Ah Realty Inc Aktie

Hello, and welcome to AH Realty Trust First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Chelsea Forrest, EVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining AH. Realty Trust's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. On the call this morning, in addition to myself, is [ Shawn ] Tibbets, Chairman, President and CEO; Matthew Barnes-Smith, CFO; and Craig Romero, EVP of Asset Management. The press release announcing our first quarter earnings, along with our supplemental package were distributed yesterday afternoon. A replay of this call will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call through June 4, 2026. The numbers to access the replay are provided in the earnings press release. For those who listen to the rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, May 5, 2026, and will not be updated subsequent to this initial earnings call. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements, including statements related to the future performance of our portfolio, transactions involving our multifamily portfolio, our real estate financing program and our construction business and the use of proceeds from such transactions, our rebranding and the effects thereof, the consequences of our strategic transformation, our liquidity position as well as comments on our outlook. Listeners are cautioned that any forward-looking statements are based upon management's beliefs, assumptions and expectations, taking into account information that is currently available. These beliefs, assumptions and expectations may change as a result of possible events or factors, not all of which are known and many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations, and we advise listeners to review the forward-looking statement disclosure in our press release that we distributed yesterday afternoon and the risk factors disclosed in documents we have filed with or furnished to the SEC. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including, but not limited to, FFO, normalized FFO and FFO as adjusted. Definitions of these non-GAAP measures as well as reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the quarterly supplemental package, which is available on our website at ahrealtytrust.com. I will now turn the call over to Shawn.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Today, I will briefly reflect on the quarter results, our progress on the company's transformation to date, discuss portfolio highlights and conclude with a review of our capital allocation activity. Since announcing our strategic restructuring on February 16, we have executed more transformation milestones in a single quarter than in any comparable period in the company's history. We entered into a binding agreement to sell 11 multifamily assets for $562 million completed the sale of the construction business, advanced the wind down of our real estate financing platform through multiple dispositions, repurchased 4.3 million shares of common stock, nominated 2 highly qualified independent directors to the Board, secured term sheets or reached final stages on all 3 2026 debt maturities, launched our new corporate identity as AH Realty Trust and raised full year FFO as adjusted guidance. The pace and magnitude of these actions reflect our unwavering commitment to unlocking shareholder value, and I will walk through each of these in more detail. In the first quarter of 2026, we delivered solid operating results, reflecting strong performance in our retail and mixed-use office portfolios and the benefits of our disciplined operating approach. AH Realty Trust is a pure-play, high-quality retail and mixed-use office REIT focused on identifying and realizing dominant market competitive advantages throughout the Sunbelt, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Our company is primarily comprised of and focused on open-air shopping centers and mixed-use ecosystems within our markets. We are encouraged by a combination of the retail market strength and the leasing activity we are experiencing in both retail and office. We are also mindful of macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical uncertainty, including higher interest rates, elevated financing costs and heightened global tensions as they continue to influence the broader real estate landscape. That said, our results exceed our internal expectations and reflect the actions we are taking to restructure AH Realty Trust into a simpler and more focused real estate platform positioned for long-term value creation. As a result of the performance of the retail and mixed-use office portfolio, our visibility into the coming quarters and the transformational actions we've taken to date, we are raising our full year 2026 FFO as adjusted guidance range to $0.51 to $0.55 per diluted share. We are here first and foremost for shareholders, and every single action we take is aimed at identifying and clearly demonstrating the underlying value in our portfolio. Another key initiative as part