Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the NETSTREIT Third Quarter 2026 Earnings 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 your host, Matt Miller. Thank you. You may begin.
Matt Miller: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for NETSTREIT's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, management's remarks and responses to your questions may contain statements considered forward-looking under federal securities law. These statements address matters subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. For more information on these factors, we encourage you to review our latest Form 10-K and other SEC filings. All forward-looking statements are made as of today's date, and NETSTREIT assumes no obligation to update them in the future. In addition, certain financial information presented on this call includes non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release and supplemental package for definitions, reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, and an explanation of their usefulness to investors. These materials can be found in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at netstreit.com.
Matt Miller: Today's call is hosted by NETSTREIT CEO Mark Manheimer and CFO Dan Donlan. They will make some prepared remarks, followed by a Q&A session. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.
Mark Manheimer: Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today to discuss NETSTREIT's Third Quarter 2026 Results. Before I get into the numbers, I want to recognize the hard work of our team across acquisitions, asset management, accounting, and capital markets. Their discipline and focus have allowed us to stay both active and selective in a quickly changing transaction environment. We are pleased to report another solid quarter of investments leased to high-quality net lease tenants. While higher interest rates have raised capital costs across the net lease sector, our smaller relative denominator, low leverage, and strong liquidity are true differentiators for NETSTREIT. We can afford to remain discriminating in our investment decisions, and yet we still have considerable capital capacity to fund an increasingly attractive opportunity set from a nominal yield perspective as the market evolves.
Mark Manheimer: In the Q3, we completed strong gross investment activity of $273.1 million at a 7.4% blended cash yield with a weighted average lease term of 13 years. Approximately 44% of the annualized base rent from these investments was derived from investment-grade and investment-grade profile tenants. These investments are focused around our core necessity and service-based retail categories, which we believe should prove resilient in any macroeconomic backdrop. Year-to-date, gross investments have totaled $811 million at the same 7.4% blended cash yield, which is well ahead of $657.1 million we completed for all of 2025. This meaningful increase in volume speaks to the scalability of our platform and our team's ability to ramp up when market conditions are favorable. During the Q3, we also executed dispositions of $39.5 million at a 7.2% cash yield and had $28.2 million of loan repayments.
Mark Manheimer: In the near term, we intend to remain active on asset sales to prudently manage the risk profile of our assets and lease maturities in order to maximize cash flows for the long term. Looking at the broader market, we believe cap rates are likely to increase moderately in the short term as higher financing costs continue to work through the system. A meaningful portion of the buyer universe, particularly smaller private buyers, have historically relied on higher leverage and more expensive debt to make deals pencil. As that capital has become less available and more costly, these buyers are increasingly being shut out of the acquisition market. At the same time, larger institutions have materially less dry powder today. This dynamic is precisely why we operate with lower leverage and look to pre-fund our capital needs several quarters in advance.
Mark Manheimer: It preserves our flexibility and gives us the optionality to step up and take advantage of market disruption when and if it materializes, rather than being constrained by balance sheet capacity. Turning to our portfolio, we had 913 investments at quarter end, generating $246.3 million of ABR leased to 158 tenants across 28 industries in 46 states. With just one vacant asset at quarter end, our occupancy was 99.9%, our weighted average lease term was 10.1 years, and investment-grade and investment-grade profile tenants represented over 58% of ABR. From a diversification standpoint, our top 10 tenants now represent 29.2% of ABR versus 37.9% at this time last year. Furthermore, the unit level coverage of our portfolio improved to 3.9x and was just 3.4% of ABR having less than 1.5 times coverage. We are well-insulated should a weaker economy more broadly dampen retail sales.
Mark Manheimer: From a capital markets perspective, we secured $550 million of additional financing commitments and extended our weighted average debt maturity profile with no major debt maturities until 2029. Total liquidity at quarter end exceeded $1.25 billion, including significant undrawn revolver and term loan capacity, along with unsettled forward equity. Leverage remains conservative with adjusted net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre of 3.7 times. Turning to guidance, we are maintaining our full year 2026 AFFO per share guidance range of $1.37 to $1.39, and we now expect 2026 net investment activity of at least $800 million, which is modestly up from our prior range of $700 million to $800 million. In summary, the Q3 demonstrated the strength of our platform, the resilience of our portfolio, and the flexibility of our balance sheet.
