US equity REIT capital offerings up slightly in February

Editor's note: This article is published monthly with current data available at that time.

U.S. equity real estate investment trusts' capital markets activity showed a bit of improvement in February as the entire industry raised a total of $5.76 billion, a 7.4% increase from the $5.36 billion raised in January but down 17.9% from the amount raised a year earlier.

The majority of capital raised in February came through debt offerings, at $5.10 billion, while common equity offerings accounted for the remaining $656.7 million, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

Uniti Group amassed largest amount of capital collected in February

Communications-focused Uniti Group Inc. pulled in the most capital during the month, raising $2.60 billion through a debt offering due 2028.

Uniti Group intends to use a portion of the net proceeds to fund the partial redemption of the REIT's outstanding 7.875% senior secured notes due 2025, while the remaining portion of net proceeds will be used to repay outstanding borrowings under the REIT's revolving credit facility.

Communications REIT American Tower Corp. followed with a total of $1.50 billion through two debt offerings. Office-focused Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. came in third, collecting $1.00 billion through two debt offerings.

* Set email alerts for future Data Dispatch articles. * Access a spreadsheet listing the offerings completed year-to-date in 2023 by publicly listed U.S. equity real estate investment trusts. * For further capital offerings research, try the global real estate capital offerings activity template.

With its recent debt offering completed Feb. 2, Uniti Group attracted the most capital year-to-date at $2.60 billion, followed by American Tower Corp. at $1.50 billion. Industrial REIT Prologis Inc. pulled in the third-largest amount of capital as of February-end at $1.36 billion through two debt offerings completed in January.

Specialty sector tops year-to-date capital offerings

The offerings in February brought the year-to-date total to $11.12 billion, 3.8% lower than the capital raised during the first two months of 2022.

The specialty sector — advertising, casino, communications, datacenter, energy infrastructure, land and timber real estate — accounted for the largest share of total capital raised year-to-date at $6.01 billion, followed by the industrial sector at $1.72 billion and retail sector at $1.32 billion.