of this transformation is ensuring that we have the right Board skills and governance profile to help guide us. I trust you saw our press release last week announcing planned changes to the Board as part of our ongoing refreshment process to add directors with skills and experience that align with the company's evolved strategy. This includes the Board's nomination of Ted Bigman and Lori Wittman to stand for election at the 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Ted brings deep capital markets and real estate investment experience owned over decades at leading institutional platforms, capabilities that are directly aligned with our capital allocation priorities and balance sheet optimization objectives. Lori brings extensive public REIT, operating and financial leadership experience that will be invaluable as we execute the next phase of our strategy as a focused retail and mixed-use office REIT. Together, their skill sets are purpose-built for the company AH Realty Trust is becoming. I would also like to recognize George Allen and Dennis Gartman, who will not stand for reelection to the Board at the annual meeting. We are very grateful for their years of service and significant contributions during their tenure. The first quarter of 2026 was pivotal in AH Realty Trust's strategic transformation. We made meaningful progress implementing our new operating model and disciplined capital allocation framework. We are reshaping our business by exiting multifamily properties and focusing on high-quality retail and mixed-use office assets in markets where we have durable competitive advantages. As evidenced by our actions in the first quarter, we are taking decisive and deliberate steps to simplify the company, reduce leverage and reallocate capital to advance a new operating strategy. During the quarter, we entered into an agreement with an affiliate of Harbor Group International to sell 11 of our 14 multifamily assets for $562 million. This transaction represents a major milestone in our strategy to exit the multifamily property sector and will meaningfully strengthen AH Realty Trust's balance sheet and materially reduce complexity across the organization. Importantly, this sale reflects a significant premium to the value the public market was implicitly assigning to these assets within our REIT structure, which we believe further validates our thesis that substantial embedded value exists across our portfolio. We expect to close the sale in the coming weeks, subject to customary closing conditions. We are marketing the remaining 2 multifamily assets in Gainesville. Following these sales, we intend to retain only Smiths Landing in the residential category because its ground lease structure is unique relative to the remainder of the portfolio and the property continues to generate stable cash flow. As a result, we concluded that given the stable cash flow generation, combined with the ownership structure, retaining Smiths Landing is appropriate at this time and remains consistent with our value preservation objectives. Exiting the multifamily sector unlocks significant embedded value that has not been reflected in our share price, and there was a robust private market demand for our well-located and young assets. We also concluded that we prefer to compete in the commercial market and that future growth for our company in multifamily would be difficult given the low cap rates. Also, given the highly volatile nature of Southeast U.S. multifamily, where supply cycles are long and absorption predictions are often inaccurate, we are far more excited to return that value to shareholders through deleveraging our stable go-forward portfolio of well-leased, well-located retail and mixed-use office assets. Outside of multifamily, we made considerable progress exiting other noncore businesses. Last week, we completed the sale of the construction business, fully exiting. We also advanced the wind down of our real estate financing platform. We closed the previously announced sale of 2 multifamily financing investments. Additionally, I'm happy to announce that our partner closed on the sale of Allure last week. Collectively, we expect the asset sales already underway and those that have been completed will provide us with approximately $750 million in proceeds, which we intend to use to delever the balance sheet and achieve our target leverage ratio of 5.5x to 6.5x net debt to total adjusted EBITDA while also repurchasing shares in the market. We will do this while ensuring the dividend remains fully covered by core property operating cash flow. We will also have removed dependency on uneven construction fees and mezzanine investment revenue. I am proud of the significant progress we have made on our transformation in 2026. We have already achieved a number of key milestones in our journey, and we are well positioned to complete the transformation this year. A focused and agile AH Realty Trust will operate as a pure-play model, retail and mixed-use office real estate investment