Mark Manheimer: We remain optimistic about our growth prospects given our capital runway through 2027 and the continued availability of attractive opportunities. With that, I will turn the call over to Dan to review the Q3 financial results in greater detail. We will then be happy to take your questions.
Dan Donlan: Thank you, Mark. Looking at our Q3 earnings, we reported net income of $8.5 million, or $0.08 per diluted share. Core FFO for the quarter was $36.6 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, and AFFO was $37.5 million, or $0.35 per diluted share, which was an increase of 6.1% over last year. Turning to the expense front, our total recurring G&A in the Q3 increased 3.3% quarter-over-quarter to $6 million. From a G&A scale perspective, our total recurring G&A represented 9.1% of total revenues this quarter versus 10.6% in the prior year quarter. As such, G&A continues to rationalize relative to our revenue base. Turning to the capital markets, we remain opportunistic on the ATM front, raising 1 million shares for $21 million of net proceeds.
Dan Donlan: In addition, we settled 24 million shares for nearly $420 million in net proceeds, which was significantly more than we anticipated when we reported Q2 earnings back in July. While this will help to reduce future dilution from the treasury stock method as a remaining unsettled forward balance has a weighted average gross price of $20.09, we are now starting the Q4 with considerably higher share count versus our prior expectations. From a debt perspective, we paid off our $200 million term loan due February 2028 with proceeds from draws on our 2031 and 2032 term loans, and simultaneously transferred over the swaps from the 2028 term loan to these new draws. As such, when including extension options, which can be exercised at our discretion, we have no material debt maturing until 2029.
Dan Donlan: In addition, we also raised a new $400 million seven-year delayed draw term loan due September 2033, which remains fully undrawn as of today. We intend to draw down on this term loan over the course of 2027 to fund future net investment activity and term out our revolving line of credit. Turning to the balance sheet, our adjusted net debt, which includes the impact of all forward equity, was $853.7 million. Our weighted average debt maturity was four years, and our weighted average interest rate was 4.26%. In addition, our total liquidity was $1.3 billion at quarter end, which consisted of approximately $42 million of cash on hand, $500 million available on a revolving credit facility, $312 million of unsettled forward equity, and $400 million of undrawn term loan capacity.
Dan Donlan: From a leverage perspective, our adjusted net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre was 3.7x at quarter end, which remains comfortably below our leverage comfort zone of 4.5x to 5.5x. Moving on to guidance, we are maintaining both our full year 2026 AFFO per share guidance range of $1.37 to $1.39 and our recurring cash G&A range of $16.5 million to $17.5 million. As Mark stated earlier, we now expect 2026 net investment activity to be at least $800 million. In addition, our AFFO per share guidance now includes approximately 3.5 to 4 cents per share of estimated dilution, or 2.8 million to 3.1 million shares, due to the impact of the company's outstanding forward equity calculated in accordance with the treasury stock method. This compares to the prior range of 5 to 8 cents per share of estimated dilution.
Dan Donlan: However, due to our deliberate decision to settle 24 million forward shares in Q3, our estimated weighted average share count for 2026 is now approximately 2 million to 2.3 million shares higher than previously anticipated, which has an estimated dilutive impact of 2.5 to 3 cents per share. In short, the positive impact to 2026 from having less dilution from the treasury stock method has been more than offset by our decision to settle more forward shares this quarter. Lastly, on 15 October, the board declared a quarterly cash dividend of 22.5 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on 15 December to shareholders of record as of 1 December. With that operator, we are now open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question will come from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho Securities.
Haendel St. Juste: Hey, guys. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I was hoping you could talk a bit more about your capital deployment balance sheet management strategy here in light of higher rates and your replace cost to capital. How much capital runway do you estimate you have? Is it fair for us to assume capital deployment's going to slow in the near term, dispositions will pick up a bit, leverage may tick up as well? So maybe some thoughts on the deployment and balance sheet strategy would be helpful. Thank you.
