Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Nexus Industrial REIT's second quarter, 2023 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kelly Hanczyk, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
I'd like to welcome everyone to the 2023 second quarter results conference call for Nexus Industrial REIT. Joining me today is Robert Chiasson, Chief Financial Officer of the REIT. Before we begin, I'd like to caution with regard to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. Certain statements made during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements, which reflect the REIT's current expectations and projections about future results. During this call, we will be discussing non-GAAP measures. Please refer to our MD&A and the REIT's other securities filings, which can be found at sedar.com for cautions regarding forward-looking information, for information about non-GAAP measures. The second quarter has gone as expected, with our portfolio providing 4.3% same-property NOI growth as compared to Q2 2022.
We have been active on the acquisition front to date, we will see this slow as we focus on our developments, dispositions, and reducing our current debt and proactive management of our existing portfolio. During the quarter, we purchased a 192,000 sq. ft. newly built distribution center in Laval, Quebec, a 304,000 sq. ft. newly constructed distribution center in London, Ontario, which was a unit deal completed at a significant premium to today's trading price, and a 264,600 sq. ft. distribution center adjacent to the London, Ontario, Airport, where market rents are approximately 175% higher than in-place rents, with a short weighted average lease term of just over two years.
In addition, we sold one of our retail centers in Victoriaville, Quebec. Just after the quarter, we purchased a 141,000 sq ft newly built distribution center in Burlington, Ontario. As a result of these transactions, our industrial NOI weighting is now over 90% and will continue to grow in 2023 as we add another 336,000 sq ft of industrial property in another unit deal at a significant premium. We shrink the footprint of our remaining retail and office assets. We're in the process of marketing our three suburban Montreal office assets, as well as hosting some initial conversations on the Sandalwood portfolios. On the development front, we are moving along on the approximately 96,000 sq ft addition to our building at 1285 Ruby Road in London, Ontario.
We're continuing with negotiations on a deal that will provide us an outside return of over 10% upon completion. At the Titan industrial site in Regina, Saskatchewan, that was acquired in February 2022, walls are now erected on the 312,000 sq ft new building we are constructing on 22 acres of excess land. As mentioned previously, we have a signed lease in place for a minimum 200,000 sq ft at this site and have an offer in place for a portion of the balance of space. This is on schedule to be complete for a late spring 2024 delivery. We'll also be proceeding in the fall with an expansion of an existing tenant in the Southwestern Ontario portfolio to add an approximately 70,000 sq ft to their existing premises.
We've purchased 18 acres of land adjacent to the site to accommodate the expansion and upon completion will earn about approximate a 9% cash-on-cash return. In Richmond, BC, we have received partial occupancy and are working to receive full occupancy permits for the newly named Belvedere Sports Club. They're currently in a membership drive, and we hope to have them live and operational for September or October. This will be a significant boost to our FFO once the tenant commences operations. I'll now pass it over to Rob to go over the REIT's financials.
Thanks, Kelly. Year-over-year, same-store NOI was up CAD 900,000 or 4.3% for the quarter, primarily benefiting from continued strong leasing lift in Southwestern Ontario and Montreal. Two tenancies in London, Ontario, make up the bulk of our lease expiries for the remainder of 2023. We ultimately expect to see significant lift from re-leasing on these spaces, which are currently in transitioning and fixturing through Q3 and Q4. As anticipated, Q2 G&A expense decreased as compared to Q1, with the timing of RSU vesting resulting in higher Q1 expense. As Kelly mentioned, the repositioning of approximately 60,000 sq. ft. at our Richmond, BC, property is nearing completion, and we expect to start seeing an approximately CAD 750,000 positive quarterly NOI impact from this.
Interest rates pushed higher in the second quarter. The amount of debt we have on the balance sheet increased to fund acquisitions. We have one more acquisition to complete in September, which is a unit deal where the vendor will take back approximately CAD 27 million of the purchase price in units valued at CAD 11.30 per unit. With rents continuing to grow quickly in the Southwestern Ontario and Montreal markets in particular, stabilized NOI used in valuing our investment properties increased in the quarter, and net of some cap rate expansion applied, we had a fair value gain. By June 30th, we had approximately CAD 88.6 million undrawn on our credit facilities, and we had a CAD 569 million unencumbered asset pool. The Burlington property acquired in July was added to our unencumbered asset pool.
