Alpine Income Property Trust, Inc. (PINE)
NYSE: PINE · Real-Time Price · USD
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Apr 24, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT - Market closed
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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Jul 23, 2021

Speaker 1

Good day, and welcome to the Alpine Income Property Trust Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded.

Speaker 2

I would now like to

Speaker 1

turn the conference over to John Albright. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Alpine Income Property Trust Second Quarter 2021 Operating Results Conference Call. With me is Matt Partridge, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'll turn it over to Matt to provide the customary disclosures regarding today's call. Matt?

Speaker 4

Thanks, John. I'd like to remind everyone that many of our comments today are considered forward looking statements under federal securities law. The company's actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward looking statements, and we undertake no duty to update these statements. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's Form 10 ks, Form 10 Q and other SEC filings. You can find our SEC reports and our earnings release, which contain reconciliations Non GAAP financial measures we use on our website at alpinereit.com.

With that, I will now turn the call back over to John.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Matt. After starting the year with a solid Q1, we experienced an acceleration across all aspects of our business during the Q2, which represented our most active quarter since our IPO in late 2019. Most notably, we record investment activity in the quarter with our acquisition of 18 high quality retail net lease properties for $81,000,000 at a weighted average going in cash cap rate of 7.3%. We also completed our first follow on equity offering, which provided clarity regarding the funding of our active pipeline. The offering was comprised of existing and new banking partners It was well supported by our existing shareholders and new institutional and retail investors.

And finally, we closed on our inaugural operating partnership unit transaction, which provided us with an additional source of attractive equity. These achievements were a product of hard work and resourcefulness of our team and the support we've received from our transaction and operating capital partners for which we are very appreciative. On the transaction front, More so than any quarter to date, the Q2 demonstrated our ability to grow our high quality portfolio by executing on a mix of opportunities Source from multiple relationships. Of the 18 properties we acquired in the quarter, 7 were related to our Previously announced agreements to acquire a set of high quality properties from our external manager, CTO Realty Growth. Nine properties were in the form of a diversified retail portfolio that we sourced on a direct basis from a private owner, which was partially funded by the previously mentioned OP Unit transaction.

And 2 assets were obtained through long standing relationships within the investment sales community. These sources are representative of the ingenuity and creativity of our team and platform, I do anticipate future acquisition opportunities from each of these relationships going forward. Our acquisitions in the quarter were spread across 13 states, including 3 new states and with tenants operating in 14 different sectors. We added exposure to well performing sectors Such as home improvement, grocery, quick service restaurants, automotive parts, convenience stores and automotive service. We added the off price retail and farm and rural supply industries as 2 new sectors in our growing portfolio.

In addition to improving our geographic diversity, we meaningfully expanded our tenant base with the addition of 15 new tenants to our portfolio. Among the new additions, we added industry leading operators such as Lowe's, Academy Sports, Circle K, Burlington, Burger King, Firestone and Orchlin, which was acquired by Tractor Supply earlier this year. Year to date, we've acquired 23 properties for $103,000,000 at a weighted average going in cap rate of 7.5% and weighted average remaining lease term at acquisition of just under 9 years. As of the end of the quarter, our growing portfolio consisted of 71 properties totaling 2,300,000 square feet in 22 states. Our tenants operate in 23 distinct sectors and I'm happy to say our tenants continue to be 100% paying And the properties continue to be 100 percent occupied.

Our top tenants include Wells Fargo, Hilton Grand Vacations, Hobby Lobby, Dollar General, Walgreens, At Home and Walmart. As we look forward into the second half of the year, I'm excited about our prospects of putting additional capital to work through accretive investments that will continue to improve our already High quality portfolio. Part of our future investment activity will be funded by the anticipated dispositions of our office assets, which is an initiative we announced we would explore to position our portfolio as 100% retail. I'm pleased to say we've received strong interest in the properties as we've gone through the marketing process and we anticipate moving forward with sales of the Hilton and Wells Fargo office properties later this year. We're also evaluating the strategic disposition of 1 or 2 other properties where we believe we can achieve better Risk adjusted returns with the redeployment of capital into other prospects within our pipeline.

