New York City REIT posts increased revenue

He spoke of the company’s conservative debt load and a prescient locking in of historically low interest rates – a strategy that is currently paying off amid a hike in rates. “We have a conservative, well-positioned balance sheet with net leverage of 40.1% and 4.7 years of weighted average debt maturity. We don’t have any debt maturities this year or next and minimal maturities until 2027. All of our debt is fixed rate. As we’ve previously discussed, we locked interest rates while they were broadly at historic lows, a strategy that has been validated as interest rates are rising.”

The nature of the balance sheet, Weil said, will enable the REIT to heighten its geographical focus: “Our conservative balance sheet is well positioned for NYC to continue to pursue our Manhattan-focused strategy,” the CEO said. “We believe that there’s a significant potential for our pure-play NYC portfolio to create meaningful value for years to come. To that point, we believe NYC’s independent board members, adviser and its affiliates remain well aligned with shareholders as they continue growing their significant collective holdings of NYC.”

Weil vowed to pursue value for the REIT’s stakeholders: “As of Aug. 1, NYC’s independent board members owned over 80,000 shares of NYC and, separately, NYC adviser and affiliates owned approximately 1.9 million shares of NYC. As we move ahead, it’s our intent to continue to build value for all stakeholders.”

Despite the rosy outlook, some reports indicate the REIT hasn’t grown at a pace desired by stakeholders. Simply Wall St. reported last week that shareholders had endured share price declines over the last year – down by a hefty 66% during the time, the site reported. “Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 60% in the last 90 days,” according to the report. “We note that the company has reported results fairly recently; and the market is hardly delighted.”