platform. Our retail portfolio consists primarily of open-air shopping centers and mixed-use retail environments located in strong, fundamentally supported markets. Importantly, 95% of our office investments are concentrated in vibrant mixed-use settings rather than stand-alone suburban office assets. These properties benefit from integrated retail, residential and experiential components, which continue to support consistently high demand from high credit tenants. At quarter end, our stabilized retail and mixed-use office portfolios were 94.8% and 96% leased, respectively. In contrast, while our office product delivers superior occupancy and performance metrics that exceed those of our peers' office product nationally, we would like to see a better appreciation of its value. This disconnect reflects broader sector sentiment rather than asset level fundamentals. 95% of our office portfolio is situated in mixed-use ecosystems and therefore, is highly differentiated and not suburban office product. As a result, our assets benefit from integrated retail, residential and experiential components. These characteristics support durable demand, consistently strong occupancy and a high-quality tenant base, resulting in operating performance that stands apart from prevailing conditions affecting the broader publicly traded office sector. The strength of our retail and mixed-use office portfolios was evident in their performance this quarter. For the first quarter, FFO as adjusted was $0.15 per diluted share, exceeding our internal expectations and demonstrating the earnings power of our go-forward retail and mixed-use office platform. Craig will discuss portfolio performance in detail in his remarks. Turning to capital allocation. We remain disciplined and shareholder focused. Since the beginning of the year, we have repurchased approximately 4.2 million shares for a total of $24.1 million at a weighted average price of approximately $5.70 per share, representing more than 4% of the common equity and reflecting our confidence in the underlying value of the business. Our commitment remains allocating available capital where we believe it is most beneficial to shareholders. Our NAV demonstrates the intrinsic value of our real estate and simultaneously informs our capital allocation decisions. When combined with our transformation, we believe the implied yield relative to other capital allocation alternatives is compelling. To put it simply, we believe that investing in our own assets above a 9% cap rate is very attractive and creates more shareholder value than other available capital allocation options. We expect that our transformation will create additional financial flexibility to allow us to invest in future growth opportunities while building on the performance of the portfolio and the momentum of this transition. As you know, as part of the transition planning, we initially modeled up to $50 million of retail acquisitions to offset potential gains associated with the multifamily sale. As we move closer to closing the residential transactions, we now have improved visibility into the timing and magnitude of the related tax considerations, and we expect, in this case, that the transactions do not result in a material tax consequences to the REIT. With that clarity, given our current cost of capital and leverage objectives, we have reallocated approximately half of that previously modeled acquisition capital towards share repurchases to date. And as stated, we believe this is the most compelling use of capital. We continue to evaluate our remaining allocation options while being mindful of leverage. Factors such as market conditions and potential dispositions will also figure prominently into our analysis. Finally, I want to acknowledge the key role our people play in our company's ongoing transformation. Over the past several quarters, we have made meaningful changes across the organization to ensure that we have the right people, focus and operating discipline to deliver on our full potential in this next chapter. We are investing intentionally in our people and building a culture centered on accountability, execution and disciplined decision-making. We believe these efforts are critical to sustaining performance and successfully executing the next phase of our strategy. In closing, our transformation continues to gain momentum. The multifamily sale is a defining step forward, and we remain committed to executing our strategy with discipline, transparency and strong governance. With a simpler platform, a strengthened balance sheet and continued governance enhancements, we are confident that we are positioning AH Realty Trust with the resiliency and flexibility to capitalize on opportunities while generating consistent cash flows, disciplined growth and superior risk-adjusted returns. We appreciate the continued support of our shareholders and look forward to the opportunities ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to Craig Romero to go through our portfolio highlights.

