Greetings. Welcome to the STAG Industrial, Inc. First Quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question- and- answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Steve Xiarhos, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir.
Thank you. Welcome to STAG Industrial's conference call covering the first quarter 2026 results. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, we have posted an unaudited quarterly supplemental information presentation on the company's website at www.stagindustrial.com under the Investor Relations sections. On today's call, the company's prepared remarks and answers to your questions will contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include forecasts of Core FFO, Same-Store NOI, G&A, acquisition and disposition volumes, retention rates and other guidance, leasing prospects, rent collections, industry and economic trends, and other matters.
We encourage all listeners to review the more detailed discussion related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC and the definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures contained in the supplemental information package available on the company's website. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of today. STAG Industrial assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. On today's call, you will hear from Bill Crooker, our Chief Executive Officer, and Matts Pinard, our Chief Financial Officer. Also here with us today are Mike Chase, our Chief Investment Officer, and Steve Kimball, our Chief Operating Officer, who are available to answer questions specific to their areas of focus. I'll now turn the call over to Bill.
Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the first quarter earnings call for STAG Industrial. We are pleased to have you join us and look forward to discussing the first quarter of 2026 results. Q1 industrial leasing velocity and volume are healthy both market-wide and within STAG's portfolio. Year-over-year absorption continues to improve. Notably, the multi-year weakness in demand for big box product has reversed, with vacancy in larger spaces decreasing in many markets. This has not been limited to larger spaces, however, with strong activity in the 150,000-250,000 sq ft segment of the sector where STAG's portfolio predominantly sits. The market is benefiting from a more recent demand driver tied to the rapid acceleration of data center construction.
3PLs supporting these data center developments have resulted in a new segment of leasing demand for traditional warehouse facilities. Since the beginning of 2025, we have signed eight leases totaling 1.6 million sq ft to data center related tenants. New supply also remains subdued, with approximately 40% of new supply constructed for build to suit projects above historical averages. We continue to expect national vacancy rates to peak in the coming months with an inflection point in the back half of 2026. Capital markets have remained stable to start the year, and industrial product remains one of the most liquid asset classes. We see momentum in the transaction market with the pipeline growing and transaction volume increasing. Our internal pipeline has increased to $3.9 billion.
In February, we acquired a 750,000 sq ft building located in Platte City, Missouri for $80.7 million at a reported cap rate of 6.1%. The newly constructed Class A building features 36-foot clear height, ESFR, ample trailer parking, and heavy power. Strategically located within a northwest submarket of Kansas City, the building benefits from close access to highways and the Kansas City International Airport. The building is 100% leased for 12 years with 3.2% annual rental escalators. In terms of our development platform, we have seven buildings or 1.8 million sq ft of development activity that is not in service as of the end of Q1. These buildings are in various stages of development and have an expected stabilized yield of 7.1%.
Subsequent to quarter end, we have signed two new development leases. We agreed to a 73,000 sq ft lease at our Casual Drive development in Greenville. That building is now 100% leased. We also executed a lease totaling 45,000 sq ft in one of our Charlotte development projects. That building is now 90% leased. With that, I will turn it over to Matts, who will cover our remaining results and guidance for 2026.
Thank you, Bill, good morning, everyone. Core FFO per share was $0.65 for the quarter, an increase of 6.6% as compared to last year. Leverage remains low, with net debt to annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA equal to 5x . Equity stood at $806 million at quarter end. During the quarter, we commenced 37 leases across 6 million sq ft, generating cash and straight line leasing spreads of 20.9% and 39.6% respectively. This is a quarterly record in terms of total operating portfolio square feet leased. Tenant demand is strong and it's in many industries, including air freight and logistics, retail, and containers and packaging. Retention for the quarter was 69.5%.
