Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust announced Wednesday what it calls “strong” financial and operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025.
Primaris is Canada’s only enclosed shopping centre focused REIT, with ownership interests in leading enclosed shopping centres located in growing Canadian markets. The current portfolio totals 14.2 million square feet, valued at approximately $4.5 billion at Primaris’ share.
Quarterly Financial and Operating Results Highlights
- $150.2 million total rental revenue;
- +9.4% Same Properties Cash Net Operating Income** (“Cash NOI”) growth;
- +10.2% Same Properties shopping centres Cash NOI** growth;
- 94.2% committed occupancy, 93.2% in-place occupancy, and 89.2% long-term in-place occupancy;
- +7.8% weighted average spread on renewing rents* across 224,000 square feet;
- +13.3% Funds from Operations** (“FFO”) per average diluted unit growth to $0.439;
- 52.8% FFO Payout Ratio**;
- $31.1 million in net income;
- $4.6 billion total assets;
- 5.7x Average Net Debt** to Adjusted EBITDA**;
- $648.5 million in liquidity*;
- $4.0 billion in unencumbered assets; and
- $21.40 Net Asset Value** (“NAV”) per unit outstanding.
Business Update Highlights
- Reaffirms 2025 guidance after accounting for the anticipated departure of The Hudson’s Bay (“HBC”);
- Acquired a 50% interest in Southgate Centre in Edmonton, Alberta and a 100% ownership interest in Oshawa Centre in Oshawa, Ontario adding 1,639 thousand square feet of gross leasable area (“GLA”) to the portfolio;
- Disposed of two enclosed shopping centres, a professional centre and 4 acres of excess land;
- Issued $200 million aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured debentures at a fixed annual interest rate of 4.468%;
- Repaid the outstanding principal amount of $133.1 million on the Series B senior unsecured debentures that matured March 30, 2025;
- Entered into a $100 million three-year unsecured bilateral non-revolving term facility; and
- Reported total normal course issuer bid (“NCIB”) activity since inception of the Trust of 11,834,409 Trust Units repurchased at an average price of $14.09, or a discount to NAV** per unit of approximately 34.2%.
“Our shopping centre portfolio continues to perform very well in 2025, with NOI growth coming from strong rental revenue growth and percentage rent, increasing occupancy, and rising cost recoveries,” said Patrick Sullivan, President and Chief Operating Officer. “Since June of last year, Primaris has transacted on approximately $1.2 billion of real estate, driving our portfolio quality significantly higher with same store sales productivity totaling $768 per square foot. We are very quickly moving towards our ambition of becoming the first call for retailers looking to grow and expand their footprint in Canada.”
Chief Financial Officer, Rags Davloor added: “Primaris has nearly reached our three-year target of acquiring over $1 billion in assets, while maintaining industry leading leverage metrics. With unencumbered assets of $4 billion and no debt maturing until 2027, we have reduced refinancing risk, with significant access to liquidity. Our commitment to maintaining an extremely well capitalized balance sheet positions Primaris as a highly credible transaction counterparty, at a time when accessing large scale capital has been challenging.”
“Disciplined capital allocation is the foundation of our strategy. We have demonstrated its benefits through asset capital recycling and NCIB activity, driving strong financial and operating results, while also delivering transformative changes to our portfolio,” said Alex Avery, Chief Executive Officer. “We are increasing our relevance with retailers, and establishing a profile as an attractive buyer of large, high-quality assets. The changes we have made to the business are designed to deliver higher internal growth, which drives higher NAV per unit growth, higher FFO per unit growth and ultimately, consistent sector-leading distribution per unit growth.”
In-place occupancy increased 1.2% from March 31, 2024 to 93.2% at March 31, 2025.
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