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Text: This information is available on our Investor Relations website, investors.
We direct you to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties.
During the call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, including funds from operations or FFO, core FFO, and Same-Center net operating income.
As such, it is important to note that management's comments include time-sensitive information that may only be accurate as of today's date, February 18, 2021.
At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode.
We request that everyone ask only one question and one follow-up to allow as many of you as possible to ask questions.
If time permits, we are happy for you to requeue for additional questions.
On the call today will be Steven Tanger, our Executive Chair; Stephen Yalof, Chief Executive Officer; and Jim Williams, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Clearly, 2020 was a year like no other.
And I want to express my deep appreciation for the entire Tanger team who have worked so diligently to navigate the challenges brought on by the global pandemic.
Virtually, all of our tenants have been facing mandates, directing them to close their stores, operate at reduced capacity and comply with additional health and safety measures.
In 2020, there were several retail bankruptcies and restructurings, resulting in space recapture and higher vacancy than historic levels.
But also providing us with opportunities to further diversify and upgrade our tenant mix.
This past year also highlighted the positive characteristics of the Tanger Outlet platform.
As evidenced, by the resilience, our portfolio has demonstrated since governmental mandates were lifted starting in the second quarter of 2020.
Our open-air centers provide an excellent value proposition for both retailers and shoppers that cannot be duplicated by e-commerce or other brick-and-mortar formats.
These desirable characteristics are demonstrated in our recent results, including the rapid pace that stores reopened after mandates were lifted and the positive trends in our traffic and rent collection metrics.
Our balance sheet further differentiates Tanger.
Our financial strategy has always been conservative, with a great emphasis on maintaining sufficient liquidity to provide optimal flexibility.
In January, given the meaningful improvement of our cash flows since the onset of the pandemic, we reinstated out dividend, which is an important part of our total return for shareholders.
As previously announced on January 1, I assumed the role of Executive Chair after 12 years as CEO.
And the more than 35 years that I've been with the company, I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished as the leader in the outlet industry.
We created a brand synonymous with quality Outlet Centers, became the go-to-channel for countless world-class brands and retailers, created thousands of jobs and prioritized our role as a community leader, contributor, and partner.
I have complete confidence in Steve's ability to lead the company during this transformative time and look forward to advising Steve through this transition.
We are encouraged by the opportunities we have identified to position the company to return to sustained growth over time.
Finally, I want to extend our best wishes to those who are in the path of the current winter storms and are being so impacted by the extreme weather and power outages.
I'm grateful and excited for the opportunity to lead Tanger through this important transition, in partnership with Steve, our Board of Directors, and the entire Tanger team.
While the last 11 months' have been challenging for our company, the positive traffic, rent collections and liquidity trends that Steve mentioned are all indicators that our business is stabilizing and our shoppers are quickly returning to our open-air outlet shopping centers.
During 2020, while navigating the pandemic, we accomplished many things and established the groundwork for positioning our company for growth.
Our team turned challenges into opportunities and focused on enhancing the key components of our core business, leasing, operations and marketing.
Our year end consolidated portfolio occupancy was 91.9% despite having recaptured almost 8% of the square footage in our portfolio during the year due to bankruptcies and brandwide retailer restructurings.
Leasing has taken on an increased intensity and a broader focus across the entire company.
Our leasing and business development professionals are focused on growing our existing tenant base through store expansions and new deals across our portfolio, identifying new retailers and users in order to diversify our center offerings and augment our merchandising with best-in-market food, entertainment and experiential retailers, aimed at driving new shopper visits, increasing their frequency, extending their stay and driving sales growth.
This strategy has already begun to pay off as we have added best-in-class brands such as Tory Burch, Lululemon, Victoria's Secret and Hugo Boss to several new locations.
And in early 2021, we'll add new categories.
For example, in the F&B category, the iconic Gourmet grocer Nantucket Meat and Fish took space in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
In the sporting goods category, Dick's will open their first outlet warehouse concept with us later this month.
And in shipping and distribution, through our partnership with PELAGIC [Phonetic], the last mile distribution and logistics platform, we are opening our first on-center facility in Deer Park, which we anticipate will be a model for other locations going forward.
Leasing momentum had started to build in Q4 across our portfolio and continues to do so now.
We are well staffed to take advantage of this increased activity.
In addition to our team of leasing professionals, we've entered into strategic partnerships in key markets with top retail brokers to tap their local market expertise and drive best-in-class local and iconic businesses in these select markets.
Lastly, as I discussed last quarter, we brought on an EVP of Property Operations to help create a field-led strategy.
Through this initiative, we've reorganized our field management teams and have empowered them to take a proactive role in supporting our local leasing initiatives.
Given the level of vacancy going into 2021, it's going to take time to rebuild our occupancy, and we anticipate that.
In certain cases, rent spreads will continue to be pressured.
However, we are encouraged by an increase in deal activity as we see more retailers strategizing growth.
While our strong brand, stabilized traffic and an attractive value proposition, Tanger Outlet's offers retail brands a compelling solution to manage their product, placement and pricing that is unique to any other retail distribution channel.
We also believe there is an opportunity to drive NOI by monetizing additional elements of our center, such as media and amenity sponsorships.
At the onset of the pandemic, we proactively offered all of our retail partners the opportunity to defer April and May rents until January and February of this year, in order to provide them the flexibility to reopen quickly when the mandates were lifted.
This strategy proved effective.
The percentage of occupied stores that are open rapidly accelerated post mandate and currently stands at 99%.
Our strong rent collections at 95% of fourth quarter build rents and better than expected deferred rent collections to date demonstrate that the strategy was successful, where we permitted concessions, we negotiated landlord-friendly amendments that resulted in a value for value exchange that strengthened our portfolio.