Speaking of our pipeline, I'm very pleased with the types of opportunities we're seeing in the market, the volume of the opportunities coming across our desks and our pipeline's potential to further improve Portfolio diversity and top quality tenants. We've continued to invest in the platform with addition of a new acquisition team member And our existing team has built great momentum to position us for continued success. That's all I have for my prepared remarks So I'll turn the call over to Matt to talk about our performance in the quarter, capital markets activities and updated guidance. Matt?

Speaker 4

Thanks, John. Operationally, we had another terrific quarter continuing to collect 100 percent of contractual base rents, including collecting the last meaningful Portions of our COVID-nineteen deferred rent repayments. Total revenues for the Q2 of 2021 were $6,600,000 A 44% increase over the Q2 of 2020. General and administrative expenses, which include the management fee to our external manager, CTO Realty Growth, decreased by more than 500 basis points to 19.5% when compared year over year to the Q2 of 2020, Continuing our trend of improving organizational scale. For the Q2 of 2021, funds from operations were $3,800,000 or $0.38 per And adjusted funds from operations were $3,900,000 or $0.39 per share.

FFO and AFFO per share growth in the Q2 of 2021 were 31% and 144%, respectively, when compared to the Q2 of 2020. Our AFFO in the Q2 was positively impacted by approximately 100 $14,000 from the repayment of deferrals related to the previously mentioned rent deferral agreement. Going forward, we have one remaining tenant Making prepayments under previously agreed to rent deferral agreements related to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. These scheduled payments are to be approximately $22,000 per quarter through the Q2 of 2022. Year to date, FFO was $0.79 per share and AFFO was 0.8 $0.02 per share, representing year over year per share growth of 55% and 134%, respectively, when compared to the 1st 6 months of 2020.

For the Q2 of 2021, the company paid a cash dividend of $0.25 per share on June 30 to stockholders of record on March 21. This represents a quarterly payout ratio of 66% of FFO per share and 64% of AFFO per share and an annualized yield of approximately 5%. Our 2nd quarter dividend marks the 4th dividend increase by the company since its IPO in late 2019 And a more than 4% increase over our Q1 2021 quarterly dividend. Year to date, through the 1st 2 quarters of 2021, The company has paid $0.49 per share in cash dividends. These dividends represent a year to date cash payout ratio of 62% of FFO per share and 60% of AFFO per share.

As we noted in yesterday's press release, the company is revising its practice of declaring a quarterly cash Common stock dividend concurrent with its quarterly earnings. We instead anticipate announcing our quarterly cash common stock dividend for the Q3 of 2021 and for future quarters in the 2nd month of each respective quarter. In addition to all of our acquisition activity, we had an equally active quarter on the capital markets. We completed our 1st term loan, allowing us to reduce the balance on our revolving unsecured credit facility, extend our debt maturity profile, Bring in a new banking partner to broaden our access to capital and lock in a longer term debt capital at an attractive rate. The new $60,000,000 unsecured term loan has a term of 5 years and initial fixed rate interest rate of 2.16%.

As part of the acquisitions from CTO Realty Growth, we assumed a $30,000,000 mortgage secured by 6 properties that is subject to a fixed interest rate of 4.33%. While the mortgage maturity date is in October of 2,034, the note is prepayable without penalty beginning in October of 2024. On the equity front, we were again active on our at the market or ATM equity program issuing 176,000 shares of common stock Total net proceeds of $3,100,000 which were used to fund a portion of our acquisitions in the quarter. As John mentioned earlier, we also completed our first follow on underwritten public offering since the IPO and our inaugural operating partnership unit issuance within the quarter. The follow on offering totaled 3,200,000 shares common stock, which included the underwriters' full exercise of their option to purchase additional shares, resulting in total net proceeds of $54,300,000 The OP Unit transaction, which partially funded the acquisition of a 9 property, dollars 13,800,000 diversified portfolio, was completed at $18.85 per share through the issuance of 425,000 OP units for a total value of $8,000,000 As we look forward into the Q3, we have over $100,000,000 of dry powder and our balance sheet is in excellent shape.

