(Reuters) – Regency Centers raised annual funds from operations (FFO) forecast after beating second-quarter estimates on Thursday, as steady leasing demand at its grocery-anchored shopping centers helped commercial real estate investment trusts.
REITs such as Regency Centers saw an uptick in demand for their rental spaces, as tenants reap benefits from consumers prioritizing shopping for essentials, including groceries.
Regency Centers expects fiscal 2024 National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit) FFO per share to be in the range of $4.21 to $4.25, compared with its prior forecast of $4.15 to $4.21 per share.
For the quarter, the company reported FFO of $1.06 per share, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.02 per share, according to LSEG data.
Regency Centers’ portfolio includes over 400 properties, which are rented by grocers such as Kroger and Amazon’s Whole Foods, as well as retailers like TJX and Target among others.
As per Placer-ai data, year-over-year retail foot traffic remained elevated throughout the quarter from April to June, with June in particular seeing weekly visits to grocery stores ranging from 5.7% to 10.6%.
(Reporting by Anuja Bharat Mistry in Bengaluru; editing by Alan Barona)