Thank you, Shawn, and good morning, everyone. Before discussing first quarter portfolio performance, leasing activity and expectations for the rest of this year, I'll draw your attention to additional information presented in this quarter's supplemental financial package, particularly economic occupancy. Economic occupancy as opposed to leased occupancy, which we've historically presented, considers free rent periods, rent abatements and periods prior to rent commencement, therefore, providing stronger correlation to cash NOI. We believe reporting both economic and leased occupancy going forward will provide investors with greater clarity on both past and expected future results. Retail lease occupancy at the end of the first quarter was 94.8% and economic occupancy was 92.5% -- we expect rent commencements primarily at Columbus Village and the Interlock to drive retail economic occupancy increases during the second half of 2026. Retail same-store NOI for the quarter was up 2.2%, driven by rent commencements on new leases across the portfolio as well as positive cash spreads on both new leases and renewals. We anticipate growth to slow through the rest of the year because of certain vacancies and store closures with annual same-store NOI growth ultimately settling well within our projected range of 1% to 2%. Higher economic occupancy at the Interlock Patterson Place, Overlook Village and Columbus Village was the primary driver of first quarter growth. We expect these properties to continue to boost same-store NOI for the rest of the year, driven by rent commencements from new tenants, including Trader Joe's, Golf Galaxy and F1 Arcade. First quarter visits to the new Trader Joe's at Columbus Village continued to outpace the only other location in the market by nearly 2x, while the new Golf Galaxy ranks in the top 3 nationwide. During the first quarter, F1 Arcade opened at the Interlock, driving a 30% year-over-year increase in visits and a 45% increase in parking volume, solidifying the property's destination status in the market. Partially offsetting first quarter gains were vacancies at Southgate Square, Broadmoor Plaza and Broadcreek Shopping Center as well as store closures at Hilltop and Town Center. We expect these properties to weigh on current year same-store NOI as we work to backfill spaces previously occupied by Conn's, Party City, JOANN, West Elm and Orbis. However, we anticipated these closings and tenant demand for these spaces is strong, creating future growth opportunities. We are already in the process of securing high-quality national tenants to fill these storefronts at positive spreads and enhance the merchandising mix at these properties to create longer-term durability. I look forward to providing further updates in the coming quarters. Our retail portfolio remains well positioned to capture sustained tenant demand for retail space at higher rents as demonstrated by positive first quarter spreads of 14.4% on new leases and 4.5% on renewals. Office leased occupancy at the end of the first quarter was 96% and economic occupancy was 87.7%. We expect rent commencements at the Interlock and Town Center to drive economic occupancy gains during the rest of the year. Office same-store NOI for the quarter was up 0.7%, driven by contractual rent increases on existing leases, new rent commencements and 7% positive cash spreads on new leases. These economic occupancy gains were partially offset by vacancy at One City Center from space reclaimed from WeWork in the second quarter of last year. Nevertheless, we expect to end the year comfortably within our projected range of 1.4% to 2.5% annual growth, supported by scheduled rent increases and anticipated rent commencements during the second half of 2026. At the Interlock, we've already begun realizing nearly $1 million of new ABR with the majority expected to commence in the third and fourth quarters. We anticipate that these economic occupancy gains, combined with additional increases at Team Street Wharf, 2 Columbus and 222 Central Park, formerly Armada Hoffler Tower, will outpace temporary challenges at One City Center, 4525 Main and Wills Wharf. While we are not forecasting any new rent commencements at either One City Center or Wills Wharf in 2026, we are seeing good activity and interest in the market and remain confident in our team's ability to re-lease the space. At 4525 Main, we remain on track to re-lease the 8,000 square feet we recaptured last quarter with lease execution expected by the middle of this year. At One Columbus, while we expect leased occupancy to decline by roughly 10 basis points in the second quarter because of anticipated lease expirations, we expect economic occupancy to slightly increase, driven by rent commencements for new tenants at positive spreads. Additionally, we're already at lease on over half of the expiring space at One Columbus and are confident in our team's ability to backfill the rest given the tremendous demand for Town Center office space. Just last week, we completed the consolidation, downsize and relocation of AH Realty Trust's offices to accommodate this demand. As a result of this intentional move, we unlocked and leased 38,000 square feet at 222 Central Park at top of market rents creating $1.3 million of new ABR, which we expect to begin fully realizing in the third quarter of next year, with partial recognition weighted towards the third and fourth quarters of 2026. Town Center is a case study example of the type of asset in which we invest, high quality, differentiated, mixed use and located in markets with high barriers to entry. Another good example is Southern Post, our newest mixed-use asset delivered at the end of 2024, where this quarter, we leased 22,000 square feet to industrious. Just last week, our team executed another 9,000 square foot lease, bringing office lease occupancy at Southern Post to over 93% -- we expect economic occupancy to increase to over 60% by the end of this year and over 80% by the first quarter of 2028 as free rent periods for existing office tenants burn off. Office portfolio fundamentals remain strong with nearly 8 years of WALT, high credit tenancy and less than 2% rollover for the rest of 2026 as well as our team's demonstrated ability to lease space and grow rents. We see continued organic growth opportunity across both our retail and office portfolios through proactive leasing, mark-to-market adjustments on new leases, positive renewal spreads, disciplined expense management and targeted redevelopment and capital investment where returns justify it. This operational focus is central to how we intend to drive consistent NOI growth and deliver long-term value going forward. With that, I'll turn it over to Matt for more details on our first quarter financial results and an update to our fiscal year 2026 guidance.