The last acquisition we have to close in 2023 will be financed with a combination of Class B LP Units and debt. We will also finance our committed development projects with debt. I'll now turn the call back to Kelly.
All right, I'll open up the call to any questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star the one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Our first question comes from Fred Blondeau of Laurentian Bank Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I have a few questions on the Richmond project, if I may.
Yes.
First, I was wondering if you, if you could give us a sense of the appraisal at Q2 at 2023?
Yeah. We don't have an updated appraisal for that, property yet. It's, you know, we value it on our books based on prior appraisals, and in place NOI.
Oh, okay. What- can you, can you remind me what was the... Like, is this the one at the end of 2021, or?
I think we last had it appraised. Yeah, that would, that would probably have been when. Yep.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, got it. You mentioned pickleball. I mean, I guess they're not paying any rent for now, but what would be the timeline before they start paying?
Yeah. They're in a membership drive. I just was there last week. It looks actually pretty good, and they had a little mini opening, but they haven't got full occupancy permit yet, because there's kitchen and a number of different things. The pickle badminton paddle, when the membership, it'll probably be slightly staggered. I, I think September will be staggered, and I'm hoping that October is when the full kicks in.
Okay, got it. Then, can you remind me the, the timeline for the, the 74,000 sq. ft. addition?
Yeah, I, I haven't made a decision on that yet. like, our focus is getting this one-
Yeah
- complete and renting, and then I'll take a good look, hard look at what we do, whether we exit the site in its entirety or we build, and then exit the site. One or the other. Focus has been on getting it complete.
Got it. No, that's totally fair, and that was my last question. I mean, I guess you're still comfortable with exiting the site no matter what, around summer next year. Is that, is that fair to say?
Yeah, I would think, at next, next year at some point. Yeah.
Okay, that's great. Thank you so much. I'll leave it here.
Thanks, Fred.
Our next question comes from Brad Sturges of Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon. Just to, I guess, talk through, or, you know, I have a couple of questions really related to your financing strategy. I think you, you talked about slowing down on the acquisition side and being more focused on debt repayment. I think, you know, the, the latest acquisitions have either been funded through unit deals or on the line. Just, you know, given the size of the unencumbered pool, is there an ability to put some secured debt on place and some of the unencumbered assets just to repay down the line? Or what's your thinking around how you handle the amount of the amount drawn on the credit facility right now?
Yeah, I think there is an opportunity to put mortgages in place and, you know, we potentially could use mortgage financing to pay down the unsecured facility. However, there's also the opportunity to increase the unsecured credit facility and to, to sort of wait to, to fix our, our interest costs, you know, based on, based on forecasts of where interest rates are going, rather than locking in on mortgages now, potentially at the top. But yeah, we're, we're currently in discussions with respect to upsizing the credit facility, would be the way we'll, we'll very likely go.
Okay. If you were to look at, secured debt costs right now, where would that, be?
Yeah, it's probably around. It depends on the assets, but, you know, probably around 5.75%, 5.75%-6%, somewhere in that range for a five-year term.
Okay. And if you're, you know, successful on some of the asset sales you have planned, is, I guess, is the initial thought to then repay debt from those proceeds?
Yes, correct. Yeah.
Okay. Just last question, just when I'm thinking through, on the leasing side of things and just looking at your 2024 maturities, it's obviously quite weighted Ontario, and, and then you've got a little bit in Alberta. What would you expect in terms of your leasing spreads when you look at those two markets? I think we're, we have a pretty good understanding of what Ontario looks like, just more curious, I guess, on the Alberta side of things.
Yeah. I think Alberta will be, you know, there'll be a little bit of lift, but I think it'll be relatively flat. We have a number of, a number of smaller, leases that are coming up, one of which being our Canada Cartage. You know, they're all in around 20,000 sq. ft for the most part, with the exception of, Newly Weds Foods.
Yeah. We had, we had two. I think the effect, we had two. One is Canada Cartage, where we, we've actually purchased a new build that they're building, that will close on, I believe, February 1 of next year. We'll get that site, but we have it up for release right now, now that we know a firm closing date, which is February 1. We have an additional six acres there. We're, we're, we're toying with the, with the idea of either in the short term, we'll probably lease it out as truck, truck parking, and maybe have a slight drop, 'cause that was a long-term lease that has been having year-over-year increases every year, so it's gone out of market. That was one of them. The other one we had was Northern Mat & Bridge, which we've renewed.
