Gladstone Commercial (GOOD) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you. You may begin. Well, thank you, Christian. That was a nice introduction, and thank all of you for calling in today. Now, we really do enjoy this time with you guys, and I hope you have a lot of questions for us today. Now we'll hear from Catherine Perkins. She's our Director of Investor Relations, and she's got a brief disclosure to read to you regarding certain regulatory matters concerning all of these calls and things that we're doing today. Catherine, go ahead.

Thanks, David, and good morning all. Today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are based on management's estimates, assumptions, and projections. There are no guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements due to various uncertainties, including the risk factors set forth in our SEC filings, which you can find on the Investor's page of our website, gladstonecommercial. com. We assume no obligation to update any of these statements unless required by law. Please visit our website for a copy of our Form 10-Q and earnings press release for more detailed information.

You can also sign up for our email notification service and find information on how to contact our investor relations department. We are also on X at Gladstone Comps, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn. Keyword for both is the Gladstone Company. Today, we'll discuss FFO, which is funds from operations, a non-GAAP accounting term defined as net income, Excluding the gains or losses from the sale of real estate and any impairment losses on property, plus depreciation and amortization of real estate assets. We may also discuss core FFO, which is generally FFO adjusted for certain other non-recurring revenues and expenses. We believe these metrics can be a better indication of our operating results and allow better comparability of our period-over-period performance.

Now, let's turn the presentation to Buzz Cooper, GLADSTONE COMMERCIAL CEO and President.

Thank you, Kathryn, and thank you all for joining today's call. We are pleased to update you on our results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, our current portfolio, and our future outlook.

Before I turn to our results, I'll comment briefly on the market. Starting with the broader market, industrial conditions continued to improve during the quarter. According to Cushman Wakefield, net absorption rose 21% from the prior quarter to 62.1 million square feet. This brings year-to-date net absorption to 113.6 million square feet, the strongest total since 2023. National vacancy declined 10 basis points to 6.9%, which Cushman views as a sign the market has passed the peak of this cycle, and asking rents rose 2.9% year over year. Demand remains concentrated in modern, large-format buildings supported by on-shoring, near-shoring, and ongoing supply chain optimization.

New construction deliveries remain below last year's pace, and while the development pipeline has begun to grow again, roughly a third of its are built-to-suits, which keep speculative supply in check. The overall health of the industrial market remains continued competition for assets of all sizes, particularly those assets that are well-located and mission-critical.

Turning to our results during the quarter, we acquired 153,890-foot square-foot industrial property in Newport News, Virginia, leased to Huntington Ingalls Industries for $22.75 million. This facility supports Huntington's Newport News shipbuilding operation, and we funded the purchase with internally generated cash flow without issuing equity. We sold a 161,458-square-foot industrial building in Monroe, North Carolina, to the tenant, Assa Abloy. We acquired this asset in 2021. Over the term of our hold period, the property is 100% occupied, and the sale represents a gain on equity and a highly accretive cap rate.

This acquisition and sale together illustrate our ability to generate equity and redeploy proceeds into mission-critical industrial assets. The Newport News acquisition represents nearly double the cash and straight-line rents from our North Carolina assets. We were able to achieve this growth without issuing new shares during a period when our common stock price was not attractive for new issuances. Furthermore, we increased Portfolio Walt and added another mission-critical location at a great basis. With respect to our existing portfolio, we renewed or leased over 126,000 square feet of office retail and over 34,000 square feet of industrial, with an increase in straight-line rent of $169,500 annually.

First, we purchased a land parcel adjacent to our Clintonville, Wisconsin facility, and simultaneously entered into a lease amendment into which we provide the funding for an approximate expansion of 86,000 square feet and significant improvements to the existing 521,000 square foot facility.

Completion of these improvements expected to be in the second quarter of 2027. The lease will commence with a new 15-year term. Also, we've collected 100% of the cash-based rents in this period and this month. Subsequent, we leased 82,000 square feet or the second floor at our Austin, Texas office property. We also acquired 146,650 square foot industrial property in Redbud, Illinois for $6.5 million. As relates to the awesome property and other office properties within our portfolio, we acknowledge that office leasing and releasing requires CapEx dollars. When office buildings are as mission critical and well located as those in our portfolio, we are able to minimize those dollars such that we receive an accretive return on our investment.

