anchored shopping centers and take secured debt, which is accessible to almost everyone, five-year money generally in the low 4s, that's very different than where it was 12- 18 months ago. Cap rates are still appraising out at a similar level. I would say that's one area to watch in terms of new capital pools.

It's interesting because there's a lot of dialogue out there about how, you know, grocery-anchored retail is amongst the most favored asset classes and some of the people saying that are not in a position to buy yet, namely some of the pension funds where they're still dealing with their allocation in other real estate subsectors and trying to get those balances in order. I think that would be the other place to watch in terms of large capital pools that start to more aggressively pursue retail.

Pammi Bir
Managing Director of Real Estate and REIT, RBC Capital Markets

Would you consider partnering with some of these funds, these pension funds, if, on the core portfolio, if that's the means for them to maybe gain some exposure?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

The short answer is not likely. Again, everything we do comes back to the key investor objectives that we're trying to deliver. By partnering in isolation on a meaningful component of our core grocery-anchored retail portfolio just doesn't achieve that. Where it would be more likely is if we came across a large new opportunity to invest in grocery-anchored retail. Over the next 18 months, call it the balance of our three-year plan, we've got a defined limited amount of acquisition capital available. If there was an opportunity that exceeded that, that's when it would make sense for us. When we start looking out beyond 2026, we start to see a business plan that allows for a lot more investment in acquisitions than we've seen over the last couple of years. It will be a function of opportunity.

From our perspective, to be selling down our core grocery-anchored shopping center portfolio in any meaningful way, the only way it would rationally make sense is if it was part of a much larger transaction that involved the investment in new grocery-anchored shopping centers.

Pammi Bir
Managing Director of Real Estate and REIT, RBC Capital Markets

Great, thanks very much. I'll turn it back. Adam.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Thanks very much.

Operator

The next question is from Sam Damiani from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Sam Damiani
Equity Research Analyst, TD Cowen

Thanks. Good afternoon. Just to finish off from his question there, it sounds like what you're saying, Adam, is that the sort of low 8x debt to EBITDA is kind of where you see the business stabilizing beyond 2026 and, you know, henceforth being able to redeploy capital and no longer needing to pay down debt. Is that a fair assumption, the way you're thinking about it?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

In part. Sam, if you run through our activities and make the assumption that we will continue to sell low and no yielding assets for many years to come, which is a safe assumption, the question becomes does the use of capital from those proceeds change. Right now, you know, call it roughly evenly split between debt repayment and real estate investment activities. Part of the strategy work that we will do over the balance of the year is exactly that. Our plan is to come to our investors sometime early next year, likely in the form of another investor day, and present what our plans are. That's where the work lies this year for the Board and management.

If you simply kind of, you know, extend our three year plan with, you know, some reasonable expectations in terms of run rate on NOI growth, et c, what you do see is leverage easily does continue to come down absent meaningful investment. The decisions to be made are do we deploy more growth capital instead of doing that or not, what's better for our investors. That's the work that we will do.

Sam Damiani
Equity Research Analyst, TD Cowen

That makes sense. Very helpful. Just to, I guess, tie the bow on the 2026 lease roll, it does have higher rents, which you addressed. That was pretty clear. There's also a lower amount of leases actually rolling as well. Does that also suggest maybe the same property NOI growth next year could be a little, it could be a little lower?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

No. The short answer is no. We've, you know, the way we've characterized 2016 property NOI growth from the time we started talking about it, which is when we launched our three year plan, is we said it would be, we expected to be a normal year. If you look at our history, our average same property NOI growth is 3%. We've said that the future looks better than the past for some of the reasons I spoke to in terms of why the fundamentals for grocery-anchored retail have changed. That means we expect better than 3% as a normal same property NOI growth rate, and that would be the case for next year.

Sam Damiani
Equity Research Analyst, TD Cowen

Okay, that's helpful. Just a couple little ones to finish off here. On. I guess looking out over the next couple years, I know there's, you know, there's one or two redevelopment projects that might get initiated. I'm just thinking, is there any sort of de-leasing that could take place in the next year or so that could detract a little bit from NOI as you prepare one or two projects for redevelopment?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Yeah, it's possible that there's a little bit of that. We would describe it at this stage as not something that would be pronounced enough for us to recommend you adjust your models. If that changes, we'll let you know. At this point it would be quite small.