I think it begins next June. We took a drop in rent. Well, I still think it's a decent rent profile. There's another one that had been growing by CPI for 10 years that was signed early in the oil boom. That one affected us as well. I think the balance of the ones that we have are pretty much in and around market.
Then in Ontario, we're gonna get significant lift. We've got our property in Cambridge, that comes up in 2024. It's a 150,000 sq. ft facility where we'll get quite significant lift. We've also got another 250,000 sq. ft on Riverview Drive, Chatham, I believe, Kelly?
Yep.
Where, where again, we should see some pretty significant lift. Those two leases or those two expiries at those properties make up 95% of our Ontario expiries next year, and we, we should see fairly significant lift.
Okay. That's, that's quite helpful. I'll turn it back. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Himanshu Gupta of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon.
Hi.
Just on asset dispositions, Kelly, you mentioned some initial discussion on the Sandalwood portfolio.
Can you e-elaborate? I mean, do you have any timeline in mind there?
My timeline still is hopeful for by the end of this year. Hopefully, if all goes well, we are in discussions, with someone. You know, it's a, it's a very good partner of ours, so we want to make sure it works well for both sides, from a partnership basis. Could be a little trickier than just a typical sale. We are working on something.
Okay. Can you remind, what could be the net proceeds from this asset sale? I mean, what could be the gross amount, and how much leverage do you have, asset level leverage on this portfolio?
I, I'll give you a bit of a range because we're, you know, in negotiations, but, you know, let's say CAD 100 million-CAD 130 million of, of gross proceeds, and then it's roughly 50% leveraged.
50%. Okay. Okay, thank you. Then, on the fair value gains recorded this quarter, so, was this mostly London portfolio, or are there any other region you did, you know, positive fair value adjustments as well?
Yeah, it was Southwestern Ontario, London in particular. Alberta, relatively flat, but Montreal also, you know, we're still, we signed a lease two weeks ago, I think, at CAD 16 a foot. We're in discussions with another tenant at CAD 18 a foot. The London market and the Montreal market are, are moving very quickly. Yeah, so it would be, it would be primarily Southwestern Ontario and Montreal.
Awesome. Was there any markets you did, like, negative adjustments, like office or retail or any other place in Alberta?
Yeah. We adjusted, we adjusted both stabilized NOI and cap rates for the, for the office portfolio. On the retail side, we didn't, we, we didn't have too much adjustment on the retail side, but on the office side, we did take some, some write-downs, and we also applied some cap expansion to certain markets.
Awesome. Maybe last question from my side. On the subject of cap rates, I think you have a London property acquisition coming due. I think that was supposed to be in August. What cap rate should we assume on that property?
We're purchasing it at a six cap, and.
Oh, six cap.
It will be, it's expected to be completed October one.
Oh, okay, October. Kelly, I mean, I think this was negotiated a while back, if I remember.
Yes.
You know, it had some-
Yep
... the expansion opportunity there. I mean, given the credit facility is in, you know, sevens now, I mean, almost seven touching there, was there any scope to renegotiate the price on this acquisition?
No. you know, we've seen incredible value creation from the portfolio, so it works both ways. We can also, just keep in mind, on this site, it has substantial land. We could easily add another 150,000 sq ft addition onto the current property that is just being expanded now.
The other thing to bear in mind is that they're taking units at CAD 11.30 a unit, which is, you know, a significant premium to where we're trading. There's, there's some give and take there.
Awesome. No, that, that's a good point, by the way. Yeah. Thank you, and I'll, I'll turn back.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Jimmy Shen of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Just a follow-up on the Richmond property, the CAD 750,000 NOI that comes in, in October. The vendor rent obligation of CAD 200,000, I presume that goes away when that comes in?
No, the vendor rent obligation is separate. This is just looking to the, the former Wartsila space, roughly 60,000 sq ft, that we early terminated Wartsila, and we didn't have a vendor obligation on. You know, we now have CAD 0 of NOI or income from that space, then it'll, you know, go to roughly CAD 750.
Okay. Then correspondingly on the balance sheet, that particular expansion, it's not in the properties under development, right? Like, it's, there's nothing relating to that in the new balance sheet.
No, it's really a repositioning more than, more than a development, but yeah.