When we evaluate any office releasing, we review payback period, IRR, and ROI, as well as alternative of selling the property. We acknowledge that the returns are generally not as attractive to us as industrial properties, but they keep a constant stream of cash flow for our shareholders. We are not looking to grow our office portfolio, but until capital markets return fully, capital expenditures are typically more creative and revenue-generating than choosing to sell the asset. Again, we evaluate each opportunity on a case-by-case basis, and we target payback periods between six and nine months. Through the efforts of our asset management team as of June 30, 2026, the portfolio was 98.7% occupied, and the walt on that portfolio was over 7.1 years.

These transactions bring our industrial concentration to 69% of annualized straight-line rent as we continue working toward our near-term goal of 70%. Each of these milestones is a testament to the mission critical nature of the assets in our portfolio, the quality of tenant credit in our portfolio, and our underwriting capabilities. As evidenced by our execution during and subsequent to the second quarter, we remain steadfast in several key focus areas, growing our industrial concentration, adding value in our existing portfolio through renewals, extension, and strategic capital investments, and disposing of non-core assets and strategically redeploying those proceeds into quality industrial assets. By continuing to execute on these focus areas, we expect to, again, increase our walt, maintain strong occupancy rates, increase straight-line rent growth, the cross-portfolio, and decrease cost of capital.

Looking ahead into the second half of 2026, we remain focused on evaluating I will now turn the call over to management Thank you We will be able to grow through tenant expansions, capital improvement initiatives, and build-to-suit opportunities. While we remain aware of the challenging office environment, we will be strategic and intentional in evaluating our specific portfolio, seeking opportune times to dispose of office and non-core industrial as part of our continued capital recycling efforts. With the availability via our increased line of credit, access to private placement bond market, cash on hand, And the ability to raise equity at our ATM, although presently we believe our current stock price does not reflect the quality of our portfolio, tenant credit, or overall shareholder returns, we are positioned to deploy capital into accretive industrial acquisitions and portfolio improvements.

In closing, the team executed well in the first half of the year, and we are focused on continuing that momentum through the remainder of 2026. I will now turn the call over to Gary Gerson to review our financial results for the quarter and liquidity position.

Thank you, Buzz. I'll start my remarks regarding our financial results this morning by reviewing our operating results for the second quarter of 2026. All per share numbers referenced are based on fully diluted weighted average common shares. FFO and core FFO per share available to common stockholders were both $0.38 per share, respectively, for the quarter. However, FFO and core FFO available to common stockholders during the same period in 2025 were $0.33 and $0.35 respectively. FFO and core FFO per share for the six months ended June 30, 2026 were both $0.72.

FFO and core FFO for the same period in 2025 were $0.67 and $0.69 per share respectively. Same store lease revenue increased by 1.2% in the six months ended June 30, 2026. Over the same period in 2025, due to an increase in recovery revenue from property expenses and an increase in rental rates from leasing activity subsequent to the six months ended June 30, 2025. Our second quarter results reflected total operating revenues of $44 million with operating expenses of $26.2 million as compared to operating revenues of $39.5 million and operating expenses of $25.1 million for the same period in 2025. Operating revenues were higher in 2026 due to an increased portfolio size, increased recovery revenues, higher rental rates, and a one-time termination fee recognized in relation to the sale of a property.

Expenses were higher in the second quarter of 2026 versus the same period in 2025, mainly due to higher depreciation from a larger portfolio and the payment of the majority of the incentive fee in the second quarter of 2026. At the end of the quarter, we had no properties held for sale. As of today, we have $17.7 million of loan maturities in 2026 and $51.9 million of loan maturities through the second quarter of 2027. As of the end of the quarter, we had $51.57 million in revolver borrowing is outstanding. Looking at our debt profile, as of June 30, 47% was fixed rate, 47% was hedged floating rate, and 6% was floating rate, which is the amount drawn on a revolving credit facility.

As of June 30, our effective average SOFR was 3.68%. Our outstanding bank term loans are all hedged to maturity with interest rate swaps. We continue to monitor interest rates closely and update our hedging strategy as needed. During the six months ended June 30, 2026, we did not sell any shares of common stock under our ATM. We continue to manage our equity activity to ensure that we have sufficient liquidity for all upcoming capital requirements and new acquisitions. As of today, we have approximately $8.4 million in cash and $68.8 million of availability under our line of credit. We encourage you to review our quarterly financial supplement posted on our website, which provides more detailed financial and portfolio information for the quarter.