Sam Damiani
Equity Research Analyst, TD Cowen

Okay. Finally, I guess tagging onto one of the questions earlier, was just on the dispositions. Any thoughts on the timing of exiting any of the Yorkville assets in the next year or so?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Yeah, I'd say there's a strong likelihood that we exit a component of the Yorkville portfolio over the next year, year and a half. Without getting into specific detail, there's a component that we think, based on the asset management and leasing activities that we've undertaken recently, we think they'd be ready to be sold in that time frame.

Sam Damiani
Equity Research Analyst, TD Cowen

I think it's a pretty clear picture. Okay, thanks and congrats again on a great quarter.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Thank you very much, Sam.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, please press star one on the device's keypad if you have a question. The next question is from Matt Kornack from National Bank Financial . Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matt Kornack
Real Estate Equity Research Analyst, National Bank Financial

Hey guys, just given the evolution of the landlord tenant relationship and the strength of your product, are you taking this opportunity to kind of curate the tenant offering differently and maybe push out some underperforming tenants and bring in better performing tenants given the comfort around occupancy, or how should we think about kind of how you're dealing with the strategy within leasing within the centers themselves?

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Hopefully you've been thinking we've been doing that for a long time because we have spent a lot of time, including at the executive level, on tenant mix. Probably more time than most people think. Getting that mix right is really, really important to us. Certainly, when you have a stronger environment like we've had, there's a little bit more flexibility. I would say tenant mix is around the margin on that front. Where it's become more impactful are on things like operating cost recoveries. As you know from looking at our financials, not all tenants pay their full proportionate share of operating cost recoveries. The last year and a half we've been fixing between 50 and 100 leases a year, mostly anchor tenants, to improve the way they pay operating cost recoveries.

Use restrictions, no builds, these are a lot of the things that are more easily attainable in this environment. I would describe our approach to tenant mix as hyper focused for a long, long time. I wouldn't say that that's changed now.

Matt Kornack
Real Estate Equity Research Analyst, National Bank Financial

Makes sense. Maybe a Neil question with regard to where, or you Adam, where those operating cost recoveries and tax recoveries can trend to. I know this quarter was high, and it sounds like there were some one-time items in it, but is that something that you see kind of evolving and moving closer to, I don't know, what the ultimate % that you think you can achieve?

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

Yeah. Okay, Matt, so I'll say two things on that front. Firstly, with reference to the prior year CAM and tax adjustments, I did highlight them in my prepared remarks as something that I think I described as may not necessarily repeat in subsequent quarters. The flip side of that is they may also repeat in subsequent quarters. The only reason actually discloses those prior year CAM and tax adjustments, to the best of my knowledge, they. Happen in every commercial real estate business. When we're billing our tenants and making our accruals for recoveries, we certainly don't want to over accrue. In erring on the side of caution versus too much optimism, we would rather have a prior year CAM and tax recovery show up in a subsequent year than a reversal. Those, I would say, are not necessarily repeatable, but they may repeat. If you look in our financial statements for Q2 of 2025, Q2 of 2024, and the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2024, there was actually a net recovery in all of those periods. That's a bit of a long-winded answer to point number one.

Point number two is, look, we're simply trying to drive growth in net operating income and we're using all the tools available to drive that growth, including lease renewal spreads, including contractual rental, and including fixing or amending shortfalls when we enter into lease negotiations. It's all part of the toolkit. The job or the objective obviously is maximum NOI growth and that's really all I can say on that front a s opposed to giving some sort of specific forecast or target as to what we think we can get those recovery ratios to, it's a process that takes time. Right.

Matt Kornack
Real Estate Equity Research Analyst, National Bank Financial

Sure. No, makes sense. It's showing up in your figures. The last one maybe for me again. On the accounting side, you've made big progress this quarter in some of the conversion of your straight line to cash rent. Is that done or do you still expect a little bit more improvement in Q3 on that front?

Neil Downey
EVP of Enterprise Strategies and CFO, FCR

I think the short answer is that is probably normalized at this p oint on a quarterly run rate basis a t least in the near term.

Matt Kornack
Real Estate Equity Research Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay, makes sense. Thanks.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Thank you, Matt.

Operator

There are no further questions registered at this time. I will turn the call back to Mr. Adam Paul.

Adam Paul
President and CEO, FCR

Okay, thank you very much, operator. Thank you everyone for your interest in FCR and your time today. Have a wonderful afternoon. Take care.

Powered by