We are maintaining our retention guidance of 70%-80% for the year. As of today, 79% of our forecasted leasing for 2026 has been addressed at levels consistent with our initial guidance and at levels equal to our previous years at this point. We still expect cash leasing spreads of 18%-20% this year. Same-Store Cash NOI grew 4.1% for the quarter. Credit loss was minimal for the first quarter as well. At this point, we are maintaining all guidance for the year. 2026 guidance can be found on page 21 of our supplemental package, which is available within the investor relations section of the website. I will now turn it back over to Bill.
Thank you, Matts. I want to thank our team for the great start to 2026. STAG has set the foundation of sustainable growth in 2026 and will continue to benefit from a strong balance sheet, ample liquidity, and broad market diversification. We'll now turn it back to the operator for questions.
Thank you. Our first question comes from Craig Mailman with Citigroup. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning, guys. Bill, you noted similar to peers that the leasing market is healthier here today. I'm just kind of curious, you guys did maintain retention guidance and all your guidance actually. I know you guys have an elevated expiration schedule this year. Are you seeing, you know, quicker backfills on spaces that have come back to you or anything encouraging on that front? I know you guys are a little bit worried about that as a source of occupancy downside.
Thanks, Craig. I mean, it's certainly a higher lease expiration year, and that's driving our occupancy guidance for the year. With respect to what we're budgeting, it's still nine to 12 months of lease-up time for assets when they go vacant. I will say we had good activity in Q4. That has continued in Q1. We had a large amount of square footage leased in Q1. I think it was 6 million sq ft. The activity is really strong. We're seeing it from multiple industries. We're getting a lot of RFPs. It feels really good. With all that being said, we have not changed our lease-up assumptions at this time. The momentum from Q4 has continued into Q1 and into Q2.
Okay. Just a follow-up here. You mentioned, I think eight leases, 1.6 million sq ft to data center supply tenants.
Yeah.
What markets are you seeing that in, predominantly? Do you think that this is concentrated in your portfolio or grows a little bit, as just the proliferation of data centers, takes hold?
Yeah. It certainly feels like it's going to continue to grow. I mean, South Carolina, we're seeing a lot of it. We had three leases in South Carolina, two in the Greenville Spartanburg market. Nashville, the lease we signed in Nashville was a data center-related tenant. We saw some in the Midwest, in Wisconsin, one lease there. We had a lease we signed in Ohio, and also in Charlotte. It's really that Southeast, Midwest markets is where we're primarily seeing that demand. That's where a lot of our portfolio is concentrated. We anticipate further demand from data center-related tenants.
Not to ask a third one, like, what type of tenants are there? Are they 3PLs or are they equipment manufacturers or servicers? Like, who are you leasing to?
Yeah. One was a 3PL, to a, you know, one of, you know, one of the largest 3PLs in the world, serving a Meta data center contract. We have some tenants that are distributing generators to data centers. We have some light assembly of, you know, racking of power conversion systems in one of them. One's manufacturing battery components. It's a variety of things supporting data center developments and just the operations. These are long-term leases. I mean, the weighted average lease term is a little over eight years, the leasing spreads we achieved on that 1.6 million sq ft was about 35%. Good economics, long-term leases, strong credits backing these leases as well.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Craig.
The next question comes from Michael Griffin with Evercore. Please proceed.
Great. Thank you. I appreciate the commentary on the leasing front. It seems like it's been a good start to the year. I realize you've maintained your guide across the board. Maybe, Bill, if you can give us a sense of any updated thoughts on, you know, market rent growth expectations. I think at the beginning of the year, it seemed like you were flat to up 2%. Does it feel like we're above the midpoint on that? I realize things can fluctuate around, but any commentary there would be helpful.
Yeah. I mean, I think this is, you know, part of the theme of Q1 calls, especially with us, where we just put out our annual guidance a couple months ago. We had pretty good insight into, you know, where things were trending to start the year. Activity is probably a little bit stronger than what we initially thought. With all that being said, we maintained, you know, our guidance, you know, really across all components of that. With respect to market rent growth, our guide was 0%-2%. That will, that we're gonna maintain that guidance as well at this time. That will likely trend higher on a quarterly basis as we move through the year, you know, as we see that vacancy rate, market vacancy rate, you know, peak in the coming months.