Our common stock dividend is $0.30 per share per quarter, or $1.20 per year. And now I'll turn the program back to David.

Well, that was a good report, Gary, and a good one from Buzz and Catherine. The team has performed very well. Overall, again, a very nice quarter. You heard a lot today.

In summary, during the second quarter of 26, we acquired 153,000 square foot industrial property in Newport News using proceeds from the sale of an industrial property in Monroe, North Carolina. And that resulted in increasing the straight line rent and FFL per share. We renewed a lease for 34,000 square feet as an investor property and 26,000 square feet in office and retail. Again, the company just continues to go along making more money. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we acquired 146,000 square foot industrial property in Redbud, Illinois.

And that was for $6.55 million. So a small one, but again, just adds to the ability to pay more dividends. Now paying about $1.20 per share per year, that's 9.8% yield. That's a great yield for such a solid company like this. GLADSTONE COMMERCIAL TEAM is growing their real estate we own at a good pace, and the team is doing a great job of managing the properties we own, especially during some of these challenging times that comes up. Our team of strong professionals continues to pursue quality properties on the list of acquisitions. They are reevaluating what we own in order to get us closer to all properties that are for projects that are critical to some of the tenants that we have.

Our acquisition team is seeking strong credit tenants, and we are getting that done very well. Okay, let's just stop here for a while and get some questions from our listeners. So I'll be able to come on and ask some questions for us. Thank you.

Well, Rob, I mean, we did a redeployment this last time around. We had a sale, and then we redeployed the assets into a new property. We intend to do that going forward. If we have a potential acquisition that is accretive at the stock price, wherever we are, we would consider selling stock at that price to make that acquisition.

But right now, I mean, it's a little tough, but we continue to grow, and we're going to invest more into our existing properties as a way to increase our revenues and capital deployment. Okay.

We're really not considering doing any more preferred at this time.

Thank you. And as I mentioned in the past, our portfolio management and asset management team does a great job staying on top of our tendencies, both obviously occupied, unoccupied, and the historical occupancy that we've maintained over the last several years has got to be one of the top in the marketplace. So, yes, we are actively engaged with everything within the next 24 months. As I mentioned with the added space taken down in Austin, our office occupancy is going to be north of 95 here going forward for a period of time. Our industrial is 99.8, which we do have one lease there that will bring it to 100% occupancy at the end of the year. In the remainder of 26, we've got four properties that we are working on as it relates to upping tenancy, if you will, and all of those have RFPs or documentation that we are negotiating out.

And secondly, going into 27, we have 11. Again, all have been addressed in conversations with paper going in some cases back and forth, whether it's an RFP, whether it is NITS within a lease. So we feel very confident of those. I see one, and it is an office building that I have concern over, but I believe that we will get something done there before the maturity at the end of 2027. So I appreciate that question, but we are ahead of the curve as it relates to those properties, and I believe we will maintain a high occupancy going forward.

I believe that was $1.9 million.

Over a period of time. This is a termination, and this will be through, I think, the mid of next year, so this won't be – yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. This is through 29. So this won't be, you know, because of the straight line rent requirements, this won't be something you'll see in a block. This will be a small amount every month for a couple of years.

For a few years.

Well, the occupancy currently is at 69%, but this is going to bring it north of 90%.

We are looking at all opportunities there, whether it be, again, additional tenancy or sale. But we also are looking to get good value out of it. It has been a good asset for us, obviously troubling with the vacancy within it during COVID. But we will entertain offers, and we are exploring quietly in the marketplace.

We have one deal that we haven't had to lie out on for approximately $32 million. We should hear about that transaction here in the next few weeks. We, of course, always are evaluating the marketplace. We've got 15 that we currently are digging into their financials upon and looking to see if the property makes sense for us. So we've got a healthy pipeline, and having just closed that one deal here subsequent to the end of the quarter, obviously we look to backfill that, make it stronger.

But we will evaluate, as we always have, making sure that these are creative transactions.

