LOS ANGELES, CA – Westwood Financial, a leading retail real estate investment firm, announced updates today on its 2019 accomplishments, which included:

Operational:

• Executed 59 new leases totaling 128,000 square feet
• Executed 211 renewals totaling 902,000 square feet at an average spread of 7.0%, excluding anchors
• Increased same-store, small shop leased rate by 74 basis points, taking the overall leased rate to 93.6%
• Increased ancillary income by 96%
• Decreased non-reimbursable expenses by 15%
• Of approximately 9,500 store closures announced by national retailers, only two leases totaling 5,800 SF vacated due to bankruptcy in Westwood’s portfolio

Financial:

• Reduced general and administrative expenses by 10%
• Increased quarterly dividend by 3.0%, effective in the first quarter of 2020

Capital Transactions:

• Acquired two unanchored shopping centers, located in Phoenix, AZ and Chicago, IL, for $17.8 million at an average cap rate of 6.8%
• Disposed of two shopping centers, located in Tucson, AZ and Salt Lake City, UT, for $8.1 million
• Under contract to dispose of one shopping center in Atlanta, GA
• Closed on an inaugural, syndicated, revolving credit facility with $80 million of capacity priced at Libor + 185 basis points
• Executed unit repurchases of 2,033,520 units, totaling $16.5 million

Mark Bratt, Chief Executive Officer, commented, “I am very pleased with the strides the Company made in 2019. We focused on people, process and corporate expense reduction in the first half of the year, and then executed two acquisitions and a restructuring of our credit facility that should allow for future portfolio growth and a lower cost of capital. Our leasing and property management teams were heavily focused on small shop occupancy growth and expense reduction, both of which they executed on. Our platform is poised for future growth in 2020 with new institutional and private capital to participate with Westwood Financial in the significant investment opportunities in retail today”.