Everything is panning out as we thought a couple of months ago, maybe a little bit more optimism in the portfolio, just given the activity we're seeing and the leases we're signing and the discussions we're having with tenants. It's still early in the year, right? We're two months past our original guidance we put out.
Great. That's helpful. Then maybe for my follow-up, you know, at about 80% of your 2026 leasing goal, seems pretty good so far. I don't want to put the cart before the horse, obviously. As you look to maybe 2027, are you starting to have those conversations? I mean, does it feel like as you look even at the year ahead, you're running maybe ahead of where you were relative to expectations or anything you can glean on maybe those 27 conversations would be helpful.
Yeah. I mean, it's obviously a little early for 2027, but we do, especially for renewals, we start those conversations typically 12 months in advance. When you look at our 2027 leasing plan, we're about 25% through that at this point, and that's pretty comparable to the last few years.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Nick Thillman with Baird. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe you wanted to touch a little bit on what you're seeing on the acquisition front. Is there any sort of change in the pool of assets you're looking at? Are you willing to take on with the increased demand environment? Are you willing to take a little bit more value add? Or is, I guess bucket the development value add versus core acquisitions and what you're underwriting today and how that sort of trended over the last 90 days or so.
Yeah. I'll let Mike jump in in terms of what we're seeing broad-based. With respect to, you know, identifying a certain profile of asset and focusing on that, I mean, we're fortunate enough that we've got the people, the processes in place and the systems in place to underwrite a large number of transactions. You know, we'll look at everything and, you know, depending on, you know, what meets our criteria and if we can meet the price, then we'll buy it. It's not like we're going to shift materially into value add or materially into, you know, long-term stabilized leases. We'll acquire what meets our investment criteria at that time, but we'll look at everything.
You know, just one thing on the acquisition side, sourcing side, and then I'll pass over to Mike for more of the broader view is, you know, we did yesterday just acquire a piece of land adjacent to one of our buildings in Dallas, Texas. The land is large enough to fit about a 340,000 sq ft facility. We're gonna start development of that facility shortly. It's good to put that land under contract. It's shovel-ready. That transaction's gonna be about $38 million at a 7.4% yield on cost. Excited to get that going. You know, that's just an example. We're looking at a number of development opportunities.
We're looking at a number of value add opportunities, stabilized opportunities, some small portfolios. It really depends on what meets that investment criteria. If I didn't mention that transaction, that piece of land is in Dallas, Texas. With that, I'll pass over to Mike to share any more commentary on the.
Sure. I think another thing just to mention on that piece of land is that that's a committed build to suit, where we already have a tenant committed for that building, the land that we just bought yesterday. Just looking nationally, it was a strong end to 2025. Q4 came in from an investment sales perspective, came in pretty strong. That's carried over into Q1 of 2026. That stability and momentum in the capital markets has resulted in an increase in confidence from both buyers and sellers in the market. That also resulted in an uptick of deal flow, more buyers coming off the sidelines and into the market. You know, there's been good deal flow that we've seen, you know, in Q1, and that's continuing into Q2.
Yeah. I mean, you see that in our pipeline too. Our pipeline is $3.9 billion. About 70% of that is, you know, single transactions, 30% is portfolios. And just on the, on the seller side, I mean, and buyer side, bid-ask spreads are pretty tight now. We expect just the overall industrial transaction market to pick up here as we move through Q2.
That's helpful. Then, Bill, I know you've mentioned just some of these partnerships you've had with regional developers, and sounds like Dallas might be an opportunity that you just locked in here as well. I guess longer term, are you thinking about getting a little bit more concentrated now that you're building these relationships with these developers? I guess, are you guys being a little bit more sub-market focused, and looking for a little bit more growth, in end markets and underwriting that? I guess more commentary there would be helpful because that's something that we've.