We also took a closer look at expenses and we're able to quickly devise a plan that resulted in almost $18 million in cost reductions over the last nine months of 2020.
I'm pleased to note the meaningful rebound in traffic to our centers.
In the fourth quarter, shopper traffic rebounded to approximately 90% of prior year levels, rising to more than 95% during the month of January.
Excluding our Canadian centers, where stores were closed under government mandate, January traffic rebounded to prior year levels.
This performance reflects our favorable characteristics, open-air, outdoor centers that offer an inviting way for shoppers to find their favorite brands and everyday value pricing.
During 2020, we started the journey of our digital transformation.
During the second quarter, we rolled out our Tanger 3-Ways To Shop, in-store, curbside pickup and our proprietary Tanger virtual shopper service, each allowing the customer to shop the way they feel most comfortable.
Tanger virtual shopper is a service that meets our customer where they are and allows them to virtually shop any brand in the Tanger portfolio regardless of geography using FaceTime to chat with the Tanger stylist.
Orders can be picked up your curbside or shipped to home.
To date, our Tanger virtual shopper engagements continue to build.
Throughout the pandemic, our centers have been hubs for civic engagement, including blood drives, food drives, and voter registration sites.
During 2020, Tanger team members created and organized a D, E and I leadership council with the mission of championing diversity, equity and inclusion across the organization, empowering us to reach our full potential, fueling innovation and connection with our employees, customers and the communities we serve.
My confidence in our business is steadfast and I'm energized by our opportunity.
While there is still headwinds as we enter 2021, I'm confident in our team, our strategy and our ability to execute to our initiatives.
We remain focused on our core business, accelerating leasing, reshaping operations and advancing our marketing strategy to meet shoppers where they want to shop.
Each of these initiatives are establishing the necessary infrastructure to return to sustained growth and profitability over time, which is our top priority.
Fourth quarter results showed continued improvement from our second and third quarter performance, but reflect the ongoing impact of the pandemic, recent bankruptcies and brandwide restructurings.
Fourth quarter Core FFO available to common shareholders was $0.54 per share compared to $0.59 per share in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Same-Center NOI for the consolidated portfolio decreased $7.8 million for the quarter, primarily reflecting the rent modifications and store closings from the recent bankruptcies and brandwide restructurings, including an additional 317,000 square feet recaptured during the quarter.
Included in Same-Center NOI for the quarter or write-offs of approximately $3.1 million related to the fourth quarter build rents.
The write-offs were offset by the reversal of approximately $3.5 million in reserves related to rents previously deferred or under negotiation as a result of better-than-expected collections, leaving a net benefit of approximately $400,000.
In addition, we recognized a $1.1 million charge to core FFO related to the write-off of straight-line rents, which are not included in Same-Center NOI.
Through the end of January, we had collected 95% of fourth quarter rents build.
We also continue to collect rents build for prior periods, including amounts related to 2020, we allowed our tenants to defer to 2021.
As of January 31, our second quarter improved to 63% of build rents from 43%.
Third quarter improved to 91% from 89% and 57% of deferred rents had been collected, nearly half of which represented prepayments.
We collected 90% of the deferred rents that were due in January.
As of January 31, 2021, collections of January rents build were similar to collection rates for the fourth quarter.
Core FFO for the quarter was positively impacted by the recognition of lease termination fees totaling $4.1 million, which was significantly elevated over the prior year amount of approximately $100,000.
As previously discussed, we have always prioritized maintaining a strong financial position and particularly through the pandemic, this discipline has proven to be critical.
With the improvements in rent collections, the ongoing focus on cost controls and a prudent approach to capital allocation, we had over $680 million of available liquidity, including over $80 million of cash and $600 million of unused capacity on our lines of credit as of the end of January.
We have no significant debt maturities until December 2023.
Given the improved rent collections and our ample liquidity position, our Board declared a dividend of $0.1775 per share, which was paid last week to holders of record on January 29.
We will continue our disciplined and conservative approach to capital allocation.
In addition to dividend distributions sufficient to maintain REIT status, our priority uses of capital include investing in our portfolio to grow NOI, reducing leverage to pre-COVID levels over time, and evaluating selective growth opportunities over the longer term.
While we are encouraged by the pace of leasing and progress of the initiatives that Steve Yalof discussed, we anticipate that there will be variability in our performance.
As the ongoing impact of the pandemic remains uncertain, we continue to anticipate pressure from current vacancies, additional potential store closures and rent modifications.
In light of this backdrop, we expect core FFO per share for 2021 to be between $1.47 and $1.57 per share.
This guidance assumes there are no further government mandated shutdowns and assumes lease termination fees decrease by $9 million to $10 million or $0.09 to $0.10 per share, from the elevated level we recognized in 2020.
Currently, we expect to recapture approximately 200,000 square feet due to bankruptcies and brandwide restructurings during 2021, most of which we expect will occur during the first half of the year.
We are not providing any further detailed operational performance assumptions at this time.
However, we do anticipate there will be some variability in quarterly operational performance on a year-over-year comparison basis.
In 2020, we did not see any meaningful impact from COVID it in the first quarter.
And in the first quarter of 2021, there have been widespread winter storms across much of our portfolio.
We expect a combined annual recurring capital expenditures and second generation tenant allowances of approximately $40 million to $45 million for 2021.
Finally, we believe our balance sheet is well positioned from a liquidity perspective.
We are continuing to take the appropriate steps to navigate the current environment and maximize our financial flexibility.
Operator, can we take our first question.

user
q4 ffo per share $0.54.
liquidity exceeded $680 million at end of january.
collected 95% of q4 rents.
qtrly core funds from operations available to common shareholders was $0.54 per share.

assistant