Good morning, and thank you, Craig. AH Realty Trust delivered solid first quarter performance, laying a strong foundation for the 2026 fiscal year. The results reflect the resilience of our assets and the benefits of the actions we are taking to reshape our portfolio and implement a simpler operating approach with less debt, focused assets and shareholder value that recognizes our asset quality. For the first quarter, FFO attributable to common shareholders was $20.6 million or $0.20 per diluted share, above our expectations for the period. FFO as adjusted attributable to common shareholders was $15.1 million or $0.15 per diluted share, also above our expectations for the period. FFO as adjusted excludes the segments classified as discontinued operations, multifamily, construction and real estate financing and therefore, represents the clearest measure of the earnings of our go-forward retail and mixed-use office platform. We believe this is the metric investors should focus on as it reflects a simplified higher-quality earnings profile that will define AH Realty Trust following the completion of our transformation. Net operating income for Q1 was $34.7 million, representing a 1.8% increase year-over-year and approximately $700,000 ahead of guidance. AFFO totaled $19.9 million or $0.19 per diluted share, which exceeds our current cash dividend as outlined in the supplemental with a payout ratio of 72%. Starting with the supplemental package, this quarter reflects a comprehensive refresh aimed at enhancing transparency and aligning disclosures with how we evaluate the business internally. We introduced several new metrics and disclosures, including economic occupancy, a refreshed NAV page and rental revenue disaggregation, all of which are designed to provide clarity on cash flow durability, asset performance and the embedded portfolio value. We believe these changes allow investors to more effectively track our continued progress by assessing both the quality and sustainability of our earnings streams, specifically as it relates to future cash flow growth. A key highlight is the NAV section illustrated on Page 13. This page is intended to provide a clear and transparent view of the underlying per share asset value, excluding the segments and assets categorized for discontinued operations. The analysis reflects the strength of our underlying real estate portfolio, including our high-quality office and mixed-use assets with the non-stabilized component currently representing Southern Post at development cost. The NAV framework plays a central role in how we evaluate financial performance and deploy capital. As our transformation progresses, we believe the quality of our assets is increasingly positioned to translate into durable earnings and shareholder returns. Our NAV analysis points to the intrinsic value of the real estate and serves as an important reference point in our capital allocation decisions, including share repurchases. As Shawn touched on, we remain committed to executing a disciplined capital allocation approach centered on shareholder interest. To that end, we have continued to take advantage of the dislocation between our share price and underlying asset value through our share repurchase program. Year-to-date, we repurchased $24.1 million of common stock at a weighted average price of $5.70 per share, representing an implied yield that we view as highly attractive relative to other investment opportunities. We see this as having a chance to invest our own assets at an effective implied cap rate for this quarter's share purchase above a 9% cap rate. Where else can we create more shareholder value than doubling down on our market-leading portfolio. As Shawn highlighted, dispositions of the multifamily portfolio, real estate financing platform and construction entity are all either complete or well underway. Based on the headway made, we are well positioned to continue advancing our balanced capital allocation strategy, paying down debt, making disciplined investments in select high-growth markets and continuing to execute our share repurchase program where appropriate. Turning to the balance sheet. We are proactively managing maturities and maintaining flexibility in what continues to be selective capital market environment. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, we have 2 office asset loans and 1 term loan scheduled for refinancing. We are actively engaged with lenders on all notes and expect to complete these refinancings consistent with our broader balance sheet strategy. Starting with the term loan. Maturing at the end of May, we have received a term sheet from our current lenders and are working to extend this loan at maturity for 12 months under the same terms and conditions, including extending the pricing that we have today. Pain Street Wharf matures at the end of September, and we are in the final stages with a relationship lender to close in the coming days on a 5-year nonrecourse asset level note priced in the 5.25% to 5.5% range. To round out the refinancings, we've also received a term sheet from a large institutional life insurance company for both 5-year and 7-year fixed rate debt on the Constellation office asset priced around 200 basis points plus the corresponding treasury with the expectation to close on this refinancing in the next 2 months. We are pleased with the pricing and terms of each of these loans. This reflects the quality of the underlying assets and the credit strength of the tenants and reinforces our track record of prudent liability management and our ability to navigate an especially challenging office debt market. Reducing leverage to strengthen the balance sheet remains a core priority. Upon completion of the transformation, we anticipate approximately $700 million in total debt paydown, a material reduction that is expected to fundamentally reshape our capital structure. Net debt to total adjusted EBITDA was 8.3x at quarter end, temporarily elevated relative to the prior quarter. We intend to use proceeds from the sale of 11 of our 14 multifamily assets to meaningfully reduce leverage to our target range of 5.5 to 6.5x net debt to total adjusted EBITDA, which we anticipate closing in the coming weeks. We ended the quarter with approximately $142 million of liquidity, providing adequate coverage of our capital needs. We are committed to maintaining a flexible balance sheet, disciplined capital allocation and sufficient liquidity to navigate a potentially prolonged higher rate environment. Now moving to our updated guidance. We are raising full year 2026 FFO as adjusted guidance to $0.51 to $0.55 per diluted share, reflecting the continued restructuring progress, retail and mixed-use office portfolio strength and the solid first quarter performance. We are confident that the actions underway, including simplifying our operating model, exiting noncore businesses, strengthening our balance sheet, executing opportunistic share repurchases positions us to drive long-term value for shareholders. We are committed to unlocking that value one way or another, and we have enhanced disclosures that will provide shareholders with additional transparency to continue to track our progress as we advance these initiatives. With that, I will turn the call back over to Shawn