Yeah.
Talked about in the past.
Backing up. Yeah. Just backing up on the, on the piece of land we bought, that was sourced by us. We had a tenant in our portfolio that's on an adjacent site that wanted to do a build to suit. We were able to source the land and go through all the approval process. That was done on balance sheet. That's not being partnered with anybody. With all of our developments, we look at the submarkets and make sure that those buildings fit the submarkets. I mean, these buildings that we're putting up meet the teeth of demand in these markets. That's, you know, first and foremost. We appreciate the partnerships we have with our development partners. We want to grow those. We're trying to grow those.
In some respects, we are growing those. There's also some opportunities to expand partnerships with new partners. All that's on the table. If you were to ask, you know, what's our best use of capital today, it's probably on the development side. I mean, just this one in Dallas. That, you know, that's a 7.4% yield. That's our best use of capital. It's harder to acquire that land and takes longer to develop it. We like the opportunity, and we'll do it either on balance sheet or with existing partners or with new partners.
Appreciate the commentary. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Jason Belcher with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. I guess first, Q1 Same-Store was pretty solid at 4.1%. The guidance was unchanged at 3%, suggesting, you know, somewhat of a possible slowdown. Can you talk about how you expect that to take shape or how we should be thinking about the cadence of that metric for the rest of the year?
Yeah, absolutely. Good morning, Jason. Cash Same-Store at 4.1% in the first quarter is very healthy. Really what we need to do is talk about the economic impact to occupancy decline. In the first quarter, occupancy decline was only partially reflected in the Same-Store number, meaning a good portion of the non-renewals occurred near the end of the quarter. Basically, the second quarter is going to reflect the full impact of that vacancy. Put a different way, the 4.1% includes impact of the 60 basis points of average occupancy loss, not the 120 basis points of actual occupancy loss of period end. All of that's related to the first quarter.
The 4.1% does not account for the fact that the space was vacant for an entire quarter. Look, the first quarter cash flow was fully anticipated. It was included in our guidance. As you said, we continue to expect cash flow growth of 3% at the midpoint, no change to the guidance. This was expected. It really comes down to the impact of occupancy over a full period.
Great. Thank you. Secondly, could you just give us an update on where your embedded rent increases are trending for newly signed leases and also remind us what the average escalator is across the portfolio is at this point?
Yeah, absolutely. The weighted average escalator across the portfolio is 2.9%, almost 3%, and that's gonna increase every quarter because every lease that we're kind of coming across our desk starts with a 3%. Anywhere in the 3%-3.5% range, call it 3.25% on average of the leases that we are signing. Again, you know, just mathematically, that 2.9% will continue to increase.
Great. Thanks again, guys.
The next question comes from Eric Borden with BMO. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning. Thanks, guys. Matts, you just touched on this a little bit about the Same-S tore, but just on the occupancy front, you know, you started off the year with positive leasing, but you had a few known move-outs in the back end of the quarter. You know, how should we be thinking about the quarterly occupancy cadence just for the balance of 2026? You know, as we look to the rest of the year, should we expect any additional known move-outs?
Yeah, exactly. With the known move-outs, you know, we didn't change our guidance. We're at 75% at the midpoint retention, which is basically spot on what we've averaged as a public company and what you're gonna see from any other institutional quality industrial portfolio. The Same-S tore experienced 60 basis points of average occupancy loss and 120 basis points of period end occupancy loss. That resulted in 96.6% occupancy in the Same-S tore, and I just wanna pause here. That's a very healthy level. As Bill mentioned, our budgets assume nine to 12 months of lease up, so space that was vacant in our budget to lease up next year, not this year.
