Consistent monthly payout, supported primarily by portfolio income but also realized capital gains. Over the past several years, however, real estate markets have experienced relatively flat returns, which have limited our ability to realize gains. We've also repositioned portions of the portfolio, resulting in some realized losses. So consequently, return of capital has represented a larger portion of distributions than we'd prefer. Looking ahead, though, we believe the portfolio offers meaningful appreciation potential given the strong operating fundamental backdrop and significant discounts to both private real estate as well as broader equity valuations. As these valuations recover and we realize gains, we would expect the composition of the distribution to improve. Ultimately, the board establishes the distribution and reviews it quarterly, making adjustments when appropriate. But our priority remains balancing attractive distributions with protecting and growing shareholder capital over time. Thank you. Well covered. Appreciate that. Ken, after a first strong first half of the year, the third quarter was difficult. What drove the decline? And how should shareholders put performance into perspective? Yeah, the third quarter was disappointing, no doubt, particularly following the progress we had made earlier in the year in terms of returns. if you look at the magnitude of it, IGR declined 11.5% on a market price, total return basis, and 9% on its NAV, with most of that weakness really occurring in September with the sharp upward move in interest rates. Despite the pullback, year-to-date returns through September remain slightly positive, at 0.8% on a market price and 0.1% on an NAV basis. Really, it was the sharp increase in interest rates being the primary contributor weighing on stock prices, despite property operating fundamentals, as mentioned, remained quite strong. We also saw a shift in investor sentiment toward IGR. The fund moved from a 1.25% premium to NAV in June to a 2% discount in September, contributing to the market price decline. Leverage, further amplified the impact of falling stock prices. While we were disappointed with the quarter's results, we do continue to see a distinction between short-term price movements and the underlying performance of the real estate assets, with all of these companies owned. Importantly, the recent volatility has not materially changed our longer-term investment outlook, which remains quite constructive. You mentioned leverage. IGR utilizes approximately 32% leverage as the end of September. Why maintain that exposure after such a difficult quarter? Yeah, we used the leverage to enhance the fund's long-term income and total return potential. Of course, leverage is going to magnify both gains and losses as shareholders unfortunately experienced during the third quarter, but we've maintained that current exposure because we believe in the portfolio's perspective returns, which we think are quite attractive relative to our borrowing costs. I'd say an important consideration is that IGR uses a line of credit rather than permanent financing, which gives us flexibility to either increase or reduce leverage as valuations market conditions and investment opportunities evolve. Continuously evaluate that balance with the goal of using leverage prudently to support long-term shareholder returns. Thank you. Well covered. Let's take a longer-term view. Real estate has struggled in recent years, but historically has delivered attractive returns. Yeah, I think historical perspective is particularly valuable right now. If you look back over prior decades, you know, since 1991, Global Listed Real Estate has generated an average total return of approximately 10.7%. If you combine the income with capital appreciation, during the 1990s returns averaged about 13%, in the 2000s that number was 14%, and in the 2010s that number was 10%. And you contrast that with the period from 2020 through 2025, so halfway through the decade, returns have averaged just 3% annually. And so that's a significant departure from historical performance. And while past returns certainly don't guarantee future results, we believe this prolonged period of weak performance despite solid operating fundamentals throughout has really created attractive opportunities again, given the significantly discounted valuations versus both private real estate and broader equity markets. As mentioned, the same time operating fundamentals are quite strong and we're forecasting earnings growth of approximately 6% in the coming years. So that combination of attractive valuations and improving earnings really does support our belief that listed real estate is in the early stages of potential recovery. The path may be uneven, but we remain constructive on the longer-term opportunity. Ken, thank you for that overview. Appreciate it. John? Let's turn to you. One concern we hear from investors is whether higher rates have permanently reduced real estate values. How has your underwriting adapted? And where do you see opportunities? Yeah, it's a great question. And obviously, with, you know, the recent move and volatility in interest rates, it's a very fair question. But I think, you know, dovetailing on what Ken just said, as we go through these next couple of slides from a fundamental perspective, I hope what the audience hears is we're being very conservative in our underwriting. We're underwriting a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. And while rates being higher will have an impact on certain assets, especially on the private side, that is valued at a much lower value, much lower cap rate, a much higher valuation, the public markets are more than significantly discounting that. So what this slide is showing is this is our estimate of net asset value. So what does that mean? Where do we think the stocks trade relative to their underlying real estate value? And for each of the stocks in the universe, you know, we're underwriting our assumptions for income growth, for financing costs, for cap rates. And then we're comparing that to where the stocks trade in the public markets today. And what you see after the, you know, pretty market pullback in the third quarter is Global Real Estate, on average, is trading about an 18% discount to net asset value. On an implied basis, that's about a 6.7% implied cap rate, relative to the 5.9% that we're using. So we think the public markets have way more than priced in any change in higher rates and any change in lower values higher cap rates. You know, one thing worth mentioning, when the Fed cut rates, at the end of the '24 and the '25, we didn't lower our cap rates, increase value. So we're always trying to take a forward, conservative look on underlying asset values. So you know, in general, we think there's very little underwriting value change to our underwriting in what we're being presented here. Thank you, John. So, and Ken mentioned this earlier about strong fundamentals, our outlook for earnings, you know, so, but despite higher rates, you know, our earnings forecasts remain constructive. What's supporting that outlook? Yeah, so if you flip to the next slide, I think this was really instructive. And what we