Total debt outstanding as of June 30 was $141,600,000 and total cash and restricted cash was $8,500,000 Net debt to total enterprise value at quarter end was approximately 35%, while our net debt to pro form a EBITDA was approximately 5.7 times. As outlined in yesterday's press release, we did revise our 2021 full year FFO and AFFO guidance. This revised guidance takes into account all of our transactions and capital markets activities to date. Our guidance also includes a number of significant assumptions related to the second half of the year, Including but not limited to acquisition and disposition volume, associated transaction yields, debt and equity utilization, Stable or positive business trends related to each of our tenants and the timing related to a number of these items. Most notably, our guidance assumes the sale of our office Properties leased to Hilton Grand Vacations and Wells Fargo.

For the full year of 2021, our FFO guidance is now $1.35 to $1.45 per diluted share and AFFO guidance is now $1.38 to $1.48 per diluted share. I'll I'll now turn the call back over to John for his closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Matt. We've accomplished a number of key milestones in the Q2 with our follow on offering, Increasing acquisition activity and other capital markets and transaction activities. Our high quality portfolio continues Form well and we expect that to only continue as we maintain our focus on the disciplined execution of our investment strategy. All of these are positive incremental steps in the company's evolution and we look forward to taking more positive steps in the quarters to come. I want to thank our shareholders for their continued support and congratulate our team on all of their accomplishments.

At this time, we'll open it up for questions. Operator?

Speaker 1

We will now begin the question and answer session. And the first question comes from Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning, guys. John, can you talk a little bit about sort of timing and expectations for the office So those under contract currently? Are you still negotiating? Where are you in the process there? And what's the given your acquisition pipeline, What's your ability to backfill those in a relatively quickly fashion from the NOI with acquisitions?

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks, Rob. So, we are trading paper on both of them with regards to whether it's Contractor LOI, 1 is negotiated contract, 1 we're negotiating LOI. So good activity there. So our expectation is 3rd quarter, perhaps early 4th quarter on closing.

We're not in a rush So we want to basically almost gearing it towards the buyer, That's execution for us, so where the buyer kind of shakes out with the best execution, so not trying to rush them. And then with regards to the pipeline to replace those So, yes, the pipeline is very strong. I mean, as you can see in the quarter, we did a fair amount of activity and that has just really built For the pipeline going forward.

Speaker 5

And how should we be thinking about you guys have been doing reliably 7% plus cap rate On the retail assets, what it looks like from a dilution accretion standpoint For trading that dollar value of office assets for that dollar value of retail assets?

Speaker 3

Yes. So it will be a combination of IG and non IG as far as where we acquire. And so obviously the IG type of assets Probably be slightly dilutive and then non IG would be basically be on top or accretive. So we're hopefully, we'll manage through that very well and then the friction of that won't be very much at all. But The pricing that we got hopefully get on the properties is We think very strong and allows us to kind of make that transition to acquisitions that won't be too painful.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then how are you thinking, I mean, I don't know if you want to get into specifics about the OP unit deal that you just did, but how are you thinking about Trading that paper, given where the stock price is, is that something where it's Likely to if you do additional OP unit deals, it's going to be plus or minus a little bit from where the stock price is. Are you pricing that At a premium to for the tax deferral nature of it, are there lockups beyond the sort of normal short term stuff? How are you guys Thinking about that currency.

Speaker 3

Yes. So the OP unit deal we did was higher than where we did The follow on offering and obviously didn't have as much of the cost nature of it. And so that was very accretive versus the follow on offering. And so as the stock price has built here, we expect any OP unit issuance going forward will be in line with Stock price and certainly we're not looking to go down to where we did the last deal, which was a deal that we're very pleased with. The seller really wanted to be a partner with us on Pine and It tends to hold the stock forever and actually we're hoping to do more transactions with them going forward As they basically have a portfolio that they keep on Kind of working, if you will, and we'll if there's something that works for us and they want to do some OP unit deals with a higher stock price, we're open to that.