Sure, and as you know, Dave, we're not able to compete down in the sixes at this point in time. Although we are, as we sell non-core assets, able to take the cash from those sales, put them into new deals, obviously it doesn't cost us to raise that money, So it makes the transaction more accretive for us. But the cap rates that we're seeing are going to be 7.5 north. That 9% that you referenced was an average as it relates over the term of the lease. Longer the term, the better for us. So we are looking at transactions that have a cap rate going in the door, approximately 7.5%, looking to get to averages north of 9.

I don't believe there's anything else you would read into that. Yes, it is a matter of timing, and as I mentioned, we look to try to – we're not going to spend money that's not going to be accretive to us at the end of the day. We look to have a payback period on our tenant improvements as a general rule of between six to nine months. We want to make sure those dollars are obviously recaptured because we want to be cognizant, and again, tenancy and cash flow is important.

That property, the purchase was, again, for the expansion. It will come along at the end of the day with a 15-year lease. The average cap rate on that transaction is north of 9.5. I'm not sure because I got a little garbled there exactly if I hit all of your questions, but that is a very opportune purchase for us. We'll build it out here and hope to have that completed by second quarter of next year.

You bet. Thanks, Dave.

We had that asset We purchased it in 2021 Gorov The reason for the sale is the tenant came to us with a very profitable number and we were able to redeploy those assets into the Huntington transaction that doubled the straight rent and the current rent so it made all the sense in the world and we didn have to raise equity to do the transaction More questions, Gaurav.

We have certainly within our portfolio some of the leases carry a purchase option. I don't have any at the moment that I would classify that are going to happen anytime eminently, but are there a few out there that could happen? Yes, but nothing that I have today, although certainly we are looking at some to see if we could sell them. At economics, it makes sense. We would.

Thank you.

Yes, the termination fee was a one-time and it hit in the quarter. However, the accelerated rent, I mean, you can call that a variation on the same theme. You know, this will have a gap effect. It will be, you know, you take the amount of the termination fee, divide it by the total amount of months that you have left on your lease, and then you straight line it through. So, yes, it will have a small gap impact. It's not a significant amount.

Yeah, correct.

As I mentioned, we look for the capex to get a payback on that, obviously, as quickly as we can. And we try to keep that capex and lease commissions as low as we can. On average, we see a payback of between six to nine months. The approximately $200,000 that we had in leases that were renewed as a plus-up prior at the end of the quarter is an average across the portfolio of leases that we renewed.

We always look to do what we can to, I hate to put it this way, get as much as we can. And the market is improving, as referenced in my remarks, that lease rates are going up. So, we are very cognizant of the CapEx dollars needed, but I'd rather have the property occupied and paying and creating cash flow for us versus obviously vacancy.

They are all positioned, and with the numbers that we are discussing with the tenancies, they are all, oh, gee, except maybe two are up. So we've got 15 between this year and next year that we're looking at, two of which are going to go vacant. And we have had tours within the buildings. So I feel confident that at the end of the day, as a net net, it's going to be a plus up. And again, I have one office building down in Florida that we are working on, and that does not mature until September of 27. So I don't want to say we have time. We are aggressively addressing it. But I do worry about that one.

And it's not a large property. It's approximately 80,000 square feet within the portfolio. But we're going to do what we can to keep these buildings occupied and or sold.

Thank you.

It's in the low 80s. Actually, it was 79, I think, this time around. Hold on. I believe it was our payout ratio is just under 80% this last quarter. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, as a triple net, we typically are paying more than a non-triple net as far as a distribution ratio of dividends over to FFO. But, you know, we would like to maintain more internal cash flow. And you'll see the triple nets are probably in the mid-70s to low-80s as a general group. We would like to kind of get our distribution ratio a little lower. It's better for the shareholders in the long run as we can redeploy the capital into our portfolio and grow the portfolio and earnings over time. So then eventually we can then increase the dividend. But if you can maintain, if you look at some of the bigger REITs, you know, and their yields, And they have a much lower distribution than we do.

So over time, if you can do that, you can reinvest those proceeds or that cash into new properties without having to sell new equity and thus potentially dilute the shareholders.

Yes, that's a 90% of taxable income, not of gap income. So we probably pay out probably in many cases way, way above the 90% required to maintain REIT status. So we're definitely doing that.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. We will not lose our REIT status there.

We'll certainly consider it, but that's something to look at in the future.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much, everybody, for listening to this, and we appreciate the questions. Hope you have a lot more questions next quarter. And that's the end of this, so thank you again.