Dan Donlan: Yeah, Hendel, appreciate the question. As we think about the next five quarters, we have roughly $550 million of net investment capacity before we got to 5x, which is the midpoint of our leverage comfort zone. That is kind of how we are thinking about next year. If you think about that $550 million, we do see a path towards mid-single digit AFFO growth next year without needing to raise any equity between now and 2027 year-end. I would note that, keep in mind, that does include headwinds from refi and the $175 million swap. That is how we see the base case shaping up for 2027, which is not dissimilar to how we have guided to the forward year in prior years.
Dan Donlan: If our cost of equity improves, we could obviously accelerate our net investment activity, and the sooner the better, and that would push up our potential growth to the higher end of that mid-single digit range while still ending the year actually in the low to mid 4x range. It really just depends on kind of where our cost of equity is and how quickly we deploy the capital. I think we are going to be judicious with the capital that we have raised. Mark, you want to-
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, sure. I think we are in a really good position. Just turning to page 19 in our investor presentation, you kind of see there is really only three other REITs or three REITs including us that are in a pretty good leverage position where we have a lot of dry powder. We have seen from a competition standpoint, the private buyer really dry up. You think about the 1031 small family office buyer that is kind of borrowing from their community banks that 50% to 65% LTV at 7%+ interest rates. They are just not really competitive right now. The supply and demand is shifting. We are seeing it happen real time. Cap rates need to move up unless interest rates move down and everybody's equity price gets a lot better really fast.
Mark Manheimer: I think something has got to give, and I think it is likely going to be cap rates here in the short term. We are certainly already seeing that. The good news for us is we are in a really good capital position where we have capital to deploy, which is why we maintain a low leverage balance sheet.
Haendel St. Juste: That is great, guys. Appreciate the color there. Maybe a follow-up on cap rates you brought up. I am curious how much price. I guess thoughts on balancing pricing power and risk management here as you look to optimize yield versus risk. How much do you think you could push cap rates? Are you willing to enter new verticals or maybe, I would not say push risk, but just how do you envision sourcing higher cap rates? Does it involve new verticals or any change to perhaps your views on certain sub-sectors or risk profiles? Thanks.
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. Thanks, Haendel. I would not anticipate really any change in terms of our investment criteria. We see plenty of opportunity. Deals that we are chasing look a lot like what we have bought in the past. If you look at the pipeline currently, maybe the credit profiles are a little bit better. There is certainly more investment grade profile in what is in our pipeline currently. When we add more, that might not look like that, so I would not necessarily count on that. That is what we have got in the pipeline currently. I do not think we are going to have to move into any other verticals or anything that will surprise investors. It is just a matter of how long is the bid-ask going to compress. When we went back at really the very end of Q3, we had already closed most of our transactions.
Mark Manheimer: We went back and were able to reprice a bunch of deals. Fortunately, the sellers were a lot more receptive this time around to those conversations. If you compare to 2023, 2024 when deals were repricing, there was just a very large bid-ask spread for a long period of time. This time I think sellers are not really assuming the cap rates are just going to drop back down like they did the last go around so that we were able to really get better terms, get better pricing. We were looking at a couple of portfolios where there were a few assets we thought we were going to likely put in our TRS and turn around and sell those quickly after buying portfolios. We were able to just remove those from the portfolios so we did not have to take on that risk, which was helpful.
Mark Manheimer: Sellers are much more responsive this time around. So it feels like it could move a little bit more quickly. We would still like to kind of get a little bit more pricing, which is again why I think we are going to see Q4 acquisitions likely be pretty back-end loaded, which is somewhat intentional because we want to give as much time as possible to allow sellers to reprice their expectations.
Haendel St. Juste: Super helpful. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question will come from Jay Kornreich with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Jay Kornreich: Hey, thanks. Good morning. First, just wanted to ask about tenant credit. The sub 1x rent coverage bucket dropped to a very low 0.2%. Just curious how you're thinking about tenant credit and if there's any changes to the watch list and maybe how that's all baked into guidance, if there's been any adjustments there you can talk about.
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. Fortunately, we just really aren't seeing very much at all in terms of credit issues. Maybe one or two assets here or there that we're paying attention to. But out of 913 assets, that's not very much. So we don't really think there's going to be anything material there. You kind of hit the nail on the head. We're very focused on not only the credit of our assets and the real estate of our assets, but also the unit level coverage. Seeing our under 1x bucket get cut in half, certainly helpful. Some of that is our focus on dispositions of really kind of trying to cull some of those assets.
