RPT Realty Says GIC Commitment Provides the REIT With “Firepower”

NEW YORK CITY—RPT Realty experienced balanced success across all its disciplines as the company continued to refresh its portfolio, tenant mix, liquidity and balance sheet, all of which position the REIT to deliver on future earnings growth. “We closed on several high-quality acquisitions across all three of our strategic investment platforms, bringing our gross acquisition volume to $500 million in 2021,” said president and CEO Brian Harper on the firm’s Q3 earnings call.

He explained that the REIT continues to see strong demand for space in its centers and signed a number of key leases with well-capitalized tenants. And lastly, he said on the call that the REIT raised or received commitments on $670 million of capital from its equity, debt and joint venture partners, strengthening its liquidity profile and balance sheet.

Pertaining to the REIT’s capital-raising efforts, Harper said with GIC’s recent commitment of an additional $500 million to the REIT’s core grocery-anchored R2G platform, that platform is positioned to scale up to $1.7 billion. “We believe this is an endorsement of RPT and our ability to create value. We are grateful to be in the company of top-tier REITs, like Ventas, Boston Properties, Equinix and others that have partnered with GIC. The new commitment provides us with the firepower to further accelerate our portfolio transformation while enhancing our management fee income stream.”

The REIT also recently obtained commitments for $130 million in the debt private placement market and received another $40 million through its ATM, which Harper said demonstrates its “ability to access multiple sources of capital to accretively fund our growth plans.”

Turning to investments, he said that the size of our portfolio is an advantage as it allows the REIT to rapidly reshape our geographic exposures toward higher-growth and more durable markets like Boston, which is now our third-largest market, he said. “We also increased our exposure to Atlanta and Tampa while reducing our concentrations in Detroit, Cincy and Chicago. This real-time shift in our mix not only improves our geographic diversification but also increases our visibility with retailers, brokers and other stakeholders, which is leading to increased deal flow on both the leasing and acquisition fronts.”

Those decisions are data-driven investment decisions, he explained. “We have an in-house data scientist who developed a proprietary asset scoring model that combines advanced data analytics with a collective knowledge and experience of our investments, leasing, property management and portfolio management teams. With this dynamic tool, we can continually assess our existing and potential future properties in real time to inform our capital allocation decisions.”

He added that the scoring model was a key advantage for the REIT as it underwrote its recent acquisitions and will continue to be used as it assesses its future acquisitions and dispositions through the lens of quality, balance sheet and earnings accretion.