But yes, I think this is a great transaction where we can go out and talk to other Developers who have portfolios that we obviously offer a great solution for them if they're looking for To sell it because partners want to sell and instead of rolling into another property, they can take OP units for with us and split it up that way as far as Between the partnership. So it's a great tool to have and we're excited that we got one done early on in our life.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then are there any assets in any additional assets in CTO that Pine is likely to acquire this year?

Speaker 3

This year may not happen. There are some assets that Could fit very well for Alpine, but there's some work to do as far as splitting them out of centers that CTO Has and so I wouldn't expect that to happen this year.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then last one for me. Matt, Any reason for the change in dividend timing other than to move it out of a crowded earnings period?

Speaker 4

That's really the only reason. We just wanted to get more in line with industry standard, which is closer to the payment date. So Absolutely no change in dividend policy. Obviously, we're not declaring one yet, so I can't speak to what the Q3 dividend will be, but It's purely just a timing issue.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

Speaker 4

Appreciate it. Thanks Rob.

Speaker 1

The next question comes from Michael Gorman with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Yes, thanks. Good morning. John, you talked about obviously a lot of positive traction on the acquisition side of the business and a strong pipeline. If I recall, I think the guidance previously assumed about $150,000,000 and you're certainly well on the way there. How are you thinking about full year acquisition targets as you look at the back half?

I mean, obviously, plenty of capital to put to work. How are you thinking about that?

Speaker 3

Yes. So, I mean, certainly the pipeline has built, especially with the transactions we've completed that's led To further discussions about additional assets and if you think about it, we're only in we're in less than half the states And so we got plenty of territory to do acquisitions. We're not even in California. So we got a large playing field in front of us. And so we're very confident that what we've done in the first half Can be replicated in the second half and certainly we have the capital now that we went into the pit stop and fueled up and now we're We can basically take it through the end of the year.

Speaker 2

And Matt, just to be clear, does the new guidance range include any change to acquisition assumptions or is that are you still being conservative there?

Speaker 4

Just said it is a pretty good assumption that we're going to The back half of the year should look similar from a volume perspective as the front half of the year. We didn't give formal guidance on acquisition volume, just FFO and AFFO per share, That's how I would guide people.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. And then John on the dispositions going beyond the office assets, There's kind of 1 or 2 non strategic that you're looking at there.

Speaker 1

Can you just give

Speaker 2

a sense for maybe what you're looking at or seeing in those assets That makes you want to move them out of the portfolio and deploy capital elsewhere?

Speaker 3

You mean are you talking about just the office or are you talking about any other particular properties?

Speaker 2

No, the ones beyond the office ones.

Speaker 3

Beyond. Well, we certainly are open to selling assets if we get premium Pricing and so it's really about where we can sell a certain credit where The market would think that the cap rate associated with that credit is a lot higher. So, it really shows The strength of our portfolio with regards to the real estate. And so when we announce it, you'll see Kind of the rationale that we sold it at a price that we can reinvest those proceeds accretively And you would think that you'll think that obviously we're getting better credit as well. So not only accretively on a cap rate basis, but Drifting up in credit as well.

So it's really taking advantage of the market where we're getting premium pricing for an asset That the stock market thinks is a higher cap rate.

Speaker 2

Great. And then maybe just last one for me, John. It seems like there's You're seeing some opportunities and maybe some better pricing for assets where maybe there's a little bit less lease duration. Can you

Speaker 1

just talk about how

Speaker 2

you think about that Strategically, how you underwrite that from a credit perspective? And as you look at the portfolio In total, kind of what's your comfort level with weighted average lease term?

Speaker 3

Yes. So we're as you indicated, we are very comfortable on certain assets with very short lease durations. If The store is doing strong numbers. The rent there is below market. Those are situations that we like a lot because for a retailer to Change locations would be probably detrimental to the store operations or the profitability.