Okay. Okay, got you. Then, I've asked this before, but the 2024 expiry in Alberta, there was some 200 and some odd thousand sq ft at 1786. What do you think those spaces will be renewing at next year?
In Alberta... Kelly mentioned that he did an early renewal on one of our leases. Again, you know, they're all, they're all roughly 20,000-30,000 sq ft for the most part. One of those spaces, we did an early renewal, that one is reflected in our MD&A, and, you know, it's coming down in rent, and I think Kelly spoke to it. I think most of the remainder, though, you know, we're looking at maybe some small, small increases or, or we're going to hold, basically at expiring.
I think, I think on the, on the remainder, Jimmy, there'll be a slight uptick, but it won't be substantial.
Okay, so roughly 200,000 square feet of the 220,000 would be considerably flat. Is that fair?
I think the whole thing probably nets out being flat. I think we'll have some, we'll have some losses on the one that Kelly mentioned and possibly one other, and then we'll have some gains on the rest, and it'll net out.
Okay. last one, just the, so the credit facility, was it your plan? I know you said you're not going to necessarily put secured mortgages now, but, are you planning to do a swap, fixed-rate swap on, on that, on whatever is variable today?
Yeah, that's something we're looking at. I mean, we could immediately say, you know, we could take it to close to what a mortgage rate would be, but, and we are in internal discussions, but if we're unwilling to commit to a five-year mortgage rate, the five-year swap rate would be the same, would be the same rate. We're probably going to wait and see a little bit before we put additional swaps on.
Okay. Okay, thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Kyle Stanley of Desjardins. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Afternoon, guys. Maybe just sticking with some of the leasing discussion. Are there any vacancies that you're aware of, coming up in the next one year or so?
Just, really just the former Mastech space, that, that has already been coming back to us in April, some of it.
We, we know we have Canada Cartage coming up, right? I discussed that already, because we purchased their new property. They just had to grow the existing site. That's one I built. That will come off for February 1. Looking at all the expiries, we're pretty on top of the majority of all the renewals already for next year, and to be frank, even for the following year. There's nothing too major, coming up.
Okay. Do you have any idea what the, maybe the NOI contribution from Canada Cartage would be? I mean, obviously, it will be offset by your, your kind of new acquisition, but I just, I guess, in, in the transitional downtime period.
Well, number one, Rob will grab that number. Number one, I'm hoping to have the majority of at least by then because I now know it's going to be February 1 where we didn't know before because the construction was ongoing and when they were going to get out. Hopefully, it won't be more than 1 month or so of downtime, but it'll be a small amount of dilution because I think the rental rates pretty high. When we look at the new rental rate, plus the land, the additional land, I'm evaluating whether to build an additional building on there, what the return will be. I think if we do that, that will net it out.
If we just do it, leasing the land as truck, trailer, parking, and then leasing it, there'll be a small, I think, a small dilution there.
Yeah, that property is about CAD 2 million a year of NOI. It's not very much, GLA, but it's got a lot of, excess land for trailer parking. It's a cross-dock. Yeah, about CAD 2 million.
Okay, cool. That makes sense. Maybe, you know, just, just thinking about the termination income this quarter. It was, it was very small, but did that relate to the Expedia lease, in, in the office portfolio? Is that what that was from?
It did. It was Expedia and one, one other tenancy, yeah.
Okay.
Primarily.
Fair enough.
Yeah. Yeah.
Fair enough. Then just on your St. Thomas development, I think you have that scheduled to start, in the fall. Do you have an idea of what, what the cost will be on that? I think you mentioned the yield being somewhere in the 9% range. Just curious on the cost.
Yeah. Give me a second. I have it here. Actually a pretty good deal. We actually are returning a return on the land purchase and anything that we spend on construction going along. We have, I believe, a 6.5% return on that until we finish the construction, at which point it turns, it's based on a 9% cash on cash. I think total costs with the land is somewhere around $18 million-$18.5 million.
Okay. Perfect. Just the last one, I mean, in your kind of prepared remarks, you did talk about obviously slowing down on the acquisition side and, and maybe focusing on reducing leverage a little bit as more of a near-term focus. Where would you like to see that go? Obviously, it depends on, you know, your, your success on the capital recycling side, but, you know, where would you like to see that trend in, in the next little while?