You know, if we think about the cadence, we expect the trough occupancy to occur in the second quarter, with occupancy increasing during the second half of the year. That basically squares with our view that at the end of this year we're gonna start to see equilibrium in market rent growth acceleration. Again, the change in occupancy is fully anticipated. We had messaged it. It's included in our initial guidance. We continue to expect average occupancy in the Same-Store pool to be 96.5% with no change to our guidance.
Great. Thank you. Just going back to the increasing data center demand, you know, how are you guys thinking about underwriting, you know, that tenant base in terms of, you know, power availability, building specs, CapEx needs, and, you know, credit duration, just versus, you know, your traditional warehouse tenant?
I mean, one of the themes we're seeing, you know, across a lot of tenants is they want more power, right? Whether that's today or, you know, in five years in their lease term, maybe because they plan to automate their facility more or whatnot. Power is certainly something tenants are looking for. With respect to the spaces that we lease to data center tenants, I mean, some of them had excess power and some did not. It's your traditional warehouse that is just being used for a different use. It's, you know, the same example of we've had warehouses that were regional distribution centers, that second tenant was a light assembly tenant, and then the third tenant was warehousing, right? These are functional buildings that can be used for multiple uses. We're just seeing an incremental demand driver from data center tenants.
Appreciate the time. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Jessica Zheng with Green Street. Please proceed.
Good morning. Just following up on the data center piece. For the construction tenants that signs the longer term leases, do you know if they're serving, like, multiple data centers in the area? If not, do you know if they will be servicing the data centers' operations after the construction completes? Yeah, I'm just curious about, you know, the kind of the sustainability of this new tailwind here.
Yeah. Some of them are servicing the data centers that are already complete, and it's just servicing their ongoing operations. Some are servicing the development of it, and some are servicing multiple data centers, and some are servicing just one data center. Where these warehouses are located, there's multiple demand drivers within those markets. I mean, we have at least two of these data center leases in the Greenville-Spartanburg market, and we spoke about that market many times. It's one of our, you know, one of our top markets, and there's, you know, there's consumption in that market for warehousing and local distribution. There's regional distribution related to the inland port. There's now data center demand there. There's the BMW plant that creates a lot of demand there.
You know, these are functional buildings that can meet many of the demand drivers. There's just this incremental demand driver of data centers.
Great. Thank you for the color. Additionally, I was wondering if you could just kind of walk through your other markets and kind of highlight the ones with relative strengths and weaknesses right now.
Yeah. I mean, if you, if you look at kind of markets that are a little weaker, it's. We have one asset in San Diego that's proving to be a little challenging. Now, you know, Memphis is a little slower, Pittsburgh a little slower. I'd say our markets that have probably been improving the most are Greenville, Spartanburg, and Charlotte. You know, if you wanna move a little further to our best markets, Houston's been a great market, Nashville. The Midwest big box distribution markets have really started to perform extremely well. I mean, that's a trend we're also seeing is big box leasing has been strong, and a lot of these markets are, you know, have very low vacancy rates for big box distribution. That's your Columbus, your Louisville, your Indy.
It's very helpful color. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Noel Reyes with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Yeah, good morning. Just wondering about where you're seeing underlying private market valuation trends in your specific markets and if you're seeing them being impacted by really what's going on macroeconomically or geopolitically at the moment?
Yeah. I mean, depending on the transaction, whether it's, you know. I assume you're talking cap rates. Just to clarify the question.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, individual transactions, I mean, we just bought one transaction in Q1. We're close to putting a couple others under LOI. I mean, those are transacting, you know, at and around where we're buying assets, right? Sometimes, you know, 25 basis points or 50 basis points inside of that, and that's why we don't win the deal, right? They're trading at cap rates a little bit lower than what we're willing to pay. Portfolios, because there's a lot of capital, you know, still chasing this asset class, we're still seeing a slight premium for portfolios. Anywhere from a 25-50 basis point portfolio premium on private transactions.
Wonderful. That's, that's good color. That's all I had on that. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Crooker for closing comments.
Thanks everybody, for participating in the call. We appreciate the questions and look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you.
Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.