Over the past several quarters, we have taken many of the hard but necessary actions to reposition the company for long-term success. We have completed the majority of our strategic transformation, simplifying the business, strengthening our foundation and sharpening our focus on a high-quality operating portfolio. Today, AH Realty Trust is a pure-play retail and mixed-use office REIT, owning and operating open-air shopping centers and thoughtfully integrated mixed-use assets in strong markets across the Sunbelt, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. With these actions largely behind us, we are now squarely focused on execution and on delivering sustainable performance that drives long-term shareholder value. The path forward is clear, close the multifamily transaction, reduce leverage, continue to invest in our shares at a compelling discount to intrinsic value and demonstrate through consistent operating results that this portfolio deserves to trade at a valuation commensurate with its quality. We have never been more aligned with our shareholders. We remain deeply grateful for the continued support and confidence of our investors as we move into this next chapter. Operator, we are ready for the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Jana Galan of Bank of America.

Congratulations on the progress of the restructuring. The capital markets activity is especially impressive given the macro and interest rate volatility. I was hoping if you could talk to kind of the breadth and depth of buyers for multifamily and for the construction platform and maybe the decision to go with the portfolio versus single assets?

Yes, thank you for the question. And we appreciate the congratulatory remarks. We are excited to be able to beat our forecast and raise, and we're excited about the path forward. In terms of the capital markets, we've continued to see, especially in the multifamily and retail, obviously, the depth of the market. It's good to see that those markets remain strong even given the kind of macro headwinds. That being said, we had an opportunity to sell to Harbor Group here, great deal for our shareholders, obviously, at a mid-5 cap on in-place and likely, hopefully, a good deal for their investors. We saw interest. We talked to quite a few folks, but we were able to make the best deal for shareholders all things considered with Harbor Group. So we feel good about that. And we're excited, by the way. We're a couple of weeks out, and will be -- that will be a material move, as you're aware, for our firm at $562 million, paying down debt. And as you heard, buying back some of our own shares at what we believe is a nice discount. In terms of construction, that business was and has been in wind-down mode. So our view was let's sell it. And the best buyer for that was actually the employees of the company. So we essentially traded that for a price that's north of what was due to the shareholders anyway in terms of gross profit, but we sold that at a slight uptick from what gross profit would have otherwise been received by the shareholders. It's a tough business right now, as you could imagine, with interest rates, and we think this is the best move for the company, for the shareholders to create a more simplistic company reduce not only confusion, but reduce risk, quite frankly, over the short, mid and long run. So we're excited about that.

Super helpful. And then I appreciate the enhanced disclosure. And you mentioned several lease commencements in the second half '26 for both retail and office, but also some offsets and known move-outs. Can you give any type of year-end '26 economic occupancy projections or ranges for either portfolio?