were trying to do is, where did we sit from an earnings growth perspective at year-end? So '12, '31, '25, versus the end of the third quarter. And, you know, 2026 has thrown a lot at the market. You've had, you know, the Iran war, you've had persistent upward move on energy prices, higher inflation, the Fed raising rates. And when you filter that all down to what that actually means from an earnings perspective, I think it's this chart speaks to the resiliency of the underlying asset class. Again, these are companies with long-term embedded leases, fundamentals are incredibly strong. So from the end of the year till now, on average, our '26 growth rates have gone up about 20 basis points. If you kind of blow that up and look at it by region, that upward move has definitely been driven by the U.S., where our earnings growth has moved up quite significantly. Offsetting that is some of the non-U.S. regions where they're a bit more impacted by higher rates, they're a bit more impacted by higher energy prices. But again, net-net, earnings growth has moved up. 2027, again, factoring in higher-for-longer, the Fed in a tightening cycle, earnings growth is only down about 10 basis points. So from '62 to '61, but very, very stable overall. And if you think about the reasons why, on the next slide, you know, we think about real estate fundamentals from, you know, kind of a building block. One, how does the internal growth look like? In general, for most property types, especially within the U.S., the internal growth actually is incredibly strong. Most property types are at or at record occupancy levels, with supply really diminishing. That's giving landlords a really nice tailwind from an internal growth perspective. Second is external growth, the ability to grow the portfolio, grow by buying assets, and fund it with either attractively priced equity or debt capital. And given the strength of the companies in the first half of the year, there was a lot of equity issuance that came out. That equity was issued at very attractive pricing. The companies in a significant number of the sectors were able to go out and buy assets accretively. That helps '26, but that also helps '27. Thirdly is strategic transactions. So for those companies that continue to trade at a persistent discount or don't have the cost of capitals, they have an ability to arbitrage the value between private market values and public market values. What does that mean? So, for example, a company like Invitation Homes, that owns a very large portfolio of single-family-for-rent assets, the public markets, we believe, are mispricing their portfolio. So they've been able to sell $500 million worth of assets to, you know, to end users at a price price of $400,000 to $450,000 a door, and they're effectively buying back those same homes, their same portfolio, by buying back their stock at a 200 basis points tighter spread. That's accretive to earnings. And then lastly, the offset is, you know, again, we have reflected a higher-for-longer environment. We have reflected the Fed being in a tightening cycle. Probably undoing the '24, '25 rate cuts. And we are underwriting the 10-year Treasury living in a higher higher range than it has historically. So when you put that all together, again, that ties back to 2026 looking a bit better than expected, '27 generally, you know, flat. Relative to the end of the year. Thank you for that detail. I appreciate it. Let's bring it back to IGR. And let's think about how what we've done in the portfolio, how we're thinking about the portfolio against the backdrop of, of, of higher rates. Yeah. So, you know, as a reminder to the audience, we're focused on high-quality companies offering attractive value, durable earnings, and we see opportunities for long-term growth. This is a new slide, but I think it encapsulates, you know, how we're thinking about the portfolio, changes we've made in a higher-for-longer environment, and, you know, where are the convictions both from an overweight and underweight perspective. So the remain convicted, those secular growth opportunities. You know, these are long-term trends that are not cyclical in nature. They have staying power. And, you know, healthcare and data centers would be a great example of that. So healthcare, specifically the senior housing sector, represents about 15% of the portfolio. Data centers account for about 12% of the portfolio. And if you tie that back to specific names, a company like Welltower, which is the, you know, the perfect example of incredibly strong internal growth and advantaged cost of capital that's allowing them to grow accretively, you know, driving, you know, very aggressive earnings growth. Equinix at 5.5% of the portfolio. So they are playing, you know, straight down the fairway of the demand for data center space through model training and inference. You know, we think there is a multi-year opportunity here. So if you think about where have we shifted the portfolio, acknowledging that the world has changed a little bit, rates are gonna be higher for longer, we have sold down sectors or stocks where the company, the internal cash flows may struggle to offset higher borrowing costs. So think of sectors like the net lease in the US, or non-US regions like the UK. And then thirdly, sectors that we just have a structural underweight to, you know, generally are those with limited internal growth. And again, those would be sectors like net lease within the US, Canada, and, you know, as mentioned, the UK. So how does that translate to the actual portfolio? You can see on the current slide, you know, snapshot at quarter end, the portfolio is comprised of about 89 positions. As mentioned, leverage is about 32%. When you look at it from a geographic perspective, about 67% of the portfolio is the US. Included in that is about 6% preferreds. And when you look at it from a sector perspective, you know, retail is about 17% of the overall portfolio, and that's global retail. You know, ironically, we would put that in the secular grower bucket, you know, given some of the fundamental tailwinds of that sector and the strength and demand for space over the next couple of years. You know, as mentioned by Ken, 3rd quarter was challenging, but we're highly convicted in the portfolio's long-term prospects. You know, the current valuation, it looks incredibly cheap to us. It creates an opportunity. And as we showed you on a previous slide, we do think the resilience of the earnings stream is underappreciated by the market. Thank you, John and Ken. Before we close, I'd like to reinforce 3 key takeaways. First, we remain focused on delivering attractive monthly distributions and managing those distributions responsibly. Second, we believe recent market weakness has created attractive investment opportunities. And third, we're confident in the portfolio's long-term positioning. So on behalf of Ken, John, the entire investment team here at CBRE, thank you for your continued investment in, in IGR and the trust that you place in us. For more information, please go to our website, cbreim.com/igr. We'll get you directly to the page for the fund. Thank you very much, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.
Loading workspace