So we love those sort of equations and we're not afraid to kind of keep burning down the lease term until it's a better Time to go talk to the retailer with regards to extending the lease. So it's all about the fundamentals, having very Strong real estate knowing where obviously the lease comps are with regards to comparable type properties, Looking at the Placer data to find out where the sales are coming from with regards to that location, The traffic, how that compares with the portfolio of that retailer, so that all goes into it, but that's where we really find The best sort of kind of alpha, if you will, is finding those short release durations with higher cap rates in good locations where we know it's a very Sticky location with regards to the tenant.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Thanks for your time guys.

Speaker 1

The next question comes from Wes Golladay with Baird. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning, guys. I just had a question on the deals that have no escalator no annual escalators. Everyone's talking about CPI these days and it's going to be 2%, 3%, 4%. So I'm wondering if that's starting to make its way into the private market where people are shying away from These deals?

Speaker 3

Yes. Look, it's a function of a lot of these credits, the IG credits almost Across the board, we have no lease escalations. So it's a little bit of a dance between The IG exposure, which will have less of a bump in escalations and then the Non IG, which you will pick up the lease escalation. So on a portfolio basis, it's basically 1% per year on the portfolio, But not seeing too much dialogue right now on CPI and so forth. I think people are Still going to do fixed lease escalations for new leases, but that's kind of Yes, our kind of reaction to it.

Speaker 4

Yes, Wes, just the other thing I would add is on the conversation around the lease duration of our portfolio, We do get bumps when the tenants exercise their options. So with our shorter lease duration, there's probably more implied growth near term Then maybe some other portfolios out there as a result of that.

Speaker 6

Yes. No, and I appreciate that. I guess I was looking at more of the angle of Maybe buyers that you're competing against to acquire these assets, maybe a few of them are showing up because they're a little concerned about the escalators. But it sounds like maybe people are just so focused on the IG Credit at this moment, they're willing to look past the CPI. Is that the correct read?

Speaker 4

Yes, I think that's right. I think the market is pretty competitive right now, especially for investment grade credit. So I don't think The rent escalations are really having an impact on pricing for those types of assets.

Speaker 6

Got it. And then when we look at some of these shorter lease term deals that you're doing, looking at Advanced Auto This year looks like less this quarter less than 4 years remaining. How soon will you look to get after those leases for renewal?

Speaker 3

Obviously, we know the market kind of concerned about lease duration. So we'd rather run it a little further closer to lease expiration to get a better deal For that negotiation rather than going too early. So the answer to your question is we're not in a rush, but if we feel like It's important for portfolio dynamics. We could kind of start going through the portfolio and approaching some tenants.

Speaker 6

All right. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 7

Thank

Speaker 1

The next question comes from Craig Kucera with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning, guys. Most of mine have been answered, but I just want to follow-up on the OP Unit transaction. Are you finding any other

Speaker 3

guess it's a little bit unique one off. We plan on when we have some time to be more reaching out to groups. We want to explain that transaction to holders of a large amount of portfolio of Net lease properties because we think it will be attractive, but right now we're so busy dealing with inbound with regards To our acquisition pipeline, we really haven't had a chance to go out and market that transaction because I think it's It's a win win and certainly our counterparty on that transaction is well regarded family office and developer. And so I think they'd be great to help communicate that from how they saw the transaction. So it's definitely one that once we have some time to kind of get out there, we plan on Speaking with groups and trying to do more of those type transactions.

Speaker 7

Got it. And as far as dispositions, I think you had about $3,000,000 held for sale, of course we're looking for the office, but do you think there'll be meaningful dispositions beyond sort of what's currently held for sale as well as the office?

Speaker 3

No, not meaningful. Again, if only if the opportunity comes about and We're happy to demonstrate to the market the strength of the portfolio in part with assets that we know that will be easy To accretively reinvest.

Speaker 7

Okay, thanks. That's it for me.

Speaker 1

As we have no further questions, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to John Albright any closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you very much for attending the call.

Speaker 7

The conference has now concluded.

Speaker 1

Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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