Sure. I'll just start by saying that -- we are encouraged by the tailwinds, by the strength of the market and the leasing kind of momentum and velocity activity out there broadly, especially in terms of our retail and mixed-use office portfolio. But I think, Craig, why don't you drill down a little bit, if you don't mind, just quickly and talk a little bit about what's on the horizon here?

Yes, sure. Happy to, Shawn. And thank you for the question. When it comes to lease and economic occupancy, I think the widest gap is obviously today in the office portfolio, as you can see. The biggest pieces of that are the Interlock, which we expect to see that gap narrow during the second half of the year as new tenants that we've secured and leased in prior quarters begin to pay rent. And one interesting anomaly, the same Street Wharf, you'll see a decent sized gap there between leased and economic occupancy. The main tenant there is Morgan Stanley. They have a month of free rent every other quarter. That happens to be this quarter. So you will see that gap narrow in the second -- actually close in the second quarter, again, widen in the third and then close again in the fourth. So a little bit of volatility there. But overall, macro speaking, you'll see the difference between leased and economic occupancy from our expectations to narrow as we progress through the second half of this year due to rent commencements.

[Operator Instructions]

Your next question comes from the line of Victor Fediv of Scotiabank.

I have a question on your decision to kind of shift from acquisitions to share buybacks. It kind of makes sense given where your stock is trading. Just trying to understand the financial implications because if I'm not mistaken, you were planning to use some 1031 exchange money to kind of do these acquisitions. I'm just trying to understand financial implications for you connected with this decision.

Sure. Thank you, Victor. I think it's pretty straightforward. As we get closer to closure in a couple of weeks on the kind of biggest material part of our transaction or transformation, have a better line of sight on the tax consequence to the REIT, and it looks like that will not be material. So we chose to -- given the value the stock was trading at and kind of capital allocation opportunity cost, if you will, versus buying a retail center at a 7 cap, we said, look, north of a 9 cap, it's better to invest in our assets that we have perfect information on. And obviously, to the benefit of the shareholder, kind of reduce that share count. So we think that was the best move. Obviously, we'd like to get into a mode where we're acquiring additional properties, but not at all costs, right? It needs to be accretive to the shareholder. So our view was let's take the opportunity while there is a discount and let's take also the opportunity to close that distance between current share price and what we believe NAV is -- we will move through that chapter as well as kind of look at some repositioning, kind of some redevelopment opportunities on the smaller scale within the portfolio as we close that gap and then continue to focus on our FFO growth to grow the value of the firm. So we thought it made a lot of sense, especially given that gap to buy the shares back kind of opportunistically, especially given that the REIT is not facing a material tax consequence as a result of the sales of the assets or otherwise real estate positions.

Makes sense. And then on these 2 multifamily assets, which are left in Gainesville. So I see that now you're kind of expecting to close it in Q4 '26, first quarter of -- so just trying to understand your logic here. So are you trying to kind of reach full stabilization for those assets and then sell them at the highest price? Like just trying to understand whether you will be willing to sell it earlier or later? How do we think about that?

Yes. I think, look, the reality is they are stabilized now. And there's some market timing to this as well in addition to the fact that the buyer was not willing to pay us what we wanted for those assets, and we believe the market will bear a better price. So we're going to take those and sell them at the market to get the best number that we can and obviously benefit the company and therefore, the shareholders the best that we can in the form of paying down debt and bringing capital back on the balance sheet.

Got it. And then just last for me on -- in terms of -- you mentioned kind of some opportunities to invest capital in redevelopment. Or do you have like any outparcel that you can invest in or kind of upcoming redevelopments that are not on the lease that you're kind of considering? Can you provide some additional details on that?

Sure. There is a page in the supplemental, forgive the page flipping because I didn't memorize your page. But yes, Page 29 of the supplemental, Victor, includes opportunities that we see kind of on the horizon given the portfolio that we currently own. And there are a number of outparcels there as well as some assets that I would characterize as maybe underutilizing the real estate. Outparcels are probably the quickest move, right, in terms of getting some accretive opportunity into the earnings stream, but also there are some opportunities there with assets that may not be using the real estate in terms of the size of the plot they sit on or the box, quite frankly, may not be the best -- may not have the best tenant. So kind of repositioning in terms of something like we did with the Bed Bath & Beyond the Trader Dose, outparcels, and we have a couple of other opportunities with assets with large parking lots and sitting on a large amount of acreage that we could think about more in the midterm. So yes, we're thinking about that a lot. Candidly, we're doing a lot of work on that. But yes, we'll continue to look for those opportunities and strike at the right time when it makes sense to best deploy that capital.