Yeah, I mean, if we're successful, I, I'd like to see that trend towards the low 40, in and around there. I'm hoping that we're successful in moving that on. We have, we have some activity on the office, and we are chatting about the Sandalwood, so both of those. We also have some other opportunities that we're perhaps doing some early leasing on, call them like original type properties that we used to purchase that we'll look at possibly moving out early next year as well. It could bring in considerable cash just to reduce the debt and put ourselves in a good position. Really, from an acquisition side, we'll-- with the way cost of capital is right now, we're not looking at buying anything new.
However, in saying that, I will do unit deals, and we are in discussions with a few others that I'm hoping next year that we have another fairly major player in, in a, a unit deal, and we always tend to do those at a premium. Much better cost of capital.
Okay, perfect. That's it for me. I will turn it back. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Matt Kornack of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. I just wanted to quickly clarify, because I think you said that you have one remaining acquisition to do with a Class B unit deal. There's, there's one line, and maybe it's a holdover, that says that you have three assets to be purchased for CAD 127 million, with CAD 51 million due versus Class B. Is, is that true, or is there just one left at this point?
Well, I think there's a property that'll close in February of next year.
Okay.
As at June 30th, we still had to close on the Burlington property, which closed July 4th, I think. As of today, we have, we have one more, one more property to close on.
And is that-
Twenty-
That's the February 2024?
That's the close on this year is October.
Okay.
That's the 300 and something thousand square footer in London.
Yeah.
For the February one, how large is that purchase?
I'm trying to remember. I think it's somewhere in around CAD 20 million, I believe.
Okay. the, the B Class units-
Sorry, CAD 35 million.
CAD 35 million. The Class B are on that one, not on-
No
the October 1.
B class are on the London in October, and then-
Okay.
The February 1 is cash.
Okay. No, fair enough. Then back to Richmond. Apologies, with regards to the vendor guarantee, when would that expire, or what, what is the plan for that again?
It, it should drop off, I would think, sometime this year, as because part of that whole redo for the club is they're taking additional space in the original building, so it's being built out as we speak as well. It's all kind of part and parcel. The, the main club, you know, the courts, the majority of the courts are, are in the additional building, but they are taking space in the other. It'll probably, I would think, drop off by the end of the year.
Okay. That's a seamless kind of it will just move up into...
Yeah
NOI as opposed to. Okay, fair enough. Last one for me, just with regards to this quarter on the spreads. Obviously, the Alberta ones existed, but even in Ontario and Quebec, there were some fixed renewal options. Are there, at least for this year and next, are there any fixed renewal options in the remaining to-be-leased space or is that just anomalous to this quarter?
Yeah, there's no significant fixed renewals for the remainder.
Okay. Then, from the sounds of it, the, the spreads that you provide in the MD&A, those, those aren't necessarily what takes effect in the quarter, it's what was leased in the quarter. Can you give us a sense just on the remaining maturities for 2023? I think there's almost 200,000 in Ontario. Would that be getting at a higher spread, or have we already seen that disclosure at this point?
Yeah, I don't think we've seen that yet, because we've got about call it 190,000 sq ft, where a tenant from one building is moving into another building. We've got 120,000 coming up at one building, and a smaller tenant is expanding into that space. It's a bit of a, one of those puzzles with a few moving pieces. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's probably the largest one. The 120,000, they're moving from about 40,000 sq ft. We're giving them a slight break on their existing space as they fixture and move into the bigger space, and then we'll get the smaller space back, probably for January 1, which we fully expect to have leased, well in advance.
Yeah. Those haven't been papered yet because there's still some moving parts, and so they wouldn't have shown up yet in the MD&A leasing activity.
Okay. That, that's perfect. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Matt.
Our next question comes from Gaurav Mathur of iA Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and, good afternoon, everyone.
Hi.
Just on, you know, as, as your leases, and move towards market, I'm just wondering on tenant demand, are there any signs of pullback or any sort of trends that you're seeing across?
It's, it's interesting. We're, we're in London, where we have, the majority of the renewals, and there just is no space. You know, I'm hearing rumblings of a potential slowdown, of inventories being up and things like that. We haven't seen any effect of it yet, but I am hearing rumblings of it. You know, the, the good thing for us is the majority of our leasing is in London, and there's zero availability. Even if we do see a, I think, a slight pullback at some point, the, the fundamentals there are still really strong.
Okay, great. and just out of mind, what would what are market rents be in London at the moment?
We've got them somewhere around CAD 11 and CAD 12, depending on the space.
Okay, great. Last question. You know, you touched upon this, that you'll be opportunistic on the acquisitions front, and you are finding vendors that are willing to accept unit deals. A little, could you provide a little more color on, you know, what sort of, or how, how are the negotiations going? You know, how's that vendor pool? Like, what kind of vendors are actually looking to, you know, do such kind of transactions?
I mean, there's a number of them, right? Family planning, is probably the biggest one. As guys are moving through their life cycle and have assets and are looking, it's much easier to, to fire units off to different trusts than it is separate buildings. It's really what we're focused on, kind of relationship-driven ones, guys that we've, met through other vendors who've done them. Like I said, they're, they're extremely difficult to do to get someone to take a significant amount of units.
They, they do take a long time. We, we have been working on one for a while, and I'm hoping that next year, I'll have a nice pool of Class A industrial assets across Ontario. Maybe we can start with one and, and have another family that looks to take back a decent-sized position. We'll see how it goes, but we'll, we've got the one in potentially a couple others that could sprout up this year that we're talking to. I would say, hopefully for next year that we have a few.
Thank you for the color, Kelly. I'll turn it back.
Yes, sir.
Our next question comes from Mike Markidis from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I, I just want to get back to the discussion on the floating rate exposure in the line. Maybe, Rob, can you just help me understand? I mean, I, I realize that you're kind of in wait and see mode in terms of what you do there, whether you swap out or do some mortgages. I mean, is it, is it, is it leaving it as is right now because you expect the number drawn to come down as you sell assets? Is it really just a rate game expecting that longer rates will come down more as we wait?
Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a rate, a rate game. Maybe that's not the right word, but, just, you know, locking in at these levels, may not be the appropriate thing for us to do at the time. We've been watching, discussing. We had a board meeting on Friday, and, you know, it's, it's always a topic of discussion. Yeah, it's really just not liking the rates that we would be locking into for, you know, five, for five years. Pre- rates are even higher. Yeah, it's just not, not where the rates are at, is the thing.
Okay. Thanks for that. Just for the, I think you mentioned there's, there's room to take the line capacity up. Is that something that you expect you're going to have to do as we progress through the rest of this year, just to fund the remaining acquisitions and the developments at Chef Line?
Yeah, I mean, I think we have two options really. We, we can finance some of the unencumbered properties with mortgages, or we can upsize the facility. I think our preferred approach is to upsize the facility. Yeah, as, as we continue, as we complete the last remaining acquisition this year and move forward with development, we will do, we will need to increase our debt, and that's very likely going to be through upsizing the credits.
Okay, thanks. Then just with respect to the, the tar- the as- I, I don't know if it's aspirational, but I guess the, the desire to want to get the leverage down into the sort of low 40% range, if I heard you guys correctly. Is that, is that something you think you can achieve just based on the sales that might come to fruition through this year and next? Is it something that's more predicated on the capital markets returning back to your favor?
No, I, I think, we, we are looking at a number of sales that, if we are lucky and get them done, you know, we, we haven't been shy about telling that we're, we're going to be selling the remainder of the retail and office. That, that drives it down. If we selectively choose to, move some other smaller industrial assets that we have out west, we would do that. To be honest, even if opportunistically, we have someone who comes for one of the larger ones, we will look at it if, if the value is there for us. I think it's just part of the whole reallocation of our portfolio, the high grading of the portfolio, and, how we view it as a whole.
Okay. Then, I guess if you're able to bring your leverage down and pay down the line with being at 7%, would you expect the cap rate on the sales that you're planning would be kind of at a similar level so that you can maintain sort of current earnings and, and bring down the leverage? Is that sort of the plan?
Cap rate on the sales? It, it depends. I mean, some of the bigger ones Kelly's talking about would be lower cap rates, right? You know, they'd be in the 5s, some of them.
Yeah, it's going to be a little all over, right? If, if we are looking at the retail and offices, or the retail portfolio, that's actually still generating fairly strong interest. The office would probably be, I'm thinking, somewhere, I, I believe around an 8. Some other industrials could be at 5. It's, it's dependent on what we're talking about.
Got it. Okay, that's helpful. Thanks so much.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kelly Hanczyk for any closing remarks.
I thank everyone, and we'll see you next quarter.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.