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Should You Retain Regency Centers (REG) in Your Portfolio?

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We updated our research report on Regency Centers Corporation (REG - Free Report) on Mar 27.  

The Jacksonville, FL-based Regency Centers is one of the leading publicly traded retail real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the U.S. The company’s portfolio mainly constitutes of grocery-anchored community and neighborhood centers.

Early this March, Regency announced the closure of the Equity One merger deal. This merger, which is expected to be accretive to core FFO per share, has created a high-quality portfolio of 429 properties, mainly grocery-anchored, for Regency. These properties are located in a number of top markets and offer ample long-term growth opportunities. Regency also became a member of the S&P 500 Index this month.

In February, the company reported better-than-expected performance for fourth-quarter 2016. Backed by higher-than-expected growth in revenue, Regency Centers’ fourth-quarter 2016 core FFO per share of 86 cents came ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 84 cents. Moreover, it experienced growth in same-property net operating income.

Regency’s focus on building a premium portfolio of grocery-anchored shopping centers, which are usually necessity driven, along with the presence of leading grocers in its tenant roster, augur well. The company has considerable experience in the retail real estate industry, with 225 shopping centers’ development since 2000, denoting an investment at completion of over $3.5 billion.

However, though a number of the company’s tenants offer services or sell groceries, the overall shift to internet sales in the retail market is a plausible concern. This is because the shift in retail shopping from brick and mortar stores to the Internet is adversely affecting the retail tenants’ sales, leading retailers to reconsider their footprint and opt for store closures, thus resulting in lesser demand for retail real estate space. Moreover, the interest rate hike has added to its woes.

Shares of Regency outperformed the Zacks categorized REIT and Equity Trust – Retail industry in the past one month. Over this time frame, Regency’s shares fell 2.8%, while the industry declined 4.8%. However, its estimates for funds from operations (FFO) per share for first-quarter and full-year 2017 remained unchanged over the past seven days at 83 cents and $3.48, respectively.

Currently, Regency carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



Stocks to Consider

Better-ranked stocks in the REIT space include CoreSite Realty Corporation (COR - Free Report) , Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Inc. (PDM - Free Report) and Urban Edge Properties (UE - Free Report) . All three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

CoreSite Realty currently has a long-term growth rate of 19.1%.

Piedmont Office Realty’s estimates for 2017 moved north by nearly 0.6% to $1.73, over the past 60 days.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Urban Edge Properties’ funds from operations (FFO) per share for 2017 of $1.37 reflects 7.9% year-over-year growth.

Note: All EPS numbers presented in this write up represent funds from operations (“FFO”) per share. FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income.

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