Your next question comes from the line of Jon Peterson of Jefferies......

Great.

On the share buybacks, I mean, you talked about the implied cap rate of your company being well north of 9%. I mean, how do we think about where your share price needs to go where you hit some sort of breakeven where share buybacks make less sense and maybe investing in future acquisitions or buying back more debt is -- it makes more sense.

Yes. I think, John, thank you for the question, first of all. Second of all, I think -- when we get within a line of sight of NAV, I think, would be the way to think about that for us, right? Theoretically, if we're at NAV, we can begin to think about deploying capital. I think that implies that our -- we're trading at a cap rate that's compressed relative to where we are today. We don't think we're there. Candidly, we think we've got some work to do to close that gap. So in the short run, as you know, we bought back these shares, and we may do some more. But yes, I think we've got a little ways to go before we can think about actually deploying capital into an acquisition or otherwise, obviously, yield dependent, market dependent.

Okay. And then if we look at your lease expiration schedule over the next 2 or 3 years, are there any material mark-to-market opportunities, particularly in the retail portfolio that we should be thinking about?

That's squarely down the middle of your plate. Why don't you take that one?

Yes, happy to take that, Jon. Thank you for the question. As far as expirations for this year, about half of those we've actually already renewed at positive spreads. So we feel pretty good about near-term expirations. Looking out further, a lot of this is big box anchor spaces, which we'll expect to be able to push rents nominally on those. That's kind of the balance of the retail side. In office, I think there's still tremendous opportunity to mark-to-market, particularly in Charlotte at our Province Plaza asset, where I know we are significantly below market. That is a little bit older, but we have plans to reinvest in that particular location so that we can drive further rent growth. So still lots of organic growth opportunity in both sides of the coin, retail and office and bullish about our prospects going forward here.

Maybe kind of -- Shawn, just bringing together all your comments and just all the moves that you guys have made with the Board refresh and the selling multifamily, what would you say is the most meaningful movement that the company has made this year?

Well, that's a tough one. As you can tell, Jon, and I appreciate the question, we're excited about where we are and more importantly, where we're headed. It's hard to single one out. But I think from an economic standpoint, the scale and the momentum created here as of late on the sale of the multifamily and the real estate financing as well as the construction business. I mean, we came to the market 3 months ago and said we are going to do these things, and we have materially done those things. I think when you add to that, this kind of evolution of our company, the ability to bring highly skilled directors on board is, in my mind, metaphorically accretive to the Board, right? And it gives us an opportunity to have some additional guidance. We appreciate more than they know the kind of contributions from George and Dennis. But as we evolve this company, we're bringing 2 folks with deep capital markets REIT, public REIT experience on to this Board. And we think that is helpful to us to kind of challenge some assumptions work through the challenges that face us ahead and continue to grow this company, grow, again, close that NAV gap and grow the FFO and in turn, grow the shareholder value over time. So we're just excited about this, excited about the opportunity, thankful for the directors that were with us and very thankful for the ones that will be joining us. And I think, look, I'd be remiss not to say I'm thankful for the team for digging in and plowing through this challenging yet rewarding kind of phase in our company here. But we're fired up. We're excited. We are bullish, and we are executing, and we're excited about the future.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back to Shwan Pivot for closing remarks.

Thank you very much. First and foremost, we appreciate your interest in our firm. For the shareholders, your investment in us, for the employees, your continued resolve to see our company continue to succeed. I just want to thank you for joining us today. We look forward to more exciting quarters in the future and look forward to some press releases from us. We're excited about where we're headed and couldn't be more excited for the support that we're receiving along the way. So thank you for joining this morning, and have a nice day.

Thank you. That does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.