Mark Manheimer: You have seen some pretty good movement, both from the assets that we own improving, as well as our focus on the disposition side of really trying to keep that very healthy. I think if you compare our unit level migration to others, it has really been very strong.
Jay Kornreich: Okay. Appreciate that. Then just following up on the previous question around overall transaction market. You mentioned how sellers are willing to bake in higher cap rates this time around. Just as you think about the overall transaction market, is it remaining healthy? Are opportunities that you generally foresaw before the spike in interest rates, are those remaining on the table? Gives you confidence that, as you have the financing availability, there still is a robust investment pipeline into next year that you can take advantage of?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. I think the opportunity set remains very strong. The supply is there every bit as much as it has been so far this year, maybe even a little bit better. Then the demand side has weakened substantially. We just really think it just needs to reprice a little bit more for us to get aggressive. We have got dry powder. We think that is a great asset to have in this environment where most others do not have that. We want to take advantage of it and not just chase every deal. We really want to maximize the pricing on every opportunity that we get. Yeah, I think going into next year, the opportunity set certainly will not be holding us back. It is really going to come down to whether assets reprice enough or if cost of capital improves.
Jay Kornreich: Got it. Okay. I will hold it there. Thank you.
Operator: We'll go next to Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.
Jamie Feldman: Great. Thank you. I think you kind of touched on it, but maybe I'll just ask it again. With the new investment guide and $646 million of net investment volume year to date, does the $150 million implied for Q4 reflect conservatism or a deliberate pullback? I know you said you were kind of delaying things a little bit. I guess even more importantly, would you think $150 million is a good run rate for H1 2027 also? Or the pipeline is still so strong you could be meaningfully higher?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. No, I think it's a good question. The $150 million, we did say at least $800 million. So, if things don't really change all that much, then it'll be probably right around $800 million. If things get better, we're ready and able to ramp that up. The team's really shown a lot of ability to ramp up when opportunities are there, as well as show a lot of discipline when things maybe aren't there as much. Right now the pricing isn't exactly where we want it to be, but if that improves, we certainly feel like the opportunities are there. We'd certainly be able to do a lot more than 150, which is why we've kind of just left that as an open-ended above $800 million.
Jamie Feldman: Okay. What are you hearing from tenants in terms of any changes to their expansion plans or business models with either risk to the consumer, higher cost of capital? Just from your vantage point, what else feels different other than we would think cap rates move a little bit here?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, I'd say really on a little bit where I think people have, you've seen some announcements of some of the store openings being a little bit more conservative, and operators being a little bit more selective in terms of what real estate they're willing to go in. What's working continues to work, even if margins have compressed a little bit with a lot of retailers. Fortunately, that's really where we have focused on investing in the necessity service and deep discount type sectors. They just remain defensive and continue to do well and they continue to expand, which is why we continue to see just a lot of opportunity for acquisitions whether it be new developments or just buying existing assets.
Jamie Feldman: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: We'll go next to Nick Joseph with Citigroup.
Nick Joseph: Thanks. You touched on having plenty of capacity. Obviously cap rates still expanding a bit, and you were opportunistic on the ATM this quarter as well and have the unsettled. As you kind of go forward and work through that current capacity, how do you think about issuing additional shares? Obviously the stock is kind of below consensus NAV now. I think in the past you've talked about investment spreads obviously being an important consideration, but can you just remind us of the broader framework associated with that as investment spreads hopefully start to normalize?
Dan Donlan: Yeah. We hope they normalize as well, Nick. Look, as we sit here today, we think our spreads are about 60 to 70 basis points. What we have historically said is that we really need to be north of 100. We do not have any near-term need to raise equity. We do not have to raise equity at all next year if we so choose. I think we need to be above kind of 100 basis points and feel comfortable we can stay at those levels. Right now it is just not really a concern of ours given the capacity that we have.
Nick Joseph: Thanks.
Operator: Our next question will come from Greg McGinniss with Scotiabank.
Greg McGinniss: Hey, good morning. You are saying supply is still there, demand side has weakened. Are you optimistic that cap rates may react faster to this rate cycle than the two to three quarters that it took historically to see cap rates move up higher?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, I think we are optimistic just because the conversations that we had about revisiting pricing on deals that we had in Q3 were very constructive, where I do not really feel like they were that constructive back in 2023. I think people kind of get it a little bit more this time. There is not a knee-jerk reaction that things are going to just swing back to the way that they were. It does feel like it is going to be quicker. How much quicker? I do not think we really know. That is why we are just kind of putting in some conservatism in terms of how we are thinking about deploying capital in Q4.
Greg McGinniss: Mm-hmm. How would you categorize that seller that is kind of more willing to adjust to the repricing?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, it typically will depend on their level of sophistication, and kind of understanding that there is probably not a buyer right around the corner that is just going to step into our place. The other big piece is going to be how much pressure is on that seller to transact. If they have debt coming due and it is a portfolio and they say, "Okay, if I have to do something, and redoing the debt is just going to be really painful, I would rather just sell and maybe sell at 30, 40 basis points higher.
Greg McGinniss: Mm-hmm. Okay. With regards to kind of the forward equity that you have in place, how you think about raising capital today and cap rates that you are looking to achieve. When you are doing the acquisitions, looking forward from the acquisitions, and considering your weighted average cost of capital, is that kind of think about, "Hey, we already raised this capital at this rate, so we just need to get the spread to that rate?" Or are you thinking about, "Hey, here is the environment today. What is a reasonable cap rate spread based on today?
Dan Donlan: Yeah. Greg, it is obviously the latter. We definitely factor in where we are today versus kind of where cap rates are today. As we think about settlement of equity, I think it will be light over the next two quarters. Could be, then probably pick back up in the back half of 2027. As far as new equity is concerned, that is just not in the model at this point in time, given where we are. But we are optimistic that people will see the value in our shares as well as frankly, the net lease space in general. So, we are hopeful that we can be back to issuing equity at some point in time next year or this year.
Greg McGinniss: Great. Thanks.
Operator: Moving on to Michael Goldsmith with UBS.
Michael Goldsmith: Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Just on the settled shares, which is used to pay down debt, I guess just why is now the right time to do that? Also, your reported leverage ratio comes down, do you expect that to have a material impact in your conversations with the rating agencies? What could that eventually lead to by having a reported leverage ratio that's now 1.5 times lower?
Dan Donlan: Yeah, I appreciate the question, Michael. Look, it certainly puts us in a more favorable light with the rating agencies. They really look at leverage without the impact of the forward. You really want to be below 6.5 times, without the forward. At 5 times, we're comfortably below that. So we're optimistic that we can continue to have constructive dialogue with those parties when and if we decide to get additional ratings, probably sometime next year. I think the first part of your question, why is now the time? Look, we don't really view beating earnings on having less TSM dilution than we expected as a clean beat, or as a good way to guide higher.
Dan Donlan: So in order to blunt the positive impact that came from that, we decided to settle more shares, which obviously has the positive impact that you referenced in terms of the rating agencies. It obviously increases our float, allowing us to delay the pull down of the 7-year term loan. Given where swap rates have moved in the last week or 2, hopefully they continue to move down, and that will allow us to swap at better than expected rates versus what we have in the model today. So, it did afford us a lot of advantages, while not impacting earnings at all relative to our prior guidance.
Michael Goldsmith: Thanks for that. As a follow-up, it seems like you are less into capital recycling at this time maybe than others. So love to get your thoughts around capital recycling. You continue to dispose of targeted assets in the pharmacy and dollar store industries. Just trying to get a sense of would you be interested in doing that? It seems like you have pretty good access to capital. So just trying to get the thought process and how you think your portfolio is positioned from here.
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. Thanks, Michael. We will continue to do what we have been doing in those sectors. In fact, I think you can expect some more sales in both of those sectors in Q4. We have always been opportunistic. So in the event that there is somebody that wants to pay aggressive cap rates for some of our assets, then we can redeploy that capital into better assets at better pricing. We are always interested in doing that. We have been asked a few times about the bonus depreciation buyer. We certainly have a lot of convenience stores and some interested parties, so there is always the possibility that we go down that route.
Mark Manheimer: We are going to be opportunistic and I think historically, we have probably been the most active on the disposition side, whether it be focused on concentrations or just improving the quality of the portfolio, which ultimately is why I think we have got the lowest credit loss stats in this space at 3 basis points per year.
Michael Goldsmith: Thank you very much. Good luck in Q4.
Mark Manheimer: Thanks.
Operator: We will go next to Eric Borden with BMO Capital Markets.
Eric Borden: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Rent coverage remained healthy. Just curious, looking beyond the portfolio average, are there any categories where tenant margins or coverage are beginning to weaken? How much of the improvement this quarter came from existing store performance versus the investments in sales that you completed?
Mark Manheimer: Well, it is a good question. I would say most of the improvement came, quite frankly, from some sales. Overall, I would say, the coverages for the existing portfolio slightly improved, but was really just pretty stable. From new investments, that was more in the 3.5x coverage. That actually brought it down a little bit, but certainly feel comfortable with where those came in.
Eric Borden: Great. Thank you. You mentioned being able to remove assets from portfolio purchases that you would otherwise have sold after closing. Beyond price, are sellers becoming more flexible on other terms that improve your returns or reduce credit risks?
Mark Manheimer: Yes. That was kind of the big one. We look at a portfolio, there is a book of every portfolio that we look to buy. Even if we like all the assets, there is certainly some better than others. In the event that we are able to cull down, and really kind of chop off the tail of the weaker assets, at acquisition, that is obviously a big plus to us. I think in sale leasebacks, you might be able to get better escalators and some other maybe longer terms, things like that. Everything is on the table. Fortunately, we have had very constructive conversations with all sellers.
Eric Borden: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator: Linda Tsai with Truist has our next question.
Linda Tsai: Hi. Thank you. To the extent that you repriced deals with your sellers in Q3, how much expansion on acquisition cap rates did you achieve? By back-end loading your Q4 acquisitions, how much additional expansion might you expect on those deals?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. So a little bit difficult to know where things are going to land in Q4. Our expectations are certainly much higher, and we'll kind of see what we're able to extract. But in terms of Q3, most of that was really at the very end of the quarter. You really think about when things moved. The 10-year at the beginning of the quarter was less than 4.5%, and moved up to, I think, 5.3% at the end of the quarter. Most of that was really in the last 3 weeks, which you also kind of saw most of that move in our stock price and other stock prices in the space was really in that last 3 weeks.
Mark Manheimer: It was really, we had closed on most of the transactions at that point in time or were in the closing process. We were able to revisit pricing on 10 different deals. We were able to move pricing on average about 30 basis points on those transactions. But it just didn't really move the needle that much for the entire quarter. It did take it from a 7.3% to a 7.4% overall for the quarter. But you think of it was really very late stages of the quarter when things really started to move. We weren't willing to sacrifice relationships as well as have a ton of dead deal costs, which we didn't think was really needed.
Linda Tsai: Did you have any dead deal costs?
Mark Manheimer: No, we did not. No.
Linda Tsai: Just one other question. In terms of the 1031 buyers going away across the top industries you invest in, grocery, convenience, home improvement, dollar stores, where are you seeing the cap rates expand fastest?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, it is not necessarily driven by sector, it is driven by seller. And again, how sophisticated is that seller? Do they really understand where you are coming from? And really what is going on in the market, and then how much pressure is on them to transact. I think the people that maybe need to see some comps at higher cap rates, that is going to take a little bit more time. But it is really pretty broad across all sectors. It is really driven by who the seller is and what position that they are in.
Linda Tsai: Thanks.
Mark Manheimer: Thanks, Linda.
Operator: We will go next to Alex Fagan with Baird.
Alec Feygin: Hey. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just one for me. Are there any changes in the expectations for how much lending you can do, that could lead to acquisitions and just helping your partners out in this kind of environment?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, it is an interesting question, Alex, because we kind of think that the longer this disruption lasts, there is just going to be some one-off opportunities. We have not really seen much on the lending side currently that is that attractive to us, beyond what is normal course for us. But we do think there is the possibility that that could pop up.
Alec Feygin: Got it. Thank you.
Mark Manheimer: Thanks, Alex.
Operator: We will go next to Jana Galan with Bank of America.
Jana Galan: Thank you. Good morning. Maybe just following up on that last question. During the last market disruption in 2023, you guys were able to find some attractive opportunities with mortgage loans. I am curious, how long did those take to enter the pipeline, and if that is an area that you would consider, and any specific tenant categories or structures?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. I think we would consider anything, especially as some of those have paid off or converted into fee ownership. Our loan book is certainly a lot smaller, so I think we have a little bit more capacity there. Last time, it really was some people that had some financing commitments that fell through. So I think that will probably take some time, maybe a quarter or two, if that is going to happen again. Or if lenders want to reprice the interest rates on deals if they burn through some rate locks or things like that. I think that is certainly possible. It is just very difficult to predict whether that happens again or not.
Jana Galan: Thank you, Mark.
Mark Manheimer: Thanks, Jana.
Operator: Our next question will come from Upal Rana with KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Upal Rana: Great. Thank you for taking my question. Just following up on that as well, on the loan repayments this quarter, that carried about 8.8% yield. How much additional repayment or conversion activity should we anticipate over the next year, and how are you incorporating that income replacement into your acquisition needs?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. I think in most cases, the loans as they repay, they are replaced with a new development and a new loan as those assets are sold. I would think of it just kind of standing in place with most of those. There are a couple of chunkier deals that may pay off, but those are at much lower interest rates, and that would be a great source of capital.
Upal Rana: Okay, great. When looking at new deals today, how are you distinguishing between a deal that is accretive using capital that you have already raised versus one that clears your return hurdles at today's replacement cost of capital? Just curious which standard is driving your investment decisions right now.
Dan Donlan: Yeah. We never take into effect where we have raised equity in the past when we think about putting new capital to work. It is really where can we raise it today, and what does that outlook look like, and what is the spread on that cost of capital? Where we raised equity in the past is not relevant to us at all.
Upal Rana: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: Moving next to Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.
Jamie Feldman: Great. Thanks for taking the follow-up. Dan, I just want to go back to a comment you made earlier where you said you see a path towards mid-single digit AFFO growth next year without needing to raise any equity between now and 2027 year-end. Can you just walk us through the key building blocks to get there? As you think about the course of the year, are there certain quarters you think are higher or lower, or what would really move that away from that mid-single digit number?
Dan Donlan: Well, there is a lot of different factors. Equity is not one of them. But I think it would be where we refi the $175 million swap in January, what type of credit losses we recognize in the quarter, where our cash G&A shapes up relative to this year. The timing of investments would also factor into that. Then where we are able to eventually pull down the seven-year term loan and swap debt. Those are all the factors that would go into the growth range that we gave. But that growth range is based upon, again, $550 million of net investment capacity being deployed between now and the end of 2027.
Jamie Feldman: Okay. What are you assuming for core growth before investments?
Dan Donlan: You think about our average escalator growing at kind of a little bit around 1%, give or take 10 to 20 basis points, depending upon what lease bumps we have.
Jamie Feldman: Okay. Just going back to the bonus depreciation comments, how big is that pipeline for your team? Do you think it is going to grow meaningfully or stay pretty constant? Is there any timeline on people wanting to get those deals done?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah, it is very opportunistic and really escalates massively at the very end of the year. So, a little bit tough to predict how much we do, if any. I imagine we will do some there. We had a lot of people coming to us literally in early to mid-December last year frantically wanting to figure out how to get their hands on some of our C-store assets. So, I would expect this to continue to be the same this year. Kind of running out of the last couple of years of this administration, I think there is a fear that maybe that goes away at some point in time. But yeah, the tax planning seems to really escalate quite a bit in the last few weeks of the year.
Jamie Feldman: Do you have a certain pool of assets that are ready to go for that, or you would consider anything?
Mark Manheimer: We understand which of our assets would qualify for that tax treatment, so if somebody approaches us, we are ready to go.
Jamie Feldman: Which type of assets qualify?
Mark Manheimer: Yeah. There are certain criteria beyond just what sector that they are in, but it is primarily just C-store assets within our portfolio.
Jamie Feldman: Okay. All right. Thank you.
Mark Manheimer: Thanks, Jamie.
Operator: This now concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mark Manheimer for closing comments.
Mark Manheimer: Well, thanks everybody for your interest in the company today. We look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